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Jack Monroe #169 Please don’t argue about turnips
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How can a cookbook not have any photos of the finished dishes?!
probably one in which all the recipes look awful/like slop? Didn't she say she didn't even test lots of recipes from her other books? (at this point I cannot remember all of the claims she has made so I may be wrong!)
I was just reading the goodreads reviews. That's baffling!!! A lot of the reviews are pointing out they were provided the book for free to in order to get reviews.
Did anyone buy it?!
If brown and white was the default for print instead of black and white, things might be different.
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Stoner food. ApparentlySuper noodle sandwiches with dairylea triangles? Cabal I love you but I’m starting to see why some of you followed Jack for a fair while
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YES SO MUCH THISWithoutmyself 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.
Flowery writing is cute when you're trying to get good marks in creative writing class, but when people read a recipe they want some instructions to follow, and a tasty result at the end, not an essay about how your life has been *changed forever* by the budget beans you bought at LIDL..!!
I have an old copy of Elizabeth David's Italian Cookery, and that has no photos or even drawings. But she writes so well, concisely yet with lovely and loving detail, that pictures don't seem that necessary.
I'm fascinated that the pigeon botherer's sales figures are so dire. Which makes her tantrum to get Jamie Oliver's job even more audacious. I'm so pleased Channel 4 have never caved in and offered her even a micro appearance.
I'm fascinated that the pigeon botherer's sales figures are so dire. Which makes her tantrum to get Jamie Oliver's job even more audacious. I'm so pleased Channel 4 have never caved in and offered her even a micro appearance.
She just seems to have this attitude where she knows it all, she thinks she’s an instant expert on anything she turns her hand to. It’s like the opposite of imposter syndrome.
She’s just trying to be like Nigella with the writing style attempts. However, Nigella’s writing and recipes (that she honestly admits she has taken and adapted from other cooks) are both beautiful and delicious. Unlike anything Jack has ever done. Some of those Goodreads reviews are totally suss, they seem way too positive and enthusiastic about Jack and her recipes.
That's what they should be doing! I feel as if academic writing teaches you how to make points a lot more succinctly, as most of the people I've known to do English Literature and creative writing are taught to go overboard with the purple prose, forgetting that even fiction usually needs to go somewhere to be entertaining.
It reads like the squiggles have been sent free books and told to review them on Goodreads.
I love her books!! They were some of the first cookbooks/food books I ever read, and her omelette is still something I make regularly (with or without the glass of wine) :')
Re SEO recipe babble. While it’s important to hit a word count for the type of content that’s ranking (which for recipes tends to be a bit longer than some types of page), what Google really wants is for you to get straight to the point and use the important words that tell it what the page is about. Not bang on about Aunty Nelly’s dropsy or whatever (unless that’s what you want to rank for).
In unrelated news: have been going frantic because one of the cats was missing for over 24 hours. A neighbour reported that she’d found her staring at her while she slept last night! Although neighbour thought she had shooed her out of the house, we went over and rooted through all the rooms, calling the mendacious pest’s name. No sign of her, even more worry. Then five minutes later, the neighbour called, just as the pest dashed out of her house.
Phew, sorry for going off topic...in a bit of a tizzy!
In unrelated news: have been going frantic because one of the cats was missing for over 24 hours. A neighbour reported that she’d found her staring at her while she slept last night! Although neighbour thought she had shooed her out of the house, we went over and rooted through all the rooms, calling the mendacious pest’s name. No sign of her, even more worry. Then five minutes later, the neighbour called, just as the pest dashed out of her house.
Phew, sorry for going off topic...in a bit of a tizzy!
Well, I find her prose quite jolly actually.
I think it is different now though that people can basically find all recipes online, a book also has to be aesthetically nice , good recipes/writing are not really enough (not that Jack has either of those either...)
how did she get into their house?! my cat will be the death of me from stress worrying, she once disappeared for 3 days during a freezing winter, I had ot take time off work I was so worried
Nigella has also mastered the art of telling the story then having the recipe so if you only want the recipe you can skip fairly easily past the story and get to it. Any anecdotes within the recipe tend to be actual useful tips “I tried this with rice flour and it came out well and gluten free”. I assume Nigella also has proof readers that are paid to read and test, not random patreons.
Jack hasn’t realised that there should be a split point and just waffles endlessly, combined with recipes nobody except people who seem to worship her and hang on her every word has tested.
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