Eggs, Milk and a Keyboard: Ingredients Needed To Write for a Food Review

By Kimberly Johnson

I’ll admit it…I’m a foodie. I watch the culinary shows (even, The Chew). I download the instructional videos. I will spend my next-to-last-dollar on a cookbook.

Last Sunday, I perused the aisles of a local mega bookstore and ooh’d and ah’d over Lidia and Ming. And just before I got hungry, I forked over the cash for Jamie’s Kitchen (Jamie Oliver) and Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking Bible.

At home, my kitchen turned into a full production set that would rival the one on Food Network. I tried out Paula’s Tomato Pie recipe. The ingredients were simple: four tomatoes, basil leaves, mozzarella, cheddar cheese, and mayonnaise, to name a few. The tools of the trade were modest: a deep dish pan, a grater and the oven. In Paula’s original recipe, she combined grated mozzarella, cheddar cheese and mayonnaise. I substituted plain yogurt for the mayonnaise. The result was a tasty treat that I may fix for brunch. Suddenly, I realized that I am good at cooking, eating and writing. But, I wasn’t sure about selling my two cents to an audience. So I hopped on the Internet to discover ways to write a cookbook review.

The experts offered this advice for the beginner reviewer:

#1: Select two or three recipes from your favorite cookbook and sample them. This way, you can get a feel on the author’s cooking style to write a comprehensive assessment. I cheated. I tried just one: Not Yo’ Mama’s Banana Pudding from Paula’s Just Desserts book.

#2: Explain why the book is unique. That’s what Garrett McCord (blogger with Food Blog Alliance) does with his entries. “For example, how does the author explain the use of ingredients in baking better than other authors? By setting the author and subject apart from the overcrowded world of food literature you detail their importance.”

#2: Discuss the author’s flair, presentation and photo arrangement. Let the reader discover the best (or worse) part of the book and don’t give away too much information.

#3: Identify the format. Be sure to include the title, author, and the general theme of the cookbook. Comment on the quality of the photos.

#4: Summarize your impression of the recipes and cooking style of the author. Set a rating system.

Writing a cookbook review seems like hard work. I’m going put my keyboard and taste buds to the grindstone. And hopefully, I can get someone else to spend his or her next-to-last-dollar on Paula Deen.

Sources: www.ehow.com, www.foodbloggersofcanada.com, www.foodblogalliance.com

Find Your Magic

 By Leigh Stevenson

We choose to write in a way that speaks to us. Fantasy, history, memoir, essay, fiction, non-fiction, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs. It doesn’t matter. Whatever the form, what matters to most writers is that our work also speaks to others.

What is that magic thing that makes someone pick up one book and reject another? Follow one Blog and not another? Topic? Genre? Cover Art? Author? You could go crazy trying to figure it out. One thing I have learned after years of research is that opinions on the subject are just that. Everyone has one and everyone has advice. If you choose, you can read every blog, book and article on the topic and still be utterly confused.

What I have learned for sure is there are no rules. Aside from a good grammar check and edit you can pretty much throw out every other have-to. For every supposed “rule” there is someone who has broken that rule and been published.

You could just stop. It would be a lot easier. Or you could decide to get on with it and make your own rules as you go. Sure it’s hard. You can immobilize yourself with the immensity of the challenge and trying to figure out the “tricks of the trade”. Being a writer is hard enough without trying to second guess what will sell in the marketplace.

Along with the joy of writing, I have found that a large part of the creative process is a lot like running into a wall again and again. Then there’s the slogging through the quicksand of rewrites and editing and more rewrites. Not that much fun. We persevere, even so.

The best I know is to check your grammar, find a good, honest, knowledgeable writing partner and/or writing group and try to enjoy the process.

And then, once in a great while, there is a moment when everything comes together. The words are right and the sentences flow and you say to yourself, “I can’t believe I actually wrote that”. You find your own magic, not someone else’s version of it.