About

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is a 4th generation New Yorker who moved to Minnesota to make a life as an artist and writer—and what a life it's been!

 

I started at City Pages in the alt-weekly 1990s, and became the self-appointed Joseph Mitchell of Minneapolis, telling the tales of libertarian gas station microphone free stylers and WW2 Aquatennial queens. (See the Essential Dear Dara for both of those.)  I worked for Condé Nast from the early-1990s, in the little remembered dot com boom for publications with names like Epicurious, Phys, and Swoon; from there I joined the greatest club in the world, the writers of Gourmet. I published my biggest Gourmet feature just before it shut down in 2009, and my wine book Drink This: Wine Made Simple in that same year. I started writing as a food critic in 1997 at City Pages, jumped in 2007 to the Magazine Minnesota Monthly, and I've been happily writing in and about the Twin Cities ever since 2012 for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. I've won six James Beard Awards for my writing, and been nominated 15 times. I've also won five CRMAs, the Pulitzers of city magazines. I did it all while raising two wonderful children, and hosting a syndicated CBS Radio show locally based at WCCO. When I'm not writing, I walk every day, usually beside one Minnesota lake or river or another, often with my tiny, sweet, snow-loving, rabbit-obsessed dog Clio. 

​