Joy used to live off of butter, meat, fried foods and pastries as a professional restaurant critic for Philadelphia magazine and Tasting Table, but after a few years was eventually driven into the arms of Prevention magazine, where she worked as a nutrition editor and ate mostly steamed quinoa and Swiss chard. Since then, she’s learned to balance her love of all things deep-fried and panko-crusted by writing and teaching about food and health, plant-based cooking and more as the editor of Edible Philly and contributor for food brands such as Allrecipes and more. She also develops recipes, which she learned to do by gleaning tips from every chef she’s interviewed and every cookbook she’s cracked open. 

Along the way, she was nominated for a James Beard Award for personal essay The Swedish Chef. Joy also authored two books, co-authored one cookbook and edited recipes for Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking. She was also anthologized in The Best Food Writing book series.