Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

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

food writing

Bad Timing on Book Covers, in More Ways Than One

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Meat cookbooks are all the rage this holiday season. As I perused the latest cookbooks in the Kitchen Arts & Letters newsletter, I saw Falling Off the Bone; Primal Cuts; The Complete Book of Butchering, Smoking, Curing and Sausage Making; and Cured.

Also included two books with almost identical cover themes. Yep, art directors at Ten Speed (Meat) and Stewart, Tabori & Chang (Good Meat) had the same idea: Raw T-bone steaks. While Good Meat is about sourcing and enjoying sustainable meat  (hence the “Good” in the title), they still look similar, coming out within a month of each other.

 

I called Kitchen Arts & Letters to discuss more, but got a busy signal. So I called Omnivore Books, where I left a voicemail that owner Celia Sacks returned promptly (KA&L, take note). She said the covers reminded her of the hugely successful [Read more…] about Bad Timing on Book Covers, in More Ways Than One

The Worst Food Writing Words

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The most overused word in the food writer's lexicon.

While chatting with Brooke Burton of Food Woolf, she mentioned that L.A. Weekly gave her a list of words freelancing food writers are not to use. She reeled off a few from memory:

  • farm fresh
  • sustainable
  • local
  • yummy.

If I wanted to see a good list, she suggested, I could read these blog posts: Top Ten Foodie Words We Hate: Starting with Foodie, and a follow-up generated by the response to the first article, Part 2. Written by Amy Scattergood, L.A. Weekly’s food blog editor, the list of 20 words mixes fad terms like “iconic” and “mixologist” with bland, boring terms like “offering.”

Brilliant! Somehow I missed this list. I like it because it branches out  from the usual vague adjectives I’m always going on about: delicious. wonderful, and tasty. I’ll add a few more:

  • authentic: a hotly contested word, because no matter where you travel, there is never just one version of Spaghetti Bolognese or Pad Thai.
  • orbs: When tired of saying “grapes,” do not substitute “orbs.” No one talks that way.
  • toothsome: Not sure what this means. Chewy? If so, use a word we all understand.

Now it’s your turn. Which words make you cringe or see red? Do you disagree with Scattergood’s or my choices?

Food Writer Settles $4 Million Lawsuit

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It started with a limo ride to an event he was covering...

You have to laugh. The whole idea that any food writer might have $4 million dollars…well, you know.

But the lawsuit wasn’t very funny at all to John Mitzewich, except at first, when he thought it was a joke, like the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George steal a limo.

Mitzewich writes for About.com as the American Food expert. The New York Times owns About.com, a fact that gives Mitzewich excellent press credentials.

A few years ago, Mitzewich accepted an invite to  attend Toast to the Coast, a food and wine event in Atlantic City. He took a red-eye to Philadelphia, where a limo driver was  supposed to pick him up and drive him to the event. Except when he arrived, he couldn’t find a guy in a uniform holding up a card with his name on it. Instead, Mitzewich found was a guy holding up a card with the name of the managing editor of Wine Enthusiast.

John Mitzewich

Mitzewich knew that he was the only invitee flying into Philadelphia. Everyone else, including the Wine Enthusiast editor, was flying into New York. So he took the limo, and off they went. Mitzewich wrote a nice story about the event, and everyone seemed happy.

Mitzewich, also a video blogger on You Tube and on his own blog, Food Wishes, filmed the limo driver and the limo with a good-natured voiceover, and put the video on his blog. (Don’t look for it because it’s no longer there.)

Soon afterwards, Mitzewich received a letter from the limo company, alleging he stole the limo and asking him to pay $385 for the ride, plus $4 million for defamation of character, interference with the limo contract, and invasion of privacy. He took down the video.

Two years later, after hiring an attorney, Mitzewich settled. He had told the limo company, over and over, that he did nothing wrong, and they weren’t ever going to get a dime. And they didn’t. So here’s what they agreed to: Mitzewich will run an ad for the limo company on his blog for six months. So far, the limo company has not sent the materials.

Anthony Bourdain's Valentine to Cooks and Food

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You know that secret smile you carry around after reading a good book? Especially one that makes you laugh and ponder the food world we love so much? I just finished Anthony Bourdain’s memoir, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food, and I’ll be smiling all day.

He’s toned down the macho swagger I staggered through 10 years ago in Kitchen Confidential, but he’s still writing about his man-filled, foul-mouthed food world. Expect brutal honesty about what constitutes exciting restaurant food, why we should cook and what, no-holds-barred opinions on selected food writers and chefs, and dirt on restaurant reviewers who suck. In this self-deprecating, thoughtful memoir, Bourdain also looks back at his life and how he got to be so lucky to be a best-selling author, dad, and world traveller with a TV show.

You can’t help but laugh out loud, and often. After consuming an elaborate tasting menu at Per Se in New York by the chef he respects most, Thomas Keller, he writes:

“But look across the seat at the woman with you. Do you really think she’s breathlessly anticipating getting back to your apartment to ride you like the Pony Express? Or do you think it far more likely that (like you) she’s counting the seconds till she can [Read more…] about Anthony Bourdain's Valentine to Cooks and Food

5 Lessons About Stealing Recipes and Web Justice

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Blogger Monica Guadio

If you were under a rock the last few days, you missed the excitement about Cooks Source, an online and print magazine busted for stealing recipes and taken down by bloggers, online news stories, Twitterers, Facebook posters, and hackers.

It started when blogger Monica Gaudio learned that a piece on apples she wrote for Gode Cokery appeared in Cooks Source magazine with her byline. She contacted editor Judith Griggs in a pointed email. Here’s where the editor made a fatal mistake (aside from stealing the recipe in the first place): She wrote an arrogant, insulting, condescending reply (scroll down to read it).

Lesson No. 1: If you’re a jerk editor who’s going to say something you’ll regret, do it over the phone.

Gaudio, outraged, told the story on her blog November 3, and printed Griggs’ outrageous comments, which include such gems as “But honestly Monica, the web is considered ‘public domain and you should be happy we just didn’t ‘lift’ your whole [Read more…] about 5 Lessons About Stealing Recipes and Web Justice

Four Culinary Trends for Recipe Writers

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Kristine Kidd, former food editor of Bon Appetit magazine

Who better than Kristine Kidd, former food editor at Bon Appétit magazine for 20 years, to tell us what’s hot in the culinary world?

As the former food trends expert at the magazine, she collaborated with celebrity chefs and food writers including Thomas Keller, Suzanne Goin, and Nigella Lawson, helping them shape stories and recipes for the magazine. The dishes she created often appeared on the cover.

Now self-employed, Kidd is putting the finishing touches on her sixth cookbook, Williams-Sonoma’s Weeknight Fresh and Fast, available in January at W-S stores, everywhere in March.

On a recent teleconference call through the International Association of Culinary Professionals, Kidd told us first how she keeps up with trends, then detailed what she sees.

To keep up, she’s an exhaustive researcher. She reads:

  • Magazines on food, including those from England, Australia and New Zealand
  • Food sections of major American newspapers
  • The business and lifestyles sections of newspapers and newsweeklies
  • And newsletters from Jessica’s Biscuit, cooking stores, and those from supermarkets and food industries.

Then she leaves her computer and desk. She goes to the cookbook table at her local Barnes & Noble; persuses what’s hot on Amazon; talks to food-obsessed friends; and shops at regular and specialty food markets, cooking stores, and farmers’ markets. She also goes to industry conferences.

She compiles all her notes, printouts, and clippings in a letter-size file box on her desk to spark ideas for new projects.

The barometer for what’s going on with cooking and food, she said, is yourself. As food writers, she said we face the same challenges as other cooks. Here are the four [Read more…] about Four Culinary Trends for Recipe Writers

Who Thinks You're a Good Writer?

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How I became obsessed with food from a young age. Need I say my mother was an enthusiastic home baker? My uncle Joe (right) always pressured me to read the classics.

What makes a person a good writer? Two people emailed me this week, wanting confirmation their writing was good enough.

The first was a food blogger, who wrote after reading my Beard awards post. She wondered if her blog was “up to standard” or if she was “even remotely qualified” to enter the Beard award for best blog. In her preface, she said she believed she was a good writer and storyteller and had confidence in her talents.

The second, a student in Italy studying for her masters in gastronomy, said she had read Will Write for Food, then attached two writing samples and asked for comments. She wondered if she was good enough to pursue a career as a freelance writer.

I  thought about two replies. Neither had anything to do with their work. On one hand, I thought I should encourage these two writers and say yes, because that is what people sometimes need to hear to move forward. I put that in the “Earth Mother” category of response. On the other hand, I contemplated a different [Read more…] about Who Thinks You're a Good Writer?