I’ve written hundreds of articles for national magazines, including The New York Times, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Salon.com, Vogue, Glamour, Self, Marie Claire, Mother Jones, Sunset, Afar, Elle, the Daily Beast, San Francisco Examiner Magazine, O: the Oprah Magazine, and many others. I’ve been a contributing editor at Health, Good Housekeeping, More, and now at San Francisco Magazine and Craftsmanship Quarterly. Several of my articles are listed below.
Of any essay I’ve ever written, this one, “Why I Stopped Being a Vegetarian,” originally published in Salon.com in 2000, has been reprinted most, mainly in college readers.
My essay, “Food for the Heart,” (Eating Well, January/February 2007) won the Bert Greene Award for Essay Writing from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP.com).
Here are a few others.
Featured Articles:
Modern Love: Our Way of Saying Goodbye
One chilly day that winter, at home, while I was in the midst of moving out of my husband’s house and refiguring my finances, a postcard arrived from Paris. “I couldn’t forget,” the Professor wrote. And neither could I. That spring, we met in Milan.
My Mother, the Adventurer
The most annoyed my mother has ever been with me was when I was traveling alone in Egypt and didn’t call home for a month. She wasn’t exactly happy when I went to Iraq just before the Persian Gulf War, either, and interviewed Yasir Arafat in a house that was bombed to smithereens days later.
Doniga and the Lion
Editor’s Note : This is one of many stories about our relationship with the natural world, which San Francisco is publishing over the next month as part of the May 2018 Great Outdoors Issue. To read stories as they become available online, click here.
A River Runs Through Us – Laura Fraser – Medium
Fly-fishing the waters of West Yellowstone is the stuff of dreams. Casting alongside your 85-year-old dad is the stuff of memories. By Laura Fraser Sunset Magazine, October 2013 I never understood my father’s love of fly- fishing.
The Antidote To Fast Fashion? System dressing – Craftsmanship Quarterly
Jill Giordano makes women’s clothing in what might be called sustainable designs: coats, pants, and dresses made with fine fabrics in timeless styles, and in combinations that can be mixed and matched any number of ways. Welcome to the art of “system” dressing-with quality. The goal: Improve your look, save the planet, and save money.
The Repentant Executioner
Laura Fraser | Photo: Kathrin Miller | June 18, 2012 The first man Jeanne Woodford executed was Manuel Babbitt. He’d been convicted of murdering a 78-year-old grandmother named Leah Schendel, who died of a heart attack after he broke into her Sacramento home during a 1980 crime spree and then viciously beat her.
The Shinola Polish – Craftsmanship Quarterly
Fifty years after Shinola closed as America’s quintessential shoe polish, it has resurfaced in an effort to become an entirely new icon: as the hero of a return to artisanal, “Made-in-America,” luxury goods. Is reviving craftsmanship that easy? By LAURA FRASER The aesthetic in Shinola’s stores is spare, light, maker chic.
Showdown at the Edge of the Continent
Editor’s Note : This is one of many stories about our relationship with the natural world, which San Francisco is publishing over the next month as part of the May 2017 Great Outdoors Issue. To read stories as they become available online, click here.
Can a Colonial Crafts Town Survive Modern Mexico? – Craftsmanship Quarterly
In the 1500s, a Spanish bishop turned a collection of pueblos around the Mexican town of Patzcuaro into a center for craftsmanship. The people here are still making and marketing their wares in much the same way they did hundreds of years ago. Now they have to overcome tourists’ fears about drug traffickers, real or not.
Why I stopped being a vegetarian
U ntil a few of months ago, I had been a vegetarian for 15 years. Like most people who call themselves vegetarians (somewhere between 4 and 10 percent of us, depending on the definition; only 1 percent of Americans are vegans, eating no animal products at all), I wasn’t strict about it.
Joy In Her Bones
by Laura Fraser – Photo Credit: Cristina Taccone Mexico’s obsession with death-its manic skeleton figurines, its altars festooned with tequila, cigarettes, and skulls-always seemed strange and macabre to me.
My sister’s doctors saw her weight – but missed her cancer
y older sister, Jan, visited me in San Francisco last spring. “You look great,” I told her, noticing that her clothes were hanging loose; she’d been heavy most of her life. “I’ve lost 60 pounds,” she said, and I automatically congratulated her. “I wasn’t trying,” she replied.
More Articles:
The Shock of the Nuevo, Sunset, May 2015
Words With Exes, Human Parts, August, 2015
William Zinsser, The Man Who Taught a Nation to Write Well, Al Jazeera, May 14, 2015
If Rugs Could Talk, Re:Form, October, 2014
The Risotto Guru, Shebooks, December, 2013
Antibacterial Soap: Safe Suds or Snake Oil?, OnEarth, December, 2012
The Long Goodbye, Whole Living, October, 2012
The Repentent Executioner, San Francisco Magazine, July, 2012
“The Rice Man Cometh”, Real Eats, August 18, 2011
“Is Your Shampoo Making You Fat?”, OnEarth, June 27, 2011
“Moving Day”, Responsibility Project, June 17, 2011
“It’s the Height of Contradictions: Despite inhospitable terrain, the Atacama Desert lures visitors with its stark beauty.”, Los Angeles Times travel section, May 22, 2011
“Top Java”, Responsibility Project, May 10, 2011
“Kicking the Chemical Habit”, OnEarth, April 26, 2011
Resident, “What’s Most Alive in Palermo is the Food”, Afar, January/February 2011
Soccer, Soaps and Social Change, The Responsibility Project, December 7, 2011
Dance of the Spider Women, Afar, July/August 2010
Modern Love: Our Way of Saying Goodbye, The New York Times, May 30, 2010
When Home Competes for an Ardent Traveler’s Affections—and Wins, 7×7 Magazine, May 2010
The Joy of Mindful Cooking, Tricycle Buddhist Review, Fall 2009
The Anti-Aging Effects of Meditation, More, May 2009
Will Americans Flee Mexico?, The Daily Beast, May 2, 2009
Women Who Eat Meat, The Daily Beast, April 2, 2009
In Defense of My Drinking Habit, The Daily Beast, March 22, 2009
Om is Where the Heart is, More, September 2008
A Mid-Summer Day’s Skiing, More, July/August 2008
The Ten Hottest Italian Restaurants in San Francisco, Gourmet.com, May 29, 2008
Fitness Book Camp, More, May 2008
My So-Called Genius, More, April 2008
A Tree Grows in the Haight Ashbury, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, March 23, 2008
Just Desserts, More, December 2007/January 2008