Aliza Abarbanel (@alizarae) is a freelance writer and editor based in Brooklyn. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Cake Zine, and a podcast host and contributing editor at TASTE.
In 2022, Aliza partnered with pastry chef Tanya Bush (@will.this.make.me.happy) to independently publish Cake Zine (@cake_zine), a print magazine that delves into society, pop culture, art, and history through the lens of sweets. Since its debut, the Cake Zine editorial team has released six themed issues—Sexy Cake, Wicked Cake, Humble Pie, Tough Cookie, Candy Land, and their latest, Daily Bread—each offering a multifaceted exploration of food and its cultural significance.
We stopped by Aliza’s colorful Brooklyn kitchen to learn more about her work and food philosophy—all while she prepped a zesty, vibrant seasonal salad paired with beans on toast.
What was the inspiration behind starting Cake Zine?
The inspiration for starting Cake Zine came from my friend and co-founder, Tanya Bush, who is a pastry chef and writer here in New York. We organized a mutual aid bake sale together to support EVLovesNYC and Breaking Bread NYC in 2021, which meant we had a lot of time to chat while assembling pastry boxes, and Tanya said, “Wouldn't it be so fun to make a magazine about cake?” At the time I was just leaving my role at Bon Appétit to go freelance, so I had time to take on a new project and thought that it would be really interesting to create an interdisciplinary, unexpected food publication. We decided to start with two contrasting themes, Sexy Cake and Wicked Cake, and go from there.
What drew you to cake as an area to unpack?
It's an inessential but also deeply essential food item. Nobody needs cake to survive, but it's a core part of nostalgia, cultural memory, and personal connection for so many of us. And honestly, dessert just felt like a fun medium to explore! We watched a lot of independent bakers like Aimee France and Amy Yip become popular on Instagram and thought it was an interesting cultural moment to unpack dessert’s contemporary context and rich history.
As you build out each issue, how does the theme and creative direction reveal itself?
We start each issue by coming up with a theme that pairs a type of food (typically a baked good) with some kind of lens or narrowing device. For example, instead of just making an issue about bread, we explored bread in terms of routine and religion (Daily Bread), and instead of just cookies, we explored cookies in the context of toughness and tribulation, like what it’s like to work on an OREO factory production line or dress up as the Cookie Monster to take pictures with tourists in Times Square (Tough Cookie). From there, we create a pitch guide and sort through hundreds of pitches to set the lineup, and the editing process continues from there.
Has any story impacted the way you think about food?
Every issue has at least one story, if not many, that makes me think about food differently. In Daily Bread, baker Dana Evans explores the physical toll of bread baking as a career in her piece The Baker's Body. Editing that piece definitely made me think about bread differently, and now every time I go to the farmer's market to pick up my loaf from She Wolf, I have more appreciation for the labor and love that went into it.
Cake Zine embodies how central community is to food culture, with each issue curating pieces from writers, artists, chefs, and creatives. How is the food community unique compared to other creative spaces that you’re in?
There are countless special communities in New York, and we aim for the magazine to not only reach the food community but also people in art, music, fashion, etc by publishing writers from a broad variety of backgrounds. That said, food people are always such incredible collaborators who think critically and carefully about the intersection of food with labor, sustainability, culture, and other aspects of life. I think the food community also really shows up for each other by coming to each others’ pop-ups and participating in bake sales for important causes, and it’s been rewarding to use Cake Zine’s platform to amplify others' work (pop-ups, restaurants, bake sales, cookbooks, etc) as a small way of giving back to the community that has given us so much.
Between imaginative launch parties and seeing your publication at coveted stockists, what’s been the biggest “pinch-me” moment so far?
We honestly never set out to make Cake Zine into the media brand that it’s become today, so the journey has been filled with countless unexpected, pinch-me moments, like selling out 800+ tickets to our launch parties or hosting events in London and Paris. But while our events deservedly get a lot of attention, Cake Zine is first and foremost a literary magazine with a robust editorial process. We’re deeply invested in working with writers, so the biggest pinch-me moments come down to the magazine itself, like being nominated for a James Beard Media Award or included in The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2024 by guest editor Padma Lakshmi (my hero). My most recent pinch-me moment was when I was visiting Taipei in January and stopped by some of our stockists there, like Moom. It was incredibly rewarding to see Cake Zine on the other side of the world.
Does cooking serve as a form of self-care? Is it a spiritual practice?
Cooking serves as care in every form for me: personal, community, financial, and environmental. There’s the literal fact that we all need to eat to survive, but there’s also a restorative and creative aspect of stepping away from my phone, looking at what I have in my fridge or pantry, and making something delicious. I was traveling for a while and away from my kitchen, and I definitely felt deregulated when I wasn’t cooking every day.
Do you carry a specific food philosophy?
I get a lot of joy from living close to the Fort Greene farmers market. Most Saturdays, especially in the spring and summer, my girlfriend and I will make coffee at home and then walk with it over to see our friends in the neighborhood, pick up produce, and bring it back home to cook lunch for whoever wants to join. That's become a grounding part of my week, and it's nice to situate myself in the season based on what's available at the market, what I know is coming soon, and what I need to eat before it's gone.
Has your kitchen always been your favorite place, or did you have to build it to become that special space?
The kitchen has always been my favorite room in this apartment. When I first saw the old-school cast porcelain sink and all the natural light in the space, I immediately knew that I wanted to live here. It had such great bones, but my girlfriend and I have also done a few renovations to make it perfect. The checkerboard floors are actually peel-and-stick removable vinyl tiles that we spent the better part of the day carefully laying down because the linoleum beneath them was so gross. Spiritually, I felt like this kitchen was meant to have a checkerboard floor, and it brightened up the room. We also swapped in a basic pull-out kitchen sink faucet with a movable nozzle to make it easier to wash the dishes. If you don't have a dishwasher, which many New Yorkers don’t, I think your sink should work for you as best as it can.
What’s your biggest food-world hot take?
We don’t need those $20+ designer strawberries that are available year-round, especially considering all the plastic packaging. Some things are worth waiting for, and I swear, the first strawberry of summer tastes even better when you’ve waited all year for it.
Do you like meal prep?
I don't meal prep in the traditional sense of making multiple servings of one dish, but I do like to cook bigger servings of components like beans, rice, roasted vegetables, etc so it’s easier to cook things on the fly throughout the week.
Are you a big leftovers person?
Absolutely. If I don't have leftovers after dinner for lunch the next day, it means that I didn't make enough.
Non-toxic kitchen materials are a hot topic right now. Has that changed how you operate as a home chef? As a food writer?
Once I learned about microplastics leaching into our food, I began replacing items in my kitchen with cleaner materials, like silicone, glass, and stainless steel.
What’s your go-to W&P product?
I love the plastic deli containers that most people in the food space use to stay organized, but I'm trying to move away from them, and the Freezer Cubes have been hugely helpful with that. I use them to store things in the fridge and freezer. I also like that if I have ingredients and decide to freeze them for later, I don't have to move them into another container—makes my workflow a lot easier!
