Can I help you become a food writer?
NEWS! I'm offering free mentoring and paid-for sessions to help anyone trying to get into food or cookbook writing. PLUS a recipe for a gorgeously sticky tart that's perfect for late summer.
For me, September has always seemed the right time to think about renewal and change, much more so than the New Year. All of a sudden there’s a chill in the air, soft but insistent, and daylight hours discernibly shrink (at least in the UK). Kids climb into fresh school uniforms and many of us battle to shrug off post-holiday slumps. My children are now young adults and they’ve have dispersed like swifts after having returned home for the summer; the hush in the house is now loud. It feels like the right time to start a fresh page.
That paragraph reads like I’m about to make some drastic life change, which I’m not. But, like many writers on Substack, over the summer I have been thinking about the work I do in this space; how to improve it, how to reach more readers and how to offer something useful and meaningful, as well as interesting.
I’m enjoying my work at the moment and there’s lots more good stuff ahead. Over the coming months I’ll be preparing for the publication of my new book, to be released in the US and the UK in the New Year, and that’s exciting. My regular writing for newspapers and magazines is also satisfying, and I’m blessed with opportunities to visit new places, try new foods and meet interesting producers and chefs. I consider myself to be a very fortunate writer indeed.
So, I’ve been considering how I ever managed to find my footing in this competitive industry in the first. And it’s simple really: a few key people helped me.
Before I became a food writer my work had nothing to do with eating or cooking. In Australia I was a political journalist and the only role food played in my professional life was occasionally being taken somewhere nice for lunch. Then, as a foreign correspondent in London, I travelled a lot, but food was never part of my remit.
It was only after turning freelance that I transformed my obsessive interest in food and cooking into a career. (I resigned from my staff job at an Australian newspaper from a phone box in London’s Soho one night, fortified with vodka and then thought: what now?) The tipping point came when a contact in the industry offered me a project: to edit a cook book. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because, although I had edited copy on newspapers and magazines, I’d never worked on a cook book before. I took to the work immediately. The required attention to detail suited me, and I realised that I actually knew quite a lot about ingredients and cooking. I was off.
I edited more cook books. I pitched ideas into the universe and (eventually!) the Guardian accepted a piece about cupcakes. I made contact with other commissioning editors via Twitter and pestered them to commission me. Eventually, I was given the chance to write a cookbook myself - by then I’d learned so much from editing them that the leap wasn’t as enormous as it might otherwise have been.
Food writing has now been my full time job for more than 12 years and I manage to pay the bills with my income from food writing alone. I write regularly for national newspapers and magazines, I’ve won a couple of awards and my next cook book will be my 15th.
Over the summer, it occurred to me that writers looking to break into the food writing industry might find some of the things I’ve learned over useful. So, I’ve decided to set some time aside to offer mentoring as well as one-to-one sessions over Zoom for anyone seeking advice or to help take their food writing to the next level. I’m teaching food writing per se (although I can recommend people who do this brilliantly). Rather, it will be advice and strategies about how to break into what can be a closed shop. How to pitch ideas, and who to send them to. How to write a cook book proposal. What makes a good food story. That kind of thing.
I’m charging a fee for the one-to-one sessions because, to be honest, I can’t afford not to. I also believe that my time, experience and skills have a value. (Something that has taken me a very long time to realise but I still struggle with it.)
Of course, I understand that not everyone is in a position to pay for professional advice, so I’m starting a free mentoring programme for two talented and aspiring writers. I’ve done mentoring for the Guild of Food Writers, of which I’m a member, and found the process hugely satisfying. and believe the mentee found it helpful, too.
You can find details about both the paid consultations and mentoring here. Just ping me an email and I’ll get back to you.
For my recipe this week, I’m sharing one that was published in one of my books quite a few years ago now, and it’s a fave. The tart is perfect for late summer - it would be lovely eaten outside in the sunshine if that’s possible (or even on a picnic) but equally good snuggled up inside as the cooler weather sets in. Note: this is a juicy little tart due to the addition of free berries, so enjoy immediately, as it will ooze lots of juice the longer it sits - yummy but tricky to serve.
Apple and berry tarte tartin
1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry
100g unsalted butter, chopped into pieces
200g granulated sugar
3-4 eating apples, peeled, cored and quartered
50g pecans
100g fresh or frozen berries (I used blackberries).
Cut out a 24cm pastry disc using a plate as a guide. Prick with a fork and chill while you get on with the rest of the dish.
Melt the butter in a 20cm - 23cm ovenproof frying pan. Sprinkle over the sugar and cook over a medium heat for 2 minutes until it starts to dissolve.
Arrange the apples cut-side up in the pan. Cook for 30 minutes over a medium heat, shaking the pan occasionally, until the caramel is golden. The caramel should be simmering away nicely so that some of the juices have evaporated off and you’re left with a nice thick caramel.
After 20 minutes, heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.
Remove the from the heat and carefully fill the gaps between apples with the pecans and cranberries. Cover with the pastry disc with the wide you’re pricked with a fork facing up. The in the edges of the pastry with a spoon.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until puffed and golden. Set aside for 5 minutes, then carefully invert onto a plate holding both the handle of the pan and the bottom of a plate with a cloth. Serve immediately.
Do you still visit that phone box? I hope so. When I pass my old ad agency in Soho I always feel like it’s a real life landmark and I pause to reflect every time.