9 James Beard Award-Winning Stories, and Why They Won

by diannejacob on May 15, 2012

By now you’ve seen the announcements for the Oscars of food writing, the James Beard Awards for books, broadcast and journalism.

But have you read the pieces that won over the judges? I thought not.

I tracked down a handful of feature stories and explain why this is food writing at its finest. Here’s what it takes to win an award of this caliber, with links to writers so you can investigate who won as well:

1. Cooking, Recipes, or Instruction: Anna Thomas, Eating Well, for “The Soup for Life”

Here’s a sensuous look at how Thomas concocted recipes for green soups for her most recent cookbook, Love Soup. Her writing is full of action verbs (“a bitter wind was swatting down the last damp leaves”), evocative writing (“onions, slowly sizzling in the skillet, turned the color of [click to continue…]

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Want More Work? Get into Video, Advises Chow’s Jane Goldman

by diannejacob on May 8, 2012

Jane Goldman doesn’t mince words. When I asked Chow.com’s head eater whether food writers can make a living, she suggested finding another profession. Ouch!

At least she has a suggestion: Learn video.

Now the vice president and editor-in-chief of CBS Interactive’s Entertainment and Lifestyle division, Goldman was a writer and editor in the past, including for the Industry Standard, New York, Rolling Stone, and Wired. She has also been a screenwriter and producer.

Goldman founded Chow as a print magazine in 2004. CNET acquired it in 2006, along with Chowhound.com, and turned it into an online site. CBS Interactive Media acquired both in 2008. There are 3,000 to 5,000 recipes on the site.

I spoke with her about the opportunities for food writers at Chow.com and beyond:

Q. What are your responsibilities at Chow?

A. I’m the combination publisher and editor, responsible for the budget. Ad sales people do not report to me but I am obviously implicated in the bottom line. I run the operation, engineers, product people, designers, writers, editors, and recipe developers.

Q. What is Chow doing that’s different from other food websites?

A. Our attitude, the demographic and the reason we exist stay the same: to provide an informal, intelligent, irreverent voice in the world of food. It’s about beautiful food but it’s about having fun.

We’re moving very heavy into video series. We have one I love called [click to continue…]

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New FTC Rules on Writing Reviews, Affiliations, and Sponsored Posts

May 1, 2012

There’s nothing like poring over a heavily-footnoted article in the New York Bar Association newsletter. Several times. What does this have to do with food writing? Glad you asked. Food writer Rebecca Lang, whose husband is an attorney, sent me an article he gave her called, “The FTC’s Revised Endorsement Guides Impact How Companies Can Advertise Through [...]

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Tired of Recipes? 7 Other Subjects to Post Instead

April 24, 2012

Recipe posts are a ton of work. You’ve got to develop and test a recipe, photograph it, write it, upload and edit photos, then write the post. It takes up to 6 hours to complete a post, food bloggers tell me. Why not take a break from all the cooking and testing? The occasional non-recipe [...]

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Is Food Writing a Dismal Way to Make a Living?

April 17, 2012

Recently Amanda Hesser, co-founder of Food52 and a former New York Times food writer, said in Advice for Future Food Writers she could ”no longer responsibly recommend that you drop everything to try to become a food writer.” “Except for a very small group of people (some of whom are clinging to jobs at magazines that pay more [...]

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Q&A: Doc Willoughby on Perfecting Recipes in America’s Test Kitchen

April 10, 2012

Twenty years of perfecting recipes. That’s how long America’s Test Kitchen has cooked, baked and obsessed over the results. Based in Brookline, MA, it’s the test kitchen for a PBS television show of the same name, where the staffs of Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines work out their recipes. How does the staff create a recipe that [...]

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