The Food Writer's Conundrum

A blank page is the same as an empty plate.

A blank page is the same to me as an empty plate. How do I get something tasty and visually appealing in writing, and how do I get you to reflect or talk about it after?

I believe I finally understand the famous quote by Ernest Hemingway,

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

As a budding writer, that quote took over three years to understand. I almost have more drafts than posts published here on Substack. Each of those drafts is an idea I would like to express, or research but with the hindering thought of, would this work?

I made a decision between writing recipes or restaurant reviews but I believe food has so much more to offer than that binary option. Sure, those are popular, but I’m so tired of popular. I want what is real and that would feed me with sustenance, a story, an investigation into what should be, to seek truth about food and myself.

I have pieces that I think would be a fantastic read, but it demands much more time to write, so I need to write something else to keep churning writing of things I think would work, or be of interest.

Then comes the mental obstacle of, would it work for you, or just for me, or a publication? To continually train myself bettering my writing and eventually sell to a publications. I’ll get there but it’ll take time, precision, reflection, and bleeding, and lots of it.

I think Ernest Hemingway meant you bleed because of all the obstacles within writing. I never struggled with writer’s block until a few months ago. It’s a luxury and a privilege to be able to write.

It might seem easy from the outside, but when you sit and focus on your writing it is madness, joy, frustration, honesty, virtue, discipline, obsession, urges, redaction, clarity and so many more of our human emotions and ticks that spill out into a long, or simple sentence. Those sentences stack on top of each other like a pyramid of prose sitting on sand, each grain an idea.

Is my idea worthy to pursue and invest time to write about? Is it cohesive enough? Do I stand by what I say? Does this chalk up to my values? Is this on topic, relevant, and has a punchy conclusion? Am I rambling? Is my lede enticing enough? Is this actually a fact? Can I make a living off of this? Who could I interview? Who to quote? Is this too general? If worst comes to worse, I’ll just share a recipe, I guess…

I believe food writing to be so much more than recipes and restaurant reviews. It’s about politics, literature, the arts, the ancestral dining table of livelihood, tradition, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomics, philosophy, anthropology, religion and a side of fiasco, honor, debate, passion, and all worth discussion. It covers all because it’s what keeps us alive and thinking.

Talking about food, on or off the plate is more important than you think. Writing about food, on or off the plate is more important than I think.

Defending and raising awareness about food is the most important for everyone.

Those who cannot voice themselves and are being oppressed by a system of food inequality that we take for granted everyday — is something worth fighting for.

Raising my little one and sharing a family meal, everyday, is the most important thing to me, it is our daily sermon. A pious plate of my beliefs. A moment of gratefulness, of luxury in simplicity, an hourglass of memories to be shared.

“Writing anything is a treason of sorts”. - Anthony Bourdain

The overthinking is the problem. You need to do the best you can, write something of interest, tell it in an interesting way, and keep that going. I’m having trouble writing, so instead of procrastinating and avoiding writing, I’ll just ‘bleed’ and write about that. Vicious circle.

The ultimate goal is to keep your interest and ‘flipping the pages.’

Stroganoff-ly yours,

The Greasy Pen.