Are you ready to kick off your food writing career?
Celebrating six months of this Substack with an opportunity I'd have jumped at when I started out...
Hello lovely folks, thanks so much for being here - I treasure each and every one of you and do not take the privilege of sneaking into your inbox lightly. You’re reading the free weekly edition of my newsletter, where I’m thrilled to be bringing you something exciting and new today. Did you know that paid subscribers get access to my ENTIRE recipe archive, travel guides, longer pieces, exciting giveaways and voice memos? Plus community-generated content, like this amazing new ‘Home Cook Champion’ recipe writing competition (launching today) in which I use this space to platform an unpublished recipe writer in front of my 6k+ newsletter list, and give away a £250 voucher to eat out at one of the West End restaurants featured in my guide ‘The Mayfair Menu’. Come and join the fun and the chats for less than it costs to buy a decent glass of wine per month.
I can’t quite believe it, but we are very nearly six months in to A Lot On Her Plate. And what a wild ride it’s been. Having taken the plunge and gone out on my own as a massive leap of faith when I first downed tools at The Sunday Times back in February, this space has grown and developed into not just a ‘bestselling newsletter’, but a body of work I’m massively proud of, and more than that, a growing and engaged community of incredible readers and supporters. What started with a couple of thousand of you imported from my previous newsletter, has grown to just over 6k of you at the time of writing: from Texas to New Zealand, to Uruguay and Japan, and I have loved hearing from so many of you so far in the comments and over email:
As we approach this half year milestone, I’ve been thinking about how I want this newsletter to develop, and while there’s absolutely no question that this will always be a place for my seasonally shifting recipes and food writing, I’d also love to experiment and explore some fun and exciting new things to keep me and you feeling energised. I’ve spent almost half a year here committing to my recipe output and - I hope - building trust with you as readers in terms of what you can expect to be reading and cooking from in this space, but there are some other things I want to explore here too - all within the realm of food, travel, lifestyle and slow living.
Shaking Things Up
So, I wanted to use this opportunity to say thank you for being here, and to give you a heads up that in the coming months, I’m going to be shaking things up a little bit and exploring some new stuff, from interviews and collaborations with some really fascinating people - from fellow food writers to travel gurus, to more community-focused content for you guys. It’s not going to change drastically, do not worry, but I’m going to do a little bit of experimenting, after all, that’s what keeps things fresh and fun, right? Nothing too drastic though, and my ‘Something For the Weekend’ recipe drops will absolutely be staying for the foreseeable, as will any bonus recipes and ramblings I feel inclined to share with you.
One thing that really stands out to me, and one of the biggest things I’ve learned on this journey so far, is that I really do love the collaborative, interactive nature of Substack. It really speaks to one of the main reasons I chose this as a platform over a shiny new website, or other newsletter product. I absolutely love the two-way conversation it encourages and adore hearing from those of you out there who are inclined to get in touch (and those who aren’t - I get it and respect that too!). If this space is going to succeed in the way I really hope it will - aka, cards on the table now, eventually becoming my main focus and source of income - then I really want it to be in conjunction with you. And so if things are indeed going to change - I’d love to hear from you in terms of what you want more of. I’m including a poll below, which I’d really appreciate if you could respond to in one simple click, but also please do drop a comment below.
Announcing my ‘Home Cook Champion’ recipe writing competition
A new recipe writing competition to champion new voices and celebrate 6 months of ALOHP
One of the first new things I’m going to be doing, is running a community-generated recipe writing competition here for paid subscribers. I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I want this Substack to be, and one thing I keep coming back to is that I’m keen to try to help platform other cooks and aspiring food writers out there, because I feel incredibly lucky to have the sort of voice that I do, and when I was starting out, I would have loved an opportunity like this. It’s taken me 15 years of work to get to where I am now, and it hasn’t been a straightforward journey - it took years and years of knocking on doors to get started as a food writer, and while no one gave me an ‘in’ or a ‘leg up’, I managed to get some lucky breaks from some editors who were willing to take a punt on me in the early days (one day I might share some of the hilariously excruciating stories of how I plucked up the courage to make contacts I did in the early days of real life ‘networking’, long before we had social media to take the edge off).
It’s thanks to the mentoring, belief and opportunities from those early champions, as well as many years of hard work, that I am where I am today, and I would love to go some way towards encouraging and platforming new voices in the recipe writing sphere who might need a helping hand. I know so many of you out there are brilliant, confident home cooks, and great writers, so I’m running my first ever competition to help boost you up.
As well as being a Guild of Food Writers award-winning recipe writer, published cookbook author and recipe columnist for Olive magazine, I’ve been a judge for several food writing awards, including the prestigious Fortnum and Mason Food Writing Awards, as well as tastebuds for hire as a food judge at things like the Great Taste Awards and others. I also worked for years as a food stylist, cooking other people’s recipes and making them look pretty for photoshoots, so I like to think I know a good recipe when I read one, and I would love to hear from you about your very own best recipe.
What you need to do and what you’ll win
The brief is really simple. You know by now that I’m a passionate seasonal cook, but I also realise that not everyone is reading this from the same season, with the same access to the same sort of produce. That’s OK. I’m going to keep things simple and broad and ask you to send me your favourite tried and tested savoury summer recipe. It needs to be an original recipe in as much as it cannot (and I hope this is obvious) be copied verbatim from anyone else’s recipe. Adaptation is fine, as many recipes have been adapted from something somewhere down the line, but where that is the case, I would like you to credit your inspiration and explain how you’ve adapted and changed the recipe into your own creation. I would love to see some original, expressive ideas in there too.
I’d also like 100-150 word introduction to the recipe to give me a sense of your writing style, telling me why you love it, why it’s delicious and why people should cook it, along with any practical tips and guidance. Anecdotal or personal stories in here are fine too. I know this all might be really new to some of you, so don’t worry - I’m not going to be pernickety about stylistic things that you might not know if you don’t write recipes for a living - all I ask is that ingredients lists are separate from method, you tell me how many it serves and give any serving suggestions. But I’ll be looking for the strength of the recipe, the way it’s written, flavours, approachability and cookability. Any niggly things I can feed back on and help with once the winner is chosen.
If you’re feeling brave, drop your recipe in the comments section below so everyone can read it and share in its deliciousness, or if you’re too shy, email it to me on rosiebirkett@substack.com. I’ll sift through all the entries and choose the one I consider to be the strongest, most enticing recipe, cook it, shoot it, and share it with my whole subscriber list, so more than 6000 of you, in August when we hit 6 months, which who knows, could be the start of a whole new career for someone. The winner will also win a voucher for £250 pounds to spend in one of the wonderful Mayfair restaurants featured as part of my Mayfair restaurant guide, which you can read in its entirety here.
As you’ve probably gathered, this is going to be quite a time-consuming activity for all involved, so this competition and future ones that I run along the same lines are going to be open only to paid subscribers who pay to support the work I do. If you think you might know someone who would like to get involved, please do share this newsletter with them.
PSA: Substack have recently introduced subscriber referrals. When you use the referral link below or the ‘share’ button on any post, you’ll get credit (i.e. free months) for any new subscribers you bring here. You can track reward progress and find out more on my Leaderboard tab.
The competition will close on the 3rd August. Good luck and happy cooking!
Hi Rosie! This competition is such a great idea - can we submit more than one recipe?