Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

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The Pioneer Woman and Her Intimate Voice

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pdubLast Saturday I was a panelist on a BlogHer Food panel about voice and identity. Audience members were particularly interested in how personal they should be in their posts. It’s a good question, figuring out what to reveal, what only to imply, and what not to say.

Or at least that’s what I thought it was about. To process my thoughts, I looked at the writing of our panel’s biggest celebrity, Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman Cooks. She has 13 million annual visitors, according to the Los Angeles Times.

While on our panel, Ree said she writes “like I’m talking to my sister or my best friend.” Now, I don’t know about you, but you can be pretty personal with those kinds of people. But I couldn’t find much intimate content at all when I examined her cooking blog. [Read more…] about The Pioneer Woman and Her Intimate Voice

The Thrill of BlogHer Food

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P1100134 BlogHer Food in San Francisco was one long day of group hug. It started at the networking breakfast at 8 a.m. and ended at the after-party thrown by Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman Cooks and Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes beginning at 8 p.m.

Here you can see just part  of the crowd, everyone talking at once in deafening volume, in the hallway in front of the bookseller.

Read about the party… I mean conference, on these early posts from Carrots ‘N Cake and Kath Eats Real Food. Well, girls just want to have fun. And we did.

Sponsors, who subsidized the cost of the event, prevailed between the sessions. Hunky Chef Rocco DiSpirito hawked Bertolli frozen meals over a grouimagesp lunch while they actually served us the frozen pasta as entrees. (Hello?!) Celebrity chef and Citizen Cake owner Elizabeth Faulkner demoed with Scharffen-Berger during a break, and booth people plied us with cans of chicken stock and spray Pillsbury frosting for a cupcake challenge. A classy cocktail party on the rooftop sponsored by Campbell’s Soup Co. capped off the official part of the day. I was so excited about seeing bloggers in person after reading their work online and Twittering and Facebooking with them, I almost didn’t mind.

And oh yeah, we went to sessions on such topics as the blogger’s voice (where I was a panelist), best practices, and new opportunities. More on what I learned later. First I need to lie down.

Did you go or write a post about the day? Have a comment? Let me know.

P.S. Updates: More reports on the conference from Simply Recipes. 

The Writer's Voice: What Is It?

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imagesIn preparation for the panel I’m on at BlogHer Food 09 in San Francisco tomorrow, I thought I’d say a few words about voice.

Why is voice important? It’s because you have a personality that  comes through in  your writing. You might express your unique self through level of language, the length of your sentences, the way you approach a subject. You’ll know when it feels right when you read back your work. It will sound like you and feel comfortable. Without voice, your writing will be bland, and you won’t come through as an individual.

Can you describe your voice? It’s an elusive thing.  Ask a friend to describe it to you. Here are a few adjectives that might apply:

  • knowledgeable
  • friendly
  • honest
  • self-deprecating
  • companionable
  • poetic
  • confessional
  • obsessive
  • high-energy.

Think about voice as a philosophy about what you want to get across in your blog. Here are some examples:

  • If I can make this, you can make this
  • Girls just want to have fun
  • I’m going to get this right if I have to do it 100 times.

The best answer to creating a strong voice is just to keep writing, to let your voice develop and deepen over time. Take this advice from A Writer’s Coach: The Complete Guide to Writing Strategies That Work, a book [Read more…] about The Writer's Voice: What Is It?

Food Writing That Happens Only Twice a Year

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Honey and apples signify sweetness for the year ahead

Honey and apples signify sweetness for the year ahead

It was the Jewish New Year this weekend, one of two opportunities for Jewish food writers to freelance articles about the holiday. Newspapers only cover Jewish food twice a year: on Passover in the spring, and on Rosh Hashana in the fall. It’s kind of like specializing in stories on turkey, and therefore you can only be published on Thanksgiving. Does this make sense? No, but welcome to Jewish food writing.

And just like Thanksgiving, each year, food writers have to come up with something new. The distinguished Joan Nathan, America’s best known cookbook author on the subject,  dutifully found an unusual angle for the New York Times last week: how actors in New Hampshire recreate early settlers’ celebration of Rosh Hashana. At the Washington Post, freelancer David [Read more…] about Food Writing That Happens Only Twice a Year

Snapping Photos at Restaurants: Should You?

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It’s the last night of my husband Owen’s and my vacation in New York, and despite 10 days of eating meals at restaurants, he took shots of our food only once. I asked him to do so when I didn’t think anyone would notice, sitting at an outdoor table at  a casual pan-Asian sandwich shop. I wanted to experience what food bloggers go through when they’re going to blog about a dish. When we were done, however, Chef Angelo Sosa came over to say good-bye and thanks. Later Owen said the chef had been watching us. Would he have done so if we did not take the photos? I guess I’ll never know.

Let me interrupt for a moment to tell you about his sandwiches. Sosa has worked a the restaurants of Alain Ducasse and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and I couldn’t wait to taste his cooking at a fraction of the price. The two pan-Asian sandwiches I sampled were loaded with layers of flavor and texture, and to top it off, cost under $9 each.

fishThe Hanoi-inspired Cha Ca La Vong, a tumeric-laced seared fish sandwich loaded with sweet juicy onions, a layer of fresh dill, had a sriracha mayonnaise that kept the sandwich moist.

porkThe caramelized Sweet Glazed Pork in Chinese buns, so tender it hardly required chewing, was laced with a sweet and sour sauce, onion and sprigs of cilantro.

We ate well and inexpensively in New York, including dinner with David Leite and his partner at La Caridad 78, a Latin American/Chinese restaurant frequented by cops [Read more…] about Snapping Photos at Restaurants: Should You?

Food Blogger Camp and Free Trip Giveaway

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images-1Let’s hit the beach, bask in the sun and get to know each other. I’m delighted to announce the first annual Food Blogger Camp at Club Med Ixtapa Pacific in Ixtapa, Mexico, January 9-16, 2010.

Club Med is giving away accommodations for seven nights, coach airfare, and a scholarship for one sweepstakes winner. You’ll get to meet and hang out with me, plus some of the most talented food bloggers, authors, and food photographers in the business.

At the Boot Camp, we’ll have workshops on how to improve blogging, photography [Read more…] about Food Blogger Camp and Free Trip Giveaway

Separating Hype, Opinion and Journalism

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imagesWhen a food blogger emailed me recently to say she had just heard “puff piece” for the first time, I wondered who else had never heard of this term.

Her email led me to ponder the differences between hype, opinion and journalism, especially in blogs. I’m concerned, because some 84 percent of Americans say online customer evaluations influence their purchases, according to an Opinion Research Corp. survey. That means if you recommend [Read more…] about Separating Hype, Opinion and Journalism