Dianne Jacob's Blog, page 9

The Editor of the Michelin Guide Website Wants to Hear from You

If you know how to write freelance pieces about restaurants and chefs, the editor of the Michelin Guide United States website wants to hear from you.

Editor Aaron Hutcherson started a food blog, The Hungry Hutch, almost 10 years ago, during a former career on Wall Street. He went on to become a chef and still posts twice a month. But now he manages a network of freelance writers from pitch through editing and publishing for Michelin Guide United States. (He’s also the editor and social media manager for Robert Parker Wine Advocate, which is owned by Michelin.)

“There’s still a lot of people who don’t know that this site exists,” he admits. In addition to assigning and editing pices, he writes a couples of pieces per week. “When I have the time and energy to invest in the piece I really enjoy it.” 

Here’s Michelin Guide website editor Aaron Hutcherson on what subjects he looks for:

Aaron Hutcherson left a career on Wall Street for food media, starting a blog, becoming a chef and now, editing the Michelin Guide’s US content for the website.

Q. What kind of stories do freelancers write on the Michelin website?

 A. It’s a little bit of everything. Our main categories are chef profiles, restaurant openings and ingredient-focused pieces. We had a piece about the health benefits of oysters. Someone wrote about chefs collaborating with José Andrés at Minibar. We’ve done a couple of winemaker profiles. 

Sometimes we have features on other related subjects, such as restaurant employee turnover, or on an organization called ZeroFoodprint that helps restaurants become ecofriendly.

We only cover New York, Washington, Chicago and the state of California.

Q. Obviously, since it’s the Michelin guide your interest is primarily chefs and restaurants.

 A. Yes. There are more general food pieces. We don’t do any first person essays from freelance writers, unless they happen to be chefs.

Q. Do you want writers to submit photos as well?

A. We ask them to help us source photos, such as from a PR firm, but it’s not required.

Q. Who reads your website?

A. Anyone who is interested in restaurants or restaurant culture. It could be home cooks as well, and travelers who like to eat well.

Q. How many freelance pieces do you buy in an average month?

A. Twelve to 15. My colleague also works with some freelancers.

Q. How do you like to be pitched?

A. By email: Aaron DOT Hutcherson AT RobertParker.com. I usually get back to people within the week.

Q. Any last words for freelancer writers?

A. Do your research. Read through the website to see what we’ve written about. Look under Dining Out, People, Features, and Dining In. 

Don’t pitch me something that we’ve already written about. We don’t want the same story that’s been written about Thomas Keller. It has to be something new or novel. And all the lists are taken from the guide itself, so we don’t take restaurant lists, such as “best restaurants” kinds of listsicles.

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You might also like:

Why it’s Both Easier and Harder to Freelance for Publication
How to Find and Attract Editors for Pitching Articles
12 Tips for Pitching Articles to Publications and Websites

(Top photo courtesy of Unsplash, by Michael Browning.)

The post The Editor of the Michelin Guide Website Wants to Hear from You appeared first on Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food.

Want to Write Cookbook Reviews? Here are 5 Tips

A guest post by Martha Lorden
 
I love cookbooks, so it’s only natural that I hunger for a way to share my interest and enthusiasm. As a result, I write cookbook reviews for Publishers Weekly (PW), a professional trade magazine designed for the folks who purchase books for libraries and bookstores.
 
PW reviews the latest and hottest cookbooks in 220-word reviews. It’s no easy feat to craft a succinct review of that size that is accurate and fair. In fact, it is maddeningly challenging.

 
A good review must do more than examine recipes. Readers of PW cookbook reviews want a feel for the cookbook as a whole, plus a sense of its form, function and style. One thing specific to this publisher is that there is no budget for recipe testing, so I can’t speak to that part of a review. Nor is it seen as necessary, as a professional reviewer can size up a cookbook using key parameters.
 
Here are 5 tips on how to ace cookbook reviews: 
1. Describe the author’s background and authority.
Introduce the author to readers and comment on his or her experience and expertise. Is the author a renown chef, restaurant owner, respected cookbook author, or celebrity? Or is the cookbook a product of a brand, restaurant chain, television show, or manufacturer of cooking equipment looking to promote? Consider whether recipes are a new take on classic dishes. Compare the book to others written by the author, or to similar popular cookbooks.
 
2. Identify the intended audience.  
Who would find this cookbook enjoyable and useful? Was it  written for fans (or would-be fans) of a particular food, national cuisine, cooking technique, or eating style such as veganism or clean eating? Does it succeed in addressing that audience? To whom would you recommend or not recommend this cookbook? 
 
3. Write in the style appropriate to the publication. 
Reviewing for the publishing industry is not the same as writing in a personal blog or for a magazine or newspaper. Bloggers invariably include sample recipes and lots of photos.  Magazines and newspapers may expect recipe testing—at  your expense! Anonymous reviewers who write for professional trade magazines like PW must adhere to strict guidelines and can expect their 220-word pieces to be edited by no fewer than three copy editors.
 
4. Evaluate the cookbook’s mission and accessibility.
The cookbook’s title and introduction indicate what the author hopes to accomplish. Reviewers comment on design features that facilitate using the cookbook: Is it easy to navigate, find recipes, or follow the recipe format? Are cooking directions, header notes, and sidebars clear and helpful? Photographs and illustrations (especially when demonstrating technique) can make or break a modern cookbook. Weigh style versus substance. If a cookbook is more aspirational than useful, say so. 
 
5.  Be honest in your cookbook reviews.
My editor at PW says that a cookbook review should be about 80% description and 20% evaluation. Remember that one negative comment can go a long way, so avoid being heavy handed. Most importantly, back up your critique with specific examples and quotations from the content. Do not quote from or appropriate content from book jacket blurbs, promotional materials provided by the publisher, or from other reviews. Provide page citations for any quotes,  and check your facts.
 
While professional cookbook reviewing can be a bit formulaic, creative approaches abound. And so do opportunities. You’d be surprised. My first paid, steady gig was for our local food co-op’s monthly magazine, reviewing cookbooks sold in its store. I admired the collection but thought few people knew about it. All it took was a phone call to the magazine’s editor.
 
You can learn more about reviewing cookbooks at conferences, workshops, and events related to food writing or cookbook publishing where networking opportunities abound. Join a culinary history organization, take cooking classes, or attend lectures by cookbook authors. Presenters are more than willing to offer guidance. I met the senior editor from PW who hired me at a food writing conference nearly a decade ago, and I’m still part of the review team, happily.
 
If you are passionate about cookbooks and enjoy a writing challenge, you might enjoy becoming a cookbook reviewer. You’ll never get rich, but  your collection of cookbooks will explode. That’s because you get to keep the books. With every review I write, I add another treasured book to my library. There’s great satisfaction in thinking critically about a cookbook and putting those thoughts into words.

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Martha Esersky Lorden is a book reviewer who specializes in cookbooks and culinary history.  In addition to reviewing, she has published interviews with notable authors including Yotam Ottolenghi, Diana Henry, David Lebovitz, and Mimi Sheraton. For examples of her reviews, see her blog, Outtathekitchen.com .   

You might also like:

For a Cookbook Review, is Testing Recipes Essential?
You got a free cookbook! Now what?
Who Buys Cookbooks and Why?

(Top photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash.)

The post Want to Write Cookbook Reviews? Here are 5 Tips appeared first on Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food.

For Nik Sharma, Developing Recipes is All About Science

While a student at the University of Mumbai, studying biochemistry and microbiology, cookbook author and food writer Nik Sharma learned a process that he would eventually use for developing recipes. 

“We worked in a lab, doing medical research, ” he explains. “We were taught to make buffers or chemical solutions. The way it’s done is very similar to recipe development. In fact, we called them recipes.”

The computer room was separate from the workspace, so students had to take notes by hand when doing tests. He became accustomed to writing everything down in longhand first.

One of Sharma’s many testing notebooks that his university bound for students at the end of class. He brought them all from India to America.

“The way you’re taught is to keep doing things again and again,” he says of scientific testing. ‘You could run tests three times, run the whole experiment three times, or measure a sample three times.” The point was to prove that the results were not a fluke.

Later the university bound his notes, drawings, and hand drawn charts into hardcover books, which he kept when he moved to America. Now Sharma handwrites his new recipes in standard lab books that he buys online for $10 to $20. Later he writes them up in MS-Word.

Online, Sharma found notebooks similar to the kind the university made for him. He buys them for writing recipes in longhand.

When he started developing recipes, he didn’t use the triplicate system immediately. At first, he was not sure about the process. Then he realized he already spent time tweaking recipes to figure out why some worked and some did not. He found small variations in results depending on ingredient amounts; for example, when he used one brand of crème fresh that was 7.5 ounces and another that was 8 ounces. So he decided he needed to test three times. 

“I was drawn to cooking because it was a creative field, but the process of experimentation does make it much more exciting to me than normal people,” he admitted. That’s because he studied variations as part of his scientific developmental process.

“One little change can make a monumental effect,” he noted. “If I want to make something less sweet, for example, I know from my background in science that humans, if they taste or smell something at least three or more times in a particular combination, they start to make an association. Cinnamon is an example. So I can make a dessert that’s less sweet because Americans are used to sweet desserts with cinnamon.”

Sharma works in metric and converts the amounts later, using a spreadsheet. He’s content to measure spices in teaspoons for small quantities. And he has a cute beaker-shaped measuring cup, just for fun.

While I visited him at home in Oakland, CA, he tested a recipe for rainbow trout slathered inside with a bright orange sauce that woke up my tastebuds. There was the question of semolina coating versus flour, even though he suspected that semolina would taste better. He still tested his premise, making it both ways. (And yes, the semolina tasted better.)

Sharma tested a trout recipe with two kinds of coatings and wrote impressions of his results in his notebook.

For his third test, he said he might make the trout with Italian semolina versus Indian semolina because of the size of the granules. “I want to know both,” he said. “You start with something you’re more comfortable with and compare it with the new thing to see if it makes a difference.”

When it comes to inspiration for recipe development, Sharma said, “I read a lot from the Middle East, a lot from New Zealand and Australia, and obviously India. I read to get a sense of what’s happening outside my comfort zone. The way people approach the same ingredient in a different country can be a mind opener.”

“And I like really old American cookbooks because I learn a lot. There are things we don’t write about anymore, such as ‘Don’t cut fruit with a metal knife because it will turn brown.’ Today you could use a ceramic knife too. These are fascinating little things.”

Many recipe writers draw inspiration from restaurants, but not Sharma. “I enjoy them, but I’m not looking to replicate something from a restaurant at home.” As for seasonal produce, he says he has to be careful of what his readers can access. “Here in the Bay Area, we have lemon cucumbers and different kinds of mint, for example. Not everyone can get those. And I rarely recommend using kosher salt. We think that everyone has what we have.”

He did feel fine about including some ingredients that might be harder to find in his first cookbook, Season.  “With Season, I had to be delicate about what I want to introduce people to — aside from spices, which are easy to order online. Jaggery and ghee were regular ingredients. They were my muses. But I gave substitutes for jaggery.”

Sharma’s now working on a new cookbook for Chronicle Books, developing recipes by longhand. And perfecting his trout recipe with a crispy coating.

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You might also like:

What I Learned from Cook’s Illustrated about Recipe Development
Please Don’t “Dumb Down” a Recipe
A Revolutionary Way to Handle Subrecipes

(This post contains affiliate links.)

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If You Want to Write a Biography About a Famous Person or Two…

At a conference I attended recently, a panel focused on two kinds of projects: writing a memoir and writing a biography. Moderated by Cara De Silva, the panelists were memoirists Elissa Altman, Mark Russ Federman, Madhur Jaffrey; and biographers Laura Shapiro and Anne Mendelson.

I zeroed in on Anne, author of Stand By the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America the Joy of Cooking. I had met her decades ago at a Symposium for Professional Food Writers at the Greenbrier. She clutched her typewritten address and read it to the crowd. It was an insightful and wry essay about her experience. She was the biographer of the mother-and-daughter team of Irma S. Rombauer and her daughter Marion Rombauer Becker, the authors of the Joy of Cooking. It seemed like writing the biography nearly killed Anne. But as they say, she persisted.

Later I asked Anne what she was going to do with her written speech. “Nothing,” she said. So I asked if I could publish it on my blog, where you could have the pleasure of reading it. 

Keep in mind that Joy of Cooking has sold around 19 million copies. People often give it as gifts at weddings and to young people moving away to college or into their own homes. 

Here are Anne Mendelson’s witty tips on what could be in store, should you want to write a biography of a famous food person or two:

Said Publisher’s Weekly: “Mendelson’s narrative is enlivened by numerous personal stories: the suicide in 1930 of Rombauer’s manic-depressive husband, Edgar, a civil rights lawyer; Becker’s championing of modernist art and her crusading for affordable housing in Cincinnati; her often tense relationship with her mother, who criticized her plain looks; and her steadfast, loving care for her mother, who suffered repeated strokes, even as she herself fought the cancer to which she eventually succumbed.”

Four or five years ago, I had a phone call out of the blue from a California movie producer. He was inquiring about rights to my book Stand Facing the Stove, a biography of the mother and daughter who wrote The Joy of Cooking: Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker.

This idea rapidly fell through when Simon & Schuster, the current publisher of both my book and Joy, realized that the poor man had some half-baked notion about the title Joy of Cooking. He wanted a household watchword from which he could cobble together a warm and wonderful story about how cooking brings families together in the kitchen.

Now, trademarked titles can’t be casually borrowed by people with visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads. And the real story is anything but warm and wonderful, or big on family togetherness blossoming in the kitchen.

But I have to say that when I started out to write Stand Facing the Stove, I didn’t know much more than this guy. My only ideas at the outset were (a) 90 percent of what I knew about cooking came from The Joy of Cooking, and (b) some quality in the book made me want to meet the women who’d created it, even though they were no longer on this planet. They sounded like real people. They were tangible personalities who were somehow talking to me as a reader-cook, in a way that cookbooks just don’t do.

Well, I was right about that. Otherwise I was flying blind. And looking back, it seems to me that flying blind is a necessary condition for beginning any biography, culinary or other. So, if you decide to write a biography…

1. You have to form a relationship with the people you’re writing about.

That’s because you will meet them in many different contexts as your research proceeds. You can’t know in advance how smooth or bumpy the ride will be.

2. You’re going to find out things about these people that you never expected to find — maybe disconcerting things.

I was a bit unnerved to discover that Irma had had a half-brother who was one of the age’s most notorious mail-fraud artists.

3. You may encounter real tragedies.

It was devastating to realize that Irma’s husband, Marion’s father, had killed himself at the outset of the Great Depression. He left almost nothing in the way of an estate. Irma somehow scraped herself off the floor. She decided, to the surprise of her family, to write a cookbook.

4. There may be things that you can’t properly interpret without immersing yourself in matters that are outside your expertise.

I never foresaw, for example, grappling with the complex detail-by-detail logistics of how publishers had to plan for editing humongous cookbook manuscripts and getting them into production. This was all while fending off the authors’ eagle-eyed lawyers 50 or 60 years ago.

5. Don’t be surprised if you also run into tensions between people, or outright battles they get mixed up in.

If so, you’ll have to referee every situation as fairly as you can, taking nothing for granted about rights and wrongs. Certainly there were minefields that I had to navigate painstakingly, without snap judgments or partiality. I’ll mention just two examples:

One dilemma that couldn’t be escaped was emotional and psychological: Irma and Marion were not any model of the happy mother and daughter. Irma was a lady of birth and breeding. She was chock-full of charm and wit and adorable qualities. I gradually learned that she was also a holy terror chock-full of punishing anger. Nobody was more the butt of it than Marion.

And yet in other ways, they were lifelong best friends who couldn’t have loved each other more. (If you think those two facts can’t be reconciled, you don’t know much about real people.) Marion was one person who could stand up to Irma. They complemented each other, throughout many disagreements about the direction of the book, like the monarch and the prime minister.

Between the two of them, they created a kitchen bible filled with a humanity and humor unlike the tone of any Joy competitor. They also packed it with solid information, much more than any competitor. Irma had been the one to infuse some inimitable spark of joie de vivre into the book. Marion was able to preserve this while turning Joy into a one-volume reference work. It certainly had no equal when I was learning to cook. (And probably doesn’t, even today.) As I figured out very soon, while getting to know them, Marion was a faithful but firm-willed daughter and no carbon copy.

The 1936 edition of Joy of Cooking, published by Bobbs-Merrill. Unfortunately, Rombauer signed the contract that assigned copyright of both the 1931 and 1936 editions to the publisher.

The other imbroglio I had to do justice to was financial. Irma and Marion were convinced that their publishers, the Bobbs-Merrill Company, had systematically robbed them blind over decades. (They couldn’t go to another publisher because Irma had ignorantly surrendered copyright at an early stage.)

It was a world-class war. I had access to tons of papers held by the family presenting the case from the authors’ viewpoint. Bobbs-Merrill, however, refused to answer my requests for information. So I had to comb through some fascinating but incomplete company records at the Lilly Library of Indiana University. I supplemented these by seeking out all surviving Bobbs-Merrill staffers who agreed to be interviewed. (Luckily there were plenty of them still alive.)

To present only one side of this bitter, prolonged tooth-and-nail feud at the heart of the Joy story as if that took care of everything would have been easy. But it also would have been completely dishonest. I’d be surprised if anybody could write a decent biography without digging their way out of similar unforeseen booby-traps. Sorry, but that goes with the job.

You may have to – as I did – divide up your narrative between a chronology of your subjects’ life or lives, and other chapters completely dedicated to the culinary context. There’s no one right way to do the thing.

I can say that you must move heaven and earth in any way you find necessary, in order to come face to face with your people. Secondary sources, no matter how good, will never bring you face to face. I was lucky to have mountains of primary material to work with, even though the sheer volume of it was, at the time, terrifying.

6. One little tip that I suspect will hold good for everybody.

You can expect to spend an awful lot of time thinking, “Why did I ever get myself into this mess?” Well, you the writer are the only one who can get yourself out of it gradually, one inch at a time. You will be feeling your way into a subject-and-biographer relationship that’s neither idolizing, belittling, naively partisan, coldly disconnected, nor tailor-made for Hollywood.

* * *

You might also like:

The history of the joy of cooking
About Irma S. Rombauer
About Marion Rombauer Becker

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Get Some Humor into Your Food Writing

A guest post by Debbie Moose

The funny thing about being funny is that, once you try writing that way, you probably won’t want to stop. Humorous food writing connects with readers better than the regular way, because if you get ’em laughing, they’re paying attention.

Humor is my default setting. I’m just wired that way. But I still work hard at finding the right word, the best phrase, and the perfect silly-yet-true thing about the food world that will connect with readers and make them feel comfortable getting in the kitchen and cooking. Someone once wrote about acting, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” and that’s true. But your hard work will pay off.

Here are 5 ideas to get some humor into your food writing:
1. Laugh at yourself.

The best humor can come from personal experience, even from deep pain. If you’re a fan of the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you know that.

My style is to let readers know that I make kitchen mistakes too, and that I agree some things in the food world are silly. We’re all laughing together.

2. Reach beyond the low-hanging fruit.

Tossing celebrity names into a piece to add topical humor is like using garlic powder in spaghetti sauce because you’re too lazy to chop the real thing. It will work, and we’ve all done it, but you’ll get an average response instead of a great one.

Stretch for the better comparison, the perfect word choice (“sopped” and “wiped” have different connotations, for example), and the sharp observation. Never forget that you’re still telling a story, so avoid one-liners that are funny but get in the way.

3. Mock what people do, not who they are.

Don’t make fun of something someone can’t change, such as sexual orientation, size or race. That’s what bullies do. Instead, focus on a person’s actions, as when a disgraced orange-shod chef included a cinnamon roll recipe in a press release where he apologized for sexually harassing his staff. Why mock his girth and hair color when he has offered such comedic meat to feed on?

4. Steel yourself for people who just don’t get it.

A former editor of mine wrote funny short items for the newspaper’s TV page. So many humor-impaired people complained that he started inserting a (J) after each wisecrack to indicate a joke. Some will always miss the point. But look carefully at how you’re presenting the material and try hard to understand the perspective of your readers.

5. Read funny people.

Here are just a few, both food focused and general:

Nora Ephron
Kat Kinsman (Extra Crispy website and No Pressure blog)
Erma Bombeck 
David Sedaris 
Calvin Trillin
Shakespeare’s comedies (he’s a dead white guy but still funny), and 
McSweeney’s online magazine.

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Debbie Moose is a food writer and cookbook author in Raleigh, N.C. Her work has appeared in The News & Observer, The Charlotte Observer, and West Virginia South and Our State magazines. Her food essays have won awards from the Association of Food Journalists. She also teaches classes in writing and cooking.

(Photo by Ben White on Upsplash)

(This post contains affiliate links.)

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4 Events Coming Up in the US and Beyond

Learning al fresco in the garden of our villa in the Valpolicella wine region. (Photo by Owen Rubin.)

Part of being a good writer is getting out from behind your computer to attend a conference, workshop or other events coming up. These are places to network and learn, of course. 

But more imporantly, getting away can help you move forward with renewed enthusiasm and energy. When you get out of your rut, your mind makes room for all kinds of exciting thoughts. And when working with like-minded people, you find new ways to solve problems and expand your ideas. 

My events focus on becoming a better writer and content communicator. You’re making an investment to differentiate yourself from the crowd and meet your goals.

So what’s on your agenda this year? Why not come join me?

First the “beyond” category, a can’t miss event coming up in Italy: 

The villa and grounds include a pool, vineyard, and seating for lounging and writing outside.

1. Verona, Italy: Our week-long workshop on food and wine writing 6/30-7/6

Need a change of scenery to get revitalized? Come to my third Italy Food and Wine Writing Workshop with co-host Demet Guzey, who teaches food writing at the Cordon Bleu in Paris. You’ll write and we’ll give you individual feedback to improve your work immediately. I’ll also answer your questions about recipe writing, getting a cookbook published, food writing trends and more. After all, we’ll have a week together to eat artisan Italian dishes, drink Valpolicella wines and luxuriate in this spectacular 500-year old villa. 

“It was a fantastic group and I learned a lot from Dianne and Demet. The villa, restaurants and tours were wonderful. The entire experience gave me the creative boost I needed.” – Lisa Marie Todd, lifestyle and food blogger, Los Angeles, CA

Closer to home, I have these events coming up:
1. New York: Keynote speaker at the Food Writing Forum, April 5-6, 2019.

At the Food Writing Forum, the theme is “Opportunities and Challenges in the Digital Age.” Speakers include Dorie Greenspan, Madhur Jaffrey, cookbook editor Rux Martin, Sara Moulton, and Julia Turshen. (See these interviews on my blog with Dorie, Rux and Julia.) 

2. Santa Fe, NM: A workshop on Finding Your Voice at IACP, May 17, 2019

Planning to attend the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) annual conference? I’ll be teaching an optional 2.5-hour workshop called Finding Your Voice Through Personal Essay on May 17, 2019, the day before conference opens. (You have to scroll down to find it.)

Voice is the single best way to differentiate yourself from all the other food writers out there who are writing on similar subjects. This is true whether you’re writing a blog, pitching essays, writing recipes or writing memoir.

3. Portland, OR: Workshop Leader, The Tastemaker Conference, September 19-21, 2019.

As part of the conference, I’ll be teaching a class called “Your Voice Matters: The Art of Storytelling to Make Your Blog Writing Stand Out from the Crowd.” It’s a big theme for me, to help writers discover ways to approach similar content. 

I hope to see you at one of these events. Meeting readers and people in our industry is the most fun part of my work. Like you, I need to get away from my office and into the world. Doing so invigorates me and gives me energy for my projects. I know you will experience the same reward.

Any questions? Shoot me an email at dj AT diannej DOT com.

The post 4 Events Coming Up in the US and Beyond appeared first on Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food.

4 Can’t-Miss Events Coming Up in the US and Beyond

Learning al fresco in the garden of our villa in the Valpolicella wine region. (Photo by Owen Rubin.)

Part of being a good writer is getting out from behind your computer to attend a conference, workshop or other events coming up. These are places to network and learn, of course. 

But more imporantly, getting away can help you move forward with renewed enthusiasm and energy. When you get out of your rut, your mind makes room for all kinds of exciting thoughts. And when working with like-minded people, you find new ways to solve problems and expand your ideas. 

My events focus on becoming a better writer and content communicator. You’re making an investment to differentiate yourself from the crowd and meet your goals.

So what’s on your agenda this year? Why not come join me?

First the “beyond” category, a can’t miss event coming up in Italy: 

The villa and grounds include a pool, vineyard, and seating for lounging and writing outside.

1. Verona, Italy: Our week-long workshop on food and wine writing 6/30-7/6

Need a change of scenery to get revitalized? Come to my third Italy Food and Wine Writing Workshop with co-host Demet Guzey, who teaches food writing at the Cordon Bleu in Paris. You’ll write and we’ll give you individual feedback to improve your work immediately. I’ll also answer your questions about recipe writing, getting a cookbook published, food writing trends and more. After all, we’ll have a week together to eat artisan Italian dishes, drink Valpolicella wines and luxuriate in this spectacular 500-year old villa. 

“It was a fantastic group and I learned a lot from Dianne and Demet. The villa, restaurants and tours were wonderful. The entire experience gave me the creative boost I needed.” – Lisa Marie Todd, lifestyle and food blogger, Los Angeles, CA

Closer to home, I have these events coming up:
1. New York: Keynote speaker at the Food Writing Forum, April 5-6, 2019.

At the Food Writing Forum, the theme is “Opportunities and Challenges in the Digital Age.” Speakers include Dorie Greenspan, Madhur Jaffrey, cookbook editor Rux Martin, Sara Moulton, and Julia Turshen. (See these interviews on my blog with Dorie, Rux and Julia.) 

2. Santa Fe, NM: A workshop on Finding Your Voice at IACP, May 17, 2019

Planning to attend the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) annual conference? I’ll be teaching an optional 2.5-hour workshop called Finding Your Voice Through Personal Essay on May 17, 2019, the day before conference opens. (You have to scroll down to find it.)

Voice is the single best way to differentiate yourself from all the other food writers out there who are writing on similar subjects. This is true whether you’re writing a blog, pitching essays, writing recipes or writing memoir.

3. Portland, OR: Workshop Leader, The Tastemaker Conference, September 19-21, 2019.

As part of the conference, I’ll be teaching a class called “Your Voice Matters: The Art of Storytelling to Make Your Blog Writing Stand Out from the Crowd.” It’s a big theme for me, to help writers discover ways to approach similar content. 

I hope to see you at one of these events. Meeting readers and people in our industry is the most fun part of my work. Like you, I need to get away from my office and into the world. Doing so invigorates me and gives me energy for my projects. I know you will experience the same reward.

Any questions? Shoot me an email at dj AT diannej DOT com.

The post 4 Can’t-Miss Events Coming Up in the US and Beyond appeared first on Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food.

Q&A: Julia Turshen on the Politics of Food and Writing

Best-selling cookbook author Julia Turshen has always volunteered in her community, including cooking for for a local version of Meals on Wheels. More recently she’s been working with her other community: food media people and publishers. 

Through her work as a cookbook author and as the founder of Equity At The Table (EATT), a digital directory of women and non-binary individuals in food, Turshen is helping to move us forward to a more inclusive and welcoming industry.

For her, taking action is a natural outcome of being part of this community. So if you think it’s too hard to make a difference, or that it doesn’t apply to food writing, Turshen would beg to disagree.

Here are Julia Turshen’s thoughts on the politics of food and writing, and how she has made positive and productive changes:
Q. How did coauthoring prepare you for writing your own cookbooks?

A. On a logistic level, it gave me a way to better understand the entire cookbook process. On a more emotional level, it helped me figure out my own voice and helped me believe in it, too. I still coauthor quite a bit. I love getting to do both my own books and more collaborative work. It’s a really nice mix.

Of all the books Julia Turshen has written, this one makes her the most proud.

Q. Why did you decide to focus on social causes in Feed the Resistance? Was there a particular event?

A. I’ve always been active in my own community, but the 2016 presidential election really turned a switch on in my life, as it did for so many others. It helped me connect the dots between my own work in my community and my work as a cookbook author.

Food is political and it’s about people, and politics are about people. There is so much overlap and there are so many incredible examples in history of people who have used food to help create change and to sustain resistance. Like Georgia Gilmore and her Club From Nowhere during the Civil Rights Movement.

I felt moved after the election to contribute something positive and productive to the conversation. I was given the advice to not reinvent the wheel, but to do what I was doing already in a more meaningful way.

One random thing I know how to do is put together a cookbook, so why not make one with an incredible community and give all of the proceeds to the ACLU? That way the simple act of buying the book would help protect civil liberties. I’m grateful to every contributor who made it way better than I could’ve ever done alone, and to my publisher for supporting it. It’s the work I am most proud of.

Q. Why should food writers care about the farm bill and other causes?

A. Writing about food gives us the opportunity to translate big issues into tangible stories. I rely heavily on Civil Eats, which does a wonderful job covering the bill and similar topics.

Q. What drove you to establish Equity at the Table (EATT)? 

A. Because I assumed that something like it already existed. So when I couldn’t find it, I made it. I was looking for it because there is rampant racial and gender discrimination in the food industry, which is so many industries under one large umbrella! I thought a free digital database full of women and non-binary individuals, nearly all of whom identify as POC and/or LGBTQ, would be a useful resource.

Q. How is EATT doing? 

A. EATT is actively making a difference every single day. It is always growing and always proving that there are, in the words of Advisory Board member Shakirah Simley, “no excuses” for not finding, hiring, featuring, and supporting more diverse and intersectional people in and around food. I’ve heard from members who have been contacted and hired for various jobs, whether it’s writing an article, photographing a story, or catering an event.

One of the most valuable metrics of success for EATT is not just how often members are contacted by gatekeepers in positions of power, but also how often and how much EATT members are connecting with each other. Community is the most valuable currency I know.

Q. Is it easier for one person to take action than to try to change the system?

A. If you’re moved to do something, an action or otherwise, do something. No option is better or easier than another. The best option is the one you show up for.

Q. What needs to change in the food writing community, in your view?

A. We need more diversity and intersectional dialogue happening in the “room where it happens.” Meaning we don’t just need to evolve who’s being written about and who’s writing, but also who is making the decisions in the first place. People like editors, publishers, and event and conference organizers.

Q. Do all food writers have a responsibility besides writing recipes, and if so, what is it?

A. It depends what you write about. But in general, and truly just as human beings, I think we all have a responsibility to pay attention, to fight injustice as much as we can, and to be mindful and kind.

Q. Are some in the food writing world in denial about how the system works?

A. It’s as true in food writing as it is in every industry: the most denial is held by those with the most power. If you benefit from the way the broken system works, it was probably built for you. But it wasn’t built for all of us.

Q. What would a perfect world of food writing look like to you?

A. It would accurately reflect the world around us.

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You might also like:

How to Write a Cookbook That Gets People Talking
The Culinary is Political
Diverse Identities are Central to Food Writing, says Nik Sharma
Want to Understand Food Media’s Lack of Diversity? Here are the Numbers

(Photo of Julia Turshen by Khadija Farah.)

(This post contains an affiliate link.)

The post Q&A: Julia Turshen on the Politics of Food and Writing appeared first on Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food.

Join Us at Our July Food and Wine Writing Workshop in Italy!

Food writing comes alive at our third annual Food and Wine Writing Workshop in Verona, Italy this summer.

My co-host and I hold this event at one of the most beautiful private villas in Italy. Our location is in the countryside outside Verona, a 15-minute drive from town.

Expect a full week of writing, feedback, and instruction. But that’s not all. You can learn and write while dining in exceptional restaurants and attending private tours at the region’s best food and wine producers.

Write in a beautiful location: a private 16-th Century villa with beautiful outdoor areas, a vineyard, and a pool. (Photo by Owen Rubin.)

You will join a group of 7 to 10 people. This small group is essential to creating mutual trust. It enables you to move beyond caution, to experience creativity by putting down your thoughts and impressions. So if you’re looking for a way to improve your food writing — whether for a blog, a cookbook or freelance writing — why not do so in Italy?  Enjoy the luxury, hospitality and beauty of summer in the countryside.

Our week begins with the opportunity to state your goals so that as instructors, Demet Guzey and I can meet your needs. (Demet teaches food writing at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, among other places.) At the end you will have a private consultation with each of us.

During a free evening out, you’ll have the optional opportunity to attend Verona’s world famous outdoor opera. Demet can help you get tickets and make reservations for dinner, because she lives in Verona and is fluent in Italian.

Just one of many large bedrooms at the villa. This one has a connecting bathroom and bedroom, best for sharing with a friend.

You are welcome to bring a friend or relative, because there’s so much to do — and because it will be fun! They will join us for all meals and tours, and you will qualify for a discounted price.

Here’s what one student said about a prior Italy workshop:

“What a joy it was to be a part of the food-wine-writing-villa extravaganza. I thought the whole workshop was wonderful in all ways–the villa, the people, the instruction and private consults, the eating and wine tasting and food preparation. All.I am thankful that I had this unique experience, that my husband could join in, and I’m excited to see what writing/art projects evolve from all I learned and experienced.” – Lynn Archer, blogger, California

(Lynn was inspired to start her blog after the workshop.)

I’m looking forward to meeting you in Italy and enjoying our week together. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. Or contact my partner Demet through the workshop’s website.

If you like, read about last year’s food and wine writing workshop and see what you might experience.

Cost varies from €2790 per person (approximately $3165 US) to €3250 (approximately $3700 US) per person for six nights, all meals except two, tours and instruction. To register and find out more, go to Food and Wine Writing Workshop website. Ciao!

The post Join Us at Our July Food and Wine Writing Workshop in Italy! appeared first on Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food.

Giveaway: Jeff Herman’s Guide to Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents

If you wonder how to find an agent for your next book, you might want this book! It provides up-to-date information about 125 powerful agents, including those who represent cookbooks, memoir, how-to, and travel books.

Now in its 28th edition, Herman’s Guide to Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents includes insider details about agents and editors too, explaining how they work and differentiating between the Big 5 publishers and independent publishers.

Jeff Herman’s literary agency has ushered nearly 1000 books into print. Jeff graciously agreed to an interview to answer some common questions I get from potential authors. If you’d like to win a copy of his book, leave a comment below.

Here’s Herman on the agenting business, how publishing works, and how writers can keep motivated despite the challenges:
Q. What is the number one thing writers don’t understand about agents?

A. I find a lack of knowledge about the crucial role agents play. Traditional publishers don’t have time or energy to screen unsolicited submissions, which are non-flatteringly referred to as “slush.” This is understandable. An editor might have to crunch several hundred slushies to find a single potentially viable project. That kind of negative ratio demotes the slush pile to quicksand.

So how do editors find publishable product? They mostly rely upon reputable agents to do the screening and to pitch projects that might be a fit.

Having an agent equals genuine access to the people who are empowered to acquire books for publication. However, in no way does that guarantee that a book contract will follow.

Q. What do writers get wrong about editors?

A. The word “editor” suggests that editors are primarily responsible for editing. That was probably accurate 50 years ago. While there are still editors who spend considerable time editing the most important titles and authors, it’s more likely the task will be delegated to a third party who specializes in editing.

Today’s editors wear many hats. Publishers expect them to have several skillsets that have nothing to do with editing. Their primary function is to discover books that ultimately make money for the publishing house.

Secondary functions include managing the author (no small task), building relationships with agents, coordinating all aspects of the publishing process, and serving as the author’s primary contact. Many houses also have a managing editor, who helps handle logistics and ensures that the trains are running on time.

Q. What defines a successful cookbook?

A. Cookbooks need to meet the same standards as any other nonfiction books. Of course, the design and production values are crucial to the final product. The publisher usually delivers those pieces, including the photography, unless the author has the ability to do it better. In that case, the publisher provides a production budget.

Literary agent Jeff Herman has written 28 editions of his guide for authors. His agency has helped publish more than 1000 books.

Measuring success depends upon what the expectations are at the outset, and how much the publisher invested. It’s not unusual for a celebrity to receive a healthy six-figure advance and substantial publisher attention. When followed by poor sales,  the publisher doesn’t break even.

The irony is that the book might appear on key bestseller lists and receive wonderful reviews. As far as the public is concerned, the book may appear to be a huge success.

Behind the scenes, however, the publisher is licking its wounds. The author is unhappy about not receiving future royalties, and perhaps not being able to leverage a similar advance next time.

Conversely, if the publisher pays a modest advance, doesn’t splurge on production items, and doesn’t print too many copies at a time, all parties are more likely to be satisfied with the outcome. The ideal scenario is for the book to be a steady seller for many years, and plant seeds for more titles by the same author.

In the long run, it’s better to be an author whose books earn healthy royalties for many years. That’s as opposed to an author who receives a fantastic one-time advance, but never sees another dime in royalties.

Q. Why do book proposals have a 99 percent rejection rate?

A. There’s a huge imbalance between desire and opportunity. But that’s just a number and it doesn’t tell the whole story. Authors shouldn’t see themselves as subservient to the so-called odds.

There are countless ways that self-empowered, ambitious writers can push their way up the food chain where the odds are much more in their favor. Ignore the rejection rate and focus on the fact that thousands of first-time authors are published each year. Make it your mission to be one of them.

Q. How important is a platform to selling a book idea? What is the optimum numbers of followers?

A. Explaining and defining “platform” is, frankly, a pain in the ass for writers and agents. The thing is, publishers prefer authors who have sufficient numbers of people waiting to buy the book.

It’s a common misnomer to think that accumulating impressive numbers is the bottom line. What really counts is engagement, which means generating quality social relationships with people who self-identify as members of relevant communities. To what extent will your contacts actually buy your book? And, will they voluntarily promote your book to others, whether in person or online? Ideally, you’ll be able to prove your optimistic claims to prospective publishers based on real evidence, as opposed to expecting them to have blind faith.

What happens when you Google your name, product or company? You can be sure that interested publishers will search for you, possibly before even reading your book proposal’s Overview.

Conventional platform bypasses can include simply being well known and popular where it counts, ongoing coverage in the media, or piggy-backing onto something or someone else.

Sometimes the subject, not the author, is the platform. For instance, several years ago I agented a successful book by a writer with zero platform who had been a top executive at Facebook. Thousands of businesspersons wanted to know what he knew about Facebook. Facebook was the platform.

Q. How can writers keep motivated in the face of rejection?

A. By forgetting that they were rejected and only focusing on generating the next opportunity. However, if you’re being serially rejected, try to understand why. It’s often possible to change the outcomes by adjusting what you’re presenting and how you are presenting it. No one who rejects you is “wrong.” Think about creative ways to make the next person “right.”

Nothing is over until you decide it is. Don’t let others make that decision for you.

Q. What is your best advice to someone who wants to publish a cookbook?

A. Investigate meaningful current competition. Always try appear to be the first person with your concept. There are ways to always be original, because no two people are alike.

Clearly demonstrate that there are already a lot of people who want to buy your cookbook, and that many more will follow once it’s available.

Be sure that your presentation goes beyond merely explaining the idea. Envision your project as an energetic living entity that always needs you to re-nourish it.

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If you’d like to win a copy of Jeff Herman’s Guide to Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents  leave a comment below. I will pick a winner at random by March 1, 2019. This offer applies to residents of the US and Canada.

The post Giveaway: Jeff Herman’s Guide to Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents appeared first on Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food.