The True Crime Kitchen

If there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that it’s best not to touch my food in a restaurant until after I’ve taken pictures of it. If there’s another, it’s that I will dive deeply into a subject that interests me. A little seed was planted in my brain at midnight 3 years ago, and, realistically, I didn’t expect the idea to go very far. The concept? A crime food blog. After all, how many crimes could even involve food? The answer is still a mystery, as I uncover new ones daily. Old cases and new cases alike, a never-ending murder buffet of restaurant crimes, poisonings, crime scene food, chefs in prison, chefs in body bags, death row meals, and my dark sense of humor occasionally attaching a food item to a crime through wordplay.

In some cases, I already knew of a food attached to a crime. Others were a delightful surprise. And many crime and food connections were found whilst traveling down the rabbit hole of celebrity deaths, NYC gossip rags publications, true crime podcasts, and Youtube videos. The seed is now a garden. The bounteous beds overflowing, in desperate need of weeding, and with far too many zucchini (I’m looking at you, Death Row Pizza & Cheeseburgers). It’s been a year of research; both delicious and draining in equal measure. At first, it was just to see if this concept was even viable. My enthusiasm grew as the list expanded, and this project has turned into a collection of over 500 cases, each with a tasty (or not so tasty) food or beverage attached in some way. Attaching food to a terrible crime isn’t for everybody, but the reality is that everybody has a last meal. Some final bites just happen to be more delicious than others.

I have obsessively collected these stories and recipes to the point of burying myself under a mountain of material. How unfortunate my indecisiveness gives me pause at what to cover, what to cook, and, more importantly, where to start. At this point, I am set for years before I’ve even really started. I fear any dent I make in this mountain will be replaced with even more food & crime cases (plus so many dead celeb recipes that I know are often the bad kind of retro, but I can’t stop) because when I said never-ending buffet, I meant it. I think it’s safe to say I have amassed a digital hoard. As with any hoard, figuring out where to start clearing it out is the hardest part. The most important part is that you do start somewhere. Best to start small, I think. Simple and easy-to-make recipes coupled with brief crime tales will make a weekly posting doable. Longer recipes and tales will be shared more infrequently. Some tales aren’t podcast worthy when solo, but as a group will make a nice episode. Attacking the hoard from a variety of angles should be the most effective way to whittle it down.

Unlike the hoarders just walking to a dumpster with their trash treasures of rusty bolts from 1967, I have to actually write to clean my space. I can read crime stories and talk about food all day long, but the minute I have to put those stories in my own words, cohesively, and make it interesting, well, it’s a problem. Do people even want to read long-ass stories anymore? If you’ve seen my Yelp reviews, you know it’s the only way I know how to write. I enjoy eating one cheeseburger and suddenly I’m 4 paragraphs deep…okay, maybe I can understand the death row burger dudes. Wait, can I even write? Instead of being hard on myself and rushing anything, I have put my time into sitting on my ass researching and eating, considering this a gestation period. I’m now ready to present my manatee fetus of a project, letting go of the expectation of perfection and accepting the fact that this is a very niche interest. Basically, this is going to be Olive Garden. But with authentic Italian food. I think their slogan is trademarked, but you’ll get the riff; Since you’re here, you’re family, and in front of family you can show your ass. I mean, maybe not in front of the distant relations you consider trashy, (you know which ones I’m talking about). But my point with the family bit is that I will get comfortable, grow, and inevitably end up wearing tomato sauce on my titties at the dinner table without shame. Thanks for being here. Probably because you love me and want to support my weird interests, but hopefully because you enjoy the stories and food too.