It's dire, and so inappropriate for her target audience. I also think about people with literacy issues, or non-native English speakers - I often follow recipes in Catalan or Spanish, and I would give up immediately if they were written Jack-style.Withoutmyself 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.
Recipes are not novels. As you say, that SEO babble can go elsewhere on the page, but the recipe itself should always be clear and concise.
