Betty Hallock is a writer, editor, and cookbook author — she’s a longtime journalist, formerly on staff at the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Magazine. At the L.A. Times, Betty was the deputy food editor, reporting and writing about food and drink trends, restaurants, cooking, travel, culture, and business. She also helped oversee one of the only newspaper test kitchens in the country.
Betty was born in Japan and grew up in California. Part of an extended family of mixed cultures, she loved holiday gatherings centering around Japanese, Korean, and Indian food. Watching her Tokyoite mom in the kitchen, she learned the nuances of Japanese home cooking — all her favorite foods including ochazuke, kappa maki, soba. Her uncle from Punjab was an enthusiastic host at family dinners, a role model for hospitality — “Eat! Eat! Did everyone eat enough?”
Her newspaper career started at the Wall Street Journal while she was a graduate student at New York University, working on the late-night desk for national news. Her first byline was about tax refunds (or the lack thereof) in the U.S. Virgin Islands, but she fell in love with food reporting when she was asked to contribute to a book about Asian culture in New York, published by the Asia Society. She ate her way through Asian restaurants in Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn.
When she moved back to Los Angeles, she landed on the business desk at the L.A. Times, but quickly found herself writing about food and became part of the award-winning food section. She has since co-written four cookbooks. Cooking is part of her wellbeing practice of eating whole foods, especially from her local L.A. farmers markets, prepared simply.
