Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

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

food writing

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

Ramp Up your Food Photography

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There’s no way around it. Blog readers are as interested in the visual aspects of the food as the  content. So if you’re writing about food you ate or cooked, you need to be just as good at taking the photos as you are at writing.

How do you get there? Fortunately, there’s tons of good information online about improving your photography skills, much of it provided by friendly bloggers, including those who win awards for their work.

free-stock-images-cake-pictures-01-500x375Here’s a list, by no means comprehensive, of ways and people who will help you improve your food photography:

Generous food bloggers who share their knowledge:

Half of America Will Buy Thanksgiving Dinner

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pr_pop_zia_Earlier this week I read a statistic that fifty-three percent of Americans will rely on food prepared away from home for part or all of their Thanksgiving dinners by buying restaurant takeout food.

Whoa! That doesn’t even count all the people who go to markets for prepared food. (And it doesn’t count those who will have it catered. My husband and I once ate the leftovers of Billy Bob Thornton‘s vegan Thanksgiving dinner when we visited a former client of mine. But I digress.)

It’s a disconnect for me, because I don’t know anyone who’s not cooking. The people I hang with are buzzing about their upcoming dinner party, or what they’re making to take to someone’s house.

Everywhere I look, though, the media thinks Americans (mostly women) plan to [Read more…] about Half of America Will Buy Thanksgiving Dinner

Who is the Best Food Writer Today?

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images-1While looking through my book, Will Write for Food, over the weekend, I was struck by the writers I quoted just a few years ago, all newspaper and magazine writers and cookbook authors. Certainly they were the big names in print food writing.

But that was then and this is now. So now I’m going around asking: “Who is the ultimate food writer today?”

On a cemetery walk with blogger and cookbook author Romney Steele, we decided it’s not a simple answer, depending on how you define success and food writing. Later she named cookbook authors Jane and Michael Stern, John T. Edge, and Deborah Madison; then  bestselling author Michael Pollan and Tom Philpott for food politics and science. Are these last two truly food writers?

What about from a commercial perspective? The only cookbooks I’ve seen on bestseller lists lately are Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child (sorry, she’s dead) and  Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. I’m disqualifying cookbooks by celebrities and celebrity chefs who would not call themselves food writers, like Rachel Ray and Paula Deen, and Hungry Girl author Lisa Lillien. Does this mean Julie Powell is America’s most successful food writer?

Yesterday, over herbal chai tea with food writer Tara Weaver, I posed the question. Commercially speaking, she offered New York Times writer Mark Bittman as a candidate, a newspaperman who has also mastered the cookbook bestseller lists and blogging.

But she’d rather look at success through the writing. This is where the conversation turned to bloggers, to her friends at Orangette and Gluten-Free Girl, beautiful writers like herself. Tara says she does most of her reading online today, not in books. Are bloggers the best food writers?

I’m still thinking about the answer. I’m interested in knowing what you think. Who gets your vote, and why?

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?

Will Julie & Julia Mean More Food Bloggers?

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I finally saw Julie & Julia on Sunday with two friends,  Suzan Bateson, Executive Director of the Alameda County Community Food Bank; and Faith Kramer of Blog Appetit.  Faith suggested in her blog that the movie theater collect food for the food bank, and the theater obliged by giving free movie posters to anyone who donated.

The movie was was fast-paced, funny, sexy, and the food shots were gorgeous. Merryl Streep was totally believable as Child, and Faith said it was much more fun than reading Julie Powell’s blog. (I didn’t read it, and I don’t think it’s available online now.) I had such a good time that I found myself thinking, “What was all that about, where traditional food writers were jealous of Julie Powell? Can’t we all just get along?”

Connections to a few of the people involved increased my enjoyment. I met the movie’s food stylist Susan Spungen at an International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) conference years ago, when she was the food editor of Martha Stewart Living. We had a hilarious conversation about people who had informational meetings with her to ask how to get her job.  I enjoyed Amanda Hesser’s cameo, particularly because I interviewed her while writing Will Write for Food, and met her for breakfast at Balthazar in New York, where we inhaled a specialty,  chocolate bread. I also interviewed Child’s book editor, Judith Jones.

images-1My agent  suggested in an email that EVERYONE (her caps) will want to be a food blogger now. Wow, I thought. Do they not understand how much work it is, that Powell was already a writer of sorts, and that they’re not going to get the same kind of attention and six-figure advance? Julie Powell started her blog six years ago, had a great hook, and the tie-in to Julia Child was essential to her success. Plus, a food blog was a rare thing then. I read somewhere there are some 45,000 food blogs now.

Will Julie & Julia send foodies dashing to WordPress? Can  a newbie food blog garner the same success as Powell’s, or  Clotilde Dusoulier (Chocolate and Zucchini) or Molly Wizenberg (Orangette)? Is the public still hungry for new blogs on cooking and food? Has fatigue set in for the blog-fueled memoir?