You want to be a Food Critic?

Everyday, when I meet someone new I get the question "So what do you do?" When I tell them that I write about restaurants, market them through www.coloradoeats.com, design websites, etc, the inevitable response is "Oh, you must eat out a lot."

To be honest, yes, I do get my share of fine cuisine. Being a critic and restaurateur is not as glamorous or easy as everyone thinks. First, to do a through review, one must dine at an establishment a minimum of 2 times, usually 3 times. One must go the best and sometimes worst restaurants. One must be adventurous try things that normally are not on the ordinary palette of tastes (like stewed tripe). One must be in tune, not only with the flavors of the cuisine, but one must observe and internalize the ambiance and service.

Then when the dining experiences are completed, comes the writing ... not always so easy. The job of a restaurant writer is to make the piece so vivid that the reader remembers Grandma in the kitchen rolling out the leavened dough, they can almost smell the aromas of warm fresh baked bread, and they can picture themselves holding the knife cutting through the slightly golden brown crust (assuming that the reader is not celiac) to find moist interior waiting for a small dab of butter or jam.

So, if you have a vivid imagination, like to dine on anything placed in front of you, enjoy making peanuts for putting quill to paper (or bits and bytes to hard drive), you may have what it takes to be a food writer. You can always post a sample blog here or send a sample to ColoradoEats: http://www.coloradoeats.com/html/contactus.htm.

As always, happy dining!!