David Lebovitz is an American author primarily known for writing about food.[1][2] He worked as a dessert and pastry chef before starting to write cookbooks.[3][4][5][6] He also wrote a memoir about his experiences buying and renovating an apartment in Paris.[2]
In 1999, two years after Jim Leff and Bob Okumura founded Chowhound, the online discussion forum in 1997, Lebovitz launched his eponymous baking and desserts website.[7] Thus, he is considered one of the earliest, if not, the original "food blogger".[2][8][9] Lesley Chesterman wrote in NUVO in 2022: "Having launched his website in 1999, before food blogs really even existed, you could argue that Lebovitz all but created the genre."[2]
In addition to his food blog,[10] Lebovitz also publishes a subscriber newsletter on Substack.[11] The recipes in his books and on his blog are often reprinted (with permission) or adapted in food columns,[12][13][14][15][16] and he has been interviewed for articles in mainstream digital[12][13][17] and legacy media.[18][14][15][16][19][20][21][22][23]
Lebovitz, who was born in 1958[24] and grew up in Connecticut, started working in restaurant kitchens while a teenager, including in upstate New York, USA.[8][25] In the early 1980s, Lebovitz moved to San Francisco, California, where he worked as a line-cook, and then a pastry chef at the Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, known for being an early advocate of farm-to-table cuisine.[8][26] Lebovitz worked at Chez Panisse for thirteen years before launching his website and writing his first cook book.[27][28] He moved to Paris, France in 2004.[8][28][29]
Since relocating to Paris, Lebovitz' has continued to blog about food.[30][23][31][32] He has published eight cookbooks,[32][33] and written guest columns for the Los Angeles Times and the Financial Times.[34][35] In 2017, Lebovitz published a memoir recounting his experiences with the Parisian real estate market.[36]
Lebovitz' impact and influence on food blogs and blogging was discussed by Jennifer Lofgren in a 2013 journal article about how food blogs had evolved over the preceding twenty-five years.[37]
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