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Unconventional paths to a successful culinary career. 

Autumn 2016 IACP Digitally Speaking 

Letter From the Editor 

Somewhere Over the Rainbow … where the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true … Like Dorothy envisioning her life, we all have aspirations of what our perfect career will be and how we can make a difference in the world. Sometimes those dreams seem as obscure as the song implies, but with a little creativity, ingenuity, and perseverance we can follow our passion for food and creativity and carve out a career doing what we love.  

We are no longer limited to writing for a print publication, writing/publishing cookbooks, or being a chef as some of the primary career paths available in the food industry. You can be a graphic designer and help people starting out to build their perfect website. You can do freelance writing, create a blog and share stories and recipes, recipe development, or become a brand ambassador for corporations. More often jobs that used to be in-house are being filled by contractors, saving a lot of money for the companies while forcing us to adapt to the changing environment. 

In these days of ever-changing online tools it is hard to figure out which works best for us. We can chase every new technology, but perhaps it is sometimes wiser to invest your time and energy in growing those channels you are already utilizing? Only time will tell if the latest and greatest social media tool will last or become the next Twitter or Pinterest.  

How do we take the skills we've learned and apply them to the emerging world of digital media? Learning new tools and gaining new skills can be daunting. Watching our children pick them up in a second can be frustrating, but we have to believe in our abilities and keep tackling them. We have nearly endless support from the IACP community, with specialists in all aspects of the business. Don't be afraid to ask for help, you may be surprised how willing people are to give you a hand!

In this edition of Digitally Speaking we are featuring several IACP members who have taken alternative roads to their current positions. Each is unique, each successful, and all are loving their new lives. See how they did it and I'll bet you learn some tricks along the way. Who knows where your personal yellow brick road may lead, but you can guarantee it will be an adventure! 

Jane Bonacci
Digital Media Newsletter Editor
heritagecook@comcast.net 
Twitter: @TheHeritageCook

Letter from Your Section Chair and Co-Chair

Working in the culinary field is never boring. Whether you’re working the line, contributing articles to gastronomic publications, or teaching a classroom of kids about knife skills, food industry work offers so many ways to go deeper. As the digital space continues to map out new territory, it offers culinary professionals more opportunities to reinvent themselves and expand influence.

A motto I’ve held fast as my anthem for the past few years is Dream Big, Work Hard. What is impossible with a little hard work, moxie, and a shovel of persistence? I’m thrilled our newsletter editor Jane Bonacci assembled our fall newsletter with the perspective of hearing our peers share unconventional ways they’re making their dreams reality. James Beard award-winning food and wine writer, Carolyn Jung makes the leap from traditional publishing to online. Not Just Baked blogger, Fabiola Donnelly carves out her career by intuition. New member, Aimee Suen finds her tribe and a new way of pursuing her love of food.

Two great things about working with food are the ability to transition in our careers at any age, and the food community itself. We’re glad you’re part of this community! 

Have you had a chance to participate in a DIG IN? If not, we’ve archived many of the past talks on our Facebook page. 

Annelies Zijderveld
Digital Media Section Chair
anneliesz@gmail.com
Twitter: @anneliesz

Sean Timberlake
Digital Media Section Co-Chair
sean@seantimberlake.com
Twitter: @hedonia

Finding My Tribe and Beyond 
by Aimée Suen

Without even realizing it, for years, I’ve been searching for my people, my tribe. I found a few groups that worked for little while, but I never quite felt at home. Like the other people just got it. 

For years I was forcing myself to fit in the graphic design tribe, and while there are always moments of connection and commiseration, it still isn’t enough, a complete fit.

I started gravitating towards food several years back as a way to take care of myself, to get my health back from putting myself last in college. Food became another way to express myself, to create, and soon others were seeing that. The idea to start a blog wasn’t mine, but the need to create and connect with others ultimately pushed me to click the “Publish” button three and half years ago.

On that same day, I drove down to my first food blogger conference, The Big Traveling Potluck, which a friend found out about by chance. I felt so awkward and self-conscious, driving down to an intimate blogger gathering with some much, much bigger blogger names. Today was day one of blogging for me, what would it be like to sit next to established bloggers? Would I be shunned? Patted on the head like a toddler and sequestered to the kids/newbie table?

Thankfully, I couldn’t have been more wrong. In conversation with so many bloggers, they were all extremely welcoming and helpful, passing off encouragement or words of advice. I even met a few people that hadn’t launched their own blogs yet! On the last full day of the conference, there is an open mic session, where you can say anything you want. You can read a writing prompt that they gave earlier in the day, you can thank speakers, or you can just talk. As others were talking, a small voice inside me say “Go. Go up there! Tell them! Tell them you were scared! Tell them you were wrong!”

So with a giant cage of butterflies rattling in my chest, I stood in front of 70 other bloggers and thanked them. I told them I was so relieved to be wrong, that those 70 people obliterated my fears of not being welcomed in. And that I finally felt at home. 

A lot of the people I’ve met at The Big Traveling Potluck have become friends, mentors, sounding boards, and lovely faces to see at other conferences. A year later I finally met Cheryl Sternman Rule in real life after reading her blog for a few years. Her kindness, passion about writing, and her authenticity are so refreshing. We kept in touch after that conference. A few years later, over a meal, she told me about IACP, which just happened to be coming to my city the following year. 

I jumped at the opportunity to attend a food conference in my backyard and joined IACP. Attending was overwhelming, with so many friendly faces and also so many well known faces I never thought I’d just see one hotel ballroom table away from me. The conference was a great boost, a great reminder that this is my tribe, and to keep pushing and blogging.

Blogging has evolved for me since I pushed my first post live three and half years ago. I’m still sharing recipes I make and things that have helped me or motivated me to make the recipes, but I’ve also started writing more to help and not just to share. The need to help and serve others has always been a thread running through my life in lots of different ways, but not as much as much in the past several years. It’s become clear to me that through food and blogging I can finally do that more, and really help others eat healthy and delicious food.

In order to take the next steps and really be able to confidently and safely help people, I enrolled in the Nutritional Therapy Association’s Nutritional Therapist certification program that starts in mid September and runs until June. Once I’ve been certified, I’m going to marry my hard knocks schooling with my official schooling, and use that to help others in new ways in addition to just blogging, like through ebooks and online programs, and other programs to help people (find their healthy??).

A lot is ahead, and I honestly don’t know if I would have gotten here without a wonderful food community that’s felt like home.

About Aimée Suen

Aimée Suen is a healthy food blogger at small eats, nutrition nerd, and graphic designer. After gaining weight in college, Aimée started cooking, eating more fruits and vegetables, exercising, and learning more about food.

She discovered that healthy eating doesn’t need to be bland, boring, or restrictive, and she started blogging to share that. Aimee is passionate about sharing recipes and food knowledge that can inspire and empower people to live happy, healthy lives.

Winning at a New Game - Transitioning From Traditional Publishing to Blogging 
by Carolyn Jung 

My plunge head-first into digital media didn’t happen by intent, but by circumstance.

I am decidedly old-school, having spent decades working as a staff writer on newspapers. Yes, actual ink-staining pages. Even today, I still prefer to hold the real-deal magazine, newspaper, or book in my hands, rather than read a facsimile online.

But I saw the light. Or rather, was pushed to do so, when like so many journalists worldwide, I was laid off from the newspaper where I was not only the main food writer for 11 years, but the first person there to ever win a James Beard Award.

Many of my colleagues, after toiling so long under a doom’s day cycle of layoffs and cutbacks, already were toying with various Plan Bs. I didn’t have one. All I knew was that I was damned if I was going to let some corporation intent on cutting dollars tell me I could no longer do a job I loved.

After my last day in the office, I knew my electronic access would be cut off the next morning. After all those years of connecting with so many readers over our shared love of cooking and eating, I had no way of telling them I would no longer be there. That connection would just end abruptly.

Until I decided to leave one last message to them.

Back then, the paper had a rather nascent food blog, of which I was the main contributor. Truth be told, we were lucky to spur one comment on a post. So, that morning, I wrote a final post, thanking readers for coming along with me on this wondrous ride, and telling them I would no longer be a part of the paper. Shockingly, the comments flew in. There were 30 in just a week, wishing me well, and asking where I’d be working next, because they wanted to continue reading my stories.

That’s when it hit me. At the very least, I could start my own blog. That was the genesis of FoodGal. It would be like my own food section. I could take photos, cook recipes, and interview chefs. I could write about the new and the noteworthy. And nobody could ever hand me a pink slip.

That was eight years ago. I still do that blog, as well as write for a range of publications, most of them traditional print media, but many of them digital, as well. Along the way, something rather miraculous happened. When I’d ask editors I didn’t know, how they found me for an assignment, they would reply: online. When I asked Macy’s event managers how they happened upon me for hosting chef demos at their stores, the answer was: online. When I asked my publisher how she stumbled upon me to author the cookbook, “San Francisco Chef’s Table,’’ she said: online.

Part of me remains proudly old-school. Yet I’m also a realist about this ever-changing world where information now comes – for better or worse – at light speed. Mostly, I am grateful that this digital era helped usher in a new future for me that I would have never imagined.

About Carolyn Jung 

Carolyn Jung is a James Beard Award-winning food and wine writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2015, she was named an IACP finalist for for an IACP Food Writing Award for “Narrative Food Writing.” She has judged a bevy of food contests, including the biggie of them all, the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley magazine, EatingWell, Edible Marin-Wine Country, Wine Spectator, and other publications.

Carving Out Her Career by Following Her Instincts Instead of Traditional Paths 
by Fabiola Donnelly 

We can do anything we want; at any point in our lives, we can change our course by our own actions and choices, no matter what. I've always believed this and it has led me down an unusual path to happiness. At thirty-one years old I found myself in Portland, OR starting a Baking and Pastry Degree at culinary school after leaving a successful massage therapy and nutrition practice in Sacramento, CA. I went in thinking my goal was to open a small bakery in Vancouver, WA. Little did I know, five years later, I would be doing live TV cooking segments on a regular basis, building a successful blog, developing recipes for companies all over the country, and judging food competitions. I simply listened to my gut and that’s where it took me!

I started my blog, Not Just Baked, in 2011 as a way to share what I was learning in culinary school. I had no idea what I was doing in terms of my site, social media, or even hashtags, it was kind of humorous how little I knew. My instructors didn’t understand what I was doing, because I was the top in my class and graduated with the highest honors. It made perfect sense to work in a bakery, open a bakery, or be a pastry chef at some super awesome restaurant. But there was a different path for me and it took sticking to my gut for all of it to work. 

While I was working in one of the best bakeries in Portland, there was a pivotal moment that changed my career path. I stood there making thousands of cookies for the holidays, with hysterically massive calluses on my fingers from scooping cookie dough. I thought, this is not the job for me. And to be super clear, I LOVE what I do. It simply didn’t feel right to continue working in kitchens in that capacity, it felt very forced and unnatural to go that route. I may have wound up an unhappy baker covered in flour, smelling like butter. Two of which are perfectly acceptable in my life. That is how I found myself taking the more eclectic route after culinary school, blogging full-time!

Most of my life I have avoided the traditional path, so it was not much of a surprise to anyone, other than my culinary instructors, that I chose to head a different direction after graduating. That defines a lot of what I do with my time in digital and social media as well. I learned early in life to go my own way if it feels right. Just because someone else is doing something, or another social media platform pops up, it doesn't mean I need to jump on the bandwagon. I’ve done what works for me, feels natural, and keep things real as much as I can. That has led to my success and happiness in my work life. Which is of the upmost importance. 

As we all know, networking and building relationships in the digital world can be tricky. I began by putting myself out there like I never had in my life. I did so quite shyly and reluctantly, but of course, it worked! The blogging community is a business first, and when you do good business with others, are genuinely nice and share content, others do the same for you. I built social media relationships by attending blogging conferences, and meeting wonderful people that I still see five years later. Simply being myself and building those relationships over the years brought opportunities to my door that I never even thought of. Being on live TV doing cooking segments on a regular basis in Portland is definitely one of them. And that happened simply because of a blogging relationship I had. She kindly recommended me to the producer as a good fit for the show. 

I did my first show in January 2013. The next day my producer asked me to book the entire year, simply because I was naturally myself on air. It was awesome and so scary! It made me laugh, cry, and sick to my stomach all at the same—an  excellent combination of feelings for an overwhelming accomplishment. Three years later, I am on air every month and have encouraged them to share more on their social media as well. Sharing my knowledge and showing kindness has been the way to my successful blog, social media following, and constant sponsored work with companies.

It boiled down to always trusting my gut, putting my real self out there, and thinking outside of the box on how to be successful. I have not approached the blog and website world in a common way at any point, which has worked for me. I believe in myself, my work, and I’m honest through and through. People in business respect that and enjoy working with people they can trust. These days I am happy working on recipes at home with my kitties and making food I love for people all over the world. I am even happier to say, following the road less traveled has been what worked for my culinary career life. 

About Fabiola Donnelly 

Fabiola Donnelly is a creator, author, photographer, and recipe developer. She shares many of these passions on Not Just Baked; a seasonal cooking, baking, healthy food, and lifestyle website. She appears monthly on a live TV show in Portland sharing recipes from her website while also representing food companies as part of her sponsored segment program. Fabi can also be found judging culinary competitions alongside a James Beard Award-winning mentor and colleague. She has taught many students from advanced classes at culinary competitions, to cooking with kids at the local farmers' markets.

Did You Know?

And don't forget to check out the archives of past IACP webinars - there is so much talent in this organization sharing their skills with all of us!

Upcoming Events 


Mark your calendars for Oct 11th at 9am PDT for our next DIG IN! Don’t miss this information-packed discussion on the use of an little known component in Google Analytics. RSVP here

UTM tracking is a method for measuring the effectiveness of all your digital marketing efforts. It’s also one of the most misunderstood and underused components in Google Analytics. NO MORE! Learn from Ashley Carufel. Assistant Director of Content Strategy & Social Media at PBS Food, on why you should be campaign tagging your social and email marketing and how you can leverage the data to inform future efforts.

We're always on the lookout for ways to support our members. If you have other upcoming events, please email them to Jane at janebonacci@comcast.net. for inclusion in the next newsletter! 

Submissions


Do you have a story idea or topic you would like to see covered in a future newsletter? Email your idea(s) to Jane at heritagecook@comcast.net.  

Member News 

Luane Kohnke's newest cookbook, Ancient Heritage Cookies: Gluten-Free, Whole-Grain, and Nut-Flour Treats (Pelican Publishing) is coming out Oct 3rd. It is available for pre-order now at online booksellers.  "… Author Luane Kohnke guides aspiring bakers through her delicious and unusual recipes. With 50 recipes featuring ancient and whole-grain flours and 13 gluten-free options, everyone can enjoy delectable cookies without guilt! Kohnke uses whole grains from around the world—including oats, barley, cornmeal, and nut flours, which are healthier than bleached white flour—to satisfy the most discerning sweet tooth. …"

Camille Storch has gotten recognition in her local newspaper and on Oregon's NPR affiliate for her growing Instagram following. She was selected by Time magazine to represent Oregon as one of the Top 50 Instagram Photographers to Watch in all 50 States and Country Living Magazine included here in their list of "23 Country Instagrammers You Need in Your Feed". She and her husband run Old Blue Raw Honey and document their country life in photos. It's great to build your online community while having fun! At nearly 30,000 followers, you can get in on the fun too by following her @waywardspark on IG. 

Kathy Gunst is about to publish her 15th cookbook. Soup Swap: Comforting Recipes to make and Share will be published in mid September by Chronicle Books. The book is about building community and finding a new way to entertain by making and sharing soup. The book shares 60 recipes for soups and stocks as well as a primer on how to have a soup swap at home, school, with your yoga class, book group, etc. 

Kate McDermott's cookbook, Art of the Pie, received a review at Publisher's Weekly, saying it was one of the best book on the subject. It is available for pre-order now at online booksellers. Kate was featured in a Washington Post article on pie tips that included an online Q&A chat. She had a very successful visit to QVCs "In the Kitchen with David" and the book has already gone into a second printing. It's been a banner month for Kate! 

Cynthia Samanian launched a new culinary site for millennials, Confetti Kitchen, on July 1st. They teach basic culinary techniques and inspirations for young people just learning how to cook, guides to create an efficient kitchen in a tiny space, and ideas for ways to use leftover tortillas are just a few of the ways Confetti Kitchen is reaching out and changing the world. At the launch event in San Francisco, they raised nearly $1000 for No Kid Hungry! 

Shannon Kinsella and Jane Bonacci have their first cookbook, The Gluten-Free Bread Machine Cookbook (Harvard Common Press), coming out November 15th. With over 175 recipes, it will help those who cannot have regular bread easily make their own loaves, bringing sandwiches, sweet breads, grilled cheese, bread pudding, and more family favorites back to daily life. It is available for pre-order now at online booksellers.

Toni Allegra and the Symposium for Professional Food Writers have two Free webinars coming up on September 28th. Writing about food may be fun and gratifying, but without proper planning and strategizing, it often is not sustainable. Hear from four successful writers about how they have put their food writing to work to earn a living. Session 1 (9:30 AM to 11:AM Pacific Time / 12:30 to 2:00 PM Eastern Time) is "Building a Bigger Table" with Toni Tipton-Martin, David Leite, Elissa Altman, and Michael Twitty. Session 2 (11:30 AM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time / 2:30 to 4:00 PM Eastern Time) "Making Food Work For You" features Andrew Schloss, Dianne Jacob, Sandra Gutierrez, and Monica Bhide. More details and registration links are available on the SPFW website

Do you have news you would like for us to share in an upcoming newsletter? Please email it to Jane at heritagecook@comcast.net.

Digital Media Interest Section Committee


Annelies Zijderveld         Digital Media Chair
Sean Timberlake              Digital Media Co-Chair
Jane Bonacci                   Digital Media Newsletter Editor
Carly Kellogg                   Digital Media Newsletter Copyeditor
Judith Dern                      IACP Board Liaison
Margaret Crable               IACP Communications and Content Manager
Copyright © 2016 IACP, All rights reserved.


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