Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

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

Food Blogging

Julie & Julia: Enough with the whining

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julia1David Leite told me I should not rant on this blog. Then he emailed me a 1400-word rant about food writers who are bitter about the success of food blogger Julie Powell and the coming movie based on her book, and of course I got worked up.

Powell wrote Julie & Julia, about a year of cooking her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The upcoming movie, Julie & Julia, is based on Julie’s book and My Life in France, a memoir of Julia Child written by her nephew.

There’s a lot of sour grapes from traditional food writers about how food bloggers are being taken seriously, and hand-wringing about how Julia Child wouldn’t be taken seriously today. As the movie release date approaches this weekend,  the carping increases. David pointed me to Virginia Willis’ blog post and comments as an example.

Here’s the drift of the comments going around and my response. Thanks to David for inspiring me.

1. Julia Child could not get a cookbook published today because she doesn’t have a platform. Rubbish. Publishers still publish books from authors with small platforms. They are also still taken by excellent writing.  If Child was around today, she’d probably start a a blog to help her with her platform. Maybe she’d have a Facebook page and a Twitter account, because she was always accessible to the adoring public, including us food writers. When she died just about everyone I knew had a story about the time they met her.

images2. Julia Child wouldn’t get a TV show today because she’s an accomplished cook. I agree. That wouldn’t be the main reason she’d get the job. But she was also a supreme entertainer, and — hello! That’s what television is all about. The Food Network makes no secret of it. Maybe the fact that she was a Cordon Bleu-trained chef would come third in her list of qualities, after excellent content.

Perhaps the old guard of food writers sees themselves in this victim version of Julia Child, the skilled chef whose talents are not appreciated. But Child would never be a victim. She’d be more like Judith Jones, her editor, who started a blog to promote her new book. These seasoned food writers also dismiss a newcomer like Julie Powell, which leads me to the third comment making the rounds…

3. Julie Powell has no right to be so successful because she’s a) “not a serious (read: formally trained) cook,” b) only a blogger, and c) the Julie/Julia Project was a publicity stunt.

Let’s look at these charges individually. Regarding a), Of course she wasn’t a serious cook. She was learning how to cook by cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking for a year.

Re b), She might have only been a blogger but her idea and writing were good enough to be serialized on Salon.com and led to a 6-figure book advance. And the editor didn’t care that she was not professionally trained.

And re c),  I don’t think she ever dreamed that her idea would lead to a book and a movie. We’re a celebrity culture, she was young and attractive, she had a great idea, and once Amanda Hesser wrote about her in the New York Times in 2003, the calls from literary agents and the whole circus began.

Julia2Ironically, Mastering the Art of French Cooking will now sell all over again to younger audiences inspired by the movie. I was a little shocked to see that Knopf put Merryl Streep on the cover. Talk about art imitating life. So Julia Child can sell a book today, even if she looks like Merryl Streep. Julie Powell’s book relaunched this month as well, with a new cover showing scenes from the movie.

I’m going to watch the movie with a bunch of gal pals and enjoy myself. I’ve adored screenwriter Nora Ephron since the 1970s, when she became the first woman to have a column in Esquire magazine, then considered nirvana for serious non-fiction writers. And even though I’ve been a print writer for more than three decades, I’m not bitter. It’s a new world in publishing. I’m just trying to keep up.

P.S. If you need any more proof of the decreasing power of print journalism, here’s an account of Sony’s first-class treatment of food bloggers prior to the movie opening. So far her post has generated 90 comments, none snarky. Thanks to David Lebovitz for the tip. And here’s the Matt Bites  interview with all three stars.

Five Lists of the Best Food Blogs

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Whenever I speak with clients who want to start a food blog, I email them a list to poke through for inspiration. I’ve been over them five or six times, not to mention clicking on other blog links listed on the bloggers’ home pages. Lists like this save me a lot of research time, trying to figure out which blogs work and why, but then I get lost in the blogs for hours. It’s a nice problem to have.

Here are a few more lists to review, all based on awards:

1. imagesAt the Weblog (Bloggies) awards, winner of Best Food Blog for 2009 is Cake Wrecks. It’s not the usual food blog, but photos of cakes that have gone “horribly, hilariously wrong.” I laughed so hard my husband rushed into my office to see what was so funny. It’s not just the photos. Her captions are wicked. Runners up for the 2009 Bloggie award are:

  • The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Last year’s winner, about an LA woman who married a cattle rancher.
  • Bakerella. A cake decorator and baker who loves her baking accessories.
  • Chocolate & Zucchini. If you haven’t read it by now, you’re living in a cave. Great content since 2003.
  • Smitten Kitchen. A regular of the Bloggie awards, who also won runner up for Best Design and Best Photos.

2. The website Apartment Therapy gives awards for food blogs.

3. I’d love to mention the Well-Fed Network’s 2009 Food Blog award winners, but the website is down. Here’s the list of nominees, courtesy of Serious Eats.

4. Saveur magazine has a Facebook page called “Sites We Love.”

The Verdict: Great Food Blogs Come Down to 4 Things

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imagesThanks to all who weighed in on my last post, both here and on Facebook, about what makes a food blog worthwhile. I’ve read through your comments, and will now attempt now to boil them down into four main elements. Based on my own opinion and the comments, a great blog has:

1. A strong personality. We want food bloggers who are fun, intelligent, opinionated, creative, make us think, and make us learn. No matter what they’re writing about, we want them to be passionate and well informed.

2. Great recipes. We readers want to be inspired by creative, innovative recipes that are also technically excellent. We want something new and different, not what we have in cookbooks at home.

3. Good storytelling skills. A great food blogger knows how to write a tempting title, a lead that draws us in, and uses techniques like self-effacing humor to great effect. With high-quality writing, reporting and research comes the feeling that we’re right there with them, cooking, eating, tasting and discovering.

4. Excellent photos. There’s no way around it. We want to be seduced by the images.

So there you have it. If you’re a blogger, does your writing and photos meet this criteria? If you’re a blog reader, maybe you think I’ve left something out. Let me know.

Here's What I Ate Today. Does Anyone Care?

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Like you, I’m obsessed with food. My favorite kind of day is when I  meet a friend over a meal, we talk about food,  visit a cool food market or street, I cook something that tastes great, and maybe later, I read about food. But most of the time, my days are not that exciting. Does a normal day around food, in and of itself, constitute a good blog?

Usually, no. The topic is too broad. It’s based on chronology, as in “here’s what I did with food today.” It does not qualify as a theme or a focus. And that is why so many food blogs fail. I just don’t care enough about where you went for lunch, or what you made for dinner.

imagesI’ve been thinking about what makes me want to read a food blog. The first blogger I read with any regularity was Grist’s Tom Philpott, because  I enjoy and appreciate his well-researched take on food politics. (In this link he skewered the notion that eating farm-raised salmon in a chain restaurant is defensible just because it tastes good.)  He rarely writes about himself or his life, and I always learn something. He’s more like a traditional newspaper columnist, and maybe that’s why I started with him. I felt comfortable.

imagesNow, to contradict myself, I love checking in with David Lebovitz, who writes about his day. Yes, in the hands of a skilled writer and photographer, the most ordinary events can become worthwhile. First, there’s the anticipation of a gorgeous photo. Today’s post about sardine pate leads with, instead of an obvious photo of pate on a slice of baguette,  a more mysterious snap of a flipper sticking out of a stainless steel bowl in hues of cobalt. Next, he writes as though he’s my best friend: intimate, funny, charming and sweet. He covers food in Paris, a focus that’s more exotic than daily life in the US.  Lastly, I always learn something about cooking or baking techniques. So even though it’s a guilty pleasure, I get lots out of his posts.

Tell me if I’m off base here. Maybe you’re a food blogger who thinks it’s perfectly fine to have “food” as the focus of your blog. Or  if you  read general food blogs, which are the most worthwhile and why?

LA Times Says Citizen Reviewers are Food Bloggers Too

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imagesI might be in trouble. A friend warned me not to rant on this blog, and I agreed. Now I feel a rant coming on and I can’t stop myself. But just humor me. Wouldn’t this irritate you, if you were a food blogger?

According to the Los Angeles Times, the people who post restaurant reviews on Yelp and Chowhound are food bloggers. So they say in today’s story, about a nasty, unfounded, anonymous tip that appeared on the blog Eater LA, and how “food bloggers” must be held accountable.

The blog on which the offensive item appeared, LA Eater, covers the city’s restaurant, bar, and nightlife scene and relies on tips. There’s even a button on the right that says “Submit a tip.” So back on June 30, some tipster talked smack about the quality of food in a particular restaurant. The editor who reviewed the email should have pressed the Delete key. At the very least, she could have contacted the restaurant for a rebuttal. Instead, she just posted the tip. That’s not blogging, and it’s certainly not journalism. It’s just crap. An apology to the restaurant and readers now appears below the post.

Now, according to the Times, food bloggers need to smarten up. “…As the truism goes,” says the story, ” with great power comes great responsibility. If the Internet has helped democratize discussion and critique, requiring traditional print publications to be more transparent and responsive, then bloggers who comment on or work in opposition to the mainstream media have become its de facto watchmen. What, if any, standards should food bloggers be held to?”

Um, hello? Who are they talking about? First, most food bloggers don’t “work in opposition to the mainstream media.” They provide an alternative. Second, most food bloggers couldn’t care less about commenting on the mainstream media. And third, since when is an anonymous tipster a food blogger?

So food bloggers, I want to hear from you. Are you in the same category as citizen reviewers on websites like Yelp and Chowhound? If not, what is the difference?

Food Blog Alliance to the Rescue

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Ever have the feeling you’re supposed to be an expert on food blogging before you’ve even begun? Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes can help. A mega-successful blogger, she started the Food Blog Alliance as a professional association for food bloggers.

“Many of us are trying to improve our blogs, to better serve our readers, to make the experience of blogging more fruitful and enjoyable, and to build our readership,” she writes.  “My view is that the more we can share what we are each learning with each other, the better all of our blogs will become.”

You’ll find tips to improve your food writing, including a post from Amy Sherman of Cooking with Amy about adjectives, plus expert technical advice in friendly language about such things as Search Engine Optimization and tools and maintenance. I know I’m going to be all over this site in the coming few weeks.

I admire the sense of community and giving spirit on the site. It’s what I love about the food blogging world. Many food bloggers have been generous to me.  I have to say, it’s a little different from print. Maybe it’s because the print world is shrinking, whereas this one is expanding?