ne of the final school assignments for my
younger daughter’s second-grade class was
to create a coronavirus time capsule. I’m
not sure why her teachers want her to preserve
little memories of life during a global pandemic,
but the project did make me wonder what would
be in my own capsule. I’d probably just print a copy
of my online order history from March through
June 2020, because that would tell the whole story.
When future generations unearth the list, they’ll
see that I survived mainly on coffee beans, yeast and
lemon-scented hand soap. And then they’ll wonder
why, during the height of the crisis, I was panic-buying
marshmallows and blue gummy sharks from Target.
I’ll need to throw this issue of the magazine into the
time capsule as well, to explain that I needed theseMaile Carpenter
Editor in Chief
@maile__fnmagthe
My porch is
not where we
typically shoot
a story!18 FOOD NETWORK MAGAZINE ●JULY/AUGUST 2020
TRAVIS HUGGETT.editor’s letter
(
r\) ·cture
things because, for a few bizarre months of 2020
while our New York City photo studio was shut down
and our staff was dispersed, I had to pinch-hit as a
food stylist.
I've been quarantined in Connecticut since early
March with my own family, plus my sister Ridge
(who's art director at HGTV Magazine), her husband
Travis (who's a photographer) and their two kids- so
we had everyone we needed to make a photo shoot
happen. Our first assignment: three recipes for Shark
Week. The story's on page 59, and I beg you not to
judge when you see it. Food styling is so much harder
than you'd think! I rearranged my shark-fin cupcakes
25 times looking for the best angle, and I tore apart
my pantry in search of the right chocolate chips to
use as cereal-treat shark eyes. This isn't exactly life-
saving work during a pandemic, but I hope it'll make
a few people happy. You shouldn't have any trouble
finding the ingredients, by the way: While
everyone else was waiting for back-ordered
rice and beans, target. com got me five bags of
gummy sharks in two days flat.D