Dear Irene:
Thanks for your letter! It sounds as if you've been eating out quite a bit. If you're interested in an internship, I would call Russ Parsons, the food editor at the Los Angeles Times. I know they
occasionally use interns in the food department (I'm part of the Calendar
and Magazine staff) but I think most of them have come from culinary schools. I think the way I got started is typical of most most restaurant reviewers at both newspapers and magazines. We sort of fell into it. I had a degree in design and English, learned to cook in a restaurant where I worked
for several years, later worked as a cook in another place, trained as a
sommelier in Paris.
When I thought about looking for a job when I got back from Paris, I couldn't face it and wrote a book proposal instead which was accepted by three publishers. That's how I started writing, and working on the book, I supported myself by journalism.
You start with writing small snippets of things, then longer pieces. But you have to not only know about food, but also be able to write--and if you're freelancing, living modestly also enters into the equation.
I do think it's important for a food critic to know how to cook, if only to be able to decipher what's brilliant or what's gone wrong with a dish. It also helps tremendously to have widely traveled, and really know what a dish tastes like in Italy or Hong Kong say--what it's suppposed to taste like. I was lucky enough to live in Europe and spent years traveling and writing about food and wine all over the world before I decided to take this job in
Los Angeles.
Hope that answers some of your questions.
Good luck!
Cordially,
Irene
