Rebecca Morris writes: “I’ve always loved to travel, but it wasn’t until my CIA (Culinary Institute of America) trip to Spain that I realized just how well food, wine, and the people that produce it can tell the story of a region.”

When my partner accepted a job in Australia, I barely hesitated to sell my car, leave my stable job as a recipe developer at America’s Test Kitchen in Boston, and head down under. Crazy? Not quite, just wanderlust.

I’ve been living in Sydney for two months now, and am happy to report that their advertising campaign is right: There really is nothing like Australia! In terms of the wide variety of food and wine, Australia goes way beyond the meat pie and the Vegemite. Take for instance the macadamia nuts that crunch and melt in your mouth, or the sensuous black truffles as big as your fist, or the rebel wine makers that are breaking all the stodgy ‘old world’ rules (and becoming wildly successful). There’s no way around it, Australia is primed to be the next destination on the bucket list of every food-loving traveler around the world.

At the moment, I’m in the running for an exciting food job in Australia that would allow me to stay for another six months. It is called, “One of the Best Jobs in the World” and is being promoted on by Tourism Australia.

When I heard of this opportunity, I had a gut feeling I should apply. I want to be a food writer and if I want to tell the story of a region through food, there is truly no better place to start than Australia because there is still so much to be discovered.

I put together a 30 second video highlighting my accomplishments and why I am qualified for the job of “Taste Master.” If hired, the job would involve going all over Western Australia (WA), eating, drinking, and foraging for the very best that their territory has to offer.

My goal at first was to just make it to the top 25, as there were over 45,000 applicants from all over the world applying for the same position as I was. Well, what do you know? I made the cut, and am now charging full speed ahead for the shot at being an ambassador to all things tasty in WA.

My next challenge will be to gain support on my social media sites until they narrow it down to the final three contestants on May 15th. You can keep up to date on my application, and read about what I’ve been up to in Sydney, on my travel blog, lucky country diaries.

A Personal Note: Rebecca, I am happy to be among the many voices who are singing your praises and hoping, hoping, hoping you win…Oh, I forgot…You are already a winner in my book!

I’m shocked to discover how many otherwise sensible people yearn to become food writers. It isn’t an easy life.

First you’ve got to study geography.

Geography is destiny. We associate certain places with specific foods.  Tuscany is still right up there when it come to desirable place names. We much prefer Swiss to any old cheese fondue. Cassoulet from Toulouse is infinitely superior to pork ‘n’ beans.

Provence, as in Warm Provencal Tart with Seared Tuna and Fragrant Herbs, beats a tuna fish sandwich every time.

Napa, Maine and Vermont are magical words. So is Texas, but only when we’re talking about barbecue. New Jersey, though it claims to be The Garden State, lacks the charm of Buffalo, New York. For we salivate over the promise of Buffalo wings and even mozzarella from a buffalo?

Chefs like to suggest that their served trout has been swimming in a lake, though we all know full well, it mostly comes from fish farms in Idaho. Bays are dreamy places particularly at sunset. Booth Bay and Chesapeake sound like appealing places to go for oysters.

PEI Oysters Courtesy of ArugulaFiles.com

Prince Edward Island is a real island. Staten Island lacks its charisma.

The Mediterranean diet retains its promise of life everlasting. A recent report reveals some fish stocks are regaining strength in the Atlantic, but salmon mostly don’t swim there any more.

Food writers have to divine all these subtleties of language. Only then can they choose one of these specialties:

Courtesy of  http://www.cooknscribble.com/

Print publishing has rapidly progressed from paper to screen. This change is revolutionary. It is even more momentous and consequential than the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in around 1439.

Today, an event can be “broadcast” contemporaneously, wirelessly, globally by millions on YouTube or Facebook yet, paradoxically, marketers are narrowcasting and desperately seeking ever-thinner slices of the public pie. They must identify micro-niches for their products.

We can see this fracturing of large entities into smaller, more clearly defined units in every aspect of commerce. Huge supermarkets spin off smaller shops selling only fresh foods. Large department stores splinter into small specialty stores within.

Restaurants are specializing in only one cuisine or even a single food: noodles, sushi, pizza or sandwiches, bagels, tacos, doughnuts, ice cream, cupcakes, fried chicken, burgers fries and fizzing brown drinks. A restaurant in Manhattan sells only rice pudding. Another offers only French fries. All are thriving.

TV networks are struggling. They have divided and subdivided into special interest cable channels: nature and weather, houses and gardens, food and fashion, history and mystery, old movies and new religions, sports, crime and politics. Each segment has its leaders and followers.

Doctors and dentists have morphed into micro-specialists as have artists, musicians, theologians, chefs, athletes, financiers and food writers.

Books, magazines, and newspapers take aim at clearly defined demographic markets. Magazine articles are getting shorter. News bytes are merely small nibbles.

Texting is instantaneous. (It is challenging for a writer, any writer, to hold the attention of a reader, who is reading an article while watching television and eating an ice cream on a stick and holding a smart phone, while seated on a loved one’s knee.)

Who Wants to Be a Food Writer?

Therefore, your first task as a writer may be to narrow your options. If you say you would like to be a generalist, you are looking at the vast blue sky through a telescope. It is crucial to narrow your focus of interest by studying your options on the ground. Change your focus by peering through a microscope at one specific sector of the huge food publishing universe.

Make up your mind whether you want to be a newspaper columnist or write for a consumer magazine like Edible Manhattan and Edible San Francisco, Fine Cooking, Saveur or a trade journal, such as Nation’s Restaurant News, Pizza Today, or “Sous Vide Tomorrow“.

Be aware that Wegmans and other large supermarket chains publish food magazines. Medical insurance companies issue magazines for those on special diets. Restaurants and food companies distribute newsletters, as do specialty food retail stores so your options are in fact quite a lot broader than those that may seem most obvious.

Indeed you might have better luck proposing a regular column for a publication that didn’t have a food section until you came along and suggested it.

And remember, no one can stop you from writing your own food blog.