For the Press Herald’s food editor, it’s time to say goodbye

Portland Food Editor Peggy Grodinsky Retires After 12‑Year Tenure

PORTLAND – In a heartfelt announcement published this week, Portland’s longtime food editor and columnist Peggy Grodinsky confirmed that she will retire from the Portland Press Herald at the end of the year. The 65‑year‑old, who was born in 1961, has been a pillar of the paper’s culinary coverage since joining in 2014 and has written dozens of profiles, recipe guides and cultural pieces that have helped shape the region’s food conversation.

Grodinsky’s career began long before the explosion of food‑centric media. “I grew up in the era when Julia Child’s first volume was coming out,” she recalled. “The way she opened up French cuisine for Americans really shaped how I think about food.” Her early jobs included working in local bakeries and restaurants during high school, a brief stint as a pastry chef at the Linekin Bay Resort in Boothbay Harbor, and a one‑month entrepreneurial experiment running a student‑run diner during a college winter term.

After college she shifted from kitchen work to writing. “I’d written for a Manhattan cooking school, the James Beard Foundation, the Houston Chronicle, and Cook’s Country magazine before I landed at the Press Herald in 2014,” she said. “Writing is my first love. Food writing is a second, a wonderful extension of it.”

Grodinsky has said she dislikes the term “foodie,” which she finds infantilizing, and she’s equally critical of casual slang like “sammie.” Her voice on the paper’s food page has always been a blend of journalistic rigor and a conversational tone that invites readers into the stories she tells.

The editor reflected on the breadth of her work, pointing to a few of her most memorable pieces:

• A 2015 piece on the importance of bees to Maine’s blueberry crop.
• A 2018 article about a Portland homeowner wresting with the decision to fell a beloved maple tree.
• A recent feature on a micro‑vineyard in Portland that has been growing grapes in a backyard.
• A 2016 profile of a fig tree thriving in Scarborough.
• A 2018 Christmas memory story that explored aging parents and the comforts of home.
• A 2016 piece on the bond between a chef and a dishwasher at Back Bay Grill.
• A 2025 article on how Trump’s tariffs indirectly affected the average Maine kitchen.

She admitted that she had several stories she wished she had written. “I almost froze when I tried to write about Brother Arnold at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village,” she said. “I never managed to capture his culinary passion, but a colleague later published a lovely piece on his holiday baking.” She also noted her regret at never being able to interview Dr. Nirav Shah about hummus, and at the fact that Martha Stewart never accepted an invitation to dinner that she had extended.

The retirement announcement is also a celebration of the writer’s personal history. Grodinsky shared that, when she was nine, her family embarked on a six‑week trip from Philadelphia to Alaska. “I was the youngest of four girls, and my father made us keep daily diaries,” she said. “Looking back at that diary now, over 50 years later, I was struck by how much I wrote about what I ate.” The trip, she added, was a formative experience that introduced her to the joy of food and travel.

In the same breath, Grodinsky revealed her favorite recipe to use in honoring her retirement: an almond‑peach cake. She noted that, as a Maine resident, she has come to enjoy peaches grown locally and that she had recently been given a large bag of them by her neighbor’s children. “I love peaches,” she wrote. “They’re a little exotic here but they’re a staple in my kitchen right now.”

The recipe she shared is a light, moist cake that incorporates almond flour, cardamom, and sliced peaches. The cake is topped with turbinado sugar and sliced almonds, and it requires a fairly long baking time of 55 to 60 minutes at 350 °F. The post concluded with a playful invitation to readers: “Help me celebrate my retirement by baking a cake.”

Grodinsky’s decision to leave the Press Herald comes after 12½ years of writing for the paper. Her last column will appear on the back of the September 9 issue, where she will thank readers for their feedback, friends for their support, and the many Maine chefs, bakers, producers and writers who have contributed to the stories over the years.

When asked what she looks forward to in retirement, she offered a list of simple pleasures: “Not feeling rushed, spending time outdoors instead of behind a keyboard, finally using the Oxford comma, trying my hand at sourdough again, and getting dinner on the table before 8:30 p.m.” Her tone is hopeful and reflective, emphasizing that the work she has done has helped bring people together through food, both in the kitchen and on the page.

The Portland Press Herald has said that it will honor Grodinsky’s contributions with a memorial feature on her career and with a small retirement celebration in the newsroom. The paper’s culinary section has long been a touchstone for Maine residents, and her departure will leave a notable void.

In the meantime, readers are invited to honor her legacy by baking a slice of almond‑peach cake, and perhaps to share a story about a food adventure that has shaped their own lives.