the davidsonienne •

Being the sourdough starter of food writers, or a novice food blogger, as people who aren’t freaks might say, I indulged myself in an adventure last night and attended a MediaBistro class entitled “Breaking into Food Writing.”  MediaBistro is a website I visit to seek valid advice about the freelance world and to scroll through the job section, lusting after, and sometimes applying to, editorial jobs in the magazine and book publishing world.  I thought that for $65, a three-hour seminar might give me the guts to to bust up in the face of food writing circles, or at least come up with an exciting blog topic.  At least I am fulfilling the latter desire at this moment. 

For our homework, we were given an article to read about alpha and beta cooks, or, sexism in the kitchen, and a tidy piece about a non-waiter working tables in a New York restaurant.  This piece was one the instructor of the seminar had written, but was linked incorrectly on the website.  I didn’t have enough time to plug the first half of the title into Google, but it was okay since a half-dozen older women didn’t even think to consider the search option.  Anyhow, I wish I had read her piece before coming to class, because I might have been more perceptive of potential differences between the instructor and me.  First, she starts off the article with ”the alarm squawked,” which I think is trite, and second, the woman hates Anthony Bourdain, who I find amazing.  [This point was hammered to us in the seminar when someone mentioned liking his food writing.  The someone Frenchified his name, however, which is excusable since she has spent 25 years living in Paris, but really, he is American, raised in the Northeast US, and the name rhymes with rain.]

Don’t get me wrong, this course was very informative.  However, I found that perhaps I was mislead by the title.  Instead of “Breaking into Food Writing,” perhaps this seminar should have been called “Middle-Aged Ladies who are Already Food Writers Discuss Their Trade with Input of Instructor.”  At least half of the dozen or so attendees of this class were already writers, or even already food writers, which left me puzzled about the part of the title implying that we were going to be informed about beginning freelance careers or hobbies.  While it was interesting to be in a room with one woman who wanted to write a food diplomacy cookbook with the chef at the Canadian Embassy, another who had just lived in Paris 25 years, a regular food columnist looking for an idea for a Thanksgiving story, another one exclaiming at her about killing heritage turkeys in local farms, etc., I found myself still puzzled about the “breaking into” part of the seminar.   

My puzzlement increased when the instructor began talking about the pitch.  “Always say who you are and then in the next sentence, who you know at the newspaper to get their attention.”  Yes, well, I understand this point.  It’s the same with job applications.  Then she mentioned that in the previous class, someone asked, “Well, what if you don’t know anyone?”  My question exactly.  The instructor didn’t know.  She also didn’t know what to say when someone asked her, “What if I don’t have any clips to send along with my pitch?”  She did suggest sending along a blog.  That’s useful.  But other than that, she had no advice.  To me, the answers to those questions are crucial to “breaking into” the food writing industry.  So I’ll have to produce some quality blog posts as my “clips” and hope that the editors love my handcrafted pitches so much that they will forego my a) lack of experience and b) outsider status. 

The lectress also warned us against veering to extremes while reviewing things, so I’d like to shift back to neutral in her honor.  She was very precise about what a pitch should look like, which I appreciated, went through the different species of articles you could write as a food journalist, and then touched on ethics, which frankly is a topic I hadn’t spent much time thinking about.  Apparently the Times makes freelancers sign a contract that they will never accept freebies.  It was implied that this journalistic honor code is flexible, especially when one is writing for less prestigious papers, and perhaps is impractical due to the generous nature of chefs and restauranteurs.  I would like to think that my journalistic integrity would never be compromised in the face of bribes, but I certainly don’t think my writing career is going to be tested on that level anytime soon.   

So I left the cluttered art gallery (it smelled of rotting fruit and appeared to have no real exhibit, just clusters of bizarre projects) where the seminar was held and walked home, a bit discouraged.  Maybe the instructor’s goal was to warn away as many potential writers as possible with her cynicism about the evil hearts of editors, but I don’t think that was the case.  Even if she did groan about the horrible writers of the world who naively submit article ideas in hordes, and the horrible pay for the time spent laboring on a freelance piece, her sarcasm was light-hearted and her information useful.  If anything, I am more determined to prove that my words are worth just as much as those of all the middle-aged writers in attendance (who were probably wondering why I was there as well).  And also I was convinced that the idea of employment in a publishing house on the editorial staff is a much more stable, perhaps lucrative, career.  Perhaps when those middle-aged foodies are lounging in their nursing home rockers, reading The New Yorker, they will recognize that girl who sat on the edge of the semi-circle in the brown jacket, her usual shy self, wondering how to get just one article out into the world with her name on it.