Amanda

jinmyo, this may not change your views, but i do want to clarify something. my book has 37 chapters, 13 of which never appeared in the times magazine. when i began working on the book, i realized that (sadly) i couldn't just slap the magazine stories together and call it a book. so i did a lot of work on the stories, combining some, deleting others and rewriting many of them. my hope was to have a collection that read more as a cohesive story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. i added the extra 13 because there were things i wanted to write about, but which hadn't fit into the magazine's schedule. - a

i would like to know where you get your dress shirts. very nice. and always so well pressed. also, and unrelated...i wonder about the art that goes with your stories. do you have input? how does that work at vogue?

thanks to all of you for your engaging questions. and jason, thank you for the invitation. best, amanda

i'm sorry you've had trouble getting hired. i wonder if you could ask to shadow someone in the kitchen. that's what i did at my first job. eventually, they allowed me to take on tasks. and perhaps they would do the same for you. many chefs also have office assistants, who work close to the kitchen. that may be a way for you to get in the door, and if you do well and the chef likes your work, maybe he or she would help you transfer to the kitchen. also, if you get hired with a good chef, this can be a very interesting job, because it involves everything from menu planning to hiring to new restaurant projects. it's a great way to understand how the entire restaurant operates.

i do think you can. although i find that good editors won't ask you to review, say, a book on italian cooking if he knows you don't like italian cooking. he might assign the story to someone who has an interest in and knowledge of italian food. do you have an example in mind of this conflict?

i would describe "cooking for mr. latte" as an expanded collection of the food diary columns. i cut out some columns, combined others and added 14 new ones with recipes. i did this to make it a more tightly knit story with an arc. with the original columns, i added back many of the recipes that were cut for space and also fleshed out their instructions. the magazine column was such a tight space that when a story ran long, we often cut recipes and edited them down to their bare bones components. so now those columns, in the book, will have an average of four recipes, each with a headnote and more detailed instructions. tad has been amused by the column and has stopped drinking lattes after dinner.

right now, i just finished a book based on the nyt magazine columns. it's called "cooking for mr. latte". (it's discussed in some of the other q&a questions) i don't have any other books planned at the moment. i don't want to write books just to be published. this may be foolish, but i can't imagine writing a book unless i really cared about the subject. it's a lot of work.

liza, hi. the readership of the dining section is very sophisticated and well informed, so i think they're more than receptive to such subjects. they keep us on our toes. already today i've received emails from readers who have bought meats from these farms.

jaymes, what a lovely note. there's definitely plenty in the sunday times to keep you busy reading all week, so it's worth the investment. and col klink, thanks for the turducken photo. i just made one last weekend for a party. how did you smoke yours? and how long did it take?

i really love her french regional cookbook. it's an early one, and may be out of print. it's filled with terrific recipes. unfortunately, the time i was there she was working on one of her least interesting books, which was about cooking meals in 15 minutes. my second year there, she did a book called "cooked to perfection", which is similar in design (and ambition) to lavarenne pratique, but i was less involved because i had, by then, begun writing my own book. anne is very old school and i appreciated it. i think i needed that, coming from the states. no anecdotes are popping to mind at the moment, but i'll respond again if one does.

yes, but how lame can reading, eating and cooking be? i mean, it's much more fun training than, say, being an intern after medical school. it's also good advice because by doing all these things, a person is likely to find an area that he might want to specialize in. i often suggest the same thing, except that i also encourage people to travel. and if they want to write for a newspaper, i recommend they spend some time (at least a year or two) working in restaurant kitchens.

hi suvir. thank you for your note and welcome. i don't recall a moment when i thought "aha! i should be a food writer!" it was more of a gradual process. i've always loved food. my entire family has. meals were important to us, and my mother was a great influence. whenever we'd go to the grocery store, if i asked her what she was going to buy, she would always say, "i'm going to buy what looks good." she would examine all the produce and inspect the meats. she cooked seasonally. we never ate tomatoes in the winter. and she liked to introduce us to new things. i can remember her bringing home kiwis once (they were exotic in pennsylvania) and telling us that a ripe kiwi would taste like every fruit distilled into one. another time, she covered the table with newspaper and handed us each a pomegranate. i suppose that i have many early memories of meals and tastes and cooking experiences, and that collectively they led me to take the subject of food more seriously and make a career of it. - amanda

hi. i like your clip symbol. where did you get it? i would say that it was definitely in my mind when i applied to cooking school because i applied to be an "editorial stagiaire" at lavarenne. editorial stagiaires worked directly with anne willan, the director of the school, on her cookbooks. i didn't have conventional classes. my training was to cook her meals, to develop, test and edit recipes. at the end of the program, i did take normal exams -- both written and practical. there are many great food writers who haven't gone to cooking school. it's certainly not a requirement. for me, though, i think cooking in restaurants and going to lavarenne has helped in lots of ways. when i'm interviewing chefs, i know what to ask. chefs do so many things naturally that home cooks would never think of, and it's helpful to catch those details and ask them about them. at the times, i do a fair amount of cooking stories. most recently, i did one on turducken. i couldn't have done that story if i were a novice cook. knowing the basics of roasting, stuffing and slow cooking made the process of mastering turducken much more efficient. i also write a lot of recipes here. we have a wine panel column every other week and i do the pairing recipe for it. if i hadn't worked for anne willan (i worked for her for two years), then i might not know how to write a proper recipe.

that was for a story about the bagged salad industry that ran a few weeks ago. it ran on 1/14. send me an email at amandah@nytimes.com and i'll send it to you in a reply.

i don't know why. do you have any idea? i'd be interested if you do. it doesn't influence what i write about in any way. i've been at the times since 1997 and have received many critical letters and emails. after a while you begin to understand that not everyone will love your work. but to be honest, i feel like negative feedback is better than no feedback. it's always interesting to find out what readers are interested in, or what bothers them. (and it's pretty easy to brush off the cheap shots.) sometimes they will point out an error or tell me about something i missed in my reporting. i always want to know about these things. it has helped me discover some great sources. i have one reader who calls me up every few months and leaves messages about the good spots he's found. others email me regularly telling me which recipes they liked and which ones they didn't. i love the dialogue.

i think our wedding menu was the easiest part of planning our wedding. we had hired a caterer (dan barber) whose work we knew well. we had complete confidence in him. he knew we'd want everything to be seasonal (which is how he cooks) and that nothing should be too fussy. we let him come up with a menu and we pretty much went with everything he suggested. for fun we played around with the utensils. the first course was served without any so you ate it with your hands. the second course was served with chopsticks. the third with a fork and spoon and dessert, which was layered in a tall glass, was served with a long thin spoon. on the menu, the first course was covered with a label with a picture of two hands, the second with chopsticks, etc, and guests had to peel off the labels to see what was being served. i guess my suggestion would be to find a chef whose food you love -- it eliminates a lot of the anxiety. and i would always recommend seasonal cooking because it simplifies your choices. if you're getting married in december, then asparagus wouldn't even be an option.

i'm pretty new to egullet. i heard of it about two months ago when a chef said to me "i like your writing no matter what mean things they say about you on egullet." that prompted me to check it out. i'm deeply impressed by the number of people involved on the site and by the breadth of discussion. for that alone, it's great vehicle of exchange. my first response to the feedback on articles (at the time there was a discussion of one i wrote about san francisco -- i believe it was called "winsome one in sf") was to wonder why readers didn't simply contact me directly. i'd be happy to answer questions or listen to criticism. i get lots of such letters and emails -- and plenty of cranky phonecalls. i've probably been on egullet a handful of times since and have enjoyed it. i wouldn't say that i've fully explored the site yet. it's huge. so i'm not sure yet how i would use it as a resource. does this answer your questions? if not, let me know.

hi kim. what a nice note. thanks. i love that duck, too. and i often make my mother-in-law's almond cake recipe from the same column. it gets better after a few days so when i'm having a dinner party, i get it done in advance and it takes the pressure off. (if you ever do it, though, the recipe that ran in the magazine suggested doing it in two 8-inch cake pans. it's better in a 9-inch springform -- i've corrected this in the book -- the middle sinks like a crater but don't worry, it's supposed to.) talking about food socially is hard to avoid, but i enjoy it. i like hearing about people's cooking highs and lows, or when friends call up with cooking questions. i did once talk to someone about their chili recipe and they later invited me over to try it. it was the best chili i've had yet. cheers, amanda

i can't speak for everyone. i'm really glad i traveled and cooked rather than going to cooking school here. it helped prepare me for my job, and it was a great life experience. working abroad was challenging. i had to learn quickly and be resourceful, all qualities that i have to employ at work now. as for how it expanded my culinary horizons, well, it's much easier to write about roman cooking when you've been to rome and tasted the food first hand. it helps you put things in context. and with something like a roman restaurant in new york, i can see what parts are genuine and what parts are americanized. it's also a good idea to be, as you say, "well dined" here, too. for people starting out, i don't know if its necessary to do a grand tour, but it is certainly fun if you can do it. it depends on what kind of career you want to have. if you want to become a chef at an italian restaurant, you probably don't need to work in france. but if you want to open up an italian restaurant in new york, it would be a good idea to eat at lots of italian restaurants in the city and possibly work in italy. if you want to become a food writer, i'd recommend eating out as much as possible and learning to cook. traveling to europe or asia is icing on the cake.

i'm glad you like the group. it's fun to do, and yes, the wine choices are open to suggestion. i would say the most interesting tasting so far was the champagnes under 40. the differences between them were stunning. i usually do the pairing the week before it runs. for instance, tonight i was going to begin cooking for next week's pairing column.

great questions. i think i may have answered them partially in jason perlow's "inspiration for mr. latte" question, so you might want to check that out. generally, the times doesn't encourage writers to write in first person unless the topic calls for it. for instance, i once wrote a piece about searching for the best recipe for cassoulet. that required me to write in first person because part of the story was my journey in the kitchen. i have noticed a number of remarks on egullet about how i use first person too often. perhaps this is true. in the case of food diary in the magazine, however, the column was designed to be first person and personal. (food DIARY, get it!) because of this design, none of the columns were rejected as too personal. however, a column like that would probably never run in the wednesday paper because, yes, it's too personal. unfortunately, i think readers sometimes failed to make the distinction between that column and my other work. a few people, for instance, commented that my piece on the bagged salad industry "for once" did not use the word "i". that article ran on a1 and was in the national section. it was a reported piece. articles that begin there are never in first person. ok, now that i have that off my chest, let's move on! the story ideas themselves come from all over the place. as you suggested, sometimes one might come when i'm walking down the street or going to sleep. others hit me when i'm talking to friends, or am in the kitchen talking to a chef for another story. that happened last week. when i have an idea, i tell my editor. sometimes he nods with a blank expression. (rejected idea). sometimes he lights up. (story assignment) occasionally, i'll just have the seed of an idea and by talking about it with him, a story will evolve. also, now and then, he'll come to me with an idea. it's a fairly free form system. i don't really know the ratio of rejected ideas to successful ideas. i would hope that i'm getting better at not wasting time on developing bad ideas, but i can't say for sure. (for the critics of my use of first person, i used the word "i" at least 16 times in answering this question.)

i really love my job, so i really haven't thought about what next. what's your advice?

i worked at a restaurant in italy that had its own garden and it was wonderful. if you needed rosemary, you went outside and cut it. when the roses were fully bloomed. we picked them and made rose petal jam. it was so satisfying that i can't imagine restaurants with the space and right climate not having one. of course, it's probably more difficult to maintain than it seems. you would probably need a gardener and a kitchen staff that is good enough to adapt to an ever changing menu.

i am fascinated by chefs, especially those who are able to rise up from the grit of the job to produce excellent food. i worked in many kitchens and i enjoyed that time immensely. but i think i always maintained a certain distance. i was more of an observer and curious cook, which is probably what i still am. i love being a reporter -- i love every week getting to tackle a new subject. in the past six months, i've been able to spend a week working on a recipe for turducken, attend an eating contest with some of the nation's top eaters, talk to lighting designers, taste rhone reds with our wine panel, dine around san francisco and observe a salad company's "seasonal migration" as it moved its staff of 200 and equipment overnight from california to arizona. it's hard to get bored.

hi marcus. you are right. i have never eaten at emeril's restaurants and i didn't claim to have in the article. i was critiquing his show and his books. i attended a taping of a show and tasted all the food that he cooked that day. one could argue that, because he's having to concentrate on the taping more than the cooking, it's unfair to criticize the food. however, the food wasn't bad because he overseasoned or undercooked it. it was just clunky, bad food. since then, i attended the taping of two episodes of mario batali's show. he cooked something like 4 dishes per show and served it to guests. every dish he made was as good, if not better, than anything i've had in his restaurants. i have heard very good things about emeril's restaurants, but that doesn't mean that i have to agree with what he's teaching people on his show or in his books. he encourages excess -- especially with cheese and garlic -- and any decent cook knows that that is not what makes food delicious. there are other ways to be generous. good cooking involves sound technique and restraint.