This week, Ruth Reichl's Delicious! arrived in the mail - her first
novel, though far from her first book. I've been getting
press releases for at least six months, so it wasn't a surprise.
But with the Beard book awards taking place this week - I'm
going, for the first time - I've been thinking about food
writers and the kinds of books we choose to write.
When I say "food writers," I mean those of us who work
primarily in food-related media but aren't primarily cookbook
authors - the print journalists, magazine columnists, and
especially these days, bloggers who do their best to make a living
writing about food.
Since the heyday of the food
magazines, many former editors and contributors have indeed gone on
to write cookbooks (like Saveur's Caroline Campion and
Kathy Brennan, or Fine Cooking's Susie Middleton and
Martha Holmberg). They tend to be terrific, too, honed by
years of crafting recipes that are both interesting and
approachable for home cooks.
Then there are those who move on
to memoir, like Saveur's Colman Andrews (My
Usual Table, most recently), or the Times' Kim
Severson (Spoon Fed), or Vogue's Jeffrey
Steingarten (The Man Who Ate Everything). Or myself!for that matter.
It seems to be rare for food writers to move on to fiction
(setting aside Ruth Reichl, who has tried all of the above, or
Lidia Bastianich, whose children's books tie in to her many food
enterprises). For the most part, we food writers seem to
stick to what we know - there's not much fiction involved
(hopefully) in chopping an onion.
So I'm curious to know - once you've come to know and love a
food writer from the web, print, or other media, what kind of books
would you enjoy reading from them? Another way of thinking
about it: What is it that makes you want to buy a food book that
isn't a cookbook?