Jaya Saxena

@jayasaxena.com

29951 Followers 1124 Following

Founder-Owner of @weareravenous.com Series Editor at Best American Food and Travel Writing Queens, NY she/her Tips to jaya@weareravenous.con

There is one question everyone who has waited in a long food line has at some point asked themselves: Was it worth it? “Almost immediately it becomes a question of is this as good as I heard? Is it worth the time I waited?” says Fortney. It’s not like this question isn’t present at every meal — the more expensive the dinner or harder to get the reservation, the more one might think about whether the juice was worth the squeeze. But at a restaurant, there is ambiance and service and often cocktails to distract you from the pure monetary transaction. Lines usually arise around cheaper pleasures than a full dinner, but a line has no atmosphere, only the feeling of the clock ticking by, leaving just you and a $12 croissant, and the nagging feeling that your time might have been wasted.
Panel from watchmen: the planet is currently swarming with events. In such times, none of them are insignificant. I need information. Information in its most concentrated form.
Response to article about why we eat hot dogs in summer: "Because you can cook it outside quickly and easily. Next question."
Dozens of horseshoe crabs on a beach
Fireworks season is coming. Is Frog prepared? [inbox]
The New York Times report on Brad lander winning, riddled with TKs
A crowd, including me and Amy, singing along to "I'll make a man out of you" by Mulan
The poster for Eddie (1996)
Mattie looking beautiful
Me in a too short for this weather leopard print dress
"Nonna Maxxing"
Bottle of "Pickle Juice Chaser," a neon piss colored liquid in a bottle covered with green lightning
"This week, the tone quickly changed. Instead of a bargaining date, Attaboy Local 134 received word on May 18, via a message in work Slack from the General Manager, that Attaboy was making some changes to both the working conditions, and the staff, at Attaboy. Both of which the union says violates the National Labor Relations Act."
A calzone that has chicken tikka masala in it
Treebeard and whatever hobbit is in him
"I maintain that every white British person should be spending most of their time thanking any and all higher powers that South Asians continue to bless them with the concept of flavor even after all that they’ve done. You would be nothing without us, and you should remember that we could yank that garam masala right out of your chicken tikka masala if we wanted to!!!!"
Just in reporting this story, I’ve gotten side eyed questions from family and friends about the concept for a for profit restaurant willingly risking their bottom line. Do they all just have rich benefactors? Wouldn’t people cheat? Wouldn’t people see this as a way, horror of horrors, to get something for free? Well, yes, that’s the entire point. “I want people to use it and abuse it however they want,” she says. There is no “abusing” a restaurant that actively wants to give you food for free.
tweet from @swinginparteigh: luke sky walker did not wear black velvet and the Chanel boots to the sarlac pit just for JJ Abrams to say that someone else is gonna be the first gay in starwar. Don't worry mr. sky walker. I saw your chanel boots.
A Minnesota zoo mug with an illustration of a koala that says “1989 koalas”
A graph from the NYTimes showing that about 7% of all newspaper employees in the US work at the Times
A bag of “curlywurly squirlies”
For Stanek, Gourmet’s call to cook was about countering the narratives he has seen over his long career in food media. “Food media writ large has this fundamentally aversive relationship with cooking,” he says. This, he argues, is because of how media in general has worked, with magazines and websites—often at the behest of investors and venture capitalists interested only in infinite growth—attempting to cater to as many readers as possible for profit. In food, this means not just talking to people who already enjoy cooking but capturing those who really have no interest in it, or actively hate it, at least for the purposes of page views. “I’ve spent a lot of my career feeling like I’m trying to convince people to do something that they don’t want to do, trying to convince people that something that they think is hard is actually easy or that something that is inconvenient is actually worth doing,” says Stanek. This leads to recipes that promise they’re “quick and easy” or “one-pot” before you even get to what’s in them.
Re: shuttering Self Magazine: "Condé Nast’s overall business was profitable and ended 2025 with revenue growth, Mr. Lynch said. The new changes, he said, were aimed at positioning “the company for continued growth.”"
Namu Distilling posting about a cocktail called The Gay of Hormuz, made with their gin and Calamondin, lemon, saffron, rose, cardamom and clarified milk
AI, he said, is a way to compete with “some of the Fortune 500 companies that have 40-people marketing teams and their own photography department.”
1. A handful of new food media businesses (Caper, Cake Zine the new Gourmet) have launched recently. I noticed the line on your site that says, "For too long, food media has felt toothless." What did you think was missing from the food media landscape that Ravenous aims to fix? 1. First off we just want to be clear we are so excited to be part of a larger cohort of new food media, and we are very much in solidarity with our fellow worker-owned food sites. But one of the things we focused on when we started to plan Ravenous back in August was we were seeing larger food media companies pull away from the deeper culture writing and reporting that the five of us love to do. About 10% of the US workforce works in the restaurant industry, and that doesn't even include food production, and yet so much of food media is reduced to uncritical praise or recommendations with no context. The founders live across the country (I'm the only one in New York), so we hope to be able to talk about food and restaurant culture and labor through a national lens. That's really the core of what we hope Ravenous becomes.
People defeated scarcity. Everyone had what they needed, and nobody got sick, but they found that they needed things to be just a little bit difficult once in a while. They needed to stub their toe and wait in line and see that check engine light. They decided to leave their existence just a little short of perfect, because they wanted to want.
A lamb cake with its face kinda melting off but it’s ok
A map showing it's two blocks from a kind of fancy burger place to a less fancy one
If he is able to deliver on his promise to make New York City more affordable for struggling New Yorkers by adding a slew of new, free services available to all, he may end up making it easier for the wealthy to live here, too. It’s not exactly the stuff of populist campaign slogans.
Me wearing a see through shirt over a slip and blue eyeshadow
Me wearing a black baseball hat with CHASER in pink bubble text
He quickly added, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there … Damn, I took shots for no reason.” But the damage was done. Chalamet’s comments were dismissive and condescending, and far from the previous remarks he made earlier in the Marty Supreme press tour: “I grew up backstage at the New York City Ballet. My grandmother danced in the New York City Ballet, my mother danced in the New York City Ballet, my sister danced in the New York City Ballet. I grew up dreaming big at the backstage at the Koch Theater [at Lincoln Center] in New York … I’m like a Venn Diagram of the best cultural influences of the 21st century and 20th century.”
Mirror selfie of me in a black tank and pants and looking very hot
Tweet: sam levinson think he Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy think he John waters, John waters think he the hamburglar
Post from me from december 2025: I really love a dumb blockbuster and liking things other people like, but I must come lean that Avatar 2 is the only movie that has made me "my friend's uncle got so mad that he had to go in the backyard" mad
bill the butcher from gangs of new york
a copy of Basic Witches: How To Summon Success, Banish Drama, and Raise Hell With Your Coven by Jaya Saxena and Jess Zimmerman, in front of a stack of other copies
Substack announcing a TV app
"William Ackman, $10,000 top donation"
Four new pamphlets from the USDA about the food pyramid that all look like CAH cards
A ham covered in pineapple rings and cherries like in the movies
Best explanation of how it became embarrassing to be a “foodie” Writer and friend of the blog Jaya Saxena wrote about The Life and Death of the American Foodie for Eater — how the word evolved from a ubiquitous, throwaway phrase to signify taste to a pejorative. It’s a historical survey, from Julia Child and Top Chef to the food influencer era, and a good hard look at how we got here. “On the internet, we live and die by our superlatives,” writes Saxena. “That has created a significant shift in food culture, the need for everything to be a promise of a superior experience.”
Me in a mesh top and a gold sequin skirt that busted by the time I got to the party because my ass is too big
Me holding a cup of "hot ice cream," which is just hot chocolate with cookie crumbles on top
Me and my aunt hugging
"It’s already terrific time-traveling to reflect on life in American kitchens pre-Julia Child, the outsize influence of Top Chef, before Americans knew of televised cooking competitions, and how the 2008 recession got us addicted to food trucks. Then you get to consider how diners became fans and reminisce about the time it was actually a good thing to be called a foodie. This is an epic recounting of our culinary journey, and I’m here for it."
A pink cocktail in a coupe glass and a plastic container of chicken soup
VH1 divas live poster
Hourly workers or others who have flexible incomes might simply choose to work less in 2026 to ensure their income is low enough to qualify for a premium tax credit, advisors said. "If someone is going to end up being $5,000 over the cliff, they should literally just stop working," said Levine of Focus Partners Wealth.
Inbox: Why Pork Is The Secret To Flavor-Forward Comfort Food in 2025
1:22 into zohran's rap song 'salaam' with a comment "stay in politics king <3'
Me on stage accepting an award
A Gothamist analysis found that Mamdani won 30% of the primary election districts Trump won in the 2024 general election and garnered over 35,000 votes in districts that went for Trump. Around the Jamaica Hills, Queens intersection where Mamdani filmed last November, voters in 2024 moved toward the GOP by nearly 25 points. On Tuesday, Mamdani won there with 84.2% of the vote.
Me as Gomez Addams and Mattie as morticia
An ad that reads “a vote for sliwa is a vote for Mamdani,” paid for by Bloomberg and DoorDash, on an official city info kiosk
Me looking hot and flawless at 39
Selfie of me with glowing skin despite being 39