126 Minutes With… Tammie Teclemariam

Food media’s flamethrower.

- By Nikita Richardson

TAMMIE TECLEMARIAM appears through a kitchen window at the rear of a stately three-story house in Ditmas Park, a bottle of Cavallotto “Pinner” 2018 in one hand and a delicate wineglass in the other. She hands them down to me and then materializes a few minutes later with her own already filled glass, a plastic container of drunken noodles, and her year-old rescue dog, Buffer. As she fills my glass, Teclemariam explains that we’re drinking a Pinot Noir (or Pinot Nero) from Italy—which is unusual, she informs me, given that Pinot Noir grapes aren’t native to the area. Just then, one of her five roommates walks through the courtyard from a garage turned recording studio. “Is it cool if we hang out here?” she asks as he passes. “I don’t know if you realize this, but I’m famous now, so it’s just going to be interviews nonstop. No, I’m just kidding. I mean, I’m not kidding about being famous.”

Until recently, Teclemariam operated mostly on the fringes of the NYC food scene, working at wine shops and becoming friendly enough with people in the industry to get bylines at Wine Enthusiast and Wirecutter. Then, on June 8, the 30-year-old tweeted a photo of Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport and his wife, Simone Shubuck, dressed as Puerto Rican stereotypes at a Halloween party in 2004. For many staffers at the popular food publication, who for years had dealt with what they considered to be rampant mistreatment of minorities and severe pay inequities, the photograph was simply too much: One after another called for Rapoport’s ouster, and before the day was out, he had resigned.