Last week we expressed some skepticism about New York Times food editor Amanda Hesser's career change. In retrospect, we overstepped the mark in insinuating that Hesser had somehow been forced to take a buyout, and we should have called to get her side of the story. We acknowledge the error and turn the floor over to Hesser, who wrote in to let us know how her new digital company is connected to her career as a food writer and editor:

For the record, I was neither fired nor quietly shown the door. I applied for the buyout — which was offered to every Times employee in the newsroom — after deciding that I wanted to do something different from editing the food section of the magazine. However, I'm going to continue writing my column Recipe Redux for the Times Magazine, I have a book ("Eat, Memory") that I edited for the Times coming out this fall, and I'll be completing a cookbook (4 years in the works) for the company.

In the 11 years that I've been at the Times, the company has been incredibly supportive of my work, and I have really loved working there. As food editor of the Times Magazine, I get to guide the coverage, work with great writers, photographers and designers, and occasionally write myself. So does that mean that I should stay there until I'm 70? Does that mean that I should have no other interests or skills?

I wanted to take a risk, and I believe that I have a very good idea. You expressed skepticism about the digital life business that I'm starting, saying it's unrelated to any of my skills or interests. Since you didn't connect the dots, let me do it for you. This may come as a surprise to you but I studied economics and finance before I began my studies of cooking. That's the business part.

I have written and edited four (the 3rd will be out this fall, the 4th is in process) books that, while focused on food, are also about history and memory. That's the life part.

I, like you, use a computer every day. That's the digital part.

As you can see, a business involving people's digital lives isn't much of a stretch. This company, which I'm starting with two partners, is called Seawinkle. We're going to help people deal with the overwhelming amount of digital information they create. (If you want to be reassured that it's not a sudden shift in professional strategy, and that I have done my homework on the industry, here's how long I've owned the domain name Seawinkle: since 2004.)

We stand corrected.

Earlier: Amanda Hesser Blows Her Own Internet Bubble

Amanda Hesser is putting the best face on her buyout from the New York Times, spinning the event, 1998-style, as a bold new leap into the electronic frontier, in the form of a digital-life aggregator. (A digital-life aggregator is an application that gathers all the content you produce — photos, blog posts, YouTube videos, etc. — and puts it all on one Web page.) The only problems are that (a) her background and reputation is based entirely on food and cookery, and this project is, by her own admission, unrelated to either; and that (b) there are already a number of digital-life aggregators out there, and they’re not exactly taking America by storm. We would still feel bad for Amanda Hesser even if she were going to move to a beach house on Martinique — no one likes to lose a job at the Times — but this new-media venture has a grimness to it we wouldn’t wish on Judith Miller.

Update: Amanda Hesser responds, and we acknowledge an error.

Hesser on Leaving NYT: 'The Economy Is Tanking — It's the Perfect Time to Start a Company' [Mediabistro]

Related: Amanda Hesser Out at the 'Times'

Word came down yesterday that New York Times Magazine food editor Amanda Hesser accepted a buyout from the Times. Why now? There was a silly scandal a couple of years ago in which she was criticized for writing a fill-in review for Spice Market after Jean-Georges Vongerichten had blurbed her book. Even as recently as last week, an article about restaurant criticism in a Connecticut newspaper included an “Amanda Hesser Rule”: “the critic shall not review any restaurant owned or operated by a chef who has previously given her a quote for her book jacket.”

If you get into your Sunday groove by reading Amanda Hesser’s bouncy food coverage in the Times Magazine, you may have a cold winter ahead of you: Mrs. Latte has gone on a long leave to work on a book and is being replaced in the interim by Jill Santopietro, a lesser being in the Times firmament but one with much experience doing short recipe and travel pieces and the occasional feature. Will those obsolescent recipes continue? Will there be more pieces à la T Style’s "Mantry" series? We can only hope. Hesser is scheduled to return to the Times in March.