10 Things I'll Miss About Seattle, No. 9: Maggie Savarino

Writing for the Weekly for the past three and a half years has been a blast. It is the most pleasant office I've ever worked in, packed with smart and wickedly talented people. And as the paper's only food guy on staff, I've gotten to work with great freelance writers: Angela Garbes (whom I've been a fan of since her days writing for the competition, when we would meet for clandestine, porktastic dinners), Adriana Grant (who has done just about everything for the food section that a person can do, both graciously and well), Jess Thomson, Julien Perry, Anna Roth, Molly Lori, Suzie Rugh.

But the person who's been my closest collaborator on SW's food coverage since 2006 is Maggie Savarino. What luck I've had! Maggie's writing about wine, beer, and spirits is some of the most vivid and clear-eyed in the country. She crams decades of study and experience into everything she writes, without sounding dry or geeked-out. (Don't be fooled by her glamour: That's one serious geek.) As a longtime Seattleite, she's filled in the gaps in my knowledge of the city's restaurant scene. And she's helped us build Voracious from a three-post-a-week effort to a news source that fills up RSS readers.

Not only have I cherished her friendship, since I review restaurants as anonymously as possible, I've valued her willingness to be the public face of the Weekly food section, promoting and defending the paper (and me) to Seattle's food community. It's like having my own fixer -- and she's never once bitched about the complaints and supplications she's had to field. Seattle's lucky to have Maggie Savarino. And I'm going to miss her like mad.