Hi there. My name is Kat Kinsman. I’m a writer and editor based in New York City. I wrote a book called Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves. I usually cover food (I’m senior food and drinks editor at Extra Crispy, former editor at large and editor-in-chief of Tasting Table, and former managing editor of CNN Eatocracy), but as I started writing more about my own experiences with mental health, people in the food world started talking to me about their own struggles.

Depression, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders and more. They run rampant in the food community, and they’re so rarely discussed, let alone treated. We owe a debt of pleasure to the chefs, servers, bartenders, purveyors, farmers and journalists who make up the food community, and so many of them are isolated in their pain and illness. I cannot sit by idly as people I care about suffer, so I started Chefs with Issues.

On this site, I invite people involved in the industry (not just chefs) to share their stories and resources for dealing with the particular pressures of restaurant life, so that other people may feel less alone.

This is not for profit. This is just because I give a damn. Here’s where to get involved and share your story.

The title “Chefs with Issues” is borrowed from a recurring feature my colleague Sarah LeTrent and I ran on Eatocracy, wherein we gave chefs and farmers a soapbox to talk about topics that personally affected them.