Customer Reviews

Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Reviews, Memoir, and More (Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Blogs,)

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What is food writing? Before I read Jacob's book, I thought I might learn a few techniques for writing restaurant reviews. Wow -- I was wrong! This is a huge, magnificent field, of which I've merely sampled my first appetizer.

The author's research in compiling this book is extensive. In presenting her ideas, she doesn't limit readers to her own personal experience; she interviewed hundreds of successful food writers and asked them how they got started, what a typical day is like, and what advice they have to give.

Despite her years of industry experience, Jacob truly understands the heart of a beginner, and her voice is as far from snooty-hooty as one can be. Readers will feel encouraged and energized after reading chapters on the secrets of restaurant reviewing, cookbook compiling, recipe writing (yes, it is an art form!), memoir and nonfiction food writing, and food in fiction.

Jacob's passion is so contagious, her words dance across the page. She seems especially interested in the trend of narrative food writing, and she gives you tips on how to make your writing full of jolt and flavor. What are the three laziest adjectives used to describe food? She says "nice," "wonderful," and "delicious." She writes, "They are so vague that readers don't know what you mean other than something positive." Instead, she offers an extensive list of adjectives in chapter 5 that make it well worth the price of the book.

I'm only a simple home cook. My creativity usually involves whipping up kid-friendly favorites without having to dash off to the grocery store for exotic ingredients. Although I've written a few of my own recipes, I certainly didn't realize what an exciting art form food writing can be.

While reading this book, we ate out at a new restaurant, and I imagined myself as one of those fancy New York Times reviewers in disguise (didn't know they may actually wear wigs!). I had our waiter answering a myriad of questions, and even dashing back to speak with the chef. I brought home a menu and scribbled all over it my impressions.

I'm intrigued as to how to better describe tastes and food. And I never considered children's books to be a place where good food writing can exist. After reading WILL WRITE FOR FOOD, I am much more aware. I appreciate the recommendation from Writer's Digest and will certainly add this to my bookshelf of favorites.

I love the way she describes what it takes to make a great reviewer: [They] have passion, knowledge, authority, a great writing style, and stamina...They give the reader a feel for the place, its rhythm, and overall vibe. And they keep up their energy level and enthusiasm. Passion is paramount."

She quotes experienced food critic Alan Richman who says he can't wait to see what a restaurant has in store for him. He shares, "I get a hop in my step."

A well done book, indeed.

--Reviewed by Heather Lynn Ivester

This is a great book about food writing. It has advice on writing cookbooks, restaurant reviews, articles, memoirs and fiction. Although I have written several cookbooks and many food-related articles, the excellent advice in this book will make my future books and articles even better. I also got ideas for new markets for my writing.

One other thing I loved about this book were the quotes from food writers and exerpts from books. I now have a huge list of books I want to read.

"Will Write for Food" is a book I will definitely refer to again and again.

I can't believe no one came out with a book like this sooner. Thank you Diane Jacob. Finally a book that deals with the actual writing about food. I have read many books on how to publish magazine articles etc... but none of them deal with the actual style in which you write. I even attended a food writing workshop and to my dissapointment we barely touched on improving our writing skills. We were told "it can't be taught".

Like many people who have picked this book up, I'd like to someday write something about food, whether it be reviews, essays, a memoir, or a cookbook. Ms Jacob's step-by-step advice has proven inspiring, eye-opening, and realistic. Besides giving the how-to of getting published, she gives great tips for getting the creative, ahem, juices flowing. She also reminds us how competitive the field is and reminds us to start small, to take little bites (sorry). Finally, the book is chock full of references to books, websites, and groups that cover writing in general, writing recipes, finding agents -- the whole enchilada (I just can't help myself).

The only reason she got docked a star is that the book is full of typos, mistaken words (like not even usage errors, but those are there too), missing words, and at least one case of apostrophe abuse. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I think that if you write a book on writing, you'd really best make sure it's flawless. Still, it's a book I might actually add to my personal library at some point. I'd highly recommend it if you're at all interested in writing about food, or even just writing in general.

`Will Write for Food' by culinary journalist and writing teacher, Dianne Jacob is a must read for everyone who has any intention on entering the culinary writing field. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, Ms. Jacob makes it clear that like virtually every worthwhile endeavor, success with culinary writing is difficult. As I have occasionally given some thought to trying my hand at submitting culinary writing for publication, I have thought that there may be some `easy' markets, if I were just clever enough to find them. Ms. Jacob has convinced me that there are no easy markets, at least none which actually pay real money for publication. Even the seemingly `easy' outlets such as local newspapers, magazines, and niche magazines have so many sources of either free or relatively inexpensive material that even these markets may be tough to crack. The major national markets such as `Gourmet', `Saveur', and `Food and Wine' are virtually unreachable by the newcomer.

The second most important thing about Ms. Jacob's book is that it does not intend to teach you how to write. She does give a few pages of suggestions and hints, especially on word usage in culinary applications are spread here and there around the book. And, a few references to sources on training for writing are given, including my very favorite `The Elements of Style' by Strunk and White.

Thus, the book is more about the food writing market than it is about writing. This is a very good thing, as all your writing efforts are worthless if you don't have a clear notion of your audience, your medium, and your medium's picture of their audience. And, the quantity and quality of sources, especially web sites given in this book are truly astounding. There is not a single culinary web site of which I am familiar that is missed, although the name of the TV Food Network web site is a bit out of date. And there are many, many more which are new to me. I am also happy to see that Ms. Jacob includes a mention of a personal web site or blog as a means of getting your writing in front of an audience. This is the modern world's version of self-publishing with even less overhead than a paper and hard covered book. She even mentions `printing on demand' where the vendor only prints the physical volume when they receive an order for the book. All this means is that this is a very up-to-date manual on all your outlet alternatives.

So, Ms. Jacob's primary focus is identifying all the culinary writing markets, finding the one which best suits your interests and skills, and giving you suggestions on how to maximize your success in each market. Along the way, there are lots of interesting bits of information on, for example, why there are so few negative restaurant reviews. From the newspapers' point of view, there is simply no point to publishing a highly critical review of a local eatery, even if they don't advertise in the paper. People give much more interest to suggestions on where to go than where not to go. Unfortunately, Ms. Jacob's book was probably in galleys when Ruth Reichl's `Garlic and Sapphires' book was published, so there is no reference to that book. So, if you are really interested in restaurant reviewing, Ms. Reichl's latest book is also a must read.

Along the way, Ms. Jacob quotes a really impressive range of successful culinary writing professionals, starting with Judith Jones (VP at Alfred A. Knopf and original editor for Julia Child, Madhur Jaffrey, Lydia Bastianich, and Diana Kennedy) and including Julie Sahni, Deborah Madison, Tony Bourdain, James Villas and Ruth Reichl. With all these bases covered, I'm surprised she has no mention of Michael Ruhlman who is both a major culinary journalist and collaborator in cookbook writing with Thomas Keller.

As Ms. Jacob does not cover cookbook reviewing (my favorite culinary writing hobby), I will comment on her extensive tips on writing recipes. In general, I believe her tips are very good for the amateur or newbie recipe writer. And, I wish most cookbook writers would follow her suggestions. But, I believe there is room for more than one paradigm of a good recipe. Ms. Jacob gives us what may be called the Julia Child paradigm, where the author assumes little general culinary knowledge on the part of the reader. So, as most people react to Ms. Child's recipes, you have the feeling of the author's standing at your side and walking you through each step. This method is especially good for teaching traditional recipes to amateurs.

A second paradigm may be called the Elizabeth David model, as you find in her books on Mediterranean, French Provincial, and Italian recipes. Here, the object is less to give detailed instructions than to cover as broad a field as possible, spending a lot of time on comparing and contrasting recipes from different regions. The recipes are not so sparse that a trained cook could not reproduce them, but doing so may require a fair amount of specialized culinary expertise.

A third paradigm may be called the Joel Robuchon model, which is what I expect to find in any cookbook written on a restaurant's `haute cuisine'. This model allows both unusual ingredients and difficult techniques, as the object of this writing is not so much to teach the amateur a recipe, but to simply tell us how it is done at the chef's famous venue. The best practitioner of this style is probably Thomas Keller and literary collaborator, Michael Ruhlman.

At one point, Jacob advises against using a rather long list of words for culinary techniques in recipes. This list includes `blanch', `braise', `fold', `poach' and twelve other technical terms. I cannot disagree more on this point. The only case in which I would avoid these words is in a community fundraising cookbook. Any book written to teach should not hide its flame under a skillet!

For the last year or so, I've been trying my hand at writing restaurant reviews. With no experience or qualification apart from the fact that I like to eat, it has been an interesting experience. Fortunately, as Dianne Jacob shows, experience is not necessary. As long as there is passion, you can learn the rest, and "Will Write for Food" is a perfect step to help you go from passionate novice to professional.

This book helps quell some of the myths surrounding the profession of Food Writing, and is endorsed by many big names in the industry, including Anthony Bourdain, Greg Patent, Andrew F Smith, and Darra Goldstein. Throughout the course of the book, she uses the expert opinions of heavyweights like Alan Richman, Jeffrey Steingarten, Judith Jones, Molly o'Neill, Ruth Reichl and Tom Sietsema to name just a few. The broad range of style and experience of her interviewees helps to bring together a solid image of what Food Writing exactly is.

"Will Write for Food" has helped me refine my existing skills and has given me plenty of other resources as to how to acquire more. If you are, or want to be, a food writer, this book should be the first thing on your shopping list.

Although I've published work in other areas - I really didn't know much about food writing or how to get started. This book was the perfect guide because it gave me the big picture (e.g. food writing can be anything from writing resturant reviews to writing recipes and cookbooks, to writing a personal memoir or fiction) and the nuts and bolts (e.g. it clearly explains how food writing is different from other genres and how to get published). The author has so much real-life and professional experience, that it was like having my own personal consultant! I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to write about food.

This is an excellent book which highlights all the steps you need to take to be a food writer, including restaurant reviewer, magazine writer, or cookbook author. There's lot of helpful tips and interviews with those 'in the field'. As far as I know, this is the only book on the subject and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in pursuing a career in food writing (or merely interested in what goes into writing a cookbook or restaurant review!). Great book and much-needed resource.

As a restaurant reviewer, I learned everything that Jacob writes about the hard way. Will Write for Food tells all the unwritten rules about restaurant reviewing that will help first-time reviewers get assignments.

Her list of resources such as the Association for the Study of Food and Society will help writers find out what's happening quickly in the food field via its listserv.

Will Write for Food is practical and witty - a must for the writing shelf.

This book is easy to read and contains all the information you'll need to become a culinary writer. Dianne Jacob gives not only practical information but she also gives encouragement. It all seems to come from her experience and other prominent and successful food writers, agents and editors in the culinary writing community. That is what makes this book different than other resource guides. With all of this information, I finally feel like it is possible for me to write a cookbook and get it published. Thank you Dianne for sharing your wisdom.