Posts Tagged ‘Writing’
25 Things You Wish You Had Overheard a Foodie Saying
“All I had to bring was this jar of homemade pickled carrots.”
“Oh the popcorn? Yeah, it’s the truffle oil that does it.”
“It was Sunday. So I got the pan-fried trout.”
These are all direct quotes that I overhead, or caught myself saying, in the last week. If you spend any time around food lovers, or are simply food obsessed yourself, and you will pick up on some humorous things. Absurd even. If ferment, infuse or are co-op are part of your vocabulary, you know what I am talking about. But don’t you just wish that the foodie world would take it to the next level? Here’s what you wish you had overheard.
The Beauty of Eating Outdoors
Mediocre wine is excellent if you have a view, coffee is exponentially more delicious when brewed after a night in a tent, and trail mix can compete with the fanciest hors d’oeuvre when you’re in the middle of a hike. It’s simple: food always tastes better outdoors.
I was thinking of this in the process of drinking a mug of wine, overlooking a horizon of red rock formations last week. Dirtbags, sunsets and merlot do go hand in hand after all.
The Secret Diary of a Foodie, Part Deux
This is the latest installment of Foodie Underground.
Whatever happened to the foodie that was in search of love and a good greens blog? We snagged her journal for a follow-up.
Wednesday April 4, 2012, 7:33 p.m.
Dear Diary,
Since I ditched the Greens Blog idea, I have been trying to focus on my coffee project. I have been taking a coffee roasting course (a cheese making course seemed so last year) and I think I have found my calling. And there’s a really cute coffee roaster leading the class… unfortunately his jeans are skinnier than mine. After class last night he asked me if I wanted to come up with a special sea salt, coffee cake recipe for the coffee shop he works at. Yes, please! In exchange he’s going to hook me up with free craft-roasted Americanos for a year. I just couldn’t say no.
Two Years of Writing a Food Column
Today marks two years of writing my Foodie Underground column. How I have managed to produce a column every single Monday for 104 weeks is beyond me, but somehow it’s still going. Hence the celebratory post and birthday torte recipe. Enjoy!
Portland Love
It’s fall, and despite the warm air you can tell the rain will eventually get here. But for now the bike ride home is beautiful; quiet, still, almost balmy. The waterfront is practically abandoned as people have committed their evenings to activities that align with the season. With no one out except the few well trained runners, you can ride as fast or slow as you want with no interruptions. Lights reflect on the water and the warm air haze makes for a colorful sunset. It’s moment like this to love where you live.
Mixtape Writing Contest
One of my favorite blogs is Matador Senior Editor David Miller’s, which he recently renamed “Operating on Stoke.” One of his new projects is the Mixtape Writing Contest, a weekly contest where people submit writing and a mixtape is made based on the winning entries. And because David’s such a creative guy, he comes up with some pretty cool themes for the contests.
This week he wanted a 3-sentence confession, made by relating a story, conversation or scene and adding a confessional sentence that hints at a deeper story. The 3-sentence confession had to be nonfiction. On a whim I submitted the following:
An old man sits on the park bench, paintbrush poised in hand. Behind him, a dog sprints away from its owner. I have a hard time saying no.
The full disclosure on this is that I don’t necessarily remember having this thought while I watched this scene. It is a thought that I do have often enough however, and it’s usually had at very random times, so I felt like it fit. David picked it as the winner and gave it a wonderful analysis as well as a pretty kick-ass mixtape. Check it out here.
Why It’s Important to Write About the Destinations You Didn’t Love
A few years ago I taught English in the Caribbean… Guadeloupe to be exact. And although it’s a sunny island in the middle of the Caribbean, to be perfectly honest, my time spent living there wasn’t the most enjoyable. Actually living on an insular island and having a daily routine is much different than spending a lazy vacation sipping cocktails on the beach, and that everyday livelihood didn’t exactly meet my expectations.
So when I told my mother that I was going to write a story on what not to do while traveling in Guadeloupe she responded with, “What are you going to say? Don’t go there?!” I laughed and gave my usual answer:”even though I didn’t have a good time, doesn’t mean other people can’t.”
Which brings me to my main point: sometimes writing about a place that you don’t love is a fantastic exercise. You’re forced to choose a bit more objectivity over subjectivity, and soon you’re remembering a plethora of positive aspects, putting your negative memories aside and crafting a piece that allows others to be intrigued by your destination.
In the end, travel is about experience, and as travel writers, it’s important to inspire those experiences. It doesn’t matter if travel experiences are positive or negative, they are always going to be eye-opening, educational and shape who we are, and every individual has to discover that on his/her own, which is why it’s perfectly fine to write about those destinations you didn’t love.
So on that note, here’s an excerpt from What Not to Do in Guadeloupe, published over on Matador Trips — an article that made me just a tad bit nostalgic for a place that I never really liked living in to begin with.
Don’t… assume people speak English
As an overseas French department, Guadeloupe’s official language is French, but don’t think this makes visiting the island like traveling in Europe.
Although it’s a common stereotype that the French resist speaking English, getting by in Paris without too much of a grasp of French is definitely doable. On Guadeloupe, English is much harder to find.
Do… learn some key French phrases before you go
The locals will give you a genuine smile if you make an effort to speak French. With a simple “bonjour,” “merci,” some survival phrases like “how much does this cost?” and the obligatory traveler’s hand gestures, you’ll do just fine.
New gig at Written Road
Sometimes it’s easy to feel like the blogosphere has become my life… which it has. Today marks my offical start as a blogger over at Written Road. Sponsored by BootsnAll, Written Road is a blog focused on the travel writing industry, so expect a lot of posts on market leads but maybe a little bit about what it’s like to write for a living as well. I’m actually very excited to be part of the Written Road team because it’s one of the blogs that I have continuously read over the last two years; feels good to be working for something that has been a staple in my own travel writing experiences. So here’s to more time spent blogging… (Oh, and the photo? That’s what my typical morning looks like…)
blog.annabrones.com 