Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

Useful Tips, Interviews, and Stories to Inspire Food Writers and Bloggers

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Jaden Hair, a Multitasker Success Story

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Jaden Hair gives new meaning to terms like self-starter and multi-tasker. Since 2007, the mother of 279910891_4aa889a41e_mtwo young boys has:

Oh yes, and she’ll be teaching next month (along with me and other bloggers), at Club Med Ixtapa Food Blogger Camp.

 

 

She’s unfazed by the technical requirements of her job. Let’s take her photography skills, as one example. Usually cookbook publishers use a [Read more…] about Jaden Hair, a Multitasker Success Story

Comfort in a Bowl of Soup

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Me and Dana

Me and cousin Dana, circa 2004

Sometimes I find food writing kind of frivolous, and I wonder why I am not doing something more important with my life.

Then I hear a story that reinforces my obsession with food’s power to evoke memory, connect, and heal. Yesterday, it came from my cousin Dana.

Dana spent most of his adult life in his bedroom with the door closed, suffering from severe anxiety. His dad took care of him until 2000, when he passed away, and now I check in with Dana from a distance. (I’m in Oakland, CA and he’s a six-hour drive away in L.A.) At almost 50, he’s  my sweet little brother, and we talk almost every day. Two years ago, doctors diagnosed Dana with multiple myeloma, a cancer he cannot outlive.

Dana and my uncle loved to eat, and Dana became a good cook. When he [Read more…] about Comfort in a Bowl of Soup

Half of America Will Buy Thanksgiving Dinner

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pr_pop_zia_Earlier this week I read a statistic that fifty-three percent of Americans will rely on food prepared away from home for part or all of their Thanksgiving dinners by buying restaurant takeout food.

Whoa! That doesn’t even count all the people who go to markets for prepared food. (And it doesn’t count those who will have it catered. My husband and I once ate the leftovers of Billy Bob Thornton‘s vegan Thanksgiving dinner when we visited a former client of mine. But I digress.)

It’s a disconnect for me, because I don’t know anyone who’s not cooking. The people I hang with are buzzing about their upcoming dinner party, or what they’re making to take to someone’s house.

Everywhere I look, though, the media thinks Americans (mostly women) plan to [Read more…] about Half of America Will Buy Thanksgiving Dinner

A First-Time Cookbook Author Gets Her Due

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DSC_5425When a cookbook comes out, you see the finished product and the glory, and you don’t know the behind-the-scenes story of struggle, sacrifice, and hard work. Here’s my “proud mother hen” story about one author. It may surprise you.

In 2005 Romney (Nani) Steele worked at the San Francisco Ferry Building selling mache and working with the Cowgirl Creamery. A tall, single mom with a Master of Fine Arts  in Poetry, she came to a Food Writer’s Conference I chaired, ostensibly to learn how to write a cookbook about salads.

Later I reviewed her cookbook proposal and sent her an email that said, in part,”You write like a confident published writer. That’s fantastic — don’t let go of that skill.”

She confessed to wanting to write a different, more difficult book. It was about growing up at Nepenthe restaurant in Big Sur, as the granddaughter of the original owners, [Read more…] about A First-Time Cookbook Author Gets Her Due

Putting the "Free" in Freelance

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empty_pockets-450x343Earlier this year I began working with a sophisticated home cook and sometime cooking teacher who wanted to start a blog, write for publication, and later on, write a cookbook. That wasn’t the order, but I told her it would work best that way.

She launched the food blog, and it’s coming along beautifully. For clips, we brainstormed a few story ideas for newspapers, which would produce results much faster  than magazines. She pitched several weeklies in the state, with two responses. It wasn’t pretty. Here is the first, from the paper’s editor:

“All the articles are volunteered.  We have no budget for freelance, or for anything else that matter. Everybody does it here for love. Still, we recognize that many freelancers who query us are hoping–and needing–to sell their articles.  If that is the situation with you, of course we will understand your not being able to place it with us. If on the other hand, you are in a position to donate the piece, it would be our pleasure to run it.” [Read more…] about Putting the "Free" in Freelance

Buick Offers Free Car, Room and Tickets

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6Remember an an earlier post about all the loot food bloggers receive, including offers of  a free car? It’s happening again, at the Northwest Food and Wine Festival (note home page promoting Buick rather than food and wine) coming up in Portland, OR.

Two well-known bloggers forwarded this email, which offers them not just a car but lodging for two nights and free tickets to the event: 

“Because we know you love fine wine and good food, we wanted to invite you to be Buick’s guests the weekend of the Northwest Food and Wine Festival, Nov. 13 and 14 in Portland, Ore. Buick is the [Read more…] about Buick Offers Free Car, Room and Tickets

Links are the New Currency

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chain-1There’s a new idea in publishing: link, don’t pay. If a company wants your online content, they just link to it. That way, it’s argued, even though you don’t get a check for supplying editorial, you get a bump in traffic.

And isn’t that what we all want? More traffic?

Well yes. More traffic makes us feel superior when we see rising numbers of unique visitors. It leads to more income from ads, and potentially, more links. But more traffic alone doesn’t pay the mortgage.

One of my students mentioned talking to the Meredith Corporation about providing content to a new site. They want to download the entire content of her blog, and all they’ll give her is a link. She was struggling with whether to agree. Is it worth it? Why would anyone go to her blog if it’s all on Meredith’s site?

The New York Times launched a Bay Area website, and listed several excellent food blogs in its Eating & Drinking blogroll. Everybody wins, it seems, except for the freelancer who could have created original content. The paper lowered its budget, the bloggers are honored and thrilled [Read more…] about Links are the New Currency