Hi, we’re Dylan and Karen.

Between us we’ve worked in some of the finest restaurants in the country, including Relais & Châteaux member Canlis, in Seattle, and the former James Beard Award–winning Hungry Mother, in Boston. We’ve also worked in wineries from Washington State to New Zealand, and we’ve written and edited for publications like The New Yorker, Eater, Seattle Met, and Seattle Magazine. We both grew up in New England but we met in 2014, in Seattle, where we fell in friend-love over a shared dedication to all things food, wine, and hospitality.

In 2013, Karen became the founding editor of ChefSteps, where Dylan was later a writer and wine expert, and where, together with a James Beard Award–winning team of colleagues, we published hundreds of recipes, made food videos, and helped launch Joule, a très chic sous vide tool. Dylan now thinks about hospitality—and buys and writes about wine—for Full Pull, the coolest wine club around, and Karen lives in Brooklyn and works at The New Yorker.

We founded I’d Rather Be Meryl in 2018 because we love all things food and drink—and because we deeply believe that hospitality weaves its way through everything we do. Our years of experience in and out of restaurants helped make us better hosts, more confident cooks, and smarter imbibers. We are the friends you text about the right oven temperature for roasting squash, the best wine pairing for salmon, or the chicest cocktail bar in Mexico City. We love answering your questions, cooking up new ideas, and making top-notch restaurant recommendations. We don’t have fancy kitchens, fancy equipment, or fancy cameras—in fact, we shoot everything on our iPhones. We write recipes, tips, and articles that we hope will make you feel more comfortable in your kitchen—whatever that may mean for you. 

So why is it called I’d Rather Be Meryl? Meh, we don’t know. Listen, we just love Meryl Streep, and one day Dylan suggested we call this thing I’d Rather Be Meryl and it stuck. So welcome to I’d Rather Be Meryl. We’re happy to have you.

Press

“Former founding editor at ChefSteps (and former Seattle Met intern) Karen Taylor Quinn and writer Dylan Joffe have launched a new online food project (aka a cooking blog) sharing recipes made with only traditional home cooking equipment, stunning iPhone photos, and a shared love of the almighty Meryl Streep. “We don’t have fancy equipment, fancy aprons, or fancy cameras,” says the website. But it’s clear that they do have impeccable taste and a great sense of humor.” –Seattle Met (2018)