Paraphrasing the late, great Rodney Dangerfield: “I’m okay now but you shoulda seen me the past three weeks.”
Once I assumed the late Ron Mikulak’s editorial responsibilities at Food and Dining Magazine in January of 2023, many aspects of my life were tweaked to conform with the quarterly cadence of its publication schedule.
(Of course, until November of 2023, I was also busy with the beer program at the former Pints&union; by all available metrics save one*, it was an extremely successful tenure.)
Basically, the months of February, May, August and November, which immediately preceded publication, became very busy in terms of my work at F & D. All the while I’d be doing my daily web site postings, but for six or seven weeks following the heavy prep months, there’d be far less to do.
Unsurprisingly, these “off” months became my time to focus on “40 Years in Beer” (keep reading for an update).
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Most of you know that John Carlos White, founder and publisher of F & D, and my friend and employer, died on February 19, and as you might imagine, it’s been a gut-wrenching state of anguish, melancholy and limbo for me ever since then.
First and foremost, I didn’t properly take into account how attached I’d become to the man and his magazine. He wasn’t just a boss, and the gig wasn’t just a job. John was only 65, which if you ask me is a little too close for comfort.
We were born four months apart in 1960. John grew up in Clarksville; I went to Floyd Central. We were very different people, and yet shared formative experiences growing up in Southern Indiana. He served in the Navy and saw the world; I backpacked in Europe. We found common, fervent ground in promoting independent small businesses, as opposed to chains and franchises.
A natural salesman, John created Food & Dining Magazine in 2003 as his own indie small business vehicle, and a few months later asked me to write a quarterly beer column for his new publication.
I never knew exactly how he came to this decision, but someone recommended me to him, and so the print edition of “Hip Hops” was born, continuing to the present day (and online, quasi-weekly, since 2019). My most recent print column was filed in February.
In 2016, when I revealed to the world that I’d be stepping away from the New Albanian Brewing Company, John immediately informed me that my role as a Food & Dining contributor would escalate. I’d be doing restaurant profiles and features in addition to beer. It is important to note two things about his proclamation.
First, this potential ramping-up was terrifying. Me, a feature writer? For a magazine? I’d never done it before.
Second, John was having absolutely none of my bullshit. Behind the safety of his shtick, he was a solid judge of talent; just do it, and we’ll go from there. He pushed me in front and encouraged me, firmly but gently. I’m not sure I ever had a sportsball coach with his deftness of touch.
I became good at it. John never doubted my abilities for a minute; of course, it also benefited the magazine. For once in my life, I succeeded in letting John know how thankful I was to him before he departed the planet. It’s small consolation, yet meaningful to me.
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When John died, the Spring 2026 issue was seven to ten days from completion in terms of content. He reserved for himself (and a layout/graphics contractor) all the last minute tweaks, like coordinating and indexing restaurant listings and maps.
I’m confident that in a perfect world, these might be implemented, and the current Spring 2026 issue released, behind its normal publication schedule but still available for Derby season. However, because John’s creation was a mom & pop shop (albeit without a mom), or conversely, he was a solo artist, his untimely passing has stopped the clock as we consider the tough questions: Who or what is John’s successor in a legal sense? Did he leave instructions?
Only his surviving family members can answer these questions, and I trust they’re doing that. These considerations can take time, or not, and they’re beyond my control in either case. Sometimes you want to push hard and make things happen. Other times, you have no choice to heed these wisest of words: don’t just do something, stand there.
I’m standing here.
I’ve kept the daily web site feed active, and will continue for the foreseeable future. It has become a part of my life, like NA Confidential used to be, and John had seen fit to pay me ahead a couple of months. I’ll also contribute a month or two of pro bono reverse severance, if necessary, to keep these balls in the air for a while longer, pending decisions about the future.
In terms of print publications in metro Louisville, I believe I’m the last beer writer left standing, but a far greater number of “Hip Hops” columns appear digitally, and I might always shift them here to my web site. It won’t be the same, though.
I’m confident the F & D website will remain as an archive, if nothing else, and that’s just about all I can say with (near) certainty at present. The rest resides at a decision point far above my pay grade.
You have no idea how challenging this has been. My intro to “Comings & Goings” for Spring 2026, a column that may or may not be published in print, follows.
From this magazine’s 2003 inception, a seemingly ancient time prior to the advent of Yelp, Eater and DoorDash, the late John Carlos White resolved to track everything about food and dining in Louisville ― in print, on a quarterly basis, collating restaurant listings, cross-indexing them with maps, and tracking comings and goings since the previous edition.
To manage this ambitiously herculean endeavor, John developed a personalized, shareable Google spreadsheet, a convoluted assembly of colors, symbols and internet links one step removed from ancient hieroglyphics. When I stepped in for the late Ron Mikulak three years ago, I undertook to learn John’s “pidgin spreadsheet” dialect in order to preserve Ron’s stellar “Comings & Goings” tradition.
This I managed, albeit with the bare minimum of fluency. Every three months, John initiated spreadsheet updates, and as we worked together, back and forth, I’d watch as the program automatically updated to the other user following each session. Then one day in February the updating stopped, because communications had become one way, and there I was, just like that, behind the wheel and driving alone.
That’s when I broke down.
And yet, as John, Ron and Freddie Mercury knew, the show must go on.
John lived his life by his own terms. He enjoyed his circle of intimate friends, and I wasn’t really among them even if I considered him to be a friend. We didn’t socialize, although his legendary late evening phone calls could be quite lengthy, and I miss them already. Damn it, I’d say, it’s past my bedtime; but John simply wasn’t ready to talk until 11:00 p.m.
Upon hearing John had died, in shock, I immediately started thinking about the magazine. Then I chided myself for conflating the man and his publication, although in truth, he was synonymous with Food & Dining. It was a ragtag, ambitious Clarksvillian’s ultimate act of personal definition and self-invention.
I did the same with beer. What we had in common most of all was differentiating ourselves from local norms while continuing to speak the lingo and enjoying the benefits of residing in metro Louisville. We both flogged our passions and got by. We both conjured our own job descriptions, and made a difference.
John knew good and well that producing the magazine required assistance, and he managed his contributors and contractors professionally. It was a loose and shifting cast, some closer to John personally, others not quite as much. But it was crystal clear that John was the auteur, director, producer (choose one or all). He knew he wasn’t the star in terms of content, but it was HIS band when it came to the remaining responsibilities.
Note that a celebration of John Carlos White’s life will take place on Monday, March 16 downstairs at Vernon Lanes. Marty Rosen’s appreciation of John is here: Marty Rosen: John Carlos White’s vision and persistence helped nurture our dining scene.
My former colleague Jon Larmee remembers John here: Jon Larmee: “John was the guy that trusted me to do it all.” I also contributed this: Edibles & Potables: How this shebeen came to be (thanks, John Carlos).
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Now, back to my purely Proustian endeavor, “40 Years in Beer.” The next five installments (and 20-odd thousand words) have been outlined, such as I ever outline anything. #86 is finished, and will appear next week. Assuming the best, these chapters will take me through late April, when Euro ’26 occurs in Vienna and Budapest.
- #86 Pungent & funky polemics, homebrew, and my life, both in and out of F.O.S.S.I.L.S. (1990 – 2026), primarily chronicling the late 1990s through 2000, and the end of Walking the Dog after eleven years and 111 issues
- #87 Euro Beer Travel, four fun-filled, fact-finding missions to England, Belgium and East-Central Europe (2001 – 2002)
- #88 The third Louisville brewery wave, surveying the advent of Cumberland Brews, Browning’s Brewery in Louisville Slugger Field and BBC Beer Co. (2000 – 2003)
- #89 New Albanian Brewing Co. arrives, or how the interrupted paths of Tucker Brewing Co. and Silver Creek Brewing Corporation eventually merged, leading to NABC opening a brewery (1999 – 2003)
- #90 Frankfurt to Vienna: Beercycling 2003, a month on two wheels in Germany and Austria, with ample tankstelle along the way
More than anything, I’d like F & D to continue. As the world’s most inept handicapper, it would be an injustice if I attempted to guess the odds of this happening. I’m preparing for bad news so that I can be pleasantly surprised if it turns out well.
It’s too early to begin looking for another gig. If it comes time to look, I’m not sure I can improve on Food & Dining Magazine.
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* the exception was the owner’s punitively clouded headspace.
