Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

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

Recipe Writing

Barefoot Contessa's Dogged Recipe Testing

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Think your readers will make your recipes flawlessly simply because you’ve made them more than once?

Mega-star and cookbook author Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa fame doesn’t, even though she has worked in the food business for more than 30 years. She still relies on an assistant and her friends when developing new recipes.

In How Easy is That?, Garten says once she’s tested a recipe repeatedly, she hands it over to longtime assistant Barbara Libath. Then she watches Libath make it.

“Every time I do that, I learn something about how someone at home, with only the printed recipe in front of them, might make the dish,” Garten writes. She’s careful not to [Read more…] about Barefoot Contessa's Dogged Recipe Testing

20 Terms For Selling (I Mean Writing) Recipes

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Are his wares "Perfect for any occasion?"

Yes, recipe writers have to make readers want to rush into the kitchen. And readers need convincing. But must we sell, sell, sell?

I found these 20 terms below in a cookbook I edited recently.

What’s wrong with them? They’re generic. They’re overused. And I feel like I’m getting a sales pitch.

I put my least favorite term (no, not delicious) first. But “Perfect for any occasion” is delicious’s equivalent in value and vagueness. What exactly does it mean? Perfect for a funeral and your kid’s lunchbox? For a wedding or an after-school snack?

I bet the guy in the photo would use this term, if he thought it would work. It’s his job to snow you. But is it your job to snow readers?

Here’s my list of 20 tired sales pitches:

  1. Perfect for any occasion
  2. Minimum of time and effort
  3. You’ll rely on these recipes day in [Read more…] about 20 Terms For Selling (I Mean Writing) Recipes

Q&A: Amanda Hesser on How to Adapt and Write Recipes

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Amanda Hesser, co-founder of Food52 (Photo by Sarah Shatz)

The subject of writing and adapting recipes generates lots of heated comments on this blog. We debate whether anyone can own a recipe, and whether changing someone else’s recipe makes it yours.

To get another perspective on the creative process of recipe writing, I interviewed Amanda Hesser, co-founder of Food52, the crowd-sourcing recipe website; and author of award winning cookbooks, most recently The Essential New York Times Cookbook.

Food52 accepts recipes for testing, voting and eventual publication, so the site has contest rules for acceptable recipe adapting. Intrigued by the pains Hesser took to show an example of successful recipe changes, I thought Hesser might have opinions on the matter.

Q. This blog has had heated discussions about what constitutes recipe writing and adapting. What is your definition of an adapted recipe?

A. There are two definitions.

At the New York Times, any recipe that comes from another source will always say “adapted from” because it goes through the copy-editing department, and there are little tiny changes that have to do with the stylebook. It means it’s not a word-for-word replica.

The other definition is when it’s someone’s own recipe has been inspired by another’s, for instance, if someone has cooked Alice Water’s Braised Leeks enough times that they’ve personalized it. A lot of people read recipes for inspiration, looking for a flavor combination to play around with. Then they go in the kitchen and do their own thing. But it’s important that they [Read more…] about Q&A: Amanda Hesser on How to Adapt and Write Recipes

It's the "Mixture" Quiz! Answer These Questions Correctly and Feel Superior Immediately!

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A "mixture" of beets? Nope. (Photo by Owen Rubin.)

I’ve been editing a cookbook this past week. Doing so always leads to a new blog post where I need to vent.

This time the food writer is too fond of  the word “mixture.” (What, you thought my favorite over-used word was “delicious?”) So, in an homage to cookbook editor Judith Jones, I’ve been deleting as many “mixtures” as possible and inserting more specific words.

Instead of my usual venting this time, I invented a little game for you to play. It’s my very first “Mixture” Quiz!  (Vigorous applause from our studio audience.) I hope you’ll play. Choose an answer to each question below. Correct answers follow.

Let me know how many of the following seven questions you got right, and whether you think I’m wrong about any of them or have some new ideas for me. There is no reward for correct answers,  just a feeling of superiority. Good luck!

Questions:

1. Combine the evaporated milk, garlic powder, and the Italian seasoning. Bring the _____ to a boil.

a) milk  b) sauce  c) mixture d) Get rid of second sentence and write “and bring to a boil.”

2. Combine the mashed garbanzo beans, garlic salt, and egg. Divide the ____ into 8 patties.

a) beans  b) Edit second sentence to read “Divide into 8 [Read more…] about It's the "Mixture" Quiz! Answer These Questions Correctly and Feel Superior Immediately!

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

Giving Recipes Away a Big Subject at IFBC

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The interior of Theo Chocolates, decked out for 250 attendees of the International Food Blogger Conference in Seattle this past weekend..

On the first panel at the International Food Blogger Conference (IFBC) last weekend, Amy Sherman raised the issue of pay for recipes. She suggested if bloggers want to go pro, they start charging when companies ask to use their recipes.

It’s not a new idea for food writers like Amy and me, who have been charging for our work for years. But for food bloggers and the people who publish their work, it’s touchy.

Let’s start with the publishers. Foodista and IFBC founders Barnaby Dorfman and Sheri Wetherell have authored a forthcoming Foodista cookbook from Andrews-McMeel where 100 recipes appear as the result of a judged contest. (Disclosure: Andrews-McMeel paid me to edit the recipes in that cookbook.) No bloggers were paid for their recipes.

Was this a problem? I don’t think so. Many food bloggers are honored to be asked for a recipe, and see their [Read more…] about Giving Recipes Away a Big Subject at IFBC