Betty Hallock returns to the Los Angeles Times as deputy Food editor

The following announcement was sent on behalf of Food Editor Daniel Hernandez:

I am thrilled to announce that Betty Hallock has joined our team as deputy Food editor. With her ideal balance of experience, innovation and institutional knowledge, we are absolutely delighted she’s chosen The Times at a crucial moment as we expand our Food coverage.

Hallock, an experienced editor, reporter, cookbook author and project leader, will be a familiar name to some of our readers and colleagues in the newsroom. She is returning to a role she held between 2004 and 2013, but this is no repeat run. Between stints with us, Hallock has published four cookbooks, led food coverage at Los Angeles magazine and launched food content at the digital start-up Roundglass.

Hallock also has serious news chops, with experience on desks at the Wall Street Journal and in Business here at The Times. As a writer, she’s an accomplished voice, with bylines in the New York Times (“Can scent be democratized?”), and accolades such as inclusion in the New Yorker’s Best Cookbooks of 2019 for “Amá: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” the title she co-wrote with L.A. chef Josef Centeno.

Hallock is also featured in a recent episode of Season 2 of “The Bucket List” with columnist Jenn Harris, in which she shares her mother’s recipe for gyoza, alongside Hallock’s sister, Karen. You can watch the episode here. (There’s a funny moment when the daughters ponder the possibility that their dumplings might look better than their mother’s.)

Hallock was born in Aomori, Japan, and moved to the Southwest U.S. when she was 3. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from UCLA and a master’s degree in journalism from New York University. Hallock is known in Los Angeles as a sensitive and exacting editor. But if there’s one piece you read by her today, I suggest this evocative essay and recipe, “How do you say ‘gentle’ in Japanese?”

Our ambitions with Hallock on board will be set high: on daily, enterprise, guides, recipes and tentpole projects. We aim ultimately to win back all food lovers in the state to our storied brand, and she has already dived in, rising to the occasion since her start Sept. 19. She’ll be part of our leadership team, joining me, Food General Manager Laurie Ochoa and Deputy Managing Editor Amy King in bringing our coverage to the next level.