Be Nice, Be Positive and Work Hard, says Melissa Clark
She’s written 45 cookbooks and worked at The New York Times since 1997, so this strategy must be working.
Maybe like you, I see Melissa Clark’s byline regularly in The New York Times Cooking section, and in its newsletter and recipes. Like you, I feel confident that her recipes will work.
But I hadn’t thought about interviewing her until my newsletter with Caroline Chambers blew up. Caroline, who has the top food and drink newsletter on Substack, said she sees herself working like Melissa Clark, as an “old school newspaper columnist.”
I sent my interview with her to Melissa and then asked to interview her. We did so while she walked home from work one night, talking about her recipe development philosophy, her career, and why she’s so successful.
Here’s Melissa on how she develops recipes, watches trends, and busts her a**:
Q. You have been at The New York Times for 17 years!
A. Yes. As a freelancer at first, then since 2012 as staff.
Q. Is your title still staff reporter?
A. Yes.
Q. How did you get on their wavelength?
A. As a freelancer. I was in the right place at the right time. In 1997, I heard through a friend-of-a-friend that they were looking for somebody to answer food-related recipe questions in a column. Before the internet, readers would write into their local newspaper, with a question like “What’s the best way to beat meringue?”
Q. How long have you written your column, A Good Appetite?
A. It started in 2007, when Pete Wells was the editor of the Dining section. He thought it would be good to have a column about the creative thought process on how recipes came to life.
Q. How has your job changed over the years?
A. As a freelancer, I wrote cookbooks for chefs and wrote for magazines, in addition to writing for The New York Times. In 2012, my husband left his corporate job in publishing. One of us needed health insurance. It was my turn to get a job. The Times came through.
The video department hired me, because I was making early cooking videos. My job was to do a weekly video, a weekly column, and report a story. And that’s still pretty much my job. Now I work for the NYT Cooking department.
Q. What’s an average day like for you?
A. It’s more like an average week. I spend Monday and Tuesday at home, writing. It’s really hard to multitask, so I try to have cooking days, writing days, and office days. There’s not much I can do at the office. It’s hard to concentrate on writing at an open desk, but it’s good to see everybody and exchange ideas. Thursdays and Fridays are my big cooking days at home. For the last one and a half years, I do videos, my column and reporting, and a big part of my job is two weekly newsletters for The Times. Once every two months I’ll go to the kitchen studio for a bigger video shoot.
Q. How important is it for today’s food writers to make cooking videos?
A. It helps. People are comforted if they think they know you and they trust you. They’re more likely to make your recipe.