Josh Friedland

Born in Boston and raised in Berkeley, I am a writer and the author of Comfort Me with Offal: Ruth Bourdain’s Guide to Gastronomy and Eatymology: The Dictionary of Modern Gastronomy.

After keeping my identity secret for three years, I revealed myself to the New York Times in 2013 as the man behind the mystery of “Ruth Bourdain” (@ruthbourdain), the satirical Twitter mashup of food luminaries Anthony Bourdain and Ruth Reichl. I won a James Beard Award for the character – the first Beard Award for humor – in 2011.

Before becoming Ruth Bourdain, I was the founder and editor of The Food Section, a pioneering food blog about the world of food, from home cooking to restaurants, culinary travel, photography, history, books, or food politics. Gourmet magazine called it “the consummate gastronomic blog,” and Food & Wine magazine named me a “Tastemaker.” Bon Appetit, Time, the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and USA Today are among the many magazines and newspapers that praised The Food Section.

As a freelance journalist, my articles on food and travel have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Olive magazine (BBC), and Time Out New York.