Amy Kritzer is the founder of the Jewish cooking blog What Jew Wanna Eat, author of Sweet Noshings and President of ModernTribe, a contemporary online Jewish gifts store. She whips up classic Jewish recipes with a modern twist such as Mexican Potato Latkes or Nutella Rugelach, thanks to tips from her Bubbe. As a trained chef, Amy also teaches cooking classes and does cooking demos around the world.
Amy and her recipes have been featured on The Cooking Channel, Bites: The Today Show Blog, Rachael Ray, Bon Appetit, The Huffington Post, The Food Network, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Amy was a finalist for Daily Candy’s Start Small, Go Big Contest. What Jew Wanna Eat was named a Top 5 Jewish Food Blog by Relish Magazine and a chef to watch by Jewish Women Magazine. She also appeared on an episode of Guy’s Grocery Games in 2017. Her Instagram @WhatJewWannaEat has also been named a top account by numerous sources.
She has developed recipes for clients including: Imperial Sugar, Pereg Gourmet, The Food Network, Sabra, Tropicana, Temptee, Bob’s Redmill, Ghirardelli and others.
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Susan Kleiner: Hello and welcome to the Think Factory Podcast where we speak with leading industry professionals and hear more about their experiences, insights and strategies. All of that helps empower our listeners and elevates their own businesses, accelerates their career growth and shows them how to be more impactful business leaders. My name is Susan Kleiner. I’m a partner with Outside General Counsel Solutions and I’m the host of today’s episode.
I am so happy to have here with me today Amy Kritzer Becker. She’s the founder of the Jewish cooking blog What Jew Wanna Eat?, author of Sweet Noshings and President of Modern Tribe, a contemporary online Jewish gift store.
Amy Kritzer Becker: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Susan Kleiner: So I know that you’ve had kind of an interesting path to being a business owner. I’d love to hear some more about Modern Tribe and how that came about.
Amy Kritzer Becker: Yeah, I guess, I mean, if you had asked me growing up, if I thought I’d own a Jewish business, I probably would have laughed at you! I grew up very culturally Jewish, but definitely didn’t think of it as large a part of my life as it now is—and my business actually started with my blog.
So I have a food blog, What Do You Wanna Eat? was first. And then my brother and I bought Modern Tribe from another owner about five or six years after I started my blog. But even with the blog, I started it just as a hobby. People, this was 2010, people weren’t really making careers out of blogging. I don’t think most people were making money. So it was a creative outlet for me to do when I was at my corporate job and I was a little bored.
I had moved from New York City, a very creative job, to Austin, Texas, a less creative job. And I found I needed a creative outlet. And starting in college, when I went to college, far from my family, I started hosting Jewish holidays and it became more important to me, being Jewish mostly through food, which is a big part of being Jewish.
So I said, okay, this is fun. I can share my recipes that I grew up with with a new audience and connect to some people and gives me something to do when I’m bored at work. So that’s kind of how it started. So I said, okay, this is fun. I can share my recipes that I grew up with with a new audience and connect to some people and gives me something to do when I’m bored at work.
So that’s kind of how it started. At the time they [Daily Candy] were like—you know, the Oprah. They told you to buy something and you bought it. So I was one of the finalists there. I got a lot of press from that. And my blog just continued to grow and new opportunities came my way.
And the same time I was a private chef and teaching cooking classes, also selling Jell-O shots at a bar. I was doing, I was wearing many hats. And then the opportunity to buy Modern Tribe came along. Even at the time, I wasn’t trying to be an influencer. So this seemed like a little more of a long-term business plan for me to have this Judaica store with these cool products that go along with my recipes that are kind of modern and fun too.
Susan Kleiner: So you were an early adopter of sorts—you were way ahead of the game! And who would have guessed, you know, when you graduated from Emory, that you would be running a business with your brother and have enjoyed such great success.
Amy Kritzer Becker: Well, that’s a cool thing too. It’s like when I was in college, I don’t think blogs existed yet, or at least Facebook didn’t exist when I was in college. So I really couldn’t have even dreamed of this job because it didn’t exist yet, which I think is kind of something interesting to think about today.
I’ve tried to like mentor some students and they’re so stressed about their future. And I’m like, your job might not even exist yet, you know, I don’t know. Or AI is just going to do your job and you won’t have a job anyway, but I don’t tell them that. [laughter]
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