Barna: I'm Baaackkk - Charleston City Paper

I may have left my post as editor of the City Paper more than two years ago, but I haven’t stopped being involved in the life of Charleston and more specifically its food scene. Since leaving the paper, I dabbled in the PR world, representing a handful of clients and working on cool projects like the Nat Fuller Feast and others.

But to be honest, editorial is where my heart’s at and I’ve been helping out at the City Paper since Chris Haire left his post and moved to Greenville, and our beloved Kinsey Gidick took the helm as editor. While I’ve been working a bit at the paper, Kinsey and I have been chatting about me writing for the Cuisine section again. The idea appealed to both of us. I’ve been covering food in this town for so long and have a pretty deep institutional knowledge. So we figured I might as well put that knowledge back to work in the form of a column.

We settled on the name Bite Me, because, well, it seemed appropriate to my point of view. I don’t represent any for-profit clients anymore, but I do help out with a couple nonprofits — Slow Food Charleston and the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation — neither of which should create a conflict of interest for this column. I also help produce the annual YALLFest, a young adult book festival helmed by my old friend (and occasional City Paper contributor) Jonathan Sanchez.

My goal with the column is to eat, drink, write, and talk shit about what’s going down in the food scene from my perspective. I hope you enjoy.