Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

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

Food Blogging

7 More Most Common Recipe Writing Errors

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© photo courtesy of Ruhlman.com.

People get worked up about recipe writing on this blog, me included. It used to be that my posts on taking freebies got the most responses, but now my “Most Popular” list (on the right) is mostly about recipes.

So excuse me for pandering to the crowd, but I spent all last week editing recipes written by bloggers, and I’ve got another seven nits to add to my original list of 7 Common Recipe Writing Errors. Here they are:

1. Vague titles. “The Ultimate Cookie” doesn’t tell the reader anything other that, in your opinion, this is a darn good cookie. And so it should be. Why else would you blog about it?

The other issue is SEO. Let’s say your recipe is for Snickerdoodles. If potential readers type “Snickerdoodle [Read more…] about 7 More Most Common Recipe Writing Errors

Snaps from My Seattle Food Writing Class

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A few Saturdays ago I taught a day-long class on food writing to about 50 people (about half of whom were bloggers, and some of whom drove up from Portland) at the oh-so-chic Seattle Fairmont Olympic. Keren Brown of Foodportunity organized the event and invited me. Professional photographer and blogger Jackie Donnelly Baisa wrote a post about it and made her images available, so I thought I’d share a few with you.

I must say, I’ve never taught a class in such elegant surroundings. We had a large private room with an entryway for coffee, tea and sponsor displays. [Read more…] about Snaps from My Seattle Food Writing Class

Best Takeaways for Food Writers From BookExpo

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I’ve been scouring the web to see what happened at BookExpo America 2010, the book industry’s annual trade show, and what it might mean for food writers. Here’s my 4 most interesting trends, quotes, and statistics:

1. DIY publishing is changing fast. Kindle has most of the e-book market. Can you come up with a Kindle e-book and sell it directly to Amazon?

From a Publisher’s Weekly report: J.A. Konrath, blogger of A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, said on a panel that he self-published on Kindle a number of the books he never sold to publishers. “He priced those books at $1.99, thinking they would be loss leaders to bolster his print sales. Instead he said he made $3,000 on the [Read more…] about Best Takeaways for Food Writers From BookExpo

Dissing Food Can Be Dangerous

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Remember back in 1996 when Texas cattle ranchers sued Oprah Winfrey for discussing mad cow disease on her show? The ranchers lost in an appeal, but the lawsuit had a lasting effect.

Or did it? Did you know that we have to be careful when writing critically about any food or ingredient?

Food libel laws, like the ones in Texas and in 12 other states, are still very much alive. They allow a food manufacturer or processor to sue for what they believe are disparaging remarks about their products. Apple growers sued CBS a few years ago after the Alar apple scare, and McDonald’s has sued two environmental activists in England over a critical pamphlet.

Carrie Vitt of Deliciously Organic reminded me of these laws recently. She’s working on a book based on her blog, and her publisher is concerned about what she says in print. “I am allowed to say, “I don’t eat conventionally grown spinach because when I do I get a severe migraine. That would be OK because it’s just my opinion and I’m not telling [Read more…] about Dissing Food Can Be Dangerous

Food Blogger Conference Offers Killer Goody Bag

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Should you go to the International Food Blogger Conference in Seattle August 27-29? James Osland, editor of Saveur, will give the keynote; Victoria Von Beul, executive editor of Bon Appetit magazine will lead a pitch session; memoirist Kathleen Flinn will teach a “Writing With the Senses” class; and I’ll be speaking on a panel about recipes, moderated by Amy Sherman.

These are not good enough reasons!  On a food blogger listserv, the buzz was all about what might be in the goody bags based on what recipients scored last year. Here’s what they said:

    “I figure between the goody bag we’ll be receiving (last year’s was insane) and the food we’ll be served, the $350 is actually pretty worth it.”
    “I know – I was drooling over that knife people got. I’m not sure if I can
    really rely on the goody bag though for ROI 🙂 who knows what they are
    putting in there.”
    “The goodie bag alone was at least $350 last year..”

When I mentioned these comments to IFBC  founder Sheri Wetherell, she [Read more…] about Food Blogger Conference Offers Killer Goody Bag

7 Most Common Recipe Writing Errors

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In the last week I’ve been editing recipes for two books by food bloggers. Both have short deadlines, and I’ve been working long hours.

That’s okay. It’s so much fun to see such creativity and invention, to fantasize about which recipes I’m going to try, and –yes– to nitpick. Such is the job of an editor. For one book, I make comments in pen and add little colored stickies to the paper copy. For the other, I make comments using Track Changes within the Word document.

And here’s what I’m finding: errors and inelegant phrasings. I thought you might want to know about  the most common mistakes. First though, let’s review the terminology: The list of ingredients is called (funnily enough) the “ingredients list,” and the directions are called the “method:”

1. Ingredients out of order. This is by far the biggest error. List ingredients in the [Read more…] about 7 Most Common Recipe Writing Errors

A Lone Food Blogger Takes On the Big Blogs

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Hank Shaw of Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook got a double dip of validation this year: his blog was a finalist for the 2010 best food blog award from both the James Beard Foundation (second year in a row) and the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP).

What’s interesting is that the other finalists were not other individual bloggers, but compilation food blogs on large websites. Compilation blogs are defined by the number of people who write for them: usually the editor writes posts, as do staff writers for the website where the blog appears, and then there are freelance contributors who get paid per post.

For the IACP award, the other two finalists were blogs from alternative weekly newspapers: the SF Foodie blog of San Francisco Weekly; and Eating Our Words, the food blog of sister paper Houston Press. The SF blog includes posts from award-wining restaurant reviewer Jonathan Kauffman. The Houston blog includes posts from award-winning restaurant reviewer and author Robb Walsh.

And wouldn’t you know it? Hank won the IACP award, beating out these two compilation blogs, including content from two distringuished writers.

Then it was on to the Beard awards, where Hank competed with Serious Eats and Grub Street New York. Again, both are compilation blogs that are part of large websites. Serious Eats has a staff of seven plus three interns. A large stable of paid contributors includes Mario Batali. Grub Street has a smaller staff: an editor, a senior editor, and an assistant editor. The staff  contributes content and the blog pays for freelance posts. Serious Eats won the Beard award.

Like other bloggers, Hank writes all his own material. A former commercial fisherman, line cook, and newspaperman, he’s a one-man show, writing about hunting, fishing, gardening, and cooking.

So the question comes up: Is it fair for an individual blogger to compete with compilation blogs? Should there be one category for individual blogs and another for compilation blogs? Or will the best writing triumph, regardless of how the blog is structured or staffed?

I’m for two categories. I was on the executive committee of IACP the year we put compilation cookbooks (best recipes compiled by a magazine) into their own category. Now the compilations compete with other compilation books, rather than with individual authors.

Now tell me what you think.

(Thanks to Amy Sherman, who started a Twitter war on this subject, for bringing it up.)

Photo by Elise Bauer, used with permission.