PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEN GOODMAN

When Kathleen Squires ’88 graduated from Lafayette, she was armed with an English degree and a love of words. Right out of school, she took a job in book publishing and spent nearly a decade as an editor, helping authors shape and prepare their books for publication.

Her undergraduate work as a peer tutor in the writing-across-the-curriculum program, helmed by Prof. Patricia Donahue, prepared her for that work. Through that program, Squires worked with engineering students and economics majors to help them improve their writing, a skill she found translated well in the real world.

“In being an editor, you have to learn how to collaborate and work with people, and do so in a tactful manner,” Squires explains. “I think that program really prepared me for the kind of personal interaction element of being an editor.”

Squires also worked on the Shakespeare Bulletin and The Lafayette newspaper, her first experiences with the ins and outs of writing for a deadline and building a publication. These experiences came in handy when, after about a decade in publishing, she decided to start a second career as a freelance journalist focusing on food and travel.

Since then, she’s written a regular column for The Wall Street Journal, co-authored cookbooks, and co-produced several films, including one about James Beard. Squires, a longtime resident of New York, is also co-owner of Chef’s Dinner Table in Little Italy, a culinary space that opened in 2019. She regularly hosts events and cooking classes there, as well as the occasional Lafayette alumni dinners.

These days, her work ranges from recipe development to food news reporting, and everything in between. Here, she shares her picks for restaurants in Easton, recommendations for home cooking this summer, and the restaurant trends she’s seeing everywhere.

Eat well in Easton

“I really enjoy going back to Lafayette now and seeing how the food scene has kind of exploded in Easton,” Squires says. “The Public Market is excellent, and also the Easton Farmers’ Market is still going strong. I believe it claims to be the oldest continuous farmers market in the country, dating back to the 1800s, so it’s always fun to visit that and to see it grow.” Squires—who visited campus during Commencement in May to watch classmate Amy Herman ’88 deliver the keynote speech—also loves 3rd & Ferry Fish Market for seafood, Three OAK Steakhouse, and Two Rivers Brewing Company to get a taste of the local beer scene.

Expand your grilling repertoire

In the summer, Squires gets excited about grilling everything from pineapple (for sundaes, as she wrote about in her Wall Street Journal column last August) to more delicate vegetables like asparagus, ramps, and garlic scapes.

“You can just drizzle oil on them and put them on the grill,” Squires says. “It really enhances a meat component of a meal, too.” She’ll also grill fruit for all kinds of uses, not just desserts.

“You can char a lemon on the grill,” she suggests. “Completely dehydrate it, then put it in a food processor and turn it into a powder—you get all the essential oils of the fruit and it doesn’t taste burnt; it just has a really intense fruit flavor that adds to anything you might put it on.”

Green at home

“At home, one of the biggest trends is people being more mindful of waste, and their environmental impact,” Squires says. “We’re seeing a lot of these kinds of portable home composters, and I think people are looking at ways to use every part of everything. Whether it be every part of an animal or every part of a vegetable, people have become more educated about their own food waste.”

She’s also noticed a change in plant-based eating. A few years ago people were excited about products like Beyond Meat, but these days she’s noticing people turn away from those replacement meats and go back to more natural substitutes, like mushrooms.

“I think a lot of people who choose not to eat meat actually lose their taste for meat,” she explains. “So they don’t really want a facsimile. They want to eat vegetables instead.”

Restaurant trends to try

“One trend I’m seeing a lot is restaurants kind of enhancing their experiences by doing ticketed events,” Squires says. “For example, I’m seeing a lot of restaurants that have their regular everyday menu, but then maybe in their private dining room on Thursdays, they’re doing a special themed dinner with a guest chef. It is a way to cultivate loyalty from their customers and offer more than one experience under the same roof.”