Remembering an Editor and a Mentor: TERESA POLITANO
On January 24, 2024, the world lost an amazing human with the passing of Teresa Ann Politano. who served as the editor of Edible Jersey from 2017 to 2020. In addition to Teresa’s many professional accolades—author, editor, college professor—she was a beloved wife, mother, daughter, and sister, as well as an incredible mentor and friend to many, including myself. I first met Teresa in the fall of 2017 at the suggestion of Jenn Hall, another Edible Jersey alumna. The three of us met at a teahouse in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, where I nervously pitched Teresa an idea I had for a beverage column titled “Slow Drinks.”
I envisioned the column as equal parts cocktails, history, botany, and preservation, all narrated in homage to the incredible and diverse foodways of the Garden State. I was a brand new bartender, working at The Farm and Fisherman in Cherry Hill at the time, and most certainly not a professional writer. Still, Teresa was able to see my vision through my naivete and greenlighted the column for the spring issue. It was a truly pivotal moment in my life. I spent the next three months writing a story that I thought readers would want to read. It was objective and educational, bordering on academic. I’ll never forget Teresa’s response.
“Danny, Let’s talk about this,” she said. “We need to have the reader care more about you and your drinks and I have some ideas to help make that happen.” Our subsequent conversation was the first of many where Teresa taught me the balance between writing in a manner that was simultaneously informative and deeply personal, a style she had perfected throughout her own writing career.
Over the next two years, we told the stories of New Jersey’s wild and cultivated edible treasures together in Edible Jersey, from NJ’s proudest ingredients (blueberries, peaches, and cranberries) to some of its least appreciated ones (pine trees, sassafras, pawpaws). Teresa worked tirelessly to help me develop my vision and voice for “Slow Drinks,” not just for the magazine but also as a book proposal to pitch to publishing companies. One of my proudest moments was telling her my wife Katie and I had landed a book deal—more than four years after we started working on it together.
When the pandemic hit, both Teresa’s and my time at Edible Jersey came to an end, but our relationship and mentorship endured. We shared details of our professional lives, whether it was about my work in the restaurant, the progress of my book, her Rutgers students, or how her book, Reflections on the Pandemic, was taking shape. We talked about our personal lives, how her kids were all grown up and she wryly laughed about how my wife and I had not one but two pandemic babies. And, as in any good friendship, we confided in each other during the hard times, including when my stepfather received his cancer diagnosis—and when she received hers.
The last time we spoke was in December 2023. My book had been published a few weeks earlier and, although it was just a month before she succumbed to her cancer, she asked if I had any book-related events coming up. Since then, I’ve thought a lot about if she wanted to attend one, to tell me the end was near, or both. I regrettably never got the chance to give her a personalized copy of the book; I honestly don’t know if she ever had the opportunity to really go through the final version, but I find solace in the fact that her legacy lives on in its pages.
When I read Slow Drinks, I can hear her words, edits, advice, and encouragement. More than anything, I can feel all the effort she put into it, receiving nothing in return but the prospect of seeing one of her writers succeed. As Teresa’s longtime friend and colleague Kelly-Jane Cotter wrote in tribute to her, “She cared about writing; she cared about writers.” I know that I’m not alone in saying that we, in turn, cared about Teresa and are all better writers because we knew her.
Teresa Ann Politano passed away in January at the age of 62, after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. Her latest book, Reflections on the Pandemic (Rutgers University Press), was released in January. Edible Jersey extends our deepest sympathy to her family, friends and the many writers she mentored.
