Phoenix New Times' Chris Malloy Wins a Best Food Feature in SFJ Journalism Competition

Twila Cassadore leads gloscho hunts on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. Zee Peralta

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Phoenix New Times food critic and contributor Chris Malloy scored a first place win in the food feature category from the annual Society for Features Journalism competition. Winners were announced on July 9.

Malloy earned a 2020 Excellence in Features award for his 2019 longform and cover story, “Lightning in the Hand: An Apache Leader Hunts for the Past to Nourish the Future.”

A winning food feature needed to be a single story focusing on food, without review or commentary. That could include a trend story, personality profile, narrative piece, a how-to, or other kind of feature with food as a heavy topic.

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Gloscho and wild onion cooking after a hunt in 2019.

Chris Malloy

Malloy's story focuses on Twila Cassadore, a woman who works tirelessly to restore Western Apache foods on the cusp of disappearing. Cassadore is a teacher and survivor who leads hunts for the gloscho, a type of desert woodrat, on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation.

“Chris Malloy’s writing is compelling and storytelling at its best,” reads the SFJ judge’s comments, “From a wonderful lede to vivid descriptions of what it takes to hunt and kill woodrats to skillfully capturing the voice of life on an Indian reservation.”

Cassadore is also being spotlighted on Padma Lakshmi's new Hulu docuseries, Taste the Nation.

In 2019, Malloy was awarded second place in the same category for the story, “A Journey to the Heart of New Arizonan Cuisine.”

For more information, see the Society for Features Journalism website.