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Writer Newsletter - September 19, 2008

New Address and Phone Numbers

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the Restaurant Agent offices have moved and our phone numbers have changed. We can now be reached at:

Phone: (858) 634-5577

Fax: (858) 569-6141

Address: 8898 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Suite D, San Diego, CA 92123

Email: editor@restaurantagent.com

We will be updating the website next week, but in the mean time please disregard our old contact information.

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - August 21, 2008

I often think about the role of a food writer. It is a role that has changed over the years, slowly transforming from what was once an exclusive, authoritative position to one that is almost communal, each writer one voice among many. Where several decades ago there were only a handful of food writers—and a smattering of food publications—now there are literally millions of websites dedicated to food, and a widely disseminated voice can be put forth by anyone with bit of curiosity, talent, and motivation. The outlets are countless—there are food blogs, food forums, food social networking sites, not to mention the traditional print outlets—food magazines, food sections of newspapers. Heck, it even gets meta—there are blogs about food blogging! 

But as food writing becomes more of a cultural activity, a hobby taken up by the masses, I can’t help but wonder how its collective popularity affects the words that each of us singly produces. As this genre opens up to more and more writers, it follows that the effect of many writers’ words will lose a bit of impact—will get lost in the shuffle, if you will. Even among the most talented of writers, there are dozens of equally talented voices all deserving to be heard. (I first had this thought in the library earlier today, trying to pick out a single book to take on a weekend trip and finding myself baffled by the dozens I was considering). I can count dozens of food writers that I respect and whose words I value reading, but unfortunately, their words often add up to more time in the day than I have. No matter how much I read, how well-managed I keep my rss feeds, how religiously I check Wednesday food sections, there are always a few writers I don’t get to—and those are just the ones I know about!

I bring this up because I think our new Fresh Crumbs section provides a great outlet for food writers to expose their voice to a new audience. Our sites are primarily restaurant guides—they rank high on search engines and they are frequently used by locals and visitors to find restaurants, find out about them, and even make reservations. But readers who are interested in restaurants are also interested in food, and our new Fresh Crumbs section essentially serves as a sideline—a space where our website users can get distracted, discover a bit of food news or an interesting article, stumble on a refreshing surprise during an attempt to find a destination for the night’s dinner. Our Fresh Crumbs are a fresh new outlet for food-related content, and I hope one that will be beneficial to some of you.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to take a moment to look around the Articles section of our Writers’ Center. Writing a piece for us might just be another great way to get your voice heard among the talented masses.

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - August 08, 2008

Update: Article Submissions and the Writers’ Center

We’re making headway on our Fresh Crumbs section, and we’re happy to announce that you may now select article assignments and upload submissions online, through the Writers’ Center.

Launched last month, Fresh Crumbs is a new section of the site that focuses on content related to the dining, food, and beverage worlds. In addition to restaurant reviews, we are now publishing articles, news posts, and short interest pieces on a variety of subjects related to dining out, cooking, food, nutrition, wine, beer, spirits, coffee & tea, nightlife, and travel. We are currently accepting submissions that relate to all of these topics.

You will find information about the content we are interested in, as well as detailed submission guidelines, on the Assignments and Guidelines pages of the Writers’ Center. And, as of this week, you can now select article assignments and upload submissions directly through the website as well.

We encourage you to visit the new pages of the Writers’ Center to see if writing content is something that interests you. We are interested in content across a wide range of subjects, and encourage you to contact us if you have any questions or want to pitch an idea.
And, as we have just launched these new features, there are still a few kinks that we are working out. So please don’t hesitate to contact us if you run into any issues.

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - June 20, 2008

The Article Section is Up and Running!

We are happy to announce that the article portion of our website is now up and running. You can reach this section through the “Fresh Crumbs” link on the homepage of any of our city websites. The section contains articles on several topics related to food, wine, and dining, as well as several other types of posts, including news and web links.

We are currently accepting article submissions, although we do not yet have the upload portion of our website up and running. We are working on adding to the Writers’ Center so that articles can be assigned and submitted online, just as restaurant review assignments are. In the mean time, we will be accepting article submissions via email.  If you have questions or queries about any article topics, or if you have an article you’d like to submit for our consideration, please don’t hesitate to contact us at editor@restaurantagent.com.

For more information on what we are looking for in articles and on our current pay rates, please visit the Newsletter archives through the Writers’ Center and read the newsletters from May 16 and February 1. We appreciate the interest we’ve had in articles so far and look forward to receiving submissions from those of you who are interested.

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - May 16, 2008

We are Now Accepting Article Submissions!
Well, it took us a few months, but we are finally ready to begin soliciting articles for our website. We are working on adding the upload function and guidelines to the Writers’ Center, but in the mean time, we will begin accepting submissions via email.

If you would like to submit an article for publication on our network of websites, please review the newsletter that was sent out on February 1, 2008 to review some basic guidelines. More detailed information will be published in the Writers’ Center shortly. Until then, here is the information you will need to know.

Article Topics
We will consider any article that is related to the restaurant and dining industries, including articles about food, wine, beer, spirits, nightlife, and people in the industry. We are looking for articles that range from 250 to about 1500 words, although we will accept the occasional longer article if the length is justified.

We will be posting a list of article topics in the Writers’ Center, and we will also consider unsolicited articles on topics of your choosing. Until we post that list, here are a few suggestions for articles that we would consider:

An article suggesting several restaurants that have a particular feature on our list of features. For example, we would publish an article about restaurants that have healthy options, or that are dog friendly. For these pieces, we would like to see at least five restaurants, with a brief overview and description of the cuisine and setting for each. The restaurants mentioned in these articles do not necessarily have to be listed on our website, but they should be appropriate for our site—we prefer fine dining and unique restaurants over chains and casual eateries. 

An article that explains the basics of any one cuisine on our list of cuisines.  For example, we would publish an article introducing readers to Italian cuisine, or explain the hallmarks of Pacific Rim Cuisine.  We would expect these articles to cover commonly used ingredients, herbs, and/or spices, list several traditional dishes, and touch on any significant regional variations.

An article on one of the neighborhoods from our list of neighborhoods. For example, we would publish an article about Downtown San Diego or Center City Philadelphia. These articles should define the boundaries of the region, indicate several points of interest, tell a bit about the regions’ history, and what the neighborhood is known for. They can also touch on sub-regions within the neighborhood, indicate key streets and/or intersections, and suggest easy entrance/exit routes. We would prefer that specific restaurants not be focused on in these pieces, as restaurants by neighborhood are listed on our website.

Voice
As with restaurant reviews, we are not interested in pieces that espouse personal opinion. We have a wide and varied audience and cannot assume that our readers’ preferences align with our writers’. If you are writing about dog-friendly restaurants, we don’t want your assessment of the restaurants you include in the review, we just want to know about them. The same goes if you are writing about Italian cuisine—we don’t want to learn that you prefer tortellini over ravioli, we just want to learn the difference between the two. We want the articles on our website to be informative and unbiased—we are not looking for criticism, critique, or assessment. Above all, we want our readers to make informed decisions based on the information on our site; we don’t want to make the decisions for them.

Additionally, we want to ensure the articles on our website area accessible to all of our readers. Imagine that you are writing a piece for your 16-year old cousin, your 77-year old grandmother, your affluent boss, and your blue collar neighbor. You want them all to take away something from your article—to learn something new about a region, or a cuisine, or a neighborhood—but you know that they are all going to relate to the information in different ways. If you write your review just for your cousin, your grandmother might not get it, and if you write it for your boss, your neighbor might find it inaccessible. Please keep our diverse readership in mind when you are crafting these pieces.

Remuneration
We have developed a fee schedule that will be published in handy table form on the Assignments page of the Writer’s Center shortly. In the mean time, here are the fees we will be paying for published articles:
We have three pay levels, based on the word length of the article. Articles between 250 and 750 words will pay $10 per article; between 750-1250 words will pay $20, and over 1250 words will pay $30 per piece. These pay rates are for Bronze level writers. Silver level writers receive 10% more per piece ($11, $22, and $33); Gold level writers receive 20% more ($12, $24, and $36), and Platinum writers receive 30% more ($13, $26, and $39).

As with restaurant reviews, we pay upon acceptance. If we decide not to accept your piece, you will not get paid. Checks are mailed within 30 days of the date of acceptance.

Submission Limits
To control the number of articles we receive, we have placed limits on the number of articles writers may submit each week. Bronze level writers may submit one article per week; Silver, two; Gold, three; and Platinum, four.

Queries
If you are dead-set on writing on an article topic, we suggest you email us with the article topic before writing the piece, to ensure that we are indeed interested. Naturally, we only need one article for each topic, so we most likely won’t accept your article if we already have a piece on that topic.

We encourage you to contact us with questions about the articles or to query us with topics not mentioned in this email.  The suggestions above are just that—suggestions; we would love to learn of your ideas as well.

Legalese
The terms and conditions posted in our Writers’ Center will be expanded to include articles. As with restaurant reviews, all accepted articles will become the copyright and property of Restaurant Agent, Inc. All work that is submitted must be original, previously unpublished, and free of plagiarism. Furthermore, all written material must be truthful and factually accurate. Once an article is accepted, the writer will not be permitted to republish any portion of the article elsewhere. Upon acceptance, an assignment may be published in whole or in part on any of the websites owned or operated by Restaurant Agent, Inc., and may be added or removed from these websites at any time. Published articles will be attributed to the writer. Acceptance of an assignment does not guarantee publication.

That’s it for this week!
I’m excited about this opportunity and look forward to receiving some of your articles!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - May 09, 2008

New Feature
We’ve recently added a new feature to our features list: Free Wi-Fi. Please be sure to ask any restaurant that you visit whether they offer free wireless to their customers.

Also, we have updated our Writer’s Cheat Sheet to include this feature. Please be sure to download the latest version from the “Downloads” page of the writers’ center. If you haven’t been using this cheat sheet, you may want to try it out—it’s a pretty handy way to keep track of all the information you need to collect on a restaurant visit.

We are going through the existing restaurants on our site to update them with this feature, but if you know of any that we have left off, please let us know by emailing editor@restaurantagent.com.

That’s it for this week!
Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - April 25, 2008

Sensitivity to Sources

When food appears as front-page news, you know things are serious. While we may feel we’re still in the midst of the era of celebrity chefs, gastronomical art, and opulent restaurants, front sections of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and even today’s Union Tribune in San Diego have all covered what some are calling a global food crisis—the sharply rising cost of food.

Food as news is not new. We’ve seen corn go from barbeque side dish to fuel source; fish go from healthy alternative to potentially dangerous sources of mercury; and foie gras go from prized delicacy to illegal substance. But while recent issues surrounding food may not have affected a majority of the population (how many people regularly eat foie gras?), the rising cost of food is an issue that is worldwide and widespread.

Why am I writing about this? Forgive me for bringing up the serious on a Friday afternoon, but I feel that as food writers, it is our responsibility to consider not only the pleasures of the table but the issues surrounding the ingredients that make our meals. Even if it seems that the restaurants you frequent or the markets you shop at are relatively untouched by the recent hikes in prices of grain, rice, eggs, or meat, that doesn’t mean the farmers, shop owners, and restaurateurs aren’t being hit by inflation. Whether or not costs are being passed along to the customer, food businesses across the country are forced to deal with the rising cost of food.

Let me relate an encounter I had earlier this week. I had stopped in at a local brewpub for a pre-dinner drink, and happened to sit down next to a man who was just leaving. As with many breweries in the area, the brewpub sells growlers (half-gallon jugs) that customers can get filled and sealed to go. The man had just ordered a few of them, and was getting ready to pay when he learned the price. It was $3 more per growler than it had been the previous week. He wasn’t happy. “I think I’m getting ripped off,” he turned to me and said before demanding to speak to the brewpub’s manager.

Watching the exchange, I couldn’t help but speak up. When the bartender walked away, I asked the man whether he realized that grain prices had skyrocketed, and that a hop shortage was making it increasingly difficult for brewers to make the style of beer he had just ordered—an extremely hoppy India pale ale. The increase in price, I explained, was far from arbitrary; it was also far from exorbitant—in fact it brought this brewery’s growler price up to a consistent level with other breweries in the area.

The cost of raw materials was not something that occurred to the man. On the contrary, he assumed the cost of grain and hops were “marginal,” and that the price increase was motivated purely by the brewery’s desire to increase profits.  While he was fond of the brewery’s products from a taste perspective, he had never thought to consider what was involved in actually making the product he so enjoyed.

I imagine this is a scene that we are going to see often in restaurants, where regular customers will suddenly find that the cost of their favorite dish or drink is suddenly more than it was the last time they dined.  While it’s inevitable that some customers will get upset at the increase, it’s important to remember that in many cases, it will not be the restaurant’s whim that is driving up the price.

The causes of recent food inflation are diverse and complex, and I’m not going to delve into them here.  But I do encourage you to stay attuned to them. There are several good articles out there explaining the reasons for food inflation and I have no doubt many more will emerge over the next few weeks. Here are links to just a few: 

A concise but accessible explanation of the causes of the current food situation
http://www.slate.com/id/2187882/

An interview with journalist Raj Patel, who also explains reasons for rising food costs: http://www.northcoastjournal.com/042408/food0424.html

The Food Chain, a series of articles in the New York Times that examines world food production:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/series/the_food_chain/index.html
 
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN’s Food Price Index: http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/FoodPricesIndex

And, to put things in perspective, a country-by-country overview in the Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/the-food-crisis-begins-to-bite-815437.html

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - March 27, 2008

We’ve reached my favorite time of year. Asparagus and peas are turning up at farmers’ markets, days are starting to get longer, and the air has filled with the subtle scent of spring's first blossoms. And, right on cue, the James Beard Award nominees have been announced. I look forward to this event each year because the list of Book Award and Journalism Award nominations provides a long, luxurious reading list of phenomenal food writing. The timing is perfect too—just when the lingering sunlight makes my porch an enticing evening destination, I suddenly find myself with a wealth of articles I want to read and cookbooks I want to flip through.

Because we are still working toward launching our article writing program, I thought I’d round up a few of the nominated articles that appear in full online.  Each of these offers a culinary adventure in their own way, whether exploring a dish, a concept, or a region. Hopefully in reading these pieces, you may get a few ideas for articles of your own.

“He’ll Take El Alto,” by Junot Díaz, Gourmet September, 2007 (nominee: M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award)
http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2007/09/elalto
Díaz shares an insightful, entertaining portrait of the restaurants and street food that pepper Dominican neighborhoods in upper Manhattan.

“In a T-Bird, Chasing a Date with a Clam,” by David Leite, the New York Times, August 29, 2007 (nominee: Newspaper Feature Writing without Recipes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/dining/29clam.html
Leite shares his quest to rediscover one of New England’s specialties: fried clams, relaying the subtle variations dished up at restaurants from Connecticut to Maine.

“A New Taste Sensation,” Katy McLaughlin, the Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2007 (nominee: Newspaper Feature Writing with Recipes)
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB119706514515417586.html
McLaughlin makes a complex, often-obscure concept — umami — accessible and easy to understand, all the while placing it in a historical context and explaining its relevance to the food industry today.

“Witchy Wines,” by Richard Nalley, Forbes, September 17, 2007 (nominee: Writing on Spirits, Wine, or Beer)
http://www.forbes.com/fyi/2007/0917/111.html
Nalley explores the concepts behind that little-understood, on-the-fringes trend in the wine world: biodynamic wines.

And, just for fun (although it may make you both hungry and envious), here’s Alan Richman’s “Seven Temples of the Food World” from GQ, in which he chronicles his epic and ambitious quest to eat at “the seven greatest dining destinations on earth.” (nominee: M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award)
http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_5911

For a complete list of the nominees in all categories, visit the James Beard Foundation Awards website: http://jbfawards.com/content/2008-nominees

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - February 29, 2008

Happy leap year day! Here are a few odds and ends:

New email address
As our number of websites continues to grow, we have decided to corral our email correspondence into one account. While our existing email addresses continue to function, you may also reach us at editor@restaurantagent.com.

Articles: slow but steady
We’ve had several inquiries about our article assignments since announcing them in our newsletter last month, and we just wanted to let you know we’re still working toward offering these as assignments. While we’re making progress on adding functionality to our writers’ center and website to incorporate these assignments, we’re not quite there yet. We ask for your patience as we get things up and running on our end!

In the mean time, here’s a recap of what we are looking for in restaurant reviews:

Writing a knockout restaurant review
As a writer, your job is to interpret an experience that you know quite well to complete strangers who may have no knowledge of the restaurant, the neighborhood, or even the city. This is no simple task, and it is certainly not as simple as telling your close friend about the excellent meal you had last night!

Your review should accomplish the dual goals of providing a general, concise overview of the restaurant, explaining its cuisine, its ambiance, its location, and its accomplishments, while also providing specific sensory details about your experience, most specifically what you saw, heard, smelled, felt, and of course tasted. We’re looking for details as varied as the color of the walls and the color of the sauce on your plate —anything that stands out to you that you think would enhance your readers’ understanding of the restaurant. Think about what potential diners might want to know: Is the noise level high?  Are the portions extremely generous? Do you have to order side dishes separately?  You want to help your readers know as much as possible about the restaurant before actually going there.

One of the top reasons reviews are not approved is that they lack detail, specifically in the descriptions of the cuisine. We expect reviews to convey the ingredients, presentation, taste, texture, and an overall impression of EACH dish that is sampled during the restaurant visit. It’s hard for readers to understand a dish when it is simply dismissed as “delicious,” “flavorful,” or “excellent.” We are looking for details that can only come from first-hand experience, for descriptions that will help readers envision the plate in front of them and imagine a forkful in their mouth. You have been to the restaurant and sampled the food; parlay this experience into a vivid, entertaining, and enticing account of what your meal was like.

We also want to remind you that we are looking for reviews that convey observations rather than judgment. A loud dining room may seem a deterrent for couples celebrating an anniversary, but it may be a boon for those on a first date trying to avoid awkwardness, or a large group looking for a lively setting. A hamburger cooked to medium may seem overdone to you, but may be just the way your friend prefers it. We have a wide and varied audience, and can’t assume that all of our readers will have the same priorities and preferences as our writers. Rather than conveying your own opinion about the details you observe, we ask you to convey the details and let readers make up their own mind about the restaurant.

That’s it for this week!
Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - February 22, 2008

We want your input!

PhiladelphiaRestaurants.com is growing and we’re looking for your input!  If there are any fine dining restaurants that you’d like to see on our website, now is the time to let us know. Send an email to us at editor@philadelphiarestaurants.com with the subject line: Restaurants to Add and be sure to include the name of the restaurant and any contact information you know of (address, phone, email, website, etc). If we add a restaurant to the site and you were the first person to suggest it to us, we’ll give you the first opportunity to take the assignment.

Please note that we aim to feature only unique and/or fine dining restaurants on our site. At this time, we’re not looking to add cheap eats, takeout places, or chain restaurants.

I’m looking forward to learning your favorite fine dining restaurants!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - February 15, 2008

The art of the profile
This week, we bring you a few tips and examples about writing chef profiles. We’re always looking for chef profiles that go beyond a simple factual bio to reveal a bit about the chef’s personality, their interests, and their outlook. Rather than simply pointing out the milestones in a person’s career, we believe a profile should make the subject come alive.

Here are four tips to help you write vivid, entertaining chef profiles, along with examples from two outstanding profiles to illustrate those points.  The quotes below are from two profiles written by Bill Buford, staff writer and former fiction editor of the New Yorker, on two of the world’s most well-known chefs: Gordon Ramsay and Mario Batali. If you’re interested, you can find the full profiles here:
Ramsay: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/02/070402fa_fact_buford
Batali: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/08/19/020819fa_fact_buford

Obviously, these profiles are far more extensive than what we ask for on our site; they also are the result of spending weeks, even months with the subject (Buford spent so much time with Batali he wrote a book about it). However, we think Buford excels at using words to effectively convey the many facets of the people he interviews, and think both these pieces are worth a read—if not the entire piece, than at least the quotes below.

Four tips for writing vivid chef profiles:

1. Grab the reader in the opening—from the very first sentence, make the reader want to learn more.

“Gordon Ramsay, the only chef in London honored with three stars by the Guide Michelin, is not a monster.”

“The first glimpse I had of what Mario Batali’s friends had described to me as the ‘myth of Mario’ was during a weekend in January last year, when I invited him to dinner with some friends.”

2. Make the subject come alive –let the reader see and hear the subject as if they were meeting them face to face.

“Ramsay is six feet two, light on his feet, once a teen-age recruit for the Glasgow Rangers, the legendary Protestant soccer club of his birthplace (though he grew up in England), bionic to the touch (especially his calves, which he invited me to feel and described as ‘loaves of foie gras’—inaccurately, since foie gras is squishy whereas these mutant monstrosities were like oversized bowling pins). He has a military bearing, erect but tilted slightly forward, and wears a tight-fitting chef’s jacket made in France of a lightweight cotton, his own design, snug at the chest, tapered around the waist, with unconventionally high short sleeves. The look says speed.”

“Batali has a remarkable girth, and it was a little startling to see him so clad, but within minutes he had transformed himself into the famous television chef: shorts, high-tops, sunglasses, his red hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had become Molto Mario—the many-layered name of his cooking program, which, in one of its senses, means, literally, Very Mario (that is, an intensified Mario, an exaggerated Mario, and an utterly over-the-top Mario)”

3. Reveal the subject’s personality—the actions, interactions, and interruptions that take place during your time with the subject are all clues you can convey to your readers.

“one of my last recollections is of Batali around three in the morning—back arched, eyes closed, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his red Converse high-tops pounding the floor—playing air guitar to Neil Young’s ‘Southern Man.’ Batali had recently turned forty, and I remember thinking that it was a long time since I’d seen a grown man playing air guitar. He then found the soundtrack for ‘Buena Vista Social Club,’ tried to salsa with one of the guests (who promptly fell over a sofa), tried to dance with her boyfriend (who was unresponsive), and then put on a Tom Waits CD and sang along as he went into the kitchen, where, with a machinelike speed, he washed the dishes and mopped the floor.”

“Minutes later, a line cook, James Kent, committed a variation of the same offense. James was then tortured, until finally he, too, was ordered out. ‘Go, leave, now. The sight of you disgusts me,’ Ramsay said. But then he paused and became reflective, seeming to savor the effects of his punishment. ‘Did you see that young chef’s face?’ Ramsay asked. ‘The way it was all knotted up? Wasn’t that fantastic? He was in terrible pain. Isn’t it fascinating how food can make for such pure emotion? He was desperate. He wants to be here so badly it hurts. We’ll have to pull him back up.’ He called over Dale MacKay, the sous-chef. ‘Treat that young man like your little brother. Take him under your wing. Build his confidence.’”

4. Tell a story—rather than simply stating a course of events, see if you can find the details to weave them into a compelling tale.

“Gordon Ramsay grew up in a tourist town, Stratford-Upon-Avon, but in a part tourists don’t visit, a council estate, a concrete bunker subsidized by the local government, synonymous with deprivation and blight. Food mattered, not as culture (‘I did not pod beans at my grandmother’s knee, gather forest mushrooms nor chase farmyard hens’) but in a way that was elemental and pressing: as ‘tea,’ as something to eat, cheap food, fried food, food in packets, food in tins, or ‘if Dad had done a runner, no food at all.’ … But food ultimately provided Ramsay with his first employment: a part-time job, a catering-school scholarship, a pub kitchen, a hotel restaurant in London, until 1988, when, flipping through a magazine, he came upon a picture of Marco Pierre White. White, then the temperamental, highly public chef of Harvey’s—a small restaurant in southwest London—had the unusual ability to look like his reputation: spent, disgusted (with himself, the world, you), a B-movie actor’s cigarette dangling from his mouth, strands of greasy hair in his eyes, no chef’s hat, no customer service, no interest in business, no smile. Pictures of White said: Cooking is more important than life. Ramsay saw one, and it changed everything. ‘There’s Jesus.’”

The dishes Mario prepared in 1992 at the new Rocco read like episodes in an autobiography; each one is so intimately associated with a specific moment in Mario’s life that the menu is more literary than culinary—cooking as memoir. Ravioli stuffed with brains and Swiss chard is his grandmother’s recipe. A review in New York singled out an “old-fashioned tagliatelle in a ragù Bolognese”—the very ragù that Mario prepared weekly at La Volta. The stricchetti with porcini and cremini is a variation on what Betta made on Mario’s first day in her kitchen. The leek soufflé (with grappa-cured salmon) was the dish that Mario had cooked for his first Christmas lunch in Italy, to prove that he, too, could cook. Mario had finally arrived in New York City, and had a lifetime of cooking to express.”

That’s it for this week!
Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - February 01, 2008

Announcing a New Assignment Type: Articles
We are pleased to offer a new type of assignment that will soon be available through our writer’s center: articles. Articles may be written on any topic related to the restaurant industry, including food, wine, beer, spirits, nightlife, and people in the industry. Articles are paid assignments, and do not necessarily require a visit to a restaurant to complete.

Warning: Beta
This is an experiment. We think this could be a great way to both broaden the scope of our websites and simultaneously offer more paid assignments for our writers. Right now, we want to see if there is an interest on your end, and to see if it is viable on ours. We don’t have all the details worked out yet, and the only thing we know for sure is that many of the details we do know will probably change. But, as excited as we are, we wanted to offer you this opportunity now, rather than six months down the line when we’ve worked out all of the kinks.

Because this is most definitely a beta version of the program, we ask for your patience and tolerance if you decide to participate. We will announce new features or decisions as we make them, and ask that you always check for updates before taking on a new article assignment. We expect to make adjustments to details such as guidelines, word counts, and payments as the program goes on. As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Here’s an overview of the program as it stands now. We will officially be accepting submissions in about a month or so. A more polished version of this overview will soon appear in the writer’s center—we’ll let you know when that’s posted. For now, you can always refer back to this through the Newsletter page, where all of our old newsletters are published.   

How it will work
As with restaurant reviews, all articles will be submitted through our online writer’s center.  Writers will have a choice of selecting an article topic from a list of article assignments, or submitting an article on a topic of their choosing. Both types of articles are subject to the same guidelines.

What we are looking for in an article:
Our website is primarily a restaurant selection guide, and our readers primarily come to our website to find out about restaurants to help them select one for their event. We want to offer them articles on a range of topics that can provide them with valuable information, perspectives, and insight to enhance all aspects of their dining experiences. We are looking for well-organized, thoughtful, and informative articles that accomplish one of the following:
•    Offer a greater understanding of the restaurant scene in the area
•    Offer a greater understanding of certain aspects of the fine dining experience
•    Discuss and/or explain new dining trends
•    Offer advice on how to handle certain dining situations.
•    Provide an in-depth explanation of certain foods, cuisines, wines, beers, or spirits
•    Help readers to become aware of restaurants that cater to particular needs or offer certain features

What we are not looking for:
As with our restaurant reviews, these pieces will be read by a wide and varied audience. We strive to keep our content informative, rather than opinionated, and in a tone and voice that would be appropriate to any reader. While we appreciate style and wit, we are not looking for pieces written that only a narrow readership would understand. Snarky humor, elitist points of view, and/or obscure references might make for an entertaining essay or blog post, but it’s not the style we’re looking for in these articles.

In addition to articles that don’t mesh well with our website’s voice and targeted readership, we are not looking for the following:
•    Articles that review products or businesses. The only reviews we will accept are those that are posted as restaurant review assignments that meet our existing criteria and guidelines.  
•    Promotional plugs—this is not the space to wax poetic about businesses or products that you love, especially ones that are offering incentives for you to do so. We are looking for articles that are unbiased and informative, not ones that are motivated by a PR campaign.
•    Opinionated rants or raves—we’re not looking to learn about your personal preferences for cheese or your all time favorite dishes. If you are passionate about a topic, by all means write about it, but try to do so in a way that will help others understand the topic, not just your personal thoughts about it.

Compensation
We expect pay for articles to range between $10 and $35, depending on the article length and the level of the writer. Article topics that we post will have a set fee that writers will be able to see and agree to before selecting the assignment. The fee for suggested articles will be set based on a set fee structure, which writers will also be able to see before submitting a piece, and which will be loosely determined by article length. We expect most articles will fall between 250 and 1250 words, with some opportunities for longer articles.

Terms
The same terms that apply to restaurant assignments will apply to article assignments. We have made slight changes on the terms page to reflect this, so please review the terms page prior to selecting your next assignment. Essentially, as before:
•    Assignment details will be available prior to selecting an assignment and you are expected to review the fee and assignment details prior to selecting the assignment.
•    Deadlines will automatically be set at one week (as opposed to two) from the date the assignment is selected
•    Assignments must be submitted complete and on time.
•    Accepted assignments will become the copyright and property of our company, and so must be original and previously unpublished.

How to get started:
We expect that we will be accepting the first article submissions in the next month or so, and will make an announcement through this newsletter. We will also be adding features such as the article upload, the list of suggested article topics, and the guidelines to our website in the weeks to come.  

In the mean time, we encourage you to visit our site and think about any article topics that you might like to write for our audience. We will be accepting a wide range of article topics, and this is your chance to write about those aspects of food, wine, and/or fine dining that you particularly relish. Please don’t send us your article ideas just yet—we will have the Writers Center set up shortly to accommodate your article assignment submissions.

We hope this opportunity is one that many of you will enjoy. I look forward to revealing more about the program and to announce when we are ready to accept submissions!

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - January 17, 2008

New Year, New Projects

We hope that the first few weeks of January saw everyone’s year off to a good start. Here in our offices, we started the year full of ideas and changes—we already have a few things in the works for our writers in 2008. We’ll unveil more in the weeks to come, but I am excited to announce that we will have many more writing opportunities, no longer limited to just restaurant reviews.

We’re also excited to announce the launch of a new website in our network: PhoenixRestaurants.com. This brings our websites up to five: LasVegasRestaurants.com, LosAngelesRestaurants.com, PhiladelphiaRestaurants.com, PhoenixRestaurants.com, and SanDiegoRestaurants.com. We will be adding to the Phoenix website in the upcoming weeks and soon will have restaurant assignments in the greater Phoenix/Scottsdale area. As always, no matter what city you are based in, you are always welcome to select assignments in any of the cities in our network.  

Until then, here’s a glimpse at what’s in store for the restaurant world in 2008.

2008 Trends

It seems like every publication with a food section put out a list of predictions for what’s in store for the restaurant, food, and beverage scenes in 2008. We combed through the best of them and noticed a few trends ourselves. Here are a few themes that appeared over and over, and that we’re willing to bet will be pretty prominent in 2008.

Conscious Eating:
Food choices are starting to be based on more than just taste or nutritional value. Many of the top trend predictions for 2008 included consideration of issues such as sustainability, location of food sources, method of food production, environmental impact, and fair-trade.  Look for restaurants to not only make these choices, but share information about what foods they are using and why. Expect to find restaurants incorporating conscientious options such as sustainable seafood, local produce, fair trade products, grass-fed and/or free-range meats, and filtered tap over bottled water.

Redefining the Meal:
Many predictions included variations on the traditional dining experience. Many restaurants are offering relaxed, lounge-like sections that offer a full dinner menu in a less formal setting. Others are offering less formal food in a traditional fine-dining setting, such as specialty sandwiches, gourmet pizzas, or home-cooked meals like meatloaf and mac & cheese. Many trend predictions posited a continued focus on small plates, either in place of or in addition to traditional entrees.  Small, even bite-sized, desserts topped many a trend list, and small portions in wine lists seem popular as well—look for more half-bottle and half-glass options.

Premium Products:
More and more restaurants seem to be paying attention to the details, offering not only quality main courses but items to accompany them. Look for chefs bringing production in-house, with house-made condiments and house-pickled, smoked, and cured components of dishes. Don’t be surprised if you see an extraordinary range of specialty salts—these topped many a trend list. Exotic fruits and spices promise to surface in dishes as well as drinks, as premium ingredients are predicted to pepper beverage lists too. Look for craft beers, artisan liquors, and cocktails that incorporate fresh squeezed juices, house-made syrups, and fresh herbs and spices.

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - December 19, 2007

Happy Holidays!

This will be the last newsletter of the year, and we want to wish you happy holidays from all of us here at the website.  Also, we have a few housekeeping items to share with you:

Assignment fees returning back to normal

Attention Philadelphia and Las Vegas writers: our promotions that have offered increased assignment fees will end at the end of the year. To take advantage of the current fees, be sure to select any assignments you are considering within the next week. The last day the bonus fees will be offered will be December 28.  All assignments selected on or before this day will lock in the current fee; after that, assignments for both cities will return to the following pay structure:
•    Premium: $100
•    Featured: $50
•    Standard: $0

Out of office notice

Our editorial office will for the most part be closed from December 20- January 1. All assignment components submitted during that time will be reviewed in January.

Don’t worry—we will still be responding to email requests for assignments. If you are a silver, gold, or platinum level writer and would like to select more than one assignment simultaneously, please select the first assignment through the writers’ center and email us so we can manually assign you the other assignment(s). Remember, our assignment allowances are:
• Bronze Level: 1 assignment at a time
• Silver Level: 2 assignments at a time
• Gold Level: 3 assignments at a time
• Platinum Level: no restrictions on number of assignments selected

Please make sure you email all assignment requests to our editorial email address. If you send assignment requests to my personal email address (lauren@sandiegorestaurants.com) they will not be read until January, and you won’t be able to take advantage of the last week of Vegas and Philadelphia bonus rates. The best way to reach us is:
•    editor@lasvegasrestaurants.com
•    editor@losangelesrestaurants.com
•    editor@philadelphiarestaurants.com
•    editor@sandiegorestaurants.com

Well, that’s it for this year!
It's been a pleasure working with all of you this year. Have a happy and safe end of the year and see you in 2008…

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - December 14, 2007

Photography Tutorial—Part Three

A photo of the interior or exterior of a restaurant is more than just a snapshot. It is a window into a setting, a scene, a suggestion of what can be experienced through four walls. But how do you convey the essence of a place through one photo?  How do you share a restaurant’s vibe, or capture the way a certain atmosphere, makes you feel? 

In photos of buildings and interiors, composition is everything. What you decide to include in a photo will be the only aspects of a room, or a façade, that your readers will see. Sure, when you’re taking personal photos, you may just turn on the camera and hit the trigger. But while standing up in your chair and taking a quick photo of the dining room might help you remember the restaurant, it probably won’t result in a solid visual introduction for your readers. Taking the time to think about a shot before you take it will help ensure you capture the most intriguing aspects of the restaurant’s design.  

Composition ideas:
•    Change the angle: Try to get a shot from each corner of the restaurant. You don’t know which vantage point will be the most interesting until you see a space from it.  If there is a mezzanine or a sunken floor, consider taking the photo from a different height than the main dining room. Look for dramatic views, interesting lines, and forms that change and emerge with each new angle.
•    Look at the lighting: Photography is essentially about lighting. Look at the room and assess the light before you take a shot. If half the room is well-lit and half is dim, the photo will be unbalanced.  Try to get a shot where the light throughout the frame is evenly distributed.
•    Scan for distractions: Look at what else is in the frame. Is there a cluttered, just-vacated table that you can avoid? People walking through the frame that will be gone in a minute? Eliminate unnecessary distractions to keep the focus on the restaurant’s vibe and decor.
•    Focus on the details: If you can’t get the whole room, get a shot of a portion of it—the bar, the private room, the entrance way. Get a shot of the table setting, or a particular piece of décor.  Look for interesting textures, colors, or shapes that symbolize something about the restaurant as a whole.

Last Inspiration:
Here are some commercial photographers who do a particularly good job with architecture and interiors (each has a portfolio section of their site):
•    John Neitzel   http://www.digitaldestinations.com
•    Jason Dewey http://www.jasondeweyphoto.com
•    Karen Melvin http://www.karenmelvin.com
•    And, a personal favorite(for his use of color and often-witty eye), Daniel Hennesy: http://www.danielhennessyphotography.com/

So next time you’re taking photos in a restaurant, remember these three ways to go above and beyond taking snapshots:
1.    Assess the lighting situation
2.    Compose the shot—try several angles and vantage points
3.    Scan for and eliminate distractions

Last considerations
This is the last of our three photography newsletters (for the first two, be sure to go to the newsletter archives in the Writers’ Center. Here are a few last things to remember about all assignment-related photos:
•    Take as many photos as possible, and send us as many as you took. We’re happy to look through them to find the ones that will work best on the website.
•    Sometimes, the best photos are ones the restaurant already has. Taking photos during a restaurant visit is particularly challenging, because you have to work with the lighting in the restaurant. If a restaurant has professional photos taken when a photographer could create his/her own light, these are ideal. Take your own pictures as a backup, but don’t be afraid to ask the restaurant if they have images they’d like to add to our website.
•    If you are using a restaurant’s images, asked for a high-resolution, original version. Often photos on a restaurant’s website have been compressed.  Remember, we require photos to be a minimum of 400x600 pixels.

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - November 30, 2007

Photography Tutorial—Part Two

Many of our assignments require a photo of the head chef. This week, we look at the essentials of portrait photography.

Position the Subject:
The most boring photograph you can take is to put the subject front and center. To create interest, follow is the rule of thirds: mentally divide your viewfinder into three equal segments vertically, and then again horizontally. This should create an imaginary 3x3 grid in the viewfinder, with four lines and four intersection points. Imagine the grid through the viewfinder—and move the camera around so the structure of the person’s face is aligned with one of the vertical/horizontal lines (a classic portrait technique is to align the subject’s eyes with a horizontal line).  Better yet, center the person’s face at one of the four intersection points. Positioning the subject according to the rule of thirds often makes the photograph more interesting and engaging.

Experiment with Movement and Emotion:
Some of the best portraits convey movement or emotion, which in turn reveal a bit about a subject’s character. Here are a few ways to engage your subject, to elicit a hint of character: Ask the subject to turn their body slightly, or tilt their head. Move them away from you, or position their bodies at an angle, and ask them to look back, over their shoulder. After using the rule of thirds (above), ask the subject to gaze in the direction of the more open part of the frame. See if you can capture their face at a slight angle rather than straight on. Ask them to pick up a tool, or something they have created. See if they will don a chef’s toque, or a uniform. Try to establish rapport—talk to them, see if you can get them to laugh, or concentrate, or anything in between. Take at least 3-4 different shots, from different angles. Have your subject move between shots, or move yourself to get a different angle.  Your goal should be to make the photograph interesting and engaging, and to ideally catch a glimpse of the subject’s character in the process.

Be Aware of the Background:
Unless you are taking an extreme close up, you are not just capturing the subject, but a bit of the subject’s surroundings. In a portrait, the background should do one of two things: either enhance the photograph or be as inconspicuous as possible.  If the kitchen, or another area of the restaurant would enhance the portrait, move the chef there. If not, try to position the subject in front of a wall or other area where the background doesn’t take attention away from the subject.  Make sure not to position the subject too close to the background—such as right against a wall—as the photograph will have more depth if the background is at least several feet away. If you are able to play around with your camera’s aperture settings, consider using a narrow depth of field to blur the background. Regardless of what the background is, always scan it before you take a photo to ensure it is free of distraction.

Looking for inspiration?
Here are links to galleries of two talented and strikingly different portrait photographers: Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avedon. Pay attention to Cartier-Bresson’s composition—he was excellent at capturing his subjects in place, conveying not only the person but the scene around them, the tools they surrounded themselves with, or the creations they made. Note the use of emotion in Avedon’s photographs—by establishing a rapport with his subjects, he was able to capture expression beautifully, with photographs that seem inherent with life, character, and emotion (often made more apparent by his signature minimalist white backdrop).

The Portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/museums/photogallery/bresson/

The Portraits of Richard Avedon: http://www.richardavedon.com/#s=15&a=0&mi=1&pt=0&pi=11020&p=-1&at=-1

Next time you are taking a chef photograph, remember these three aspects of portrait photography:
1. Composition—rule of thirds
2. Surroundings—background of shot
3. Personality—posture, expression, and pose

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - November 16, 2007

Photography Tutorial—Part One
Restaurant photos fall into roughly three categories: food, people, and location. Since many of our writers are taking photos as part of their assignments, we thought we’d offer a few tips on each. This week, the focus is on my favorite: food.

Food Shots
When a server sets a dish in front of you, think of how excited you become. The colors are vibrant, the sauce is glistening, the components are artfully arranged. A photo should capture that excitement: it should convey the delightful sensation of seeing a dish in front of you for the first time.

As anyone who has taken a photo of a dish can tell you, this isn’t always easy to pull off. While you don’t need fancy equipment to get a decent food shot (although it helps), you do need to put some thought into it. Even if all you have is a point and shoot camera, here are three essential considerations that can improve any food shot:  

1. Angle. The angle is the most important consideration you can make. Taking a picture of a plate from above will make the dish look flat and two-dimensional; moving the camera to a lower vantage point will help convey the height and composition of the plate. Aiming the lens at a 45-degree angle from the base of the plate is often ideal, but the lower you go, the more dramatic the dish will seem. Any angle between 10 and 45 degrees is advisable.

2. Light. Using a camera’s built-in flash is a big no-no in food photography. The built-in flashes on many cameras will flood the photo, practically eliminating any texture in the photograph. Professional photo shoots afford the luxury of ancillary lighting, but unfortunately taking photos while dining isn’t conducive to using a lot of equipment. If possible, sit near a window or other natural light source, bring a tripod, and try not to use the flash at all. Low light means that the lens will be more sensitive to movement, so holding the camera in your hand will almost always result in a blurry shot. Small tabletop tripods are relatively inexpensive, but if you don’t have a tripod, try using something on the table as a makeshift one, such as the top of a water glass (preferably not a full one!).  

3. Composition. Resist the urge to simply point and click. Spin the plate around, and look for the best angle to capture all the dish’s elements. Play with the zoom feature, or physically move your camera closer to the plate (using a macro setting if your camera has one). The best food shots fill the frame with the dish, getting close enough to eliminate background distractions.

Looking for inspiration?  The photos from these restaurants are exceptionally well composed:
http://www.sandiegorestaurants.com/photogallery.cfm/restaurant/133/AquaBlu
http://www.sandiegorestaurants.com/photogallery.cfm/restaurant/151/MAXNewYork
http://www.sandiegorestaurants.com/photogallery.cfm/restaurant/103/Chive

Next time you find yourself tableside with a camera, just remember the, er, ALC’s of food photography:
1.    Angle
2.    Light
3.    Composition

That’s it for this week!
Stay tuned for more photography tips next time!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - October 26, 2007

Hi everyone.

It’s been a harried week for some of us in San Diego, and I hope that all of our Southern California writers are safe and ok. I’ll keep this week’s newsletter brief—here are a few writing resources that may be helpful to you:

• Roy Peter Clark’s 50 Writing Tips:  http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=78&aid=103943
• Paul Brians’s Common Errors in English Usage:  http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html
• Richard and Anne Wanderman’s Confusing Words database: http://www.confusingwords.com/
• Columbia Journalism Review Language Corner:  http://www.cjr.org/resources/lc/

And, finally, some quality inspiration—I’m always looking for good food writing and have recently been enjoying Denver restaurant critic Jason Sheehan’s restaurant reviews, which appear in Denver’s Westword paper as well as on their website. Here are three of his pieces from 2002, for which he was awarded a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for Best Newspaper Restaurant Review or Critique:

• “Man with a Plan” http://restaurants.westword.com/2002-08-29/dining/man-with-a-plan/
• “Deli Dally” http://www.westword.com/2002-10-10/dining/deli-dally/full
• “Life on the Line” http://www.westword.com/2002-11-21/dining/life-on-the-line/full

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - October 12, 2007

What we are looking for in a recipe

When I started out in the kitchen, I was an experimenter. I was in college, without the funds to buy many ingredients and without the time to be particularly picky. I found that if I threw a bunch of ingredients together, added a few spices, and didn’t over-cook the mess, I could manage to feed myself at dinner time.
 
This worked for a year or two, but I started wanting to cook more—and for more people. It was a fine ambition, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was clueless about cooking steaks and chops, didn’t know much about international ingredients, and try as I might, couldn’t replicate my mother’s macaroni and cheese. And I certainly wasn’t confident that my throwing things into a pot at whim would be good enough for a room full of dinner guests.  So I started pouring over recipes.

In the years since my college dinner parties, I’ve gone through a lot of recipes. I’m pretty much a self-taught cook, and I credit many a recipe for teaching me what I know today. I’m still an experimenter at heart, but when it comes to doing something for the first time (or even the second or the third), I find recipes to be invaluable.
 
That is, I find good recipes to be invaluable. There is an enormous difference between recipes that can be relied on and ones that are all but impossible to follow.  There’s no sense, I’ve learned, in trying to follow a recipe that isn’t clear, detailed, and precise.  It’s not much better than tossing things into a pot and crossing your fingers.

Here are a few tips to help ensure that the recipes you submit will be easy to follow and ultimately useful:

1.    Don’t make assumptions. Don’t assume that what the chef provides you is adapted for the home cook and don’t assume the home cook will understand the chef’s instructions. Chefs’ recipes are often written for other professional cooks, who have a solid understanding of basic techniques and don’t need each step spelled out for them. Home cooks have a wide variety of background knowledge, and many are not familiar with even the most basic of culinary terms. Your job is to be the go-between, to take what the chef provides and transform it into clear directions that spell out exactly what is needed to be done every step of the way.

2.    Be specific. Make sure all ingredients mentioned are used, and all ingredients used are mentioned. Make sure cooking times, temperatures, and heat levels are specified.  Include cues that will tell readers when a particular step is completed.  Provide information about hard-to-find ingredients or uncommon cooking techniques. There are two sections to provide notes in the recipe upload—use these if you feel the need to explain any steps or ingredients in detail.

3.    Don’t hesitate to ask questions. As soon as the chef gives you a recipe, go over the ingredients and the preparation steps carefully. If there are any parts of the recipe you can’t understand, you can be sure your readers will be confused about what to do.  All it takes is a simple query to the chef to improve the recipe for your readers. Try something along the lines of, “I’d like to make this recipe as accessible as possible for home cooks. Could you specify how high the burners should be turned to and how long it should take to reduce the sauce?”

4.    Walk through the final recipe, either in your head or in your kitchen. Make sure the steps are in order and each is fully described. The ultimate test of any recipe is whether it is useful, easy to follow, and produces a worthy result.

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - October 05, 2007

The Times’ First Restaurant Review

When the New York Times converted its fee-based online archives to free content last month, many went scouring for forgotten gems in the paper’s back pages. Jason Kottke (of kottke.org) of course sprung to action, and among the list of New York Times “firsts” he turned up (first mention of the internet, first mention of Harry Potter, etc.), he pinpointed the first Times restaurant review (http://www.kottke.org/07/09/first-ny-times-restaurant-review-circa-1859).
  
The full review is available in PDF-form here: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=990DE5DD1E31EE34BC4953DFB7668382649FDE&oref=slogin (although the quality is what you would expect of a scanned newspaper from 1859). The piece ran on January 1, 1859, and interestingly, it was promoted to page one of the paper.

If you have the time to scan through its pages, the review is not only interesting but entertaining. The unnamed writer (the byline refers to him as "the Strong-Minded Reporter of the Times") approaches his assignment ("to go and dine") with an off-the-cuff wit that, despite being over 150 years old, is still quite humorous today.
 
The piece is less a restaurant review than five reviews in one—the writer proceeds to describe five levels of restaurants, from the elite steakhouse to the nineteenth-century equivalent of the dive. I pass this piece along not only because it’s interesting in itself, but because it happens to be an excellent example of how a writer can effectively convey the essence of a place. Not only are we unfamiliar with the particular restaurants in this piece, we are largely unfamiliar with the style in general of nineteenth century restaurants; yet from the writer’s descriptions, we are able to imagine ourselves in each of the restaurants he describes and are able to distinguish between each of the five restaurants with ease.
 
To wit: a description of a saloon allows us to easily imagine ourselves inside:
"Taylor’s Saloon is a palace of plaster, white paint, gold-leaf, and mirrors. You are fairly dazzled with light when you go in; you sit on velvet cushions with a mirror behind you and another one directly opposite, in which you see a million perspective copies of yourself. (I found it a most agreeable subject of contemplation.) A fountain bubbles up in the centre of the great hall; angels in plaster support innumerable lights, which illuminate hundreds of angels in hoops. Every party has a separate compartment, whereof the dividing lines are the arms of the couches terminating in griffin’s heads, which glare on the attendant as he brings up the tray.  You eat off an elegant little marble table, and terms are not, on the whole, extravagant."

Likewise, an account of the service at a steakhouse lets us know right away that the restaurant is a suitable place to impress company, or to celebrate a grand occasion; we can also surmise that it is most likely quite expensive:
"But once let Delmonico have your order, and you are safe. You may repose in peace up to the very moment when you sit down with your guests. No nobleman of England—no Marquis of the ancienne noblesse—was ever better served or waited on in greater style than you will be in a private room at Delmonico’s. The lights will be brilliant, the waiters will be curled and perfumed and gloved, the dishes will be strictly en régle, and the wines will come in with the precision of clock-work that has been duly wound up. If you ‘pay your money like a gentleman,’ you will be fed like a gentleman, and no mistake."

And again, from the description of clientele at a weekday lunch spot, we can see it may not be the most enjoyable place for a relaxed lunch, but is great when there’ s no time for lunch:
"They drop the pen and rush madly out to obey a behest of nature, dictated by their stomachs, but at which their hearts rebel. They reach the eating-house, madly fling themselves through the doorway, bound up the stairs, taking three or four steps at a leap; whisper their orders hurriedly while they throw off their hats and overcoats; eat what is set before them with celerity which marks how earnestly they wish the thing over and done with; jerk on their coats and hats while masticating the last mouthful; throw a pay-ticket and a quarter to the man at the bar; and rush back to business with the impression on their mind that they have dined."

As the writer explains in the beginning of the piece, his instruction was to "furnish an account of all these places." Even the few passages here show that he managed to do so not only in great detail, but with wit and charm that make the piece engaging, entertaining, and even amusing.  That, I would argue, is the ultimate goal of any restaurant review. Whoever “the Strong-Minded Reporter of the Times” was, he was certainly good at his craft.

That's it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - September 21, 2007

You asked for it—you can now select multiple assignments at a time.

Starting this week, all writers at our Silver Level or above will be able to select multiple assignments simultaneously. We hope this will allow you more flexibility in scheduling your restaurant visits. Here is our new assignment structure:

• Bronze Level: 1 assignment at a time
• Silver Level: 2 assignments at a time
• Gold Level: 3 assignments at a time
• Platinum Level: no restrictions on number of assignments selected

I do want to gently remind everyone that our assignments still have two-week deadlines, regardless of the number of assignments selected. If you are considering taking on more than one assignment at a time, please make sure you can complete all assignments by their deadlines. You may consider staggering assignments to ensure they are not all due at once. We will not look favorably on deadline extension requests coming from writers who have taken on more assignments than they can handle!

Here’s how it works:
Our writers’ center is not quite caught up to this policy change, so for the time being you will have to email us if you would like more than one assignment. Once you send us the restaurant assignments that you would like, if it is available and if you haven’t exceeded your assignment quota, we will assign the restaurant to you manually, setting a deadline of two weeks from the day you email us. You will still be able to upload all components of your assignments through the writers’ center.
 
We’re working on allowing you to select all assignments through the writers’ center, so stay tuned.

Don’t forget about Vegas!
Our Las Vegas assignments all still are paying an additional $100 per assignment.  Combine the Las Vegas bonus with this simultaneous assignment option and you could have a trip to Las Vegas that partially pays for itself!

One last, unrelated thing:
We’ve been tweaking the design of certain aspects of our website, and this week we changed the layout of the restaurant reviews. The reviews now appear on one page (they used to be spread out across three or four) and feature the title as well as a byline at the beginning of each restaurant review. We hope this gives all of you more exposure!

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - September 14, 2007

The importance of being accurate
I just finished reading Ruth Reichl’s Garlic and Sapphires, a memoir chronicling Reichl’s tenure as restaurant critic at the New York Times. The book’s a quick read, and an entertaining one, especially for anyone interested in food writing (or simply food).

I came across a passage in the book (page 104-105 in the paperback edition) that precisely captures the importance of accuracy, and thought I’d share. It's a good example of how concrete, specific information is often much more appropriate, accurate, and arguably correct than vague generalizations.

Here's the passage (note: "the greenies” refer to the NYT’s review of the paper each day, during which any comments, criticisms, or errors were traditionally called out in bright green ink):

“And, as always, I agonized in the end, pouring over the piece, looking for possible errors. I deleted the color of the napkins at one restaurant (Were they beige or brown? Better not to say at all) and the spice in the spinach at another (Nutmeg, I thought, but maybe there was also mace?). However, the lead sentence that read ‘If you are a native New Yorker, steak is in your blood’ completely escaped my scrutiny.

“The word police pounced. There, circled in the greenies, was the offending sentence. Next to it, written in a precise, angular script, was this comment: ‘What if you are Chinese? Latino? Beware of generalizations.’

“Mortified, I went slinking through the newsroom, wishing I had never written those words. Why hadn’t I simply said what I meant? Which was: ‘Growing up in New York City, steak was an important part of my childhood.’ It was the truth, and no one could possibly have objected.”

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - September 07, 2007

The Writers’ Center is complete!
We’ve been excited this week—we finally completed our Writers Center. We’re happy to announce that all of our upload functions are now working, which means that all assignment components can now be submitted via upload through our website. I wanted to call your attention to a few of the upload functions we added:

Restaurant Info & Features:
We’ve expanded the features section and now ask for a few additional details about the restaurant. We ask that you now provide the following information (most of the fields simply ask you to check the options that apply):
• Meals Served (breakfast/brunch/lunch/dinner/late nite)
• Parking Options (street/lot/valet)
• Dress Code (casual/business casual/casual elegant/formal/jacket required)
• Payment Options (visa/mc/amex/discover/diners club/jcb/cash/check)
• Corkage fee and corkage note, if applicable
• Year the restaurant opened
• Head chef’s name
• Reservation status (whether reservations are: not available/available/recommended/required)

We have also added the following optional fields, and we encourage you to enter this information if you know it:
• When a credit card is required to hold reservations (what size party)
• Contact name & title
• Maitre’D name
• Sommelier name
• Banquet facilities
• Business hours

Chef Profile
This upload function works exactly like the restaurant review upload—you simply copy and paste your chef profile into the text box and click submit.

Chef Photo & Restaurant Photo
You can now upload an unlimited number of photos directly through the website. You will be able to enter a title and description for each photo.
Please keep in mind that photos should meet the following requirements:
• Color Profile: RGB (not CMYK)
• File Type: .JPG (not .GIF)
• Image Size: at least 600px on the wider side
• File Size: less than 3 Megabytes

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or trouble with any part of the upload. You can find more information about each component on the guidelines page and step-by-step instructions on each upload page.

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

 

Writer Newsletter - August 28, 2007

For the month of September, earn a bonus $100 for all accepted assignments for LasVegasRestaurants.com! This month, accepted Premium Assignments will pay $200, accepted Featured assignments will pay $150, and accepted Standard Assignments (usually unpaid) will pay $100. Don’t delay—if you are thinking of taking on an assignment for LasVegasRestaurants.com, now is the time to do it! This bonus will only apply to Las Vegas assignments assigned between now and September 30.

Please note that during this promotion, all components of all Las Vegas assignments will be required, including the restaurant reviews, chef profile, photos, features, menu, wine list, and recipes. Be sure to review the guidelines page before taking on an assignment if you are unfamiliar with any of these components.

As always, assignment fees will be paid within 30 days of acceptance of an assignment. No fees will be paid for late or incomplete assignments, and assignments that do not meet our editors’ criteria for publication will not be accepted for publication. You can always find information about our acceptance terms on the Assignments, Guidelines, and Terms pages of our Writers Center.

We hope you enjoy this special offer. Remember—writers in any city can always select assignments in any other city. We look forward to seeing your restaurant reviews!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - August 24, 2007

Signature Recipes

Get your sauté pans and measuring spoons ready folks—it’s time to focus on recipes. We’ve just launched the Signature Recipe Upload function in the Writers Center, allowing you to directly upload the recipe component of your assignments (when required).

Our aim in providing recipes on our website is to allow our readers to get a taste of restaurant fare (literally) within the comfort of their own home. We hope to offer a collection of recipes across cuisines, courses, and cooking styles, allowing anyone looking to prepare an impressive meal at home to find not only inspiration but step by step instructions.

As our writers, it is you that bring these recipes to our readers. While on assignment, it is you that sample the cuisine, speak with the chef, and ask for a recipe to relay to our readers. The rest of this newsletter is devoted to tips on how to ensure the recipe you provide is useful. 

The overriding theme we are looking for in recipes in clarity—anyone who comes across the recipe should be able to create the dish.  As the writer, it is your job to ensure this clarity, to review the recipe you receive from the chef and to scrutinize it, making sure that all ingredients are clearly mentioned, all steps explained, and every detail included. If possible, go over the recipe with the chef—if it mentions baking a dish for 10 minutes make sure you know the temperature of the oven; if it mentions simmering a sauce until reduced, asked how high the burners should be turned on and approximately how long the reducing will take.

How do you know if there’s enough detail? Try making the recipe yourself. Or, if you don’t have the kitchen space or time, mentally walk yourself through all of the steps. Can you follow them? Do you understand what is supposed to happen, with what and when? If anything seems confusing to you it will certainly seem that way to your readers, so be sure to review the recipe and make any necessary revisions before you submit it.

To put our recipes in context, we will also ask you to provide a short paragraph introducing each recipe to readers. The best way to write this paragraph is to talk to the chef about the dish—ask why it is served, what makes it unique, if there is any history behind it, why it is representative of the chef’s cooking style. Ask what occasion or season it might best be served during or what wines to pair with it. Ask if the chef has any tips for preparing the recipe, or any suggestions for readers who might not have access to certain ingredients or equipment.

As with all of our assignment components, you can find detailed information about the recipe format on our guidelines page, and you will also be provided with step by step instructions during the upload process. As always, if you have any questions, just shoot us an email.

That’s it for this week!
Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - August 17, 2007

The Art of the Short Review

For those of you who aren’t quite familiar with our website yet, I encourage you to take a moment and look around. Each time you come across a list of restaurants, say by price, or location, or cuisine, you will find a photo representing each restaurant as well as a short paragraph about the place. This short paragraph is the “short review” component of our assignments, and is what I hope to call your attention to this week.

The short review is quite possibly the most important part of your assignment. It may be just a few sentences long, but it is the first thing readers will see about a restaurant. These few sentences are critical—if a reader likes what they read, they will continue on to view the restaurant’s full profile (and to read your full review); if their interest isn’t piqued, they will most likely move on to another listing. In other words, few readers are going to read your full review if they are not engaged by your short review.

The short review should be concise, but it should also be intriguing, complete, and accurate. It should convey the essence of the restaurant in a few sentences.  The success of this short piece is your own insight, and your ability to convey insightful details about the restaurant to your readers.

What the short review should not be is a repeat of the first paragraph of your full restaurant review, or even a copying and pasting of various sentences from the full review. These two pieces should build off each other, so that a reader who reads both will not feel like they are reading duplicate information.  

I’ve included links to some excellent short reviews on our websites, although these are just a sampling of the great short reviews we’ve been receiving:

http://www.philadelphiarestaurants.com/restaurant.cfm/restaurant/921/Tangerine
http://www.philadelphiarestaurants.com/restaurant.cfm/restaurant/255/AlmadeCuba
http://www.losangelesrestaurants.com/restaurant.cfm/restaurant/723/Sam'sbytheBeach
http://www.losangelesrestaurants.com/restaurant.cfm/restaurant/713/BorderGrill
http://www.lasvegasrestaurants.com/restaurant.cfm/restaurant/1076/808

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - August 10, 2007

Following last week’s newsletter about our new wine upload function, this week we’d thought we’d send a listing of several handy (and free) online resources about food and wine. Hopefully some of you will find some of these to be helpful in writing reviews and completing other components of your assignments!

Wine Spectator database of current awards:
http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Dining/Restaurant_Awards/Restaurant_Search_Page

Wine “gateway” websites by country:
Appellation America—invaluable information about American wines and appellations:
http://wine.appellationamerica.com/

Italian Made—The Italian Trade Commission’s comprehensive guide to Italy’s food, wine, and regions:
http://www.italianmade.com/

Wines of France—The website of France’s Office National Interprofessionnel des Vins, offering comprehensive information about France’s appellations, grapes, and wines:
http://www.frenchwinesfood.com/default.aspx

Wine Australia—the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation’s website, which includes detailed information about Australian wine regions and wine styles
http://www.wineaustralia.com/Australia/Default.aspx?tabid=163

Also handy:
The searchable, online version of the Food Lover’s Companion:
http://www.epicurious.com/cooking/how_to/food_dictionary/

…and the Wine Lover’s Companion:
http://www.epicurious.com/drinking/wine_dictionary/

That’s it for this week!
If you missed last week’s newsletter you can find it on the Newsletter page of the Writers Center.

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - August 02, 2007

We've got big news this week--our Wine List Upload function is now working!

We have been working on the wine list upload function for some time and are pleased to announce its launch!  You may now upload the wine list component of your assignment (when required) through the Writers’ Center, just as you upload the menu, features, and reviews. (We are also working on the Chef Profile, Signature Recipe, and Photo uploads—these should be rolling out over the next few weeks.)

Please take a moment to read the details below and to visit the Writers’ Center Guidelines and Download pages to find out how the wine list upload works. Remember, the wine list is not required for all assignments and is rarely a required component of Standard Assignments. Still, it can’t hurt to familiarize yourself with what is required so you’re prepared when you need to be!

What is required when you need to submit the Wine List:
Assignments that require a wine list will actually require three things: an uploaded Sample Wine List, a Wine List Description, and Wine List Information—six simple questions about the wine list.

The Sample Wine List upload is structured like our menu upload—you first create categories and then you create wines in each category. You’ll find detailed information on the Guidelines page and step-by-step instructions when you go to upload the list.

The Wine List Description asks for 3-4 sentences that describe the breadth and depth of the restaurant's wine list, as well as the features that stand out about the list. You’ll find a list of what should be included as well as a sample wine list description on the Guidelines page.

The Wine List Information questions ask for the following:
• The estimated number of wines on the wine list,
• The sommelier’s name (if there is one)
• Whether outside wines are allowed
• If applicable, what the corkage fee is and any notes about the corkage fee
• Whether the restaurant has earned any Wine Spectator Awards

You will find more information on these questions on the Guidelines page, and specific instructions during the upload process.

How we’ve tried to make the component easy for you to complete:
First, we’ve added detailed Wine List Guidelines to the Guidelines page in the writer’s center, which explain each component of the wine list.  We recommend taking a look at these before your visit to the restaurant. Second, we’ve created a “Wine Cheat Sheet” for you to download, print, and bring to the restaurant—it contains a brief list of all the questions you should ask and information you should pay attention to.  Third, we welcome any questions about the upload process as well as about particular wines you are uploading—please feel free to call or email us at any time.

What you should do if you have the wine list component assigned:
1. Ask for a copy of the restaurant’s current list of wines by the glass, with prices.
2. Look at the wine list during your visit to the restaurant. Make note of how the list is organized, what sections stand out as being more extensive than others. Make note of the price range of the wines by the glass and bottle, and of the serving sizes offered.
3. Pay attention to how wine is presented—are glasses poured before arriving at the table? Are they poured from carafes?  Are the pour sizes particularly generous or stingy?
4. Talk to the sommelier or someone at the restaurant who can tell you about the wine list. Ask them to tell you a bit about the list, to point out several interesting or unique wines, or wines that particularly would pair well with the chef’s cuisine. Ask them how many wines are on the list, how often the list changes, and where the bottles are stored. Ask them anything else you can think of too!

Good News!
One more thing—we wanted to announce to all our Philadelphia writers that our Philly site has started to come up as one of the top search results on Google for users looking for Philadelphia restaurants. This means more exposure for those of you with published reviews!

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - July 20, 2007

Every editor has a pet peeve; this week you get to learn mine.

You’ve heard the phrase before: “The menu offers everything from burgers and fries to pizza.” “The chef likes to prepare everything from garlic-infused potatoes to lime-marinated shrimp.” The restaurant is well-suited to everything from a business lunch to a romantic date.”

No, actually, it doesn’t, he doesn’t, and it is not.

There are three things that make me cringe at the phrase “everything from … to …” The first is the word “everything.”  It is absolute, comprehensive, and sweeping. It doesn’t mean “a lot,” “some,” “many,” or “most,” it means all. By using it, you are saying that the restaurant, or the menu, or the chef’s talent excludes nothing.  But Italian restaurants don’t serve sushi, Japanese restaurants don’t serve sloppy joe sandwiches, and even the most comprehensive, extensive wine list in the world doesn’t have every single vintage from every single boutique winery on it.  No restaurant in the world offers everything.

The second is the frequent misuse of the words “from [blank] to [blank].” This statement implies a range between two things: from beginning to end; from A to Z; from the west coast to the east. Whether it is in distance, time, or space, the range has a starting point and an ending point, and these two points define a set between them.  Using the phrase should help convey a meaning: when I say, “he recited the alphabet from A to Z,” you understand he said the letters “A, B, C, D, E” and so forth.  When I tell you there is a hurricane warning from Florida to South Carolina, you understand that the coast of Georgia is also in danger.

But what is included between burgers and pizza? How do you get from garlic-infused potatoes to lime-marinated shrimp? What falls between business and romance?  Including such an ill-defined (or non-existent) range in your writing leaves the interpretation of your meaning in the readers hands, which can mean inaccurate interpretations and confused readers.

But the third, and most disappointing reason I have for disliking this particular bit of language is for what these words are not doing. By falling back on an oft-used phrase, your words are not conveying what you really mean. Strike “everything from burgers and fries to pizza,” and tell us, “American classics fill the menu, with comforting, hearty meals such as oversized burgers and the best deep dish pizza west of Chicago.”  Instead of “everything from garlic-infused potatoes to lime-marinated shrimp,” explain “The chef particularly enjoys infusing standard ingredients with subtle flavors, such as his famous garlic-infused mashed potatoes and the slightly tart, slightly spicy lime-marinated shrimp.” And be direct: “the low noise level and well-spaced tables afford privacy and allow for intimacy.”

Next time you find yourself writing the words “from [blank] to [blank],” stop yourself and think about what you are trying to convey—do those two blanks fall into a clear line?  Is there a defined set of things between them? Chances are “as varied as” “including” or “such as” would be more appropriate, so would a more concrete, accurate description.  My rule of thumb? Unless there is a clear relationship between two things, they don’t belong framed by the words from and to. 

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - July 13, 2007

Tell us how we are doing
As we’re always working on improvements for our website, we thought we’d take the opportunity to ask you, our writers, what you think. Is there anything you like about the site? Any features you dislike?  Is there something that you’ve always wanted to see or something that you think we could do without?  Are there things that we could be doing better? We’d love to learn your thoughts, both regarding our writers’ center and our website as a whole. If you have any comments or suggestions, simply reply to this newsletter and let us know what you’re thinking!

New Assignments for Philadelphia!
We’ve added new Featured Assignments for Philadelphia this week. If you are a Silver Level writer or higher, don’t forget to check out the new assignments.  And remember, if you are traveling to any of our cities—Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, or San Diego—you are welcome to take on assignments there. Simply change the city on the drop down menu above the list of available assignments to see assignments in other cities.

Don’t forget to explore the Writer’s Center
Every now and then we like to remind you of the wealth of information to be found in our Writer’s Center. You can find past newsletters on the Newsletters page, find helpful documents in the Downloads section, and find many of your questions answered in the Guidelines and FAQ sections.
 
That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - July 06, 2007

Interviewing Chefs
Many of the featured and premium assignments for our website require a chef profile and/or a signature dish, so we thought we’d offer a few tips about approaching and interviewing chefs.

The most important things to remember are to be prepared, be professional, and be courteous. You want to take as little of the chef’s time as possible and get the most amount of information in that time.

Setting up the interview:
Call the restaurant before you visit and explain that you are working on an assignment to submit to our website. (As always, you can mention you are writing the piece, but should not guarantee that it will be published). Ask if you can speak to a manager, or the head of marketing or public relations, as you would like to schedule a time to conduct a brief interview with the head chef. Give as much notice as possible—don’t expect to be able to interview the chef the day you call—and try to be as flexible as possible. Give several scheduling options, and offer to use the time that is the most convenient for the chef.

How and when you interview a chef is up to both you and the chef. Some writers choose to speak to the chef during their restaurant visit; others opt to schedule a time to return to the restaurant after they dine. If you do try to speak with the chef during your visit, be courteous. Often prime dinner hour and busy evenings are hectic times for the chef—you will get a much better interview if you can speak to him at 4:00 or 5:00 on a slow day rather than 7:30 on a Friday night.

While interviews are also possible over the phone, we encourage you to try to secure an in-person interview. There is much detail you can glean through observation—when a chef gets excited, how he reacts to the environment around him, what he looks like or how often he smiles—that you can’t get over the phone. Email interviews can be even less effective, as not only do you lose visual and audio cues, but you put yourself in a situation where you have to repeatedly email the chef if he or she doesn’t respond to your initial email. Phone and email are best used to ask a few follow up questions or to verify facts, but in-person interviews will get you the most information for your profile.

Preparing for the interview:
Do your research—try to find as much information on the chef before you go to interview him or her. The more you know about a chef going in to an interview the more effective your questions will be.

Prepare your questions ahead of time—based on what you find about the chef, put together the questions you will ask him or her. Your questions should cover both the chef’s history and also what he is currently doing at the restaurant.  They should allow you to get a glimpse into the chef’s personality, interests, and passions. A good mix of usual and unusual questions is best—ask where the chef was raised and where he/she was trained, but also what their favorite vegetable is or what their craziest night in the kitchen was.  You may or may not ask all the questions you think up and may not include all the questions you ask in the profile, but the more questions you go in with the more prepared you will be.

Finally, gather and test recording materials before you go—you may choose to use a voice recorder to record the interview or a pen and paper to take notes. If using a pen and paper, it can be helpful to have your list of questions separately, so you can refer to both. If using a recorder, be sure to also take backup notes in case the recorder breaks or malfunctions, and don’t forget to test the recorder ahead of time.

Interview Tips:
At the beginning of the interview, introduce yourself to the chef and explain why you are going to interview him/her. Explain that you are submitting a piece to our website, and that the piece, if accepted, will accompany a restaurant profile and other features about the restaurant.
If possible, ask to sit in a place free from distraction, or invite the chef to sit a moment at your table.

If you are using a tape recorder, explain this to the chef before you begin the interview. Make sure he or she agrees to be taped before you begin taping. Don’t rely on the recorder alone—take notes as well. 

Start the interview!  Some writers choose to open the interview in a more conversational tone, others jump right into the questioning. You should be prepared to do whatever the situation warrants, depending on the setting, how much time the chef has, and how willing he/she is to talk. You should come with a set of questions prepared, but you don’t necessarily need to stick to your list of questions.

In questioning, you should try to get a sense of the chef’s career, his philosophies or approach in the kitchen, his culinary style, and anything else that is unique about the person. Your profile should reveal the chef’s character to the readers, to show his/her skills, training, and cooking style, but also a bit about his/her personality. Ask whatever questions are necessary to get you to be able to write this profile.

In asking questions, here are a few things to keep in mind:
• Ask open-ended questions. If you ask questions that can be answered with a yes or no, chances are you will get a yes or no answer. Instead of asking, “did you go to culinary school,” try “tell me about your training.” (“What” is a very good word to use in your questions—“what do you mean?” “what is it like to…?” “what happened next?” “what led up to this?” “what makes you say that?”—asking for elaboration is also good: “tell me about” and “fill me in on…”)
• Ask clarifying questions, ask for examples, ask for explanations. If you don’t fully understand something, how are you going to explain it to your readers?
• Ask for specific information—be sure to get dates or years when talking about stages in the chef’s career; locations and restaurant names, spellings of anything you are unclear of. Again, don’t be afraid to ask very basic questions or to ask for clarification or an explanation if you need to.
• Keep your eyes open. You are conveying a story, not just the chef’s answers to questions. Take notes, not just of the chef’s answers but of any other details that might breathe life into chef profile—the atmosphere, the chef’s appearance, his mannerisms.  Look for visual cues that show what the chef is excited about, how they react to the scene around them.

Before you wrap up the interview, ask the chef if there is anything he or she would like to add. Let him or her know how to contact you if they think of anything after the interview, and ask if it would be ok for you to call or email if you need to follow up with any questions. Don’t forget to thank the chef for his or her time!

Asking for a recipe
Before you begin or after you conduct the interview, also explain that you have been asked to submit a recipe for a signature dish for the restaurant. Ask if there are any dishes that the chef feels particularly represent the restaurant, or that are a favorite among customers or that the restaurant is known for. Explain that you would like to post the recipe so that readers can make the dish at home, so it shouldn’t be too complicated. Make sure the chef understands that the recipe will be posted on the website, and agrees to this. You can either ask the chef to explain the recipe to you and list the ingredients, to email you the recipe, or to write it down him or herself. (In any case, be sure the ingredients and method are clear and make any edits needed before submitting the signature recipe).

After the interview
There are two things you should do after every review, as soon as you are able. First, go over your notes at the first chance you get, even before leaving the restaurant or before driving away. Make sure you can read everything you jotted down, fill in any details you didn’t have a chance to write, and make sure you have all the details you need. Second, as soon as you return to your desk, be sure to send the chef a thank you note or email for his or her time. 

That’s it for this week!
If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to email me or to post questions in our writer’s forum.  Above all, act professional, but be sure to have fun!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - June 29, 2007

I had a chef remind me last week that “we eat first with our eyes, then with our palate.” When I sat down at the keyboard later on, I realized how valuable his words were, not just for a chef who is constantly thinking about how diners will find his food, but for a writer attempting to convey a chef’s cuisine.

When you are describing a dish in your restaurant review, you of course need to convey what is in the dish, but you need to do more. I can tell you that I was served my entrée, fish and sweet potatoes, but that doesn’t really tell you much. But if I describe the dish to you, explaining that the glistening halibut filet was balanced delicately atop a bed of airy whipped sweet potatoes, the vibrant orange bed contrasting with the pale flesh of the fish, you might actually start to get hungry. If I go on to describe the pale, almost clear white wine broth that coated the bottom of the plate, the delicate and crisp micro greens that rested atop the fish, and the colorful corn and tomato salsa that sat in a corner of the dish, you might start to appreciate the chef’s attention to detail.

Because we display a restaurant’s menu on our website, it is especially important to ensure that your restaurant reviews go beyond just mentioning what is in each dish. One way to ensure you convey this is to relive your own experience. Pay attention to the details that you notice when a dish is set before you—what colors are on the plate? What forms and textures are in the presentation? Is there anything that, based on the menu’s description, you are surprised by, or didn’t expect or anticipate? How do you decide where to put your fork first? The more you can show your readers about the dish, the better an understanding they will have for the chef’s techniques, and the more helpful they will find your review!

Best,

Lauren Duffy

Editor

Writer Newsletter - June 08, 2007

Palate vs. Palette

Time to play wordsmith.  There seems to be some confusion regarding the use of “palate” vs. “palette” in a good number of the reviews we’re receiving. So just a quick reminder:

Palate is the anatomical term for the roof of the mouth. It’s literally the body part that separates the mouth from the nasal cavity. From this stems the use of “palate” to refer to an individual’s sense of taste, and more broadly, range of taste preferences.   Common uses include “pleased my palate,” “palate-cleansing,” and “too salty for my palate.”

Palette is a board, usually wood or plastic (traditionally with a thumb hole), that an artist mixes or holds paint on. From this stems the meaning of the word to mean an array or range, as in “a palette of colors,” or “a palette of options.”

So remember: Artists paint with a palette, diners taste with a palate. (Although you can use your palate to sense a palette of flavors)

Oh, and those platforms in a warehouse? those are pallets. Although I can’t imagine we’ll see this one in a restaurant review…

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - June 01, 2007

Selecting dishes at a restaurant has always been especially difficult for me. No matter who I’m with, I seem to be the one who’s never ready to order, whose brow breaks out in a sweat when the server approaches, and who demands the rest of the table order first so I can make a split second decision by the time it comes down to me. I have literally prolonged a meal by an hour by sending the waiter away because I needed more time. I have also, more than once, regretted my meal choice not just during the meal, but for days after. So I’m not sure I’m the best person to write this newsletter this week, but here goes.

Why the dishes you select during your visit matter

When you visit a restaurant on assignment, you are not just dining for yourself; you are dining on behalf of thousands of readers out there who trust you to be their surrogate palate. Your visit to the restaurant is an investigative trip—it is your one chance to pinpoint the essence of the restaurant so you can convey that to your readers. Since you can only order a limited number of dishes, your selection is of utmost importance. The dishes you choose to eat are the dishes you will end up writing about, so there are a few more factors you should take into account when dining on assignment:

Availability—we ask that all dishes you write about come from the restaurant’s regular menu, not from a list of daily specials or a special request that you created. We want to make sure our readers, if they like what they read, can visit the restaurant and order exactly what you ordered. (Side note: for this reason, it is also important that you include the dishes you describe in the menu selections that you upload)

Universal Appeal—(to a degree, at least) As a general rule, it is better to select dishes that the majority of potential customers are likely to enjoy. If anyone at your dinner party squirms at the thought of ordering a dish, you may want to reconsider. Of course, if you’re at an ethnic restaurant and the squirm-inducing dish is a delicacy, go ahead an order (after all, we seek out some strange things: escargot, foie gras, uni).  Just make sure you follow the next rule...

Varity—Since you only have five dishes to order, it’s important to try to find as varied a selection as possible. If you’re ordering duck pot stickers as an appetizer, try to stay away from duck during your main course. If you’re tempted by the tuna tartare, try something other than the seared ahi entree. And if you must order the bizarre, counteract it with a commonality. Mixing it up a bit will not only make your review more entertaining, it will help readers who don’ t like seafood learn that the chicken is just as good, or who don’t eat steak realize there are other delicious options at a steakhouse.

Uniqueness—this is perhaps the most important criteria, as your description of a restaurant’s dishes should help convey how the restaurant is unique. Every Thai restaurant will have pad thai on the menu; every Italian tiramisu, and every sushi restaurant a California roll.  While the occasional restaurant may have a standout version of such a standard dish, chances are it’s not the pad thai that makes a restaurant famous (if it is, of course, then order the pad thai!).  Probe your server, scour the menu, and find out what dishes make the restaurant truly unique.  Every chef has his signature—it is your job to find out what that is. Is it a creative twist on a classic? A dish completely original to the restaurant? A dish composed of hard-to-find or local ingredients?  Ordering, and later writing about, these specialty dishes will guarantee you convey to your readers how one restaurant stands apart from every other.
 
Of course, you don’t always have to eat everything to include it in your review. If there are three specialty dishes and you only try two of them, mention the third in your review. If the kitchen is out of Dover sole and Dover sole is what the restaurant is known for, by all means explain this.  Most of all, of course, have fun, eat what you like, and be sure to share your experience with passion and excitement!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - May 24, 2007

 

Don’t forget to use the Guidelines

Many of you have assignments due in the upcoming weeks, and we wanted to remind you to use the tools in our Writers Center before you submit. Specifically, be sure to check your review against our guidelines, as one of the things our editors will evaluate is your ability to follow our instructions! (The others, as a reminder, are your writing ability and your knowledge of food, wine, and fine dining.)

More information on Restaurant Features

We wanted to let everyone know that we’ve recently updated the Guidelines page to include more information on the Restaurant Features component of assignments, as the features are a required component of all assignments. To submit the restaurant features, you simply use the checklist on the upload page and check off the features that apply to the restaurant. You can now find a list of these features on the guidelines page; as before, they are also listed in the downloadable Writers Cheat Sheet, which you can find on the downloads page.

On being contacted by a restaurant

We have had several writers be contacted by a restaurant that would like them to write a review for our website. Congratulations! This means you are well on your way to taking on an Invited Assignment. However, before you drop everything to visit a restaurant at the owner’s request, you must ask the restaurant to contact us directly. We need to make sure the restaurant understands how listings on our website work, and that they understand what we expect of them when hosting a writer. If we do not communicate with the restaurant and approve the assignment prior to your visit, we will not accept your review, nor will we pay you for the assignment! If you do hear from a restaurant, please call us or forward the communication so that we can get in touch with the restaurant—after we approve of the assignment we will formally ask you to accept it.

That’s it for this week!

We hope you have a tasty Memorial Day weekend!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - May 18, 2007

Hello writers!  We hope you’re keeping your tastebuds entertained with plenty of restaurant visits! Here’s what’s happened this week:

New Assignments added for Las Vegas and Philadelphia!
We’re pleased to announce that new Assignments—including featured and premium assignments—have been added for our LasVegasRestaurants.com and PhiladelphiaRestaurants.com website.  If you live in or are planning to visit these cities, be sure to check out the Assignments page.

And don’t forget—your writer account allows you to view and sign up for assignments in any of our partner cities. If you know you are going to travel to Los Angeles, San Diego, Philadelphia, or Las Vegas, be sure to view the restaurant assignments before you go.

To view restaurant assignments for other cities besides your own, simply go to the Assignments page through the Writers Center. This page will automatically display the assignments in your home city—you can view other cities’ assignments by selecting the city from the drop down menu above the list of assignments.

Don’t forget about these handy features:
We also want to remind you of several features of the Writers Center that you may not have discovered yet. On the Downloads page you will find a Writer’s Cheat Sheet, which you can download, print, and bring with you on your restaurant visits. On the Newsletter Archives page you can find old Newsletters with helpful hints and more. And on the Writers’ Forum you can post questions, discussion topics, and more.  Also, if you have at least one published assignment, don’t forget to fill in information in your profile on the My Profile page and the Interview page!

That’s it for this week!
Good luck on your next assignment! Remember, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly, or try posting them through our forum!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - April 26, 2007

Using that camera.
We may be writers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t snap a solid photograph every once in a while. Here are a few things to consider on assignments when you need to take a photograph of the chef, the restaurant’s exterior, or the dining room.

Sometimes, quality is in quantity.  Don’t be afraid to take lots of photos—it only takes a few more seconds to take five or ten shots instead of one, yet provides you with the luxury of choice. Once you upload your photos you can compare them on the big screen and select the best one to submit.

Remember resolution. Many digital cameras have several resolution settings—by setting your camera to the highest setting possible you ensure an equally high-quality photograph. High resolution photographs appear less grainy, afford richer colors, and can withstand cropping without compromising quality.

Consider composition. Don’t just point and click; point, move your camera around a bit, and then click. Deciding how to frame your shot before you take it often makes for a far more interesting picture. Consider the rule of thirds—divide your viewfinder into three (both horizontally and vertically) and place the focus of your subject along one of the imaginary dividing lines, moving the shot off center.  Also consider distance—portraits often benefit from a close crop or zoom, focusing on the subject’s face rather than their whole body; scenic shots (of a room or building) may be more interesting from a distance, allowing more of the subject to be included in the photo.

Don’t belittle the background. In portraits in particular, a plain background serves to emphasize the subject and eliminate distractions. Look around you before you snap a photo of the chef—is there a plain wall you can stand him or her in front of?  This applies to photos of the restaurant too—minimizing patterns, shapes, and distracting colors can help keep the subject the focus of the photo. Do you get a block full of parked cars in the background with one angle but an empty sidewalk with another? Go for the second to avoid distraction and keep the focus of the photo clear.  

That’s it for this week!  We hope you are enjoying your meals!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - April 19, 2007

High Five for Food Writing (and of course, for Jonathan Gold)
On Monday, LA Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism for his weekly food column, Counter Intelligence. It is the first time a food writer has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize—making the award that much more triumphant for Gold, but also for the profession as a whole.

The Pulitzer Board bestowed the award “to Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly for his zestful, wide-ranging restaurant reviews, expressing the delight of an erudite eater.”  Gold’s reviews are indeed zestful, and so full of intelligent and insightful observations that they bear reading—even by those not located in L.A. or not interested a particular restaurant he has chosen to share.

What is so notable about Gold’s writing is his seemingly-effortless intertwining of  graceful style, wit, and cultural literacy, which together manage to convey the essence of each restaurant—whether its a hole-in-the-wall taco shop or a formal steakhouse. Readers are thoughtfully introduced to a restaurant through an entertaining sketch, which almost always includes intriguing information on the restaurant’s history, chefs, owners, or location; an accurate sense of the vibe, clientele, and décor; and both the cuisine in general and vivid (and often witty) detail of noteworthy dishes. There is something else, of course, which elevate his reviews from good to sublime: the deliciously tasty nuggets of information, trivia, observation, and insight that he manages to weave into each piece in a way that somehow seems so revelatory yet so obvious at the same time. 

If your interest is piqued, here’s a few reviews—each of a dramatically different restaurant, each insightful, interesting, and entertaining in their own way:

Pizzaria Mozza: http://www.laweekly.com/eat+drink/counter-intelligence/the-new-california-pizza-kitchen/15322/

The “dessert tasting” at Providence: http://www.laweekly.com/eat+drink/counter-intelligence/sweetheart-deal/15726/

Lu Din Gee: http://www.laweekly.com/eat+drink/counter-intelligence/designer-duck/8564/

Finally, here’s LA Weekly’s article on the awarding of the Pulitzer to Gold, as well as a link to several additional Gold reviews: http://www.laweekly.com/eat+drink/dining/jonathan-gold-wins-pulitzer-prize/16130/

That’s it for this week!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - April 12, 2007

Style Notes
There are a few style conventions unique to our website, regarding menu items, names, and foreign words that we’d like to point out. We will edit your reviews to fit these conventions, to ensure consistency across our website.

Menu Items
The first time a dish is mentioned in a review, it should be referred to by the complete dish name that is listed on the restaurant’s menu. These dish names should always be capitalized, although you only need to mention the full dish name once.

Names
If someone plays a prominent role in a review, such as a server, sommelier, or manager, that person should be mentioned by name, as well as role. Owners and Chefs should always be identified by their full name, as well as their official title, while a first name is sufficient for a server or hostess.  Spellings of names should always be double checked prior to submission.

Foreign Words
Food writing is full of international flavor, and whether you’re writing about a French, Italian, Indian, or Thai restaurant, chances are you may need to incorporate non-English terms into your review.

We place foreign words in one of two categories, depending on whether the term is likely to be familiar to readers.  A general guideline to is whether the word is in Webster’s—if so, it’s made its way into the English language and is most likely recognizable; if not, it may be unfamiliar to some.

If the words are likely to be unfamiliar to most readers, they should be italicized on first occurrence, followed by a translation or explanation in parenthesis if appropriate. Subsequent occurrences of the same word do not need to be italicized.  If the word is likely to be familiar to most readers, italics should not be used.

That’s it for this week! 
Enjoy your next meal!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - April 06, 2007

We’ve been quite pleased with the reviews that have been pouring in!  Since we love receiving reviews that are filled with details, here are some tips for making the most of your restaurant visit:

Take notes.
The one time a dish is going to seem the most vivid is when the plate is before you and you have a bite in your mouth. To capture the details of this memory, jot some notes while you are in the restaurant. No, you don’t have to bring a clipboard to your table, but a discreet notepad in your pocket can come in handy. Don’t feel it’s appropriate to take notes at the table?  Simply take a moment after you leave to jot down everything you remember.  We guarantee taking notes the night of your visit will help get more specific details into your review.

Use your server.
Servers, especially knowledgeable ones, can be a wonderful source of information, and can sometimes give you an insider tip or two you wouldn’t otherwise be able to include in your review. When you are ordering or looking over the menu, ask your server to explain how dishes are prepared. When a dish is presented, ask your server to explain each component. Halfway through your meal, if you just can’t wrap your tongue around what that spice is in the steak sauce, ask!  Sometimes information you glean from your server will just be helpful; other times, revealing. Either way, it stands to improve your review.

Do your research.
The restaurant’s website is an obvious place to start, as many websites have online menus, chef or restaurant profiles, and a suggestion of the atmosphere and level of service. Look up the restaurant before you visit—if there is anything about the cuisine, on the menu, or unique to the dining experience that is unfamiliar to you, do a bit of reading before you go.  Going to a sushi restaurant? Why not brush up on sake before hand?  Going to an Indian place?  Might want to make sure you know the difference between northern and southern Indian cuisine. Off to a Parisian-style bistro?  Maybe it’s a good time to learn a few more things about French wine—and then try one you just learned about! 

That’s it for this week!
We hope that all of you are eating well!  Don’t forget to use our resources too—you can find newsletter archives, downloadable cheat sheets, and a link to our forum all in the Writers Center.

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

 

Writer Newsletter - March 30, 2007

Hi writers!  We hope you are having a good week and your assignments are progressing well. I thought I’d address a general trend we’re seeing: writers aiming to serve as critics when writing about a restaurant. While this is how many writers approach many restaurant pieces in many publications, it is not what we are looking for. Here’s why.

On our audience, why we don’t want a critique, and what our reviews are trying to achieve.

There is an article in Gourmet this month by Jane Daniels Lear on the Whistler ski resort (“Over the Top,” March 2007). Brief albeit detailed, the piece is written in a voice and pace that is the perfect example of what we are looking for. Granted, this is a travel piece, not a restaurant review, but the author’s approach is the same: to provide a detailed sketch of what it is like to be in a place, to expose readers to sights, sounds, tastes, and mood yet to leave the overall judgment about the place to the reader.

If you have a moment, I’d suggest reading this piece and paying specific attention to two details: the extent that the author inserts herself into the story and the lack of criticism that pervades the piece. As for the former, Lear includes herself just enough to illustrate not only what one might do at Whistler, but what one might see, feel, and hear—she uses her own experiences to convey what it is like to be a little scared at the top of the mountain, feel the powdery snow below, feel the exhilaration while maneuvering and descending. The result is a snapshot of sorts, which works to get the reader excited, to let them identify with Lear and to put themselves in her place. At the same time, Lear refrains from including details that might not be relevant to all readers—for example, that she was really glad she bought her new ski coat on sale, that she hoped she would run into her sister as they had gotten lost from each other earlier, that she thankfully remembered the ski lessons that she had taken five years ago. Not that all of these details wouldn’t make for an entertaining piece—in fact if told right they might even make the piece more entertaining. However, considering the space limitations and the readership (the piece is in a food magazine, not a travel book) the author realizes that these details aren’t appropriate for this particular assignment. All of the anecdotal details she includes serve to tell the readers something more about Whistler.

The other notable feature of Lear’s piece is that it does not criticize any aspects of her experience. Sure, she could have doted on the rudeness of the lift operator, the discomfort of the lift seats, or the slowness of the ski rental staff, but these details wouldn’t really do anything for the reader. Instead, by painting a basic picture of the experience, by including select sensory details, omitting others, and by alluding to the overall satisfaction of the experience, Lear does something powerful: she allows readers to imagine themselves in her place, and most importantly, to determine whether the destination is one they should consider.

This is the exact goal of the restaurant reviews on our website. We are aiming to provide vivid, sensory illustrations of restaurants so that readers can determine whether the restaurant is right for them. Our readership is wide, and the reasons readers are looking for a restaurant is even wider.  What is important to one reader may not matter at all to another; even the same reader can have certain criteria for lunch and entirely different standards for dinner.  We’ve all picked a restaurant for different reasons: sometimes it’s entirely about the food; sometimes food is less important than the atmosphere, or the level of intimacy.  Sometimes we’re driven by convenience, or location, or ease of getting a reservation, or quickness of getting a meal. Sometimes a restaurant needs to be conducive to conducting business, or to holding an important conversation, and all that matters is a quiet space, unobtrusive service, and enough adequate dishes that everyone in the party will find something to order. Sometimes you want a place where you can see and be seen; other times you’re searching for a comfortable place to dine alone.

This is why we do not want you to write a critique.  As a writer, a detail that may abhor you may attract another, and may be irrelevant to a third. However, if your review is filled with details and description, it can be useful to all.  If you simply dismiss the atmosphere as being “bad” or the dessert as being “unimpressive,” you’re not really being helpful to someone who’s trying to learn about the restaurant. (For the record, the same is true for simply describing a bowl of mussels as “excellent” or the décor as “tasteful”—it doesn’t really convey much).

This is not saying that you shouldn’t include negative details if they are apparent. It is just that you need to evaluate whether they are worth including. No one going to Whistler is going to blame Lear for not mentioning the lift operators if they encounter a rude lift operator; one, because it is fairly obvious that the lift instructor one person encounters is going to be different from another, and two, because this is such a small detail compared to the overall experience. On the other hand, Lear does mention that, overall, the staff seems young, healthy, and fit. This is an important detail to include because it says something about the place as a whole. Same goes with your review.  If a detail isn’t going to affect a reader, you might want to think twice before writing about it. If, however, a detail is illustrative of a trend as a whole, it can be a wonderful way to convey the essence of the restaurant to your readers. As for the latter, it pays to look for these details, because it can transform a good review into a phenomenal one.

Happy writing!

Writer Newsletter - March 21, 2007

The assignments have been pouring in this week and we are accepting our first applications for writers. To those of you who have been accepted—Congratulations!

New Feature—Multiple Cities
Traveling?  Now you can check the assignment page before you go! We’ve just enabled a feature to allow writers to select assignments in cities other than their own. The cities we have assignments for are Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Diego. (That’s right—we’re welcoming LasVegasRestaurants.com to our family!) When you go to the assignment page you will now see a dropdown box that will allow you to view other cities’ assignments. The rules are the same for all cities—you have two weeks to complete an assignment and you can only select one assignment at a time.  Happy travels!

New Feature—Newsletter Archives
Just signed up? Accidentally deleted the last newsletter?  We’ve just added an archive of newsletters to the Writers Center. Just click on the Newsletter link when you’re signed in to find past newsletters.

Helpful Hints
We’ve noticed a few things about the restaurant reviews that are coming in and I thought it would be helpful to address some of the common tendencies we are seeing. Here’s two for this week:

Use the Guidelines
We are getting many reviews in that omit one or two important details such as the Executive Chef’s name.  We are not accepting reviews that leave out any of the required components outlined in the guidelines and the checklist on the upload page. Please be sure to use these resources!  Read them before you sit down to write and read them again before you upload. Be sure to include information about the restaurant’s history, location, the owner (at the very least his/her name) the chef (at the very least his/her name). We’re not asking for a bulleted list of information, nor are we asking you to systematically include each component in the order we require it, we just want your readers to be able to learn all of this from your review. See how you can best incorporate this information over the course of the review without breaking the style or momentum of your piece.

Describe, Describe, Describe
I can’t emphasize enough how descriptive we want your reviews to be.  As the writer, you are the surrogate eyes, ears, nose, and palate of your readers. They will only learn of the restaurant what you tell them.  More importantly, your readers are looking to your review to help them distinguish one restaurant from another. There are at least 100 restaurants in the city that can be described as charming; another 100 that can be described as chic. However, there are very few restaurants in each category that actually look alike. Pick out specific, sensory details that make the restaurant unique and share those with your reader. Make sure your words convey what you experienced.

The same goes for dishes. Imagine you are describing your meal to a friend who recently had her tonsils taken out and is on a liquid diet. She is so desperate to sink her teeth into real food that she asks you to relay your meal to her in exquisite detail, so that she can dine vicariously through your description. Throughout your conversation she asks you to relay not just what you ate but what it was like to eat it.  This is what you should be telling you readers.
 
Of course, we’re not asking you to write an essay on each dish. One to three succinct, carefully worded sentences that capture the essence of each dish will help convey the key details to your readers without losing the momentum of the review.  Writers who are descriptive are not necessarily wordy. They just make every word count.

That’s it for this week!
We hope your enjoying your assignments. Remember, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly, or try posting them on our new forum!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

Writer Newsletter - March 15, 2007

You’ve signed up for an account, explored our Writers Center, and maybe even filled out your profile and signed up for your first assignment. In the mean time, we’ve been hard at work. Here’s what’s happened this week:

New! Writers Forum
We’ve just launched a forum in the Writers Center for writers to share their comments, concerns, and questions about our writing assignments. To view the Writers Forum please log in to your account and click on the Forum page.  You will have to sign up for a separate forum account before you can post to the forum, but you will still be able to view all forum entries without an account.  If you have any questions, issues, or helpful hints please be sure to share your thoughts!

New! Menu Upload
For those of you who have signed up for assignments and who have tried to submit the menu, you may have been asked to email the menu to us instead of uploading it.  Our menu upload is now functioning, so please be sure to use the Upload page to submit your menu.

New! Features pages
Also functioning is a Restaurant Features Checklist, which will now be a required part of all restaurant assignments. This quick checklist contains 25 features that may apply to restaurants, such as “Child Friendly,” “Late Dining,” and “Live Entertainment.”  Be sure to look at the list of these features before you visit a restaurant so you know what to look for!

New! Writer’s Cheat Sheet
We’ve now developed a Writer’s Cheat Sheet which is available for download on our Assignments page. This handy two-page sheet contains a list of all the information you should be looking for during your visit to a restaurant, as well as the list of features on the Features Checklist. Be sure to download and print it before each assignment you go on.

That’s it for this week!
For those of you who have signed up for an assignment, we hope you enjoy or have enjoyed your restaurant visit! For those of you who haven’t, don’t’ forget that you can sign up for an assignment at any time through our Writers Center.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly, or try posting them on our new forum!

Best,
Lauren Duffy
Editor

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