Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

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

Cookbooks

Now That's How to Write a Review!

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criticsIt seems that when it comes to reviewing, the food blogging community is more interested in promotion rather than in a balanced critique. I can’t tell you how many bloggers have said, in comments on this blog, they only do positive reviews because “the reader’s time is short” or “I’m only going to write about it if I love it.”

Why? Rave reviews are boring. Totally negative reviews are rare and difficult to do well. How about going for middle ground, where the review is mostly positive, but acknowledges the cons?

Finally, I can point to a few examples from people [Read more…] about Now That's How to Write a Review!

Food Trends — Should You Pay Attention?

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An array of grains on display at the Fancy Food Show

It’s the start of the new year, and everyone has predictions.

The Fancy Food Show just released a list of the top five food trends for 2010, according to a panel of “food critics and food writer experts” on location. They are:

  • “good-for-you” foods
  • coconut
  • gluten-free foods
  • exotic citrus, and
  • “nostalgic” foods.”

Then, adding to the list are are the usual Top Food Trend stories that appear every January. Nani Steele sent me a whole passel of ’em from Market Watch, the Food Channel, Slashfood, Epicurious, Yahoo Lifestyle, and Eating Well. I’ve boiled the trends down to:

  • Comfort food cooking with basic ingredients — lamb and pork are particularly trendy
  • Budget-friendly recipes are still in style
  • Regional ethnic food, particularly those of Korea, Morocco and Japan
  • Good-for-you foods, based on allergies and building immunity.

I’m sure magazine and cookbook editors and literary agents pay attention to these forecasts. Aaron Wehner, publisher of Ten Speed Press, told me they’re drowning in budget-friendly cookbook proposals right now.

Trend stories make me wonder: should food writers jump on these trends and suddenly pitch articles and cookbooks on coconut and exotic citrus, or other trends mentioned in these stories? If you’re a blogger, will you write blog posts with recipes based on these trends? How do these trends guide you, or do they?  What will you do with this information?

(Photo thanks to Stephanie Stiavetti of The Culinary Life)

Food Publishing Still a Crapshoot, Says Editor

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SyndyMiner

Sydny Miner, newly minted Executive Editor at Crown Books.

Recently I spoke with Sydny Miner, about to become executive editor at Crown Books and leave Simon & Schuster, where she edited the Food Network’s Paula Deen and Molly Wizenberg’s first book, A Homemade Life.

Sydny  started working with Paula Deen in 2002, before the food network made Deen a star. What was she like?  “She’s the person you see on TV, maybe a little quieter in person,” says Sydny. We fell in love with her and her great voice. We knew Southern cooking was a perennial subject. We knew her restaurant was a destination.

Yet, she says it was a gut feeling to take Deen on. “We just caught her on the way up.” Sydny might say the same of Molly Wizenberg. An early reader of food blogs, Sydny suggested an agent contact Wizenberg about writing a book [Read more…] about Food Publishing Still a Crapshoot, Says Editor

"Consider the Lobster," a Gourmet Classic

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Photo from Gourmet articlePhoto from Gourmet article, 2004

The other day I sent out a Tweet about a list of best food books of the decade at the UK Guardian. Amy Sherman replied she found the list strange because of two books on Indian food, but then, the British now say they like curry more than fish & chips.

I enjoyed that exchange, but actually, Indian cookbooks were not what I found odd — and ultimately wonderful — about the article. It was because it said, a few paragraphs in, “We had an interesting nomination… David Foster Wallace’s essay Consider the Lobster, written originally for the now defunct [Read more…] about "Consider the Lobster," a Gourmet Classic

Jamie Oliver, Taken Seriously

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518ovq-sxql_ss500_1I’m always impressed by people who use their fame to do good things. They don’t have to, right? They can just keep on being famous. It’s got to be a full-time job.

But not Jamie Oliver, who just won $100,000 from the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference. The prize recognizes “exceptional individuals” with “wishes big enough to change the world.”

He’s been a one man miracle in Britain, pressuring the government to spend $1 billion overhauling the country’s school lunch system, and founding a non-profit to train at-risk 18-24-year olds in the culinary arts.

Read his manifesto to educate people and children on eating well.

As a food writer,Oliver has written 10 cookbooks, translated into 29 languages, with almost 24 million copies sold in 56 countries.

While I’m on the subject of TED, there’s much to explore on the site, particularly  free videos based on “ideas worth spreading.” Here’s a list of talks based on food. And as an aside: Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks once helped produce the TED annual conferences.

Dorie Greenspan's Online Ephiphany

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book_cover_high_res_2When Dorie Greenspan’s ninth book, Baking from My Home to Yours, came out in the fall of 2006, she witnessed the power of the online community. Egullet started a thread, Chowhound made it a cookbook of the month, and bloggers championed the book.

“It was so exciting to see people baking and posting pictures of what they had made every day. It was thrilling,” she recalled.

Inspired, the Bon Appetit freelancer and Parade Contributing Editor started a blog. “I had never even thought about being online,” Dorie [Read more…] about Dorie Greenspan's Online Ephiphany

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