Courtesy of Escobar Highland Farm

A Ahhh: the A – Z of The Year in Food in Review!

B The buzzwords this year were “bacon, bacon, bacon,” butchers, back-to-basics cooking, Balloon Boy Batali, Barefoot C. D. Bouley, D. Boulud and db Bistro Moderne. The Beer summit with O_bama sent bloggers a-blogging. Blight (as in tomato) and the Big Bee Buzz Off also made news. Bottled water fell in trickle down economy.

C New cheese course in restaurants resulted in food jobs for cave men. Terrance Brennan, Chef-Proprietor of Picholine Restaurant and Artisanal Bistro and Wine Bar was nominated as Le Grand Fromage. Cup cake sales surpassed Pop Tarts. Copia, Napa’s bankrupt center for wine, food and the arts, was in the soup after amassing $78 million in debt.

D Doughnut claims proved to be full of holes.

E Epstein (Jason) wrote Eating: A Memoir.

F What began as “sugar-free” morphed into “salt-free,” “calorie-free” and “cholesterol free.” ‘FREE for All’ became the brand new and improved marketing concept. Let Freedom Ring! “Farm to table” was considered a brand new concept though, admittedly, this is the way people have eaten since the beginning of time. (The cost of a home-grown tomato was estimated to be in the range of $100. Gardening also took up heaps of free time.)

G Gordon Ramsay swore innocence in alleged sex affair. Government legalized marijuana. Rumors suggested that the appointed leader of a new agency would be known as Mr. Pot Head. ‘Green’ was declared the only way to go for those who wanted to get in the pink.

H Hospitals began replacing the rules of hospitality; some treated themselves like ‘out patients.’ They opted for a diet of denial. Dem(ocrat)s preferred smoothies. Healthy cocktails became all the rage.

I I will launch my web version of the Great Food Almanac in the new year.

J In the movie, Julie (Powell) blogged but Julia (Child) mastered our hearts.

K Kellogg dropped immune-boosting claims for sugary cereal — sweet gesture. Kraft’s courtship of Cadbury was rejected. Chocolate lovers turned dark and bitter.

L Happy No ‘L’ to All!

M Michelle (Obama) planted a vegetable garden. Martha (Stewart) tried to dig out from a 3rd quarter $11.7 million debt. Mobile foods kept on trucking.

N NASA located ice on the moon; still searching for scotch on the rocks.

O Organic lost its charisma; “sustainable” was the newfound concept. Obits for Sheila Lukins (of the Silver Palate) and Café des Artistes were written. Gourmet (magazine) bit the dust. Tavern on the Green is now on life support, but soon will be resurrected.

P Po’ Boys were getting poorer. Petite sweets were big and getting bigger.

Q Q’s were forecast for health care reformers by grim death panels. Q’s were eliminated by self-serve check outs in supermarkets. Barbeques remained popular with Dads, who prowled their backyards with a beer and a spear.

R NRA (National Restaurant Association) pegged future profits to rising Tide. Many restaurants washed up, leaving line cooks out to dry. French Laundry Executive chef Thomas Keller ironed out his issues and revealed a softer side.

S This year we appointed two supreme judges: Sonia S(otomayor) and Sam S(ifton). One is a fed, the other is a foodie. Both were well grilled before taking their hot seats — one on the bench, the other on the banquette. Both thanked their lucky stars.

T T-baggers made a big splash. Tweeters’ ‘Rec.A.P’s got even shorter.

U U still here?

V tV Food Network cooked up only contests and conflicts that generate a stampede of students into culinary schools.

W Increased cooking school enrollment led to more cooks, less home cooking. WOW!

X XXX and XXXX designates grades of confectioners’ sugar that is dusted on Xmas cookies.

Y Yellow fins were sinking. Yellow tails are rising.

Z SEASONings EATings to all and to all a white knight! Zzzzzzz.. Tweet Tweet… The  Nd

Cordially,

Courtesy of http://chanpoetry.blogspot.com/2009/06/ticking-clock.html

I’ve been thinking about time, and how starved we have all become.

We no longer have time to read Gourmet magazine. Ruth Reichl said, “We pioneered writing about farmers and issues from the field, and we wrote about genetic engineering when nobody else was touching that. We wrote about trans-fat and it was important for me to do that.” She added, “The advertisers didn’t agree that this stuff was what readers wanted to read. So they buzzed off.”

When the death bell tolled, Gourmet had a circulation of 980,000. Every Day with Rachael Ray has double this number of subscribers. She commands a rapturous following. Short cut cooking is all the rage.

Many magazines are folding. Newspaper circulations are plummeting. USA Today is the top selling newspaper with a circulation of 2,528,4372. The Wall Street Journal has the second highest subscriber base with 2,058,3423. The venerable New York Times is in third place. It has fallen to 1,683,8554. The Los Angeles Times has only 1,231,3185 readers while The Washington Post has plummeted below a million daily readers. These are among the top 100 newspapers. Number 100 on the list has barely 120,000 readers. The advertisers mostly have migrated online.

Sales of cookbooks, (and all but a precious few hard cover books), are languishing. A Kindle can provide a reader with thousands of books at a mere price of $9.99. Literary classics, like Wuthering Heights and the Complete Works of Shakespeare can be delivered in a few seconds at a cost of  just a couple of dollars.

All this is troubling news indeed for food writers.

The good news though, is there are plenty of other opportunities. This is the information age where bloggers like 101 Cookbooks are creating new universes. (According to Google, there are currently 12, 847, 478 food blogs, but who’s counting!) There’s also  work to be found writing: for supermarket publications; compiling food celebrity profiles; collaborating with chefs to write legible recipes; setting up shop as a restaurant reviewer or a publicist; seeking a position as a culinary librarian or an acquisitions or copy editor, fact checker, proof reader or indexer.

Or, perhaps…a culinary literary agent, who is required to spend his or her days reading, rewriting proposals and going out to lunch. Literary agents are among the few who take authors out for lovely, long lunches, (though usually only once).

Time is at a premium. Serve it yourself and do it yourself is the way to go today. Scan your own groceries. Fill your own gas tank. Check yourself onto the airline and out of the hotel. Find your own telephone number. Buy and sell, online. Earn a degree online. Do your own pregnancy test. Prescribe your own medicine. Heal thyself.

We have stopped cutting our own hair, cleaning our own clothes and looking after our own children. We have largely also stopped cooking. If a microwave “dinner” takes more than three minutes from freezer to table, forgeddabout it!

I mention all these things to emphasize how important it is to keep up with changing trends. It is essential then to identify which sectors of the food and hospitality industries are thriving and which may require a dive into treacherous waters.

The two messages we are receiving loud and clear are: Keep it short and surely you can’t be serious. (Observe the TV Food Network programming.)

So tweet tweet. I am AAK. (Asleep at the Keyboard.)

LOL (Lots of Love)

IC

Ruth Reichl is among the fortunate few who always land on their feet no matter the adversity. They perpetually live in the best of times. As soon as she finishes her Gourmet cookbook tour, Ms. Reichl will be writing a book about the 10 years she dwelt in the House of Condé Nast. The other hundred plus workers who were just terminated from Gourmet Magazine will be hunting for a new food job in the worst of times.

What options do they have? They can count on little help from the surviving major food magazines. Most rely on their own staff or hire from a group of trusted freelancers. Forget about newspapers; their food pages are also shrinking as they continue to lose the support of advertisers.

A better bet is to create a new regular food column for a special interest magazine that currently doesn’t have one. Every segment of the universe has a magazine devoted to a special interest such as opera, tennis, golf, dancing with the stars or another sport. Incredibly, one of my students just told me that there’s even a new magazine devoted entirely to the topic of ICE. (How many recipes can you come up with for ice cream, iced drinks, flavored icicles or being on ice?)

Recipe writing is a serious business but one that affords its practitioners plenty of opportunities to display their literary skills. Those who excel maintain a following of devoted admirers. Renowned recipe writers don’t need to invent dazzling new dishes. They simply have to strike that exquisite balance between explaining what they have in mind and inspiring the anticipation of pleasure.

Even well-known cookbook authors hire professionals to help them write the recipes for their books. Chefs, cooking teachers and others may find themselves having to write recipes for publication. Doing so takes attention to detail. To achieve success, a recipe must be written with impeccable accuracy and unambiguous clarity.

Recipe testers may be able to find work with a television star or cookware manufacturer whose recipes must be accurately written for online references. There is work to be found with publishers who need writers to translate chef recipes into wording that can be understandable by consumers. And publishers who need to have recipes from other countries translated into English.

There also is a need for recipes for those with diabetes, lactose intolerance and gluten-free food. An endless river of recipes are developed for sugar-free, salt-free, fat-free, cholesterol, vegetarian, vegan and other special diets. Medical insurance companies often provide booklets devoted to these specific needs.

Now is the time to think how to match one’s culinary skills outside the confines of a conventional kitchen setting.

Mind you, these are just a few suggestions to console the many talented Gourmet Magazine exs who now are looking for a job. Your ideas for helping these fellow foodies are always most welcome too.