Home from the Greenbrier Food Writer’s Symposium

September 20, 2010 · 24 comments

It’s been a little while since my last post, but I have a good reason for slacking off: I was a panelist at the Greenbrier Food Writer’s Symposium, along with Dorothy Kalins, Christopher Hirsheimer, Joe Yonan, Justin Renard, Carole Bidnick, James Peterson, Holly Hughes, David Joachim, Laurie Buckle, Kirsty Melville, Rux Martin, Rick Rodgers, and Molly Wizenberg. I brought my laptop with me, but when a second-night, post-dinner schmooze-fest went beyond 2:30 am, all hope was lost.

The 2010 Symposium (its 20th anniversary) was my third; I attended as a scholarship winner back in 2003 and as a panelist in 2008, and this year’s event proved to be wildly different from years past. On the one hand, the 2003 Symposium ended just as we went to war (literally the last night) so everyone was a little bit cranky; on the other hand, the 2008 Symposium, which featured speakers including Dorie Greenspan, Russ Parsons, Jeffrey Steingarten, Tori Ritchie, and Diane Morgan and was quite serious during the day, turned into something of a frat party for food journalists by sundown. This year’s gathering was serious—very serious—and while we all enjoyed each other’s company immensely, we were all (and I mean all) talking about two things: the fact of change as a constant, and the place of digitalia in the world of the food writer.

I’ve often been accused of being a Luddite, and really, it doesn’t much bother me; in fact, I find it very flattering. My first experience in the world of publishing took place when I was three; I stood in my grandfather’s press room at The Forward in lower Manhattan, he put a piece of warm, lead type in the palm of my hand, and that was that. Over the years, I’ve witnessed some fairly major changes: the demise of the typesetter and the slugger (look it up; hard to explain) being two. But I never believed that, even with the birth of the eBook, books would “go away.” I didn’t believe it at the digital medium’s inception, and I don’t believe it now. And that’s saying something, considering I just spent the last week in the company of forty or so bloggers and writers and restaurateurs wielding a nice little gadget called the iPad. You know these folks when you see them because they’re generally followed down the hallway by a crowd of people who look like this:

Sure–the talk was largely about the state of the industry (slow, snoozy, taking a nap, reactionary were a few descriptions, and I believe they’re accurate), but the flipside was about the power of possibility. In other words, how, exactly, will the digital world impact my cookbook, or your memoir. And instead of being sullen and morose about the whole thing, my colleagues were getting very, very excited, in a Seth Godin-esque, Purple Cow kind of way.

Take, for instance, the possibility of using the iPad to digitally reproduce a practical guide to cooking–say, Jacques Pepin‘s La Technique, or James Peterson‘s master-class-in-book-form, Cooking. Say you buy the book as a download, and say you hit upon a recipe that calls, within the ingredients list, for a boned duck. (We’re being totally hypothetical here, so don’t go looking for it in those two books please.) Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to click on that ingredient, have a screen pop open, and see a short video of the author showing you—yeah, you—how to bone a duck? And then, of course, you could replay it over and over again, and bookmark it. Better still, wouldn’t it be amazing if you so fell in love with the book after downloading it and working with it for a while, that you had to have it forever and ever as a part of your library, so you then bought the book itself in order to have the content available to you in two different mediums—each accomplishing two different functions? (The book as a forever reference, and the download for hands-on, practical experience?) Nobody loses here: the author sells his work.  And if the digital format (for which a royalty is paid; don’t get me started, that’s another subject) manages to simultaneously support the sale of the hardcover (for which a larger royalty is paid), this potentially is a very good thing.

Taken to another level, what about all of those incredible cookbooks that we all love but that have been out of print, or have just fallen out of popularity or trend? If the way into a young food geek’s heart and mind is through his iPad, and he’s never heard of Richard Olney—then for god’s sake: get Simple French Food up onto iBooks, cross-reference it everywhere with Paul Bertolli and Alice Waters and Elizabeth David, and have this kid READ READ READ! I can guarantee you: five minutes of reading Simple French Food in a digital format, and said young food geek will want the actual book in his library too. Because that’s the way food people are. We love and need our books in a tactile way, and food professionals especially are drawn to them because our subject matter—what we live and breathe and work with every day of our professional lives—is so by its very nature elemental. But we also love clarity and immediacy of information, and of course, its practical application.

I had a conversation with a dear friend yesterday about what this all means for the world of books; as I told her, there is nothing in the world that gives me more comfort than being in the presence of books—nothing soothes my soul more, except for Susan. I walk into a library or a bookstore, and my blood pressure drops and all I want to do is read. I will never cozy up with a digital device (although I am in love with the iPad I now own), and I will never associate bedtime with getting under the covers and firing up the old tablet.

But publishers’ futures—and mine, as an author—are not built on the fact that I still have a rolodex on my desk and my Uncle Marvin’s 1934 Remington Noiseless Model Seven sitting on my low bookshelf about a foot away from my Mac; publishers are (or at least should be) business people, hell bent on the power of possibility, and on giving their audiences access to the written word in whatever form their audiences want it. And that’s what this year’s Symposium was all about.

1 Monica Bhide September 20, 2010 at 4:29 pm

Wish I had been there. SOunds amazing! Thanks for the great write-up.

2 Diane Morgan September 20, 2010 at 4:35 pm

What a terrific blog post!!! I so wanted to be there. Thank you for the synopsis of the symposium.
Diane

3 Elissa September 20, 2010 at 4:38 pm

Missed you at the bowling alley!

4 sam fromartz September 20, 2010 at 4:40 pm

Yes, searchable video will be the breakout app I think for cookbooks (though we might have to come up with a new name for them). This is especially true for bread, where recipe amounts to 10% of the result and technique that can only be shown or felt 90%.

5 Sandra Gutierrez September 20, 2010 at 4:41 pm

Hear, hear! Well said, Elissa. It truly was a great symposium, leaving us all with much food for thought, indeed.

6 Katherine Whiteside September 20, 2010 at 4:42 pm

Yea! I agree with all you say here. The more choices for readers, the greater opportunities for writers. Well put, Elissa.

7 Amy Loeffler September 20, 2010 at 4:47 pm

Elissa,
You beat me to the purchase. Blast! Now I really feel behind the times.
I think last year we were all down-in-the-mouth about the state of the industry. This is an excellent, and very positive, post, however, and the things you mention seem very likely to occur if we can build a revenue model to support the apps.
Thanks again for your insight during the humor panel!
Amy

8 Tara Mataraza Desmond September 20, 2010 at 4:55 pm

Thanks for the snapshot.

9 Carol Penn-Romine September 20, 2010 at 5:13 pm

Curious that you as a self-professed Luddite loaded us into the technological slingshot and launched us into the future. Thanks! I needed that!

Cheers! Carol

10 Lael Hazan September 20, 2010 at 6:20 pm

Thank you for this wonderfully insightful post. As the daughter of an antiquarian book dealer (who commissioned his own Guttenburg press), I understand the tactile need for a “real” book. It is nice to know that the symposium participants had a positive take on this “bold new world”.

Many moons ago, my mother was responsible for purchasing all the computers for her very large school district. She too felt out of place and commissioned a logo of a brontosaurus hanging on a space shuttle for dear life. I sometimes feel like that brontosaurus; although now he might be surfing an ipad.

11 Sharon eisen September 20, 2010 at 6:46 pm

The forward!
Oh, I want to hear more.
I used to go our and buy my grandmother this forward every weekend.
She died never having learned a word of English, but gave me the opportunity to learn Yiddish.
Oh, and great post too.

12 debbie koenig September 20, 2010 at 6:53 pm

This is why I found the Symposium to be so valuable: All you panelists are so darn smart, so notably witty. My agent asked me what I learned at Greenbrier, and my response was overwhelmingly about the e-possibilities. I feel incredibly lucky to have been there (even if I did go to bed before every.single.person every.single.night).

13 Kathleen Bauer September 20, 2010 at 7:07 pm

Terrific post! Wish I could have come and soaked up not only the information but the camaraderie. Thanks for the summary.

14 Molly September 20, 2010 at 7:12 pm

You nailed it, Elissa. Well said! (And now, off to buy an iPad…)

15 Elissa September 20, 2010 at 7:22 pm

Thanks Molly. It’s a fabulous thing……Let me know when you get it!

16 Ivy Manning September 20, 2010 at 8:24 pm

Elissa
I too am a follower of the great Ned Ludd, and am therefore a luddite, but your post has clarified what I was beginning to feel during the week: E-anything is not the enemy. It’s just another megaphone for us to reach our readers. I hope.

Thanks for all the great insights, humor, and bowling expertise. It was a great week.

17 Carla Snyder September 21, 2010 at 9:56 am

I hated missing the symposium this year. Thanks for the upbeat synopsis. I was there in 2003 and 2008 as well. I hope we get the chance to chat the next time over a glass or two of that fabulous wine Toni always has waiting in the presidential suite.

18 Nancy Baggett September 21, 2010 at 4:21 pm

I could not agree more that the i-pad (& similar even more powerful innovations to come) opens up more publishing possibilities than anything since the invention of the printing press. The interactive, multimedia possibilities seem breathtaking. Whether these will eventually make the traditional printed cookbook (and similar how-to books) obsolete isn’t clear, but it seems to me this could happen. But if more knowledge can be imparted more efficiently and economically, shouldn’t this be embraced?

19 Tori RItchie September 21, 2010 at 4:28 pm

Apps, iPads, iPhones, cloud computing…we gotta embrace them all if we want to stay in business and if we want new generations to keep cooking, which they will. Thanks for a great post Elissa and how WAS the bowling this year?

20 Elissa September 21, 2010 at 4:33 pm

Bowling wasn’t the same without you!

21 Elissa September 21, 2010 at 4:35 pm

Well, let me just put this out there Nancy: who among us — neophyte or seasoned cook — is going to want to accidentally drip soup/sauce/schmaltz on the screen of their “reader?” I just downloaded Bittman’s new book as a test….Hardly “practical” as compared to my Peterson/Pepin model, but stay tuned.

22 Nicole Aloni September 22, 2010 at 3:27 pm

Though I am something of a Luddite,too, this potential for the iPad jumped right off the screen the first time I saw one. I’m already doodling ideas for a vivid, interactive “book”. I’m excited about cookbooks for the first time in years . Thanks for these great notes from a conference I’m determined to attend next year.

23 Elissa September 22, 2010 at 3:28 pm

Thanks Nicole–

24 Brigit Binns September 22, 2010 at 5:04 pm

This is so, so incredibly helpful, Elissa. Thanks for being my eyes and ears. Glad you got to spend time with Carole – she is a dear. The Jewish mom I didn’t get to have and so cherished for that.
I am sort of embarrassed about how much I love my iPad, btw. (I’m doing a very cool project designed for it, and I felt it was my responsibility–as a conscientious author–to learn my way around in this new world….

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