Kat Odell: "I Do Not Sleep with People in the Restaurant Industry"

Considering the incessant jabs Brenda has made at me the entire season thus far, I don't think it unreasonable for me to ask you, dear viewers, to take what she says about me with a grain of salt. A rather large chunk of pink Himalayan rock salt. To outright address the issue at hand, I do not now, tomorrow, yesterday or four years ago sleep with people in the restaurant industry. Anyone that has met me in the context of work knows that I am outright friendly to everyone (gender notwithstanding), and that's because I treat people the way I  want to be treated. I think it's important to be well-mannered and friendly, and ultimately I try to befriend people because 1) I like meeting new people and 2) I hope to learn new restaurant information this way. Everything I do is to make Eater great. 

You don't really see this on TV, but my days are pretty boring, at least by television standards. I get up, start writing Eater, take a lunch meeting or run out to scout a new restaurant, return home to work, go to the gym (or hit up the Santa Monica stairs), then go to dinner. Yes, my job sounds fun, and it is, but it's still a job, and I never forget that. I feel fortunately to love my work as much as I do, and I would never ever do anything to put that in jeopardy. I value work over dating, which is why I am single at this very moment! Why do I dine out so frequently? Because that's how I get many of my scoops. Sitting at a bar, chatting with a chef or restaurateur, just socializing. I don't have a regular 9-5 job, and my work is probably hard to understand for some, but the best way to learn restaurant news is by being out and about, meeting new people, and forging relationships. 

The truth of the matter is I don't have much of a life outside of my job. Pretty much everything I do is work-related in some way (food and restaurants are my absolute passion and what I love) -- write and eat -- so it would be ludicrous for anyone to think that at some point in the 4+ years I have worked at Eater, that I haven't at some point met or liked someone in the restaurant industry. People date people in their line of work all the time. I am certainly not the first, and I believe this is something that many people can relate to. Nobody is getting preferential treatment on my site. Like I said, I love/value my job far too much to ever risk that. If people in L.A. really believed what Brenda has said about me, then I wouldn't have anyone reading my site. Instead, I've grown Eater from 300,000 to 2 million. My readership speaks for itself.