Short-Form Food Writing

Family Friend, a weekly recipe newsletter (Substack)

Loosely organized around the figure of the family friend — a figure that’s been important in my life, my aim is to be a friendly, accepting, and resourceful presence in your kitchen.

Butter It, Tofu It, Dip It. But Don’t Boil It. (Taste)

“My family didn’t overthink corn, but often we overcooked it. That brief few weeks right around when school started always seemed too short a window for considering alternatives to our usual method, which was: shucked cobs plunged into boiling unsalted water for—ten minutes? twenty?—then affixed with corn holders and rolled, while hot, over a sacrificial stick of butter.”

Do Cookbooks Need Nutrition Facts? (Taste)

“I don’t approach my cooking or recipes with nutrition at the forefront of my mind, but it’s always struck me as generally useful, like knowing which grade of gas you’re putting in your car.”

A New Cookbook Looks Beyond Sugar for a Flash of Sweetness (Epicurious)

“Good & Sweet isn’t really a book about restrictions. Sure, there are dairy-free recipes and suggested alternatives to all-purpose flour, but butter, cream, and gluten all get their due.”

I Always Hated Juicers Until I Tried This One (Epicurious)

“The key advantage of this feature is that it makes juicing hands-free: Turn it on and turn away.”

How a 28-Day Oatmeal Binge Made My Mornings Exciting Again (Epicurious)

“Oatmeal, I learned, is a blank canvas. Here’s how I painted it.”

Press & Features

Jarry Magazine’s Lukas Volger Always Has Beans On Hand (New York Magazine Grub Street Diet)

“I don’t think of myself as being a super-healthy eater, but when I cook at home, my style is, like, “sensible.” While I love to cook and am down for a big extravagant cooking project, the recipes that excite me most are the easy, I-happen-to-have-all-the-ingredients-already ones that feature some genius trick that I’d never thought of before.”

A Beloved Veggie Burger Cookbook Gets a Second Life (Eater)

“Volger’s approach is about ‘leaning into what [the ingredient] is,’ which extends to how he describes his veggie burgers. This is a subtle but, in my opinion, important consideration when presenting vegetable cooking, especially to omnivores: A mushroom recipe can just be a really good way to cook mushrooms, as opposed to something that’s intended to ‘taste like meat.’”

Make the Most of Too Much Summer Squash with the Zucchini Slice (New York Times)

“But for an easy and vegetable-rich meal, Mr. Volger’s delightful zucchini iteration hits the mark.”

Jarry Magazine Celebrates Queer Food from the Inside Out (Forbes)

“While the magazine contains quality food content for any passers by, it is at its heart a community unto itself, made up of the queer people whose hearts lie in the kitchen, and in storytelling.”