Hutton was previously the editor of Minnesota Monthly and Midwest Home magazines and City Pages food critic. She has written frequently about restaurants, travel, and design and enjoys profiling interesting people. A Minnesota native, Hutton returned home after stints in the Bay Area and New York City and has traveled the state extensively, from the Spring Grove Soda factory near the Iowa border to the Northwest Angle, which pokes into the Canadian one. She has a degree in product design from Stanford and co-edited an essay collection about life "before the mortgage" prior to settling in the Twin Cities.