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 caramel toffee”), and passionate storytelling about how her obsession drove her to create earthy, elegant soups.

I still have my beloved 1972 copy of The Vegetarian Epicure, which Thomas wrote while a film student at UCLA.

2. Environment, Food Politics, and Policy. Ben Paynter, Fast Company, for “The Sweet Science”

What’s a computer industry magazine doing writing about food and food politics? It’s really a tale of how agriculture giant Cargill triumphed in bringing a new sweetener, Truvia, to market. Paynter, a first-rate reporter, humanizes the story by focusing on a single employee’s successes.

3. Food Culture and Travel, Fuchsia Dunlop, The Financial Times, “Global Menu: Kicking Up a Stink”

Dunlop expertly leads readers into a suspenseful tale of serving stinky cheeses to to the Chinese. You’re halfway through the story, wondering, “Will they like it?” before you find out the answer. And you’re as fascinated as she is by the question.

4. Group Food Blog, The Salt: NPR’s Food Blog

Quirky, intelligent, and newsy, this group blog focuses on the fascinating  issues like whether rice and beans really are good for you; and how chefs add butter to make wild food taste great. Read bios of the main contributors on NPR’s right column.

5. Humor, Brett Martin, GQ, “The Hangover Part III”

I don’t know about you, but I am so over reading about drunken Tokyo escapades with chef David Chang. I mean, the whole idea of answering a tweet asking if a magazine could sponsor a drunk weekend of amazing meals is crazy…unless you’re a testosterone-fueled magazine like GQ. A fun read, nevertheless.

6. Individual Food Blog, Poor Man’s Feast, Elissa Altman, Poormansfeast.com, “Craving the Food of Depravity”

As we know, anyone can start a food blog. But Elissa Altman is not “anyone.” She’s a fascinating storyteller, trained chef and published author. This post was a seemingly ordinary tale of gorging on pimento cheese and eating smoked oysters, but her thoughtfulness and intimacy about her life come through with a total lack of pretension. Here’s Altman’s post on winning the Beard award.

7. Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award, Alan Richman, GQ, “The Very Tasty Liberation of Paris,” “I ♥ San Francisco,” “Diner for Schmucks”

It wouldn’t be the Beard Awards without Alan Richman. He almost always wins. You can see why in these three stories. You’ll be shocked by the bravado he displays in the last one.

Richman writes with confidence and intelligence. He’s funny, brutally honesty, and suspenseful. He’s famous for such lines as, “The cooking here has two styles: a little too much or a lot too much.”

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You might also like:

• Alan Richman, the “Most Decorated Food Writer in America”
• Who Qualifies as a Beard Finalist, and What They Wrote

(Disclosures: I was a judge for the Beard awards this year, but in books, not journalism. This post contains affiliate links, from which I make a few cents if you buy something.)

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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 “You’re doing it all wrong.” It’s easy to watch, intelligent, tightly edited, and doesn’t waste your time.

Chowhound is also an incredible resource for cooking and restaurants. The home cooking board is one of the most popular boards on the site. Ask a question and sometimes you get an answer in seconds from some really experienced cooks.

Q. On your site it says most recipes are developed in house or by members. You don’t hire people to write recipes?

A. Rarely. We asked Leah Koenig to do some Passover recipes. Sometimes if they’re specialized, we hire someone. But we have three people in test kitchen to do the recipes.

Q. You’re heavily into video and you don’t pay for recipes. What I’m getting from you is that food writers need to evolve, if this is the future.

A. Yes. People think they can have a meal and write about it, but that is not valuable to anybody except your immediate family. The principles of journalism need to apply. You need to add something: your own point of view, your personality, some research.

Q. So food writers need to become videographers?

A. I think that would help. Right now it’s a more vibrant medium. It’s still hard to read online. The web is turning into a directory and people are using it as an in-house library or as entertainment.

Video is about paying attention and not letting stuff slip. You’re looking to tell a story in the most engaging way: Move stuff around, cut stuff out, add graphics and titles and information and make it dense and interesting.

The tools for video are amazing. It’s easy, with simple software like iMovie, to make a good video.

Q. Hmm. How can you make this sound less scary for a word-based person like me?

A. Well I can’t. There’s always going to be a market for stories. The sources of written information are going to become far far fewer. Also words can be reproduced.

Q. Do you still hire freelancers for general stories?

A. We started cutting down our freelance contributions about three years ago. Our staff writes and we have a chef who writes because he has a very particular point of view.

Q. So people should not be pitching you for stories?

A. That’s correct, unless you have a video idea.

Q. That’s really depressing.

A. I know. I love the stories. But the appetite for written stories is just not as great as for video. I’m not saying food writing cannot be a profession. I’m just saying that’s how it works at Chow.

Q. How does a freelance food writer make a living then?

A. Probably find another occupation.

Q. Like become a videographer?

A. Yeah, I think that’s really right, or by writing treatments for video.

Q. Can you say more about that?

A. At Chow we’re looking for video series, concepts that are web series. Those need to be written and produced. The job of a producer is very similar to being an editor, and the job of a writer is similar. The producer is making the phone calls, finding people for the job. Someone once told me it’s like throwing a party: Get all the right people together and hope for the best, come back when it’s getting out of control.

Script writers write dialog. Otherwise it’s more like screen writing in that you come up with scenes and what’s going to happen, not necessarily how it’s said. What’s said is secondary to what’s going to happen.

What works online is repetition and a series. There’s very little context on the web, where people don’t necessarily know where they are. A one-off video on YouTube doesn’t have a context, but a series does. Readers see the sequence, they can tell what’s happening.

Q. Can we talk about food bloggers for a minute? Do you read any food blogs?

A. Yeah I do. Not regularly, but in binges. I go to a blog and I read a lot of it at a time. I read 101 Cookbooks, and I read the blogs of a few people because I’ve met them and know them personally.

Q. Should food bloggers continue to give away recipes?

A. They don’t have any choice, do they?

Q. How can food bloggers make money? So many want to know.

A. It’s a longshot, to make a living. It’s like making music and putting out a record. You throw it out there and hope something happens. Obviously there are people who are very good at developing an audience, creating a brand, marketing a brand, and getting press.

Q. Do you have final career advice for food writers?

A. Don’t be generic. When I first started writing I thought I had to sound like everybody else, like a magazine article. What I found was the more I let my own personality come through the more successful I was.

That doesn’t mean indulgence. It doesn’t mean just letting it flow onto the screen. It means to be as much yourself – your highly polished best of self.

Be diligent, persistent and write regularly. Don’t limit yourself to the written word. Don’t do the thing that anybody could have done. Add that bit of effort to turn something into something special.

Writers are supposed to do what people don’t have the guts or the energy to do. Find out why or how, not just what.

I get so pissed off when people are lazy.

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For a related story, see:

Chef John Strikes Gold with Allrecipes Acquisition

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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 Social Media.” It outlines endorsement guidelines for bloggers from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

I’m so glad she did, because I had not seen this interpretation on accepting goods, money, or affiliations (where you get a percentage of sales) in exchange for a post, mention or a link. It’s good timing for food bloggers who want to “monetize” their blogs, a growing concern according to a recent Foodista survey.

I wrote my original post on disclosure in 2009, but back then the rules were rather vague. Now lawyer Laura Sack has written about the updated FTC guidelines, which make sense as best practices. So if you’re a blogger who writes reviews, participates in an affiliate program, or gets paid to mention a product, here’s what it says:

1. The FTC can fine both the blogger and the company for not disclosing an arrangement where the company compensates the blogger for a review, positive mention, or sponsored post. Wouldn’t that be a bummer, to not mention your arrangement in the post and then find it costs you a new client? So not worth it.

First, let’s define an “arrangement.” According to the FTC, compensation happens when you:

• Receive a free product and review it
• Link to the product’s website and receive a commission (called an affiliate program)
• Receive money, product or services for posting about a product
• Review a product or service that comes from an advertiser on your site.

The FTC does not require you to disclose the relationship if you:

• Use a coupon for a more expensive brand of a company’s product than what you would normally buy, and blog about the product
• Review products from a swag bag at a conference.

2. The definition of “disclosure” is more specific. It’s not enough to make a general disclosure on your About page anymore. The discloser must be contained in the post itself. “So long as the disclosure clearly and conspicuously conveys to the reader the relationship between the blogger and the advertiser, the disclosure will be adequate,” states the article. That means you can write something as simple as, “Company ABC gave me this product to review” and you’re done.

And, it’s not enough to disclose the relationship just on your blog post. If you tweet about your post, or you tweet about a product for which you have been compensated, Sack suggests you add #paid ad, #paid or #ad at the end. I can’t say as I’ve seen any of those monikers yet, including during presentations at IACP from marketers who want to work with food bloggers. I have seen #spon, though.

This disclosure rule affects me as well. From now on, whenever I post about a book and include a link to Amazon, I have to disclose the relationship right there. On one hand, I think, “Doesn’t everyone know how this works?” and “Who cares if I make 26 cents if someone buys a copy?” But on the other hand, it’s best to just be transparent about it.

3. Even if you satisfy the requirements of numbers 1 and 2, you and the company could still be fined if your post contains “misleading or unsubstantiated representations.” This seems like common sense, but apparently it isn’t. Here are the main points:

• Don’t write about a product if you haven’t tried it
• If you were paid to try it and you thought it was terrible, you can’t say it was great
• You can’t make claims about a product (“It will cure cancer!”) that cannot be substantiated.

To protect yourself, work with companies that know the rules and help you follow them. Companies should require you to sign a contract that includes suggested language about disclosure. These companies should also check your blog and tweets to see if you are following the FTC guidelines. Doing so is in their best interests as well as yours.

If you’re wondering whether the FTC takes action on this issue, the answer is yes. The article cites a settlement of $250,000 by Legacy Learning, which created an affiliate program endorsed by bloggers who did not disclose that they were compensated. Anne Taylor also took some heat for issuing gift cards to bloggers and not requiring them to disclose the gifts. On the other hand, the FTC is not monitoring blogs and has no plans to do so. It also has no direct authority to fine. But if possible violations come to their attention, they will investigate. It’s best to just do the right thing to begin with.

For more on this subject, read:

• Guidelines Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising 
• The FTC’s Revised Endorsement Guides: What People are Asking

What do you think of these new rules? From my standpoint, it might feel uncomfortable, but it’s important to be transparent to readers. If you’re not being clear with them, you’re creating an even bigger problem.

(As long as we’re on the subject…Disclosure: Rebecca Lang once hired me to coach her on a book proposal.)

(Photo courtesy of Digalert.)

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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 post won’t hurt, and doing so will let you expand the subjects you cover in a new way.

Typically, narrative posts mean advice and recommendations. Here’s how some food bloggers do it:

1. Start a series. Choosing Raw, for example, has an inspirational Green Recovery Series about people who moved to a raw diet. Aida Mollenkamp has several regular columns, including this one called the Monthly Mood Board.

2. Write about an experience. Gluten-Free Girl & the Chef wrote about what kind of gluten-free food she could safely eat in airports and on flights. No recipe needed, and she connected with readers who often face the same problem.

3. Give away a cookbook. Support a friend who’s recently published a cookbook, purchase a cookbook and give it away, or say yes to an email query and have a publisher send you a cookbook. Here’s a giveaway post with gorgeous photography by Averie Cooks.

4. Write about kitchen products you adore. Kitchen Corners wrote this post about products she thought would tickle her readers. Here’s another example, a post just called Recent Acquisitions from Lottie + Doof.

5. Write a round-up with a theme and link to past recipes. It’s a sneaky and perfectly legitimate way to take a break. Pinch My Salt offers photos that link to past posts inspired by Valentine’s Day, then caps them off with links to other blogger recipes.

6. Conduct an interview. Cakespy found a blog that teaches how to make cookies that look like flowers, so she interviewed the blogger about her technique.

7. Give advice. Canal House writes about how to plan for a picnic. Recipe Girl gives readers a money-saving tip on sponges.

What about you? Have you found more ways to write food-related posts with no recipes? I’d love to know.

(Photo courtesy of David Castillo Dominici, Freedigitalphotos.net)

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Your career ladder. Do you know what's on the other side?

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 than the magazines’ business models can actually afford), it’s nearly impossible to make a living as a food writer, and I think it’s only going to get worse,” Hesser concludes.

To which I would say, for most of us, it has been nearly impossible to make a decent living as a food writer for several decades. But here’s the thing: we’re still at it, enjoying ourselves.

And that’s our dirty little secret. Food writing is fun, no matter how much or whether we’re paid.

Hesser’s article offers lots of good numbers on what food writers make. Now, here are my three tiers of how to categorize ourselves. Recognize yourself in any of these?

Tier 1. Employees at national publications and big web names (5 percent)

These food writers and editors make a high five-to-six-figure living at a few big newspapers and national magazines, with expense accounts and excellent employee benefits. This category also includes a handful of self-employed web publishers, bloggers, and cookbook authors who pump out books annually and who probably consult on the side.

Hesser was at the top end of this first category at the New York Times as an editor and food writer. She assumed that if she told people how she moved up the ladder, that they could do it too. I don’t agree. Those people also need fierce ambition, obsessive work habits, and connections. Oh, and they need talent. Loads of it.

In the second category are bloggers and website publishers who rake in big bucks through advertising. One of their jobs is food writing, but it’s not how they would describe themselves. They’re publishers in charge of their online businesses and brand, like Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes and Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks. These publishers excel at branding, technology, and networking.Oh, and they have talent. Loads of it.

Tier 2: Cookbook authors, freelancers and bloggers making less than they deserve (30 percent)

These are mostly full-time self-employed folks who may have been in the game for decades. They work hard at their profession and are respected, but they earn a teacher’s salary of $30,000 to $60,000 in a rare good year. Most of them take side jobs. They cater, cook in restaurants, teach classes, and consult. They enjoy their work.

The problem isn’t that these writers could make more money if they tried harder. It’s that the field just doesn’t pay enough. Hesser is right that their income probably hasn’t changed for years. For freelancers, pay has actually shrunk. They’re writing smaller stories for less money. And cookbooks have rarely been a good way to earn money.

Tier 3. Hobbyists and part-timers (65 percent)

Here’s where most food writers congregate. They write for fun and sometimes for pay, but it doesn’t add up to much. That’s okay — they’re not trying to make a living at food writing. They have day jobs, spouses, savings, part-time jobs, or inheritances.

Some decide to get more serious about money but will find it tough to move up a tier. If they’re bloggers, they might get book deals or enough income from ads to pay their monthly server expenses.

As for me, I’m in Tier 2 and I’m happy with what I’m doing. Sure, I’d like to make more, but that’s my trade-off. So to the question of whether food writing is a dismal way to make a living, I say yes, but it’s not the right question. A good income is not what drives most people to go into food writing in the first place.

My question is directed to people in Tiers 2 and 3, the majority. Should we demand to be paid well AND enjoy ourselves, or is that too much to ask? What will it take?

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The great thing about Hesser’s post is that it’s started a conversation. For more perspectives, see

• What Amanda Hesser Got Wrong (John Birdsall’s essay on Chow)
• Trish Deseine’s Advice to Future Cookbook Authors
• 5 Things That Dreaming of Being a Food Writer Got Me

And you might want to jump in on Jonell Galloway’s Twitter chat on food writing on Friday, April 20 at 2 p.m. EST/ 8 p.m. Paris time. The hash tag is #futurefoodwriting. I’ll see you there.

(Photo by Nattavut/FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

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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 works every time? I asked John “Doc” Willoughby, the company’s executive editor for magazines. The Harvard grad began his career at Cook’s Illustrated when Chris Kimball founded the magazine in 1993. In 2001, he left to become executive editor at Gourmet magazine, then returned to America’s Test Kitchen in 2010. Willoughby, who writes cookbooks with co-author Chris Schlesinger, a chef, has written nine, including the award-winning The Thrill of the Grill.

Lori Galvin, executive editor of America’s Test Kitchen and a reader of this blog, sent me the company’s latest cookbook,  Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook: 2,000 Recipes of 20 Years of America’s Most Trusted Food Magazine, and suggested I talk with Willoughby about the company’s process of developing and testing recipes:

Q. What do you do as executive editor of America’s Test Kitchen?

A. I’m in charge of the two magazines plus 24 special issues for newsstands. I follow along the process for each magazine, starting with ideas like, “Do readers want another roast beef recipe? If so, which kind?” Then we survey readers before doing an article.

Q. How much do you rely on readers for your content?

A. Once we decide what we want to do, we come up with a recipe and send it to readers to test. Eighty percent of those who make it have to want to make it again. Sometimes we end up never publishing the recipe because it’s too complicated or some other reason. Then we do a post publication survey where readers tell us which recipes they like the best and why.

Q. Does the test kitchen staff start with a pre-existing recipe? 

A. We use a spectrum of sources. We try to find the early version of a traditional recipe, and we look in major and specialty cookbooks. We look for different approaches. The same approach to apple pie is not helpful.

Q. Then what happens?

A. The standard way to test is to take as many as five different approaches. We make those recipes and the test kitchen staff tastes and rates them, and then gives feedback for each. The cook discusses what she learned from that process and which approaches she liked. She might decide to put three approaches together in one recipe. Then she follows whatever tangents come up. The reason it takes so long is that you have to test one variable at a time.

Q. What are these variables? I read that the average America’s Test Kitchen recipe is prepared an average of 65 times, over a period of six weeks. 

A. For a gingerbread cake, you’ll test it at a range of different oven temperatures, with the rack at different levels. The amount of leavener might vary, and then there’s the liquid you might use – water, milk, orange juice, and different kinds of beers. Someone will ask if lager is better so you have to try different beers.

For roast beef, if the goal is super-evenly cooked juicy meat, it’s a different kind of testing. You get into a lot of science, like if you cook it to X degrees and let it sit, then put it back in the oven. Once you get started down that road, there might be 40 tests to do to get those variables right.

One of my favorite discoveries is where we microwave the bananas for the banana bread recipe. It’s a little absurd but it works. The problem is that you want the banana flavor without the banana mushiness. When a discovery like that happens, it’s exciting.

Q. Let’s say you find a technique from someone else and you use it. Do you credit that person’s recipe?

A. You try to. I was making dulce de lece, and I noticed that when people use baking soda, it worked better. It helped the browning and it had a more butterscotch-y flavor. I found a lot of recipes that used the baking soda, but if I had found that only Rick Bayless used it, then I would say so. I saw that he used cinnamon, which I hadn’t seen before, so if I use it I will credit him.

In the gingerbread recipe, the tester used a technique from a colonial recipe, so she said so. She had visited Plimouth Plantation. That also made it a better story.

Q. How did the gingerbread work out?

A. I thought the development process was crazy, just insane. But sometimes the center of the cake sank. The tester was not satisfied and testing went on for weeks. Had it been up to me, at week three, I might have said, “That’s good enough.” But the test cooks get obsessive, which is a good thing.

I made the gingerbread this weekend, for a dinner party. When I poured the batter into the pan I thought it wouldn’t work. The batter was like water. But the tester had solved the problem. (DJ: Here’s why, according to the headnote: “Incorporating the baking soda with the wet ingredients instead of the other dry ones helped to neutralize those acidic ingredients before they get incorporated into the batter and allow the baking powder to do a better job.”)

Q. I have more questions about the testing. You said the editors might taste five versions of a dish and decide what they want. Why have a goal versus the serendipity of creating a great new dish?

A. For the cook, if you leave it wide open, they could do their favorite chocolate chip cookie, and that would be it. But it helps to have a more defined goal. We say we want this kind of cookie, so go make it. It’s a group process so we have to agree at the beginning.

Q. That wasn’t how you did it at Gourmet.

A. A lot of Gourmet was done in menus, where you would have an individual cook who would create all the recipes. There was a lot of tasting as well, but it was more about “Is it good?”

Q. How much of this rigorous process is applicable to people who come up with their own recipes?

A. We have 42 cooks and we can do this. But some of it is applicable. If you’re not satisfied with your dish, the process of looking at all the recipes you can find and asking how do they do it differently and what you could do differently will take care of it.

I did an eggplant recipe for the New York Times and I made it 10 times because I couldn’t get it right. I thought three tests were enough but they weren’t. If you decide “I like this” after two tests, you don’t need to go any further. I hate salting and draining eggplant, and I kept thinking I could get away from it, but I was wrong.

I’d say that if you think of something and it seems silly, try it anyway, like microwaving bananas.

Q. How does this rigorous process of developing and testing influence you as a cookbook author?

A. I write recipes with chef Chris Schlesinger, and most of the recipes come from him. So if I make lamb kebab with Middle Eastern flavors and we both really like it, that’s that. We use recipe testers. We’re just starting a cookbook now, on grilling.

Q. It seems that a lot of your magazine recipes are about teaching technique to readers. There are sidebars that say things like “To keep baked chicken breasts juicy, poke the meat with a fork and salt each piece.” Is your job to help readers understand why a certain step or ingredient is important? 

A. Yes. One reason is global and one is more practical. I think people can learn how to make a recipe work better. Two, if you don’t explain why, people won’t do it. Many people don’t actually follow a recipe.

Q. Doesn’t it make the recipe longer, to explain why?

A. Hopefully people read the stories. We put the critical information in the headnotes. We also use a sidebar to explain why the science works and why you should do it.

Q. Cook’s Illustrated puts its recipes behind a pay wall, for $34.95 per year. Why did you decide not to give away recipes, like other magazines do?

A. Because it’s a different business model than other magazines. Traditionally, magazines sell advertising space on their websites. We don’t have advertisers, and the only thing we can make money on is our product, and we can’t give it away. We do have a free website, but it’s not a recipe repository.

Q. How many paid subscriptions do you have?

A. The three company sites have a combined paid circulation of 450,000.

Q. What do you think about food bloggers who give away their recipes for free?

A. Well, they’re not going to make a lot of money! Blogs have their plusses and minuses. You can put work up without a company behind you, put up your own stuff. But not that many people have made money.

 Q. Do you read any food blogs?

A. I read Smitten Kitchen, but I don’t read a whole lot regularly. I’ve found that if you follow people on Twitter, other people point out interesting things and then I go read them.

Q. Do you think there’s such a thing as an original recipe?

A. I do. I don’t think there are a million of them. But some people can come up with a combination of flavor and ingredients that no one has seen before, if you search for it and you don’t find it.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten thinks about food in a different way. Maybe the recipes have been made before at some time in history, but it’s the first time you’ve seen it, and it’s not from a culinary tradition but out of his head. Grant Achatz probably has tons of original recipes.

Q. Is it chefs, then, who are more likely to come up with something new?

A. No, cookbook authors can do the same thing. But they’re probably going to get less attention.

Q. Does Cook’s Illustrated go after people who use the recipes as their own?

A. We have gone after people who use 15 or 20 of our recipes on their websites, because then they’re starting to take something we can no longer sell because they are available for free.

Q. What is your advice for someone who wants to be paid to develop recipes?

A. Contact cookbook editors to be recipe testers. My guess is it’s easier to break into.

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Four days of networking, learning and fun in New York at hotels, offices and cooking schools. (Photo by Damian Brandon)

I’m back from a packed schedule of classes, meetings, cooking demos, expos and parties at the International Association of Culinary Professionals annual conference, held in New York.

I taught at a class beforehand, zoomed around the city, saw friends and colleagues, met new people, learned about our industry, ate too much, and laughed with my roomies. Here are my seven takeaways:

1. Yes, you can make money as a food blogger. While the panelists refused to say how much, public relations people and marketing folks said they hire food bloggers and cookbook writers as brand ambassadors, recipe developers, event planners — and to write sponsored posts, hold focus groups, and star in videos.

2. It helps to have a plan. You know how writers are. We aren’t always good at this stuff. Attendees raved about Ari Weinzwig‘s session on visioning. Figure out where you want to be in 10 years, write it down, and start behaving like it’s going to happen, he said.

Duck wings at the awards night after-party.

3. Getting a story published in Saveur is hard — and could be painful. During a tour of the magazine’s offices, Food Editor Todd Coleman revealed that the staff writes 70 percent of each issue and plans stories for a year, which constantly shift. If your piece is accepted, it might not run for a few years, and then the editors might tweak it more before paying upon publication.

4. Radio and television appearances drive book sales. According to Kirsty Melville, president and publisher of Andrews McMeel Publishing, broadcast media trumps retail promotion and social media for book sales. If you’re working on your book proposal or your book’s coming out soon, review your plan for these two mediums.

5. The tide might finally be turning to metrics in recipes. That’s the word from Tina Ujlaki, food editor of Food & Wine.

Ruth Reichl and me at Katz's deli on the Lower East Side. (Photo by Akasha Richmond)

6. Ruth Reichl rocks in real life too. I took a tour hosted by Reichl mostly because I wanted to get closer to a writer and editor whose work I’ve admired for years. When we visited a Lower East Side deli, Russ & Daughters, she spoke about going there as a little girl, and about her relatives leaving Germany who sold their gold fillings to meet ends meet during WWII. She was approachable and let us all take photos with her.

7. Networking is still king. Yes, we’re all virtual now, but meeting in person is still a pleasure and can lead to all kinds of surprises. Several food writers told me they were meeting with magazine editors, marketers at companies, and book publishers. Plus there’s the serendipity of finding someone famous in the hallway or sitting next to someone who might want to hire you, has a similar passion, or becomes a new friend.

There are several levels of membership at IACP, so see if any are right for you. Next year the conference is in San Francisco — that’s my backyard. Each year IACP features lots of classes for food writers, whether on recipe writing, photography, blogging, social media, freelance writing, cookbook trends, or cooking classes.

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You might also like:

• 5 Ways to Grow Your Writing Career (or, My IACP Conference Takeaway) 
• On Being a Food Writer in 2012 (or, What the IACP Conference in NYC Taught Me)

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Looking for a little inspiration? TED conferences (Technology, Entertainment, Design) cost $7500 per year to attend, but dozens of its speakers appear online on videos. Many are short enough that you can watch a few at a time.

Here are three picks for food writers based on storytelling, inspiration, and passion:

1. Filmmaker Andrew Stanton: “The clues to a great story.” Yes, the presentation is about animation (Stanton works for Pixar and includes some film clips), but his advice is spot-on for any writer. Plus, he opens with a hilarious joke to illustrate why writers should know what happens at the end.

I also loved his idea that it’s a writer’s job to instill a sense of wonder. Do you agree that should be part of storytelling? How would you go about it?

2. Writer Elizabeth Gilbert: ”A New Way to Think About Creativity.” The author of Eat, Pray, Love has millions of fans, and I am not one. But several people told me to watch this speech because they found it inspirational and motivating. And they were right.

Gilbert is the opposite of Stanton. She’s not practical or didactic. Instead, she talks about an idea she came up with to keep writing paralysis at bay after the huge success of her novel. Wouldn’t you love to be the poet she references, who only had to transcribe the poems that came to her fully articulated? So much less work!

3. Here’s a clip of one of our own: Penny De Los Santos, a senior contributing photographer for Saveur and a cookbook photographer. She talks about what it was like to take one photo of men eating a meal in Iraq.

I’ve always said that people fall in love with Penny within five  minutes of hearing her speak, and this talk shows you why. Her fierceness and passion to get the story comes from the heart.

Do you watch TED videos? If so, which do you recommend?

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Endorsements give your book credibility and can boost sales. They provide third-party validation that your book is worthwhile, and as a result they are so much more powerful than any publicity that comes directly from you.

Yet many writers are bashful about asking for them, or they ask the wrong people. Here’s how to make the most of the opportunity:

1. Think about endorsements at the proposal stage.

As a coach, I like to get the process going at the book proposal stage, even though doing so sometimes strikes fear in the writer’s heart. “How can I ask someone famous to endorse my book when I haven’t even written it yet?” they counter.

No problem. Just ask if they will agree to review your book for a possible endorsement, when it’s ready. That makes it easier to say yes, because they’re not committing to writing a positive blurb from now. And it gives your proposal more weight to have these commitments up front.

While writing my proposal for Will Write for Food I emailed cookbook author Deborah Madison (met her at the Greenbrier), restaurant reviewer Michael Bauer (I had interviewed him for my sample chapter on restaurant reviewing), and literary agent Lisa Ekus (I knew her professionally). I explained that I was writing the book and would be honored to include their names in the proposal as potential endorsers. I explained why I thought they were a good match for the book. All agreed.

Another kind of endorsement is the foreword. This is a larger commitment, where someone writes an essay inside the book, instead of a sentence or paragraph. Often publishers pay the writer a fee. A respected name, mentioned in the proposal, can impress agents and editors.

2. Pick the right names for the job.

I find that people sometimes go down the wrong path. They think of whom they admire, instead of who the reader admires, or people in their town who are not known nationally. They name obscure professors or writers of books that influenced them but are not on target for their own book.

Think about it this way: Who is an admired authority on the broad subject of your book, in the mind of the target reader? Not in your mind. If you’re lucky and you’re a good networker, you might already know these people, or you have a connection. If not, it’s just a matter of asking them.

For example, Craig Priebe, the chef with whom I co-wrote Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas, decided that restaurateur Wolfgang Puck was the ultimate authority on gourmet pizzas and that our target readers revere him. So Craig bugged his assistant (politely) for weeks until he got the endorsement. You can read it in the photo above, on the back of our book.

3. Tracking people down is easier than ever.

These days everyone who’s known (and you want that kind of person) has a website, a Twitter feed, or a Facebook page. They want to be found. Or maybe they’re members of an organization you belong to, which will make them even easier to find. Sometimes you can go through their book publisher or agent. Read their book’s acknowledgements to get the right names.

When you find them,state your case politely. Explain what your book is about and give them a timeline, if possible, so they know what to expect.

4. Make it easy for the endorsers to give you that blurb.

Once you have a book deal, your publisher will ask you to list names of potential endorsers. Make a long, ordered list. Some people won’t have time, some might be away, and some might decline, so you want at least eight or nine names.

When your manuscript gets to the galley stage (that’s when the book is bound but not published yet), the publisher will send it out for review to potential endorsers. Sometimes they send a PDF by email.

Some publishers help you find the contact information, and some don’t. You might have to supply it, and even manage the process. You may have to let people know when the galley or PDF is coming, and follow up to see if they have sent their blurb to the publisher. Keep on top of the process to ensure that you get the blurbs you want — and deserve.

5. Believe you have something to offer.

Savvy big names like to endorse books, because their name appears prominently, often with a title of their book, restaurant or sometimes even a website URL, on the front or back cover. It’s free marketing to their intended audience, if you chose correctly.

So if you’re worried that you have nothing to offer these big names, think again. Your book can be a billboard for their own publicity.

I know, firsthand, that all you have to do is get up the nerve. I emailed Anthony Bourdain to ask him to endorse Will Write for Food,  and he did! My editor and publicist said they did a little dance. Aim high. You have nothing to lose.

Got a tip or a story about how you got a terrific blurb? I’d love to know.

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At a March writing workshop with food bloggers in Liz Schmitt's San Diego home (Photo courtesy of Averie Sunshine of Averie Cooks)

Reinvention keeps me in love with my career. It gives me the ability to shape my work into what interests me. So far I’ve had lots of inventions, since graduating from journalism school decades ago. I’ve been a

• newspaper reporter and editor
• magazine editor
• interactive book editor
• freelance writer
• website designer
• book author
• book collaborator
• manuscript editor
• blogger
• teacher
• speaker.

And I’m just getting started. It’s a privilege to work this way, and I know it. Not everyone gets to go off in new directions.

But you probably do it too as a food writer. Your career might include cooking teacher, caterer, photographer, food stylist, and writer-of-other-content-that-actually-pays-decently (a broad category). Or maybe it’s the other way around: you have a day job, and food writing is your reinvention.

My latest reinvention is to hold private day-long classes on food writing. It’s not much of a stretch. I’ve taught food writing at schools and at conferences for more than 10 years, and I’ve coached people privately for more than a dozen years. Plus, I get to travel, hang out with food-obsessed writers, and eat well. What’s better than that?

My debut was in Hawaii last December, when food blogger Mariko Jackson brought me to Honolulu to teach at a beautiful Japanese tea house for the day. Most recently, food blogger Liz Schmitt brought me to San Diego to do a workshop with members of a San Diego food blogger group. A few of the bloggers wrote lovely posts:

• Write Your Heart Out 
• a breath: writing workshop with Dianne Jacob & a bite: easy brunch casserole
• Grapefruit-avocado-kumquat salad
• For the Love of Writing
• Writing Workshop with Dianne Jacob.

Now word is spreading and more bloggers are creating workshops. There’s one coming up in Southern California on May 19, hosted by food blogger Kim Burnell; and a September 21 workshop outside Dublin, Ireland, hosted by multi-tasker Dorcas Barry of the Irish Food Bloggers Association. I’m always interested in what’s next, so if you’d like me to come to your town, shoot me an email at dj@diannej.com.

Now, how about you? What is your latest reinvention? How’s it working for you?

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