Jack Monroe #169 Please don’t argue about turnips

[Lanie]

When I first joined up here I had a feeling she'd pick up on plants/gardening. (It's how my partner makes a living). As you lads have said it probably won't last long. Plants do need care and attention on a long term basis after all.
My prediction for early Autumn/ end of summer. Environmental Jack. You read it here first!

Isn't it trendy at the minute. Lots of my sheepie friends have gone all green fingered.

I am just waiting for them to get bored like all of the other trendy things they have done.

My parents are avid gardeners, I have little interest but have been shown how to tend a garden, if I ever chose to do so. I don't feel the need to tell the world though.

 

[Captainmouse]

When I first joined up here I had a feeling she'd pick up on plants/gardening. (It's how my partner makes a living). As you lads have said it probably won't last long. Plants do need care and attention on a long term basis after all.
My prediction for early Autumn/ end of summer. Environmental Jack. You read it here first!

Naaah she’ll get bored long before then, like her knitting

 

[MaineCoonMama]

Wow, I take 24 hours off and I come back to Jolly Jack friend of pigeons wearing a leotard.

Did I miss anything else?

 

[Mr Krabs]

When I first joined up here I had a feeling she'd pick up on plants/gardening. (It's how my partner makes a living). As you lads have said it probably won't last long. Plants do need care and attention on a long term basis after all.
My prediction for early Autumn/ end of summer. Environmental Jack. You read it here first!

I'm surprised she's not already done environmental plastic-free Jack, since she loves buying overpriced jars and doing stupid tit like using leftover carrot peels. Plus she could spunk loads of money on posh reusable stuff that's never seen again and it gives her an excuse to shop in Waitrose where they have those refill stations with orzo and quinoa. Also, if anyone laughs at her slop, she can be like "this tunip top pie is zero waste so you can't be mean about it".

She's already got the nails of a professional gardener, so bring it on Jack.

 

[Flibbertigibbet]

Isn't it trendy at the minute. Lots of my sheepie friends have gone all green fingered.

I am just waiting for them to get bored like all of the other trendy things they have done.

My parents are avid gardeners, I have little interest but have been shown how to tend a garden, if I ever chose to do so. I don't feel the need to tell the world though.

It's really not a sheepie pursuit - you have to work and wait years for it to come together/look like it does on insta. It's also seasonal (sad that this has to be explained to some people) so the withered husks of flowering plants will look like a holy show come winter when the buzz has worn off.

 

[colouredlines]

There are many factors to her decline - no clear brand, prickly personality, endless drama, terrible TV presence and, above all, tit food.

But it's also worth looking at how her style of recipe writing has evolved.

This is from her early days at the Guardian:

...and this is from her blog now:

I apologise for the screenshot there - Jack's website is not optimised for mobile. But I think the problem is clear. She thinks of herself as a Writer with a capital W. She really, really isn't one. The result? Recipes that are essentially unreadable, as well as inedible.

 

[Vanelope]

Heat the oil! She said HEAT THE OIL!
it isn’t her.

 

[Eurgh]

‘The theory here is similar to that of Yorkshire puddings’

Not similar - the same. Your recipe is LITERALLY Yorkshire puddings with a tin of fruit cocktail.

ETA - her Yorkshires have mixed herbs in don’t they? That’s the difference. I take it all back!

 

[HotesTilaire]

60g of beetroot and 50g of lentils with half an onion and 25g of feta on some leaves?
Where’s the food????

 

[Sunshine&clouds]

There are many factors to her decline - no clear brand, prickly personality, endless drama, terrible TV presence and, above all, tit food.

But it's also worth looking at how her style of recipe writing has evolved.

This is from her early days at the Guardian:

View attachment 495517

...and this is from her blog now:

View attachment 495518

I apologise for the screenshot there - Jack's website is not optimised for mobile. But I think the problem is clear. She thinks of herself as a Writer with a capital W. She really, really isn't one. The result? Recipes that are essentially unreadable, as well as inedible.

Thanks for posting the first recipe. Though it kills me to say it, it sounds really nice!

 

[colouredlines]

Just to clarify: I do not endorse Jack's early recipe or encourage the eating of it in any way, shape or form. But at least you can read it.

 

[SweetTransvestite]

what an anonymous glove, I love him

He's safe now

 

[Suffolkmum]

Gardener Jack reminds me of her interactions with Adam Frost on DKL where she kept asking stupid questions like ‘have you ever grown beans’ and then told him he was ‘really getting the hang of this presenting lark’. Would tell her not to quit the day job but she doesn’t really have a day job.

We are her day job.

 

[LavaFlake]

Heat the oil! She said HEAT THE OIL!
it isn’t her.

Yeah I wonder how much input the Guardian's Food & Drink editorial team had to have...

 

[Veronicaaa]

There are many factors to her decline - no clear brand, prickly personality, endless drama, terrible TV presence and, above all, tit food.

But it's also worth looking at how her style of recipe writing has evolved.

This is from her early days at the Guardian:

View attachment 495517

...and this is from her blog now:

View attachment 495518

I apologise for the screenshot there - Jack's website is not optimised for mobile. But I think the problem is clear. She thinks of herself as a Writer with a capital W. She really, really isn't one. The result? Recipes that are essentially unreadable, as well as inedible.

I'm so confused - do you put the juice in the fridge for a contrast between hot and cold, OR do you make a syrup from it? Answers on a (beige) postcard.

 

[PoorPatrol]

Just been chatting to this fella in the back garden. Apparently he's had to flee his native Southend due to being harassed and stalked by a strange woman who spent an uncomfortable amount of time watching him yesterday.
Obviously, I've squiggled to protect his identity but he's now safe under the witness protection program.
View attachment 495398

Guys! Guys! Not wanting to moderate the thread or anything, but I’m shocked that you didn’t put a comic filter on for Pidge’s safety.

So irresponsible. Look what happened to Terry the Sparrow. He die, I cry!

 

[Pocahontas]

He's safe nowView attachment 495555

You’ve got to go all in and cartoon filter that bird. Only way to be sure.

 

[Mr Krabs]

There are many factors to her decline - no clear brand, prickly personality, endless drama, terrible TV presence and, above all, tit food.

But it's also worth looking at how her style of recipe writing has evolved.

This is from her early days at the Guardian:

View attachment 495517

...and this is from her blog now:

View attachment 495518

I apologise for the screenshot there - Jack's website is not optimised for mobile. But I think the problem is clear. She thinks of herself as a Writer with a capital W. She really, really isn't one. The result? Recipes that are essentially unreadable, as well as inedible.

Without myself too much, my career involves a lot of writing and editing content. I often hire junior writers, fresh out of English or Journalism degrees, and gawd, their work is a lot like Jack's terrible Nigella impersonation. Also, a LOT of ridiculous flowery words, with no thought to the reader.I often have to remind people that fewer words are often better. They aren't writing a uni essay. Stop filling the page with bollocks to fill your word count.

Jack's brand is that she writes for people with little time or money, free copies to foodbanks etc. So why include cutesy anecdotes about your son? A lot of her writing is about her lazily making breakfast blah blah. That's completely off brand for people who are working six days a week on minimum wage. The original recipe style was actually fine and the sort of thing you could follow with little cooking experience.

I think she's also trying to copy the styles of these recipe blogs who absolutely babble on for an eternity about their trips to Italy or their grandma's kitchen, because they think it's good for SEO. That only really works if the page has useful information -- i.e. different cooking methods, wine pairings, freezing instructions or whatever. If people arrive at that wall of text they're going to immediately click back, which is going to tank your Google ranking.

Oh tit, look at all that crap I just wrote. I've caught Jackitis.

 

[Debarkle]

Inspired by @lilamay and @Veronicaaa, comparing Jack’s google search activity with comparable cooks/authors. Sorry this is gonna be long and not everyone’s cup of tea (dull lol) so under a spoiler it goes

Spoiler: Spoiler

Data notes: this for UK, 12 months, used search term rather than the google allocated groupings as I suspect it disadvantages smaller names. All of this is subject to interpretation and by no means gospel, and encourage ppl with opinions to disagree with my very biased anti Jack stance

Anyway first up is Jack’s related searches, these are indexes not absolute search volume so Twitter is her most searched for term. Recipes is close to half as frequently searched, as is tattle. Tattle and recipes are very close to being equally searched for. I’d guess these search volumes are hundreds to low thousands which is abysmal for a full time job tbh.

View attachment 495399

Trends also shows search volume over time, Jack’s only peaks are around DKL or big Twitter beefs like Waliams. Not around book release which is... not diagnosed gifted and talented. In examples I’ve worked on / friends you’d expect to see spikes driven by any media appearance - news, tv, radio, podcasts, YouTube, she’s done all of those and nothing really drives interest like her Twitter beefs. Her follower count corroborates this, never goes up unless she’s sharing triggering tit or whipping up outrage.

Now onto her peers. You’ve got book or Guardian in their top (interesting no one seeks out Jack’s press work too? Lol). Gizzi and Ruby Tandoh had too low search volumes so google don’t release their related searches sadly. But you can go play around with this and take a look, Jack’s looks tit next to everyone’s lol.

View attachment 495418
View attachment 495422

In summary WHYYY is she still getting booked for writing gigs?? She’s not driving anyone to publications, she’s certainly not bleeping selling hers, token media pov play.

This was like a reverse pitch deck for her, she’ll be on the John Lewis app getting her sweet frumpy high now

This is great! Love the data. Just to add - had a look a google ads keyword planner and this is what google provides re monthly searches.

take it with a pinch of salt - in my industry we’ve always found it underestimates predicted traffic. Sorry for the really crap picture quality.

ETA Another tool we use suggests her website gets 40k visitors a month via search and that the page she has dedicated to GFFBD gets <1% of the website traffic.

 

[PoorPatrol]

Heat the oil! She said HEAT THE OIL!
it isn’t her.

What I don’t understand is, why she can relay a Yorkshire pudding recipe/method, but in the photographs of hers, they’re sad, flaccid looking husks. So does she copy the recipe from somewhere else but not actually do it?