How To Write A Food Essay

[Ed. Note: This was written one day when I had sat down to write, poised my fingers over the keyboard and just sat there staring at my screen, suddenly devoid of anything to say. As a farce, I decided to start writing a food essay about how to write a food essay. This was the result and hopefully it will be a nice way to put a smile on your face on this bright Monday morning.]

The problem with writing good food essays is that they aren't something you can just crank out, like restaurant reviews.

With restaurant reviews, you basically spend a paragraph or two explaining how you came to know about a restaurant (the "set-up"). This leads into a paragraph about how to find and contact the restaurant. From there you basically spend the remainder of the review walking through the time you initially walk up to the front door until you leave some ninety to one hundred twenty minutes later, hopefully sated and happy. At the end of this epicurean odyssey, you spend a paragraph recapping some of the major points, make a recommendation and end with as pithy a quip as is possible. Et voila! A food blog entry is born.

Essays are different though. While the progression of a meal from start to finish provides a natural and effective way to lead readers from point A to point B, an essay must do the same without the benefits of visual stimulus, such as pictures, or the natural timeline of a meal. As a writer, I need to come up with a topic that I can not only expound upon for several paragraphs, but also have to think of a logical conclusion to neatly tie up the progression of my ramblings. Too add insult to injury, I additionally have to figure out a way to steer you from the premise to the conclusion.

On top of the simple mechanics of writing an essay, there is also the question of style. Should I be funny? Or serious? Do I treat my topic with reverence or insincerity? Often it isn't what you say in an essay that makes it valuable, but how you say it. For instance, when describing how a particular bite of food tastes, I could say, "The food was hot and it tasted good." Or, I could say, "Upon taking the first bite of what would turn out to be many, I was surprised and delighted that not only had the entrée arrived at the table with steam rising and swirling above the plate, but that as I chewed and released all of the flavor compounds onto my tongue, I was rewarded with a well balanced and at the same time nuanced and complex set of flavors." Wordy? Absolutely. More interesting to read than the first version? I suppose it depends on the readers interest level and tolerance for florid language.

Of course, always present in the back of my mind is my audience. In an only slightly twisted version of the timeless question, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" ever present in my writing is, "If I write a food essay but nobody ever reads it, then why am I sitting here thinking about writing it in the first place?" Grappling with these issues is enough to cause serious writer's block. Once you've blocked, it can be hard to get the words flowing once again.

So you've picked a topic, a conclusion that you are working toward and a style or voice in which your exposition will express itself. What's next? Time for the essay to begin. Personally, I like to find someplace quiet. While I am able to successfully zone out and focus my entire attention on what I am writing, I have been known on occasion to simply start taking dictation from the conversations going on around me. If I'm not in a naturally quiet environment (and there are surprisingly few these days), I do the next best thing: cue up music with no English words on the Pandora app for my Android phone. If I can understand it, I will tend to write it down. Piano music works well. As does Techno dance music. Opera is especially good.

As with many of the restaurant reviews that I do, the hardest part I find is getting that opening paragraph written. A lot of people have a hard time getting that first sentence. Because I am attempting to achieve both an interesting opening as well as a bridge to the rest of the article, I try and provide a personal connection between myself, the restaurant, and the reader. A food essay will work in much the same way, only there is generally no restaurant involved and the topic may or may not be something the reader tends to care about. It is my job as the author to provide a hook that will keep the reader thoroughly invested until he or she reaches the end.

Another problem that I often have to look out for when writing an essay is what I like to call the "wandering middle." In attempting to connect the start with the finish, I have to make sure that my paragraphs take a logical and sensible path without too many detours in the middle. Nothing is worse than starting an article believing it is about one topic and halfway through realizing that you just wasted thirty to sixty seconds of your life wandering off in a direction that has no relevance to either the premise or the conclusion. I know when I come across essays like this on-line, I will read the first sentence of the following paragraphs to see if the author gets back on topic. If not, I, as I'm sure many of you out there, will simply cut my losses and move on.

The other vice I try and stay away from is being too preachy. While it is great to have a viewpoint and I hope I never stop learning new tidbits of information, I never want to come across as superior by belittling or showing disdain for the topic about which I am writing. Criticism is fine in my book, but negativity is right out. I always try and have balance on whatever topic about which I write. Too often I have been humbled by someone wiser than myself and I've come to realize along the way that if I have to take the lumps for something uninformed that I wrote, so be it.

Alright. So now we have a topic, a premise, a conclusion, points about what style or voice will be used to express the essay, and admonitions about staying on topic and not being preachy. With all of these considerations and rules being taken under advisement, is it any wonder that an essay will ever spring forth from mind to keyboard? I find it fascinating that the human mind can still organize thoughts into a coherent stream of characters, words, and sentences that articulates a writer's point of view such that someone else can pick it up, decipher it, and complete the knowledge transfer.

I suppose, in the end, the trick to writing a good food essay, or really any essay for that matter, is to know when you've reached a significantly satisfying conclusion and simply put the pen down.

Two Year Anniversary: A Second Retrospective

We have arrived yet again, gentle reader, at another milestone for Exploring Food My Way: the second anniversary of my first post (technically that would be tomorrow, but skipping a post on Friday and posting on Saturday instead would fall outside my normal posting schedule). While I was happy to celebrate successfully writing on my blog for one full year, the fact that I've continued to do so for an additional year has helped give me a sense of purpose and accomplishment all at the same time.

Looking back over this last year, I realize that I've discovered some very tasty places to eat, done some very cool things, and met some incredibly cool people along the way, both readers and others in the culinary and media fields. Something you realize very early on is that even though northeast Ohio covers a lot of square miles, it really is a pretty tiny place and it turns out that everybody seems to know EVERYBODY. Six degrees of separation is much more close to two.

So now, to commemorate the past twelve months of work, let's take a look at Tino's Top Ten Totally Tremendous Things about year number two:

10. Winning free tickets to the Top Chef event at St. John Medical Center and having a great time attending with my friend Edsel.

9. Eating (and surviving) my way through The Lenten Project. My love of fried fish and pierogi knows no bound.

8. Being able to happily announce the opening (or discovery) of some great restaurants and the sadness involved in announcing some closures (Baricelli Inn and Bar Symon).

7. Being in complete and utter awe that people from all parts of the world have taken time out of their busy lives to visit my website 100,000+ times since I started keeping track back in May 2009 (as of 12/17/2010 12:00:00 AM, the number was 101,552).

6. Being asked to give cooking demonstrations at both the Howe Meadow and Hudson Farmers Markets.

5. Meeting Lisa Abraham and having an article published about me and the blog in the Akron Beacon Journal (the original article has been archived, but this link is the exact same story).

4. Being asked to be a judge at both the Autism Chili Cook-off and the March of Dimes Signature Chef's Auction.

3. Being able to cook and share a number of great meals for my grandmother.

2. Adding critical reviews of another 150+ restaurants to my considerable base.

And, of course, no Top 10 list would be complete without an awesome number one:

1. Being banned from my very first restaurant. Ironically enough, the article I posted about getting banned received FAR AND AWAY more attention than the original review I wrote on the restaurant itself. Even with Wendy Williams's help.

I really could not have predicted that this was where I would be two years ago. I am hoping for even bigger things to happen in my third year of blogging about anything related to food. I’d love to be able to parlay all of these connections and the experience of writing, editing, and publishing a blog into something full-time in the food and/or writing industry, not something I do just as a hobby that I love.

Of course, I want to finish this second retrospective by thanking all of my faithful (and even the drive-by) readers. It's an odd feeling to know that you aren't just writing in a void and that people not only enjoy what I write but also interact with me and each other through comments and emails. I particularly like that about the blogging community and I hope that aspect continues on for a long time.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming ...

Hell May Not Have Frozen Over, But Akron Sure Did

I recently received an email from friend and author Laura Taxel (of Cleveland Ethnic Eats fame) telling me about two great writing seminars being held during the Friday and Saturday sessions (November 12th and 13th) of this year's Fabulous Food Show. Since she explained it so well, I'll let her do the talking ...

"Myself and a colleague, Dianne Jacob, a writing coach and author of Will Write For Food, the definitive and highly acclaimed guide to all forms of culinary writing, are leading workshops on Friday and Saturday morning at the Fabulous Food Show. And I'm wondering if you'd be willing to help spread the word via your blog? The sessions are meant for people who dream of penning cookbook, culinary memoir, or blog. We'll offer practical tips and real world guidance on getting started, doing it well, and what it takes to get published and get readers.

The interactive 2-hour sessions will demystify the process of writing and selling a book and explore the pros, cons, and steps for launching and maintaining a food blog, plus advice on how to improve your food writing skills. The Friday workshop is strictly for chefs and other professionals. The Saturday version is for the general public. Tickets are $50, include all day admission to the Show, and must be purchased in advance. More info about us and the class on the show website.

It would be great if you could share this with your followers and friends.

thanks

laura"

While in years past I have avoided the Fabulous Food Show like the plague, the notion of a writing workshop has intrigued me enough to pay the admission cost. And since an all-day pass is included in the price, I figured I might as well walk around and check it out. If you are expecting photos of me posing with Giada and her oft-displayed and generous bosom, you will sadly be out of luck. But, I suppose before I poo-poo this admittedly over-the-top weekend montage to all the things I think are wrong with the Food Network, it is only fair that I at least experience a day in Sodom before raining hailstones and turning people into pillars of salt. (A Biblical reference, really?)

Wow, okay, so that was a bit cynical, huh? While I'm definitely excited about the writing workshops, the jury is still out on the rest. But, you never know, I might be pleasantly surprised.

We'll see.

Julie and Julia: The Road Not Taken

My only real exposure to Julia Child growing up was on PBS. It wasn't the groundbreaking television show produced in the early 1960's entitled, The French Chef. It was her later work, after she had firmly entrenched herself into the consciousness of the American culinary psyche. While I knew that she had written many books, I didn't even know that she wasn't the only author of her seminal work, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

So it was with great enthusiasm that I learned that a movie was to be made about Julia Child. Well, sort of. The movie would also feature the real-life story of Julie Powell, a post 9/11 government worker who was convinced that she lacked direction in her life. The hype amongst my foodie friends and colleagues had been strong for quite some time. Even before going to see the movie, I had already been invited to a dinner party where all the guests were asked to bring a version of their favorite Julia Child recipe from one of her cookbooks. I was reluctant to admit that I don't even own a single Julia Child cookbook. I had to go down to the public library in order to conduct my research on the recipe I would be using.

Deciding that it would serve my best interest to inspire me for the dinner party, I chose to catch a matinee of Julie & Julia the other day. At a little over two hours, the film wasn't short by any stretch of the imagination. But once the story got moving, I never once had the need to look at my watch again. In fact, when the movie ended, I was almost disappointed that it was over. I had connected with the movie so powerfully and enjoyed the ride so thoroughly that I entertained the idea of returning to the ticket booth and buying another ticket for the next showing just to relive the experience.

Having had a couple of days to sit on my feelings, I began to realize that what connected me so completely to both the Julia and Julie characters was the sense of a kindred spirit. While I've spent nearly a decade and a half in my current career, I began growing apart from my love of working as a computer programmers over the last couple of years. I also have known for some time now what makes me happy. Food. Talking about it, making it, creating it, sharing it, writing about it, and of course most importantly, eating it. But I've not found a way to transform one career into another. As I stated in another blog entry I wrote prior to leaving for the Kansas City trip I took several weeks ago, the process of writing, creating something from nothing, has allowed me to tap into parts of my brain that I wasn't entirely sure were still functioning all that well.

When I saw Julia and Julie succeed, I was re-energized to succeed even more. I wanted what they now had, the security of knowing you could pay the bills while at the same time pursuing their respective endeavors. Part of me realized that perhaps the reason I haven't decided to jump in with both feet and change careers so completely was that I am not ready to choose what that next career will be. Do I want to be a cook? Do I want to be a writer? Do I want to run a restaurant? Ironically, these are all questions that others have asked me over the years and quite frankly, I've asked myself repeatedly. I just don't know that I have a good answer yet.

Along the way I've met some remarkable people who have recognized merit in my work. While I know that these individuals don't dole out gold stars to just anyone, I still feel cautious when accepting their compliments. Not because I doubt their sincerity or credibility, but because I doubt my own sense of growth and accomplishment. Whether I'm making a loaf of fresh bread or writing about it, how do I know that what I am producing is laudable?

As Julia said so many years ago in one of her television broadcasts, one must have "courage of conviction." I suppose that part of that courage is knowing that you aren't going to please everyone. No matter what your life's endeavor is, there will always be lovers and haters. To me, conviction seems to truly be the heart of the issue. Being self-aware that what you decide to do is true to who you are and that it can always be improved upon. The courage to not be afraid of waiting for my next failure to happen; or worse, that the failure is such a catastrophic event that one can't recover from it. That fear has always paralyzed me to some degree. Successful people are primarily successful because they are able to keep this fear in check and not let it derail their efforts.

Unlike most Hollywood films with overly saccharin endings, Julie & Julia ended as it did in real life for both women: a successful start in a new career that they felt passionate about. To be honest, in the end that is really all I am after, too. While I am passionate about technology and how it can better our lives, I seem to have lost my passion for all of the little nitty gritty details on which I built my initial career.

I realize that everyone who goes to see Julie & Julia will come away with their own interpretation of the story and how it relates to the journey that they have taken so far, but for me it has only reinforced the notion that what I am doing here, writing, even if deemed unimportant by all others, is important to me. As I've come to discover, passion isn't something that you can will into existence. You either have it or you don't. So I think now is a good time for me to live up to my courage of conviction and be passionate about the very thing that makes me the happiest.