If the idea of SEO makes you want to run the other way, I understand.

For a long time, SEO was presented as a rigid set of rules, formulas, and tricks for pleasing Google. For food writers especially, it felt like you had to game the system to succeed, muting your unique voice and personality and pumping out cookie-cutter content that mimicked every other recipe site on the web.

I’ve never been interested in playing that game and I’ve talked to hundreds of food writers who share my aversion.

That understanding of SEO was always incomplete, and now it is even less useful than it used to be, thankgod.

Today, SEO is better understood as simply this: building bridges that help your readers find your work. For food writers, that means helping readers discover your recipes, stories, expertise, and perspective wherever they are searching—through search engines, Pinterest, AI answers, image-based search, social media, and newsletters.

The point is not to game the system. The point is to understand that it’s our responsibility as food writers to not only create good work, but to help our readers find it. Good SEO is not separate from good creative work. It is the part that helps the work connect.

In the simplest possible terms, SEO strategy has two steps:

1. Create the best content you can for your readers.

2. Help them find it.

I’m certain that you’re already doing the first part. It’s the second part that gets a bit tricky.

AI is reshaping how people search and generic content is easier than ever to produce. For food writers, I think that’s good news because readers (the very real people on the other side of the screen) are increasingly drawn to work that feels unmistakably human.

In HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing Report, nearly half of marketers said AI is making content so easy to produce that it is becoming less effective overall, while 63 percent said they need more unique, human content to stand out. To me, the takeaway is clear: your voice, your experience, your testing process, your photography, and your perspective are not extras. They are part of what people are looking for.

SEO Is More Art Than Science… But Please Don’t Ignore The Science

SEO used to be more science than art but over the past few years that’s reversed. To be clear, there are technical best practices that are essential to your work being found online. But beyond that, it’s about observation, strategy, experimentation, and figuring out how to meet your readers where they are.

The goal is not to follow someone else’s template. The goal is to develop your own understanding of what helps your work connect with the people who are looking for it.

What Has Changed About Search

Older SEO advice often rewarded sameness. Writers were encouraged to study top-ranking results and imitate them closely. That led to formulaic blog posts, recipes, and articles, copycat intros, and repetitive structures.

It also rewarded a lot of thin, low-value content whose only purpose was to capture search traffic. One of the clearest examples is the era of mass-produced “how to” articles answering the simplest possible questions—content designed to catch searches like how to peel a potato or how to slice a banana. That strategy generated huge page views for a while for the writers who were willing to create it. But it was never a sustainable long-term strategy. Now, when people ask basic questions, AI usually supplies the answer directly. Content built on that model becomes much easier to bypass and all those sites who built their entire growth strategy on that tactic are left with hundreds (or even thousands) of pages of content that no one is reading.

The safest long-term strategy is not to create more generic content. It is to create work that carries your voice, your point of view, and your real-world experience.

And isn’t that exactly the kind of work you want to produce?

I know I do.

Search systems are more sophisticated now. They are better at understanding language, context, images, video, and relationships between ideas. People are also searching differently. They ask longer, more conversational questions. They search with photos. They use AI tools to compare options, request substitutions, or refine what they want.

This means visibility is no longer just about ranking for one exact keyword in a list of blue links. Discoverability can happen in a recipe carousel, an AI-generated answer, a visual search result, Pinterest, Google Lens, a newsletter recommendation, or a social post that answers the right question at the right moment.

For food writers, this means that clear, useful, human-centered content has become more important, not less. It may seem counterintuitive, but the growing sea of AI generated content just might elevate human-created art as something worth seeking out.

How Search Engines Understand Your Content

Modern search relies heavily on natural language processing, or NLP. In practical terms, that means search engines are better able to understand language more like people do. They can recognize related phrases, interpret context, and distinguish between vague language and precise meaning.

NLP is why Google understands that “vegetarian curry” and “meatless curry” can be used to describe the same recipe. It’s how it knows that when you type “lemon cookies with butter” you’re probably looking for a recipe for shortbread. It’s why you can type disconnected phrases into search, filled with misspelled words, and Google will still usually know what you’re trying to find.

With this understanding, one of the best SEO strategies is to help your reader know immediately that they are in the right place. You can do this with carefully crafted headlines and thoughtful introductions that help readers know immediately that they’ve landed on what they were looking for.

Keyword research is still very important. But how you shape the context around those keywords is where the magic lies. Keyword research is about discovering clues about what readers are trying to solve, make, learn, or eat.

For recipe writers, this means answering some key questions through carefully crafted headlines, titles, and intros:

• What type of ingredient is used?

• What type of ingredient is not used?

• What kind of cooking vessel is involved?

• What meal type is this?

These questions help reveal the attributes that matter to readers. They also help you write with more clarity. A reader wants to know not just that a recipe is for muffins, but whether they are bakery-style, freezer-friendly, make-ahead, or topped with streusel. They want to know whether a chicken recipe is for thighs or breasts, whether it is a skillet dinner, whether it suits a weeknight, and whether leftovers hold up well.

That specificity improves the experience for readers and gives search systems stronger signals about what the content actually is.

In practical terms, this kind of research does not have to be overwhelming. A tool like KeySearch can help you see how often a phrase is searched and how competitive it is and the other phrases people are using to search for a specific recipe or topic.

The Rise of Multimodal Search

We live in a multi-media world and search now includes text, image, video, and voice. Google and other AI systems are getting better and better at interpreting these signals together.

A person might snap a photo of a restaurant dish and search for a homemade version. Someone else might upload a screenshot and ask for a dairy-free variation. Another user may search visually for recipes similar to a dish they have seen online.

That means the visual side of food writing matters in new ways. Descriptive file names, helpful alt text, accurate captions, process shots, and instructional video all support discoverability. They also support readers directly by making your content easier to follow and understand.

Food writing has always been visual. Now those visuals are part of how search systems interpret your work too.

A Layered Model For SEO

One useful way to think about SEO is as a layered system rather than a single tactic.

At the foundation is your brand. Brand is not just your logo, fonts, or colors. It is your perspective, your expertise, your values, and the throughline that makes your work uniquely yours. It shapes what you publish, how you frame recipes, what kinds of stories you tell, and why readers return to you instead of someone else.

On top of the brand, we want to layer clear, NLP-friendly writing for humans. This is the language that helps readers and search systems understand your content quickly. It includes strong titles, specific introductions, descriptive subheadings, and useful supporting copy.

Layer in some visuals: hero images, process shots, and video. These help clarify the recipe, demonstrate method, build trust, and support discovery across visual platforms and multimodal search experiences.

And then there’s the layer that ties everything together: personal insight and lived experience. This is the texture that generic AI-generated content struggles to replicate. It includes your personal experience, the lessons you learned while testing, why a technique works, what can go wrong, and the small details that make a reader trust you.

Going Deeper

If this is resonating with you, I invite you to watch the recording of a class I recently taught, Introduction to SEO for Food Writers.

In this 60-minute class, I present SEO not as a technical burden or a game to be won, but as a practical way to help the right readers find your recipes, stories, newsletters, and posts.

We dive into topics such as:

• The importance of the intro

• Internal links as reader pathways

• Why structured data matters

• The long term approach: A healthy SEO strategy is not about traffic for traffic’s sake. It is about building a stronger, more resilient business over time.

A Better Way to Think About SEO

For food writers, SEO is not about tricking an algorithm. It is about clarity, usefulness, and connection.

It asks you to understand your audience, communicate what your content is with more precision, and present your work in a way that helps both people and platforms recognize its value. It rewards brand clarity, strong writing, thoughtful visuals, and lived experience.

In an AI-shaped landscape, that kind of humanity is not a weakness. It is the advantage.

Your audience is looking for you. The future of SEO for food writers belongs to people who create something real and know how to present their work in a way that helps their readers find it. In other words, they understand that their responsibility is not only to create good work. It is also to build the bridge.

Think of this as meeting your reader where they are. The more clearly you communicate what your work is, who it is for, and why it matters, the easier it becomes to build that bridge.

And that, really, is the job.

Introducing The Food Writers Business Lab

The Food Writers Business Lab is an online learning hub created specifically for food writers who want practical, affordable support for growing their businesses and expanding their reach.

This collaboration between Mastermind for Food Writers and Write Up offers classes and workshops for food writers, taught by food writers. Because who understands this expansive, ever-changing industry better than the talented, hard-working professionals who built it?

Through a mix of free introductory classes and in-depth paid workshops, The Food Writers Business Lab provides content-rich, highly actionable education designed to help participants immediately apply what they learn to their own work.

Here’s where to find out more:

The Food Writers Business Lab

Happy Friday everyone!

And, it really is a happy Friday because today is the official launch of the Food Writers Business Lab. This idea been percolating in my mind for a while and I am astonished and nervous and excited to see it actually come to life.

Every month I am struck by the sheer amount of talent and expertise of all the food writers in this group. We are all showing up every single day and doing what we do with passion, talent, and pure hard work. It’s not easy to do what we do. And yet, here we are, doing it with excellence.

I realized during one of the first Mastermind meetings that anything any of us wants to learn or improve could be taught by someone in this group. I want to learn from people who are actually doing the work and I think most of you do too.

I envisioned a series of classes and workshops covering the topics that are vital to creating a successful, thriving business as a food writer. Topics like SEO, food photography, creative recipe writing, creating a values led brand, how to build a relationship with your readers while also making a living, how to write a cookbook proposal, how to create financial stability, and how to work with publishers.

And I envisioned every single one of the classes and workshops taught by food writers who are walking the walk not just talking the talk.

But, the delivery of these classes and workshops was tripping me up.

So, a couple of months ago, when offered to host these classes and workshops within the community of writers she started with , I jumped at the opportunity.

Write Up! is an online community for writers pursuing traditional publication of their first book, with workshops, expert-led sessions, and resources inside our Circle community. It’s a protected, private space just for us. AND it’s free to join.

For the past couple of months, Kelsey has been creating a space in Write Up for the Food Writers Business Lab. And today, that space is open to anyone who wants to check it out. 🎉

A couple of quick important details:

• To access The Food Writers Business Lab, you’ll need to create a free account on Write Up! As I said, this is a private, protected space just for us. But also, there are a LOT of really cool things happening in Write Up! and you’ll have access to all of that as well.

• Every workshop in the Food Writers Business Lab starts with a FREE introductory class so you can get to know the instructor, explore a topic, and decide whether you want to dive deeper.

• I taught the first free intro class earlier this week: Introduction to SEO for Food Writers. If you joined me for that class, you already have an account for Write Up and can log in and check out all the workshop listings including the SEO for Food Writers which starts next week! If you missed it, here’s where you can find the recording: Introduction to SEO for Food Writers.

• You’ll find 4 workshops listed in the Food Writers Business Lab right now on these topics: SEO for Food Writers, Food Photography, Creative Recipe Writing, and Creating a Values Led Brand. More workshops are in the works and will be added soon!

Ok! Here’s where to go to create your Write Up Account and check it all out:

The Food Writers Business Lab

Once you’ve created your free account, log in and you’ll see The Food Writers Lab on the left side of the page. At the top of the page, you’ll see the Events tab. This is where you’ll find the free introduction classes and all the classes offered in Write Up

As always, please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or feedback. We are literally making this up as we go along and YOUR input is vital to making this space as valuable as possible for all of us.

xo

-

Here’s what’s coming up in May

There are two 90-minute Mastermind Meetings each month in different time zones. Meetings are held on Zoom and require pre-registration. Registration links below.

• Wednesday, May 6: Mastermind Meeting Europe/Africa/Asia-Pacific), 8am UK/9am CET with host

• Wednesday, May 13: Mastermind Meeting, 11am New York (Eastern Standard time) with host Rebecca Blackwell

Mastermind for Food Writers: Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific

Meeting topic: General discussion - but you can always volunteer to teach - do get in touch if you have a topic

DATE: May 6: 8am BST / 9 am CET

Meeting hosted by Liza Debevec

Follow this link to register for this meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/VtHXq7qTRSWxrfs0_vDyHw

After you register for the meeting, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone.

Please register a day in advance if possible, to make sure you get the meeting link on time and to avoid ‘waiting at the door’.

Mastermind for Food Writers: North America & Europe

Meeting topic: Creative Recipe Writing: How to write recipes with voice, humor and style, taught by , , and .

Wednesday, May 13: 11am, New York (Eastern Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by Rebecca Blackwell

Follow this link to register for this meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tlpa6hKtQs-tvIp__dQsSA

After you register for the meeting, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone.

Coming Soon! The Food Writers Business Lab!

The Food Writers Business Lab is an online learning hub created specifically for food writers who want practical, affordable support for growing their businesses and expanding their reach.

This collaboration between Mastermind for Food Writers and Write Up! offers classes and workshops for food writers, taught by food writers. Because who understands this expansive, ever-changing industry better than the talented, hard-working professionals who built it?

Through a mix of free introductory classes and in-depth paid workshops, The Food Writers Business Lab provides content-rich, highly actionable education designed to help participants immediately apply what they learn to their own work.

We are working out the kinks and getting the first set of classes scheduled as we speak! More information about The Food Writers Business Lab coming soon!

Links and Resources

• If you’d like to volunteer to teach a mini-masterclass at an upcoming Mastermind Meeting, please sign up here!

• If you’re not listed in the Directory, leave a comment on the Directory with your name and publication and I’ll get you added!

• Community Resources: A revolving list of resources from food writers for food writers

• Collaboration Network: Find other substack food writers to collaborate with

• The Mastermind for Food Writers chat is a great place to connect with other food writers on Substack.

• The upcoming Food Readers Book Club: a quarterly meet up starting in June

About Your Meeting Hosts

Rebecca Blackwell is a writer, recipe developer and food photographer who publishes two recipe websites and a Substack newsletter. Her and her husband are nomads without a home base but with many modes of transportation, namely an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat. Rebecca write recipes and stories for curious people who believe experiences are more important than things and who want more adventure.

Liza Debevec is a social anthropologist, African studies specialist, and career/life coach. She writes two Substack publications that bring together her love of stories, food, languages, and personal growth. Originally from Slovenia, Liza now lives in Lisbon, Portugal, after many years in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and other corners of the world. Her work is inspired by the ways people connect through meals, words, and meaningful conversations.

As some of you may know already, the idea was born while I () was reading a Diana Henry book of essays over a glass of vermut in Barcelona. So many of you responded positively when I asked about this in the Chat. (By the way, if you are not familiar with the Chat section of the Mastermind for Food Writers, here is the link to it: https://substack.com/chat/4928070). who writes stepped up to support this venture as a co-host and here we are.

A couple of weeks ago we did a survey to which 32 of you responded (Thank You!) and we found out that most of you love to read anything food related (meaning: food essays, food memoirs, food related fiction and cookbooks).

The majority of the responders preferred the quarterly meetings, and that is what we will be doing.

We discussed the choice of books. We each proposed some titles we had either read and loved or were curious about. Linda did the grunt work of finding out which of the books were available though the US library system or for purchase on websites that were not Amazon related. We offered you the choice of 18 books with a request to select your top five choices; here are the results:

As you can see, the book that inspired the creation of this book club, Diana Henry’s Around the Table, actually came in as the top choice for the majority, followed closely by Apricots on the Nile by Collete Rossant and Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin.

We are happy to announce that our first Food Readers’ Book Club session will take place on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 4pm UK time and 5 pm CET.1 We will meet for 90 minutes and we will be reading Diana Henry’s book Around the Table: 52 essays on Food and Life. After that, we will meet the 1st week of September and the 1st week of December when we will be reading Collete Rossant (September) and Laurie Colwin (December).

We will do a short write-up for each of the books; for now, we are sharing the guiding principles of this book club, inspired by ’s principle 8 of the nine core principles from her book Emergent Strategy: Less prep, more presence.

With this in mind, we (Linda and Liza) will be guiding the book club by offering our presence and full attention, but may not always come prepared with specific questions or topics for discussion (and sometimes we may come with many of them). We will be paying attention to topics that emerge from the conversation; we invite all the book club members to embrace the idea of presence over preparation. This means that you are welcome to come to the discussion even if you only just purchased the book and have not read it, or if you have read the book five times and have taken a ton of written notes.

In the sessions we will be facilitating the conversation in ways that will be inclusive of all and mindful of different styles of communication. We may opt to create breakout groups to facilitate small group discussions. When in plenary we will ask people to raise their hands before speaking and be mindful of the time they take to speak, so that those of us who are chattier (like Liza) do not make it impossible for less talkative people (like Linda) to express their thoughts. That said, you do not have to talk; you could just come and listen, if that is your vibe.

We may, at times, invite members to help co-lead a discussion, and if you are very keen to support us in this way, feel free to reach out to us via DMs.

As a way of offering support to readers for whom new book purchases may not be budgeted, may we suggest a post by a U.K. writer entitled “Library Access for Everyone.” Several U.S. libraries offer digital library cards to international readers for an annual fee, though not every library can be assumed to have every title. For everyone else, we encourage you to find a way to support independent/small bookstores. There are a lot of great alternatives to Amazon everywhere, if we make an effort to look for those.

This is all we have for you for now. We will share the registration link for the meeting in early May when we share our shared post with some of our thoughts and notes on the book. We hope many of you will join and until then we wish you Happy Reading!

While we did talk about some of our pet peeves related to Substack, the sort that are a bit gossipy and better off the record, we mostly had a really pleasant conversation, reflected on our shared wish to get people to read us, not just out of the wish to make it big here, but more to make sure that we keep finding joy in writing here, in the context of all the pressures and mysteries of the algorithm and increasing the social media nature of the platform.

We talked about the fact that we are, after all, our own ideal readers and how when we write from a place of curiosity and passion for our topics, this comes across to the readers and makes our writing more appealing. Including getting excited by citrus related objects.

Instead of a recording, today you get a little introduction to the four people who were on this call and invitation to check out and subscribe to our Substacks, if you don’t already do so.

writes a publication called , which in her own words is “about making cooking feel easy, joyful and inclusive for busy home cooks even when food intolerances or plant-based preferences are part of everyday life to make one meal that everyone at the table can share, without stress, separate dishes or overthinking. Helping you fall back in love with cooking and eating together again.”

As someone who had in the past been on a very restrictive diet due to stress induced allergies (not sure if this is a scientific description, but basically most foods made my skin itch so much, I could not sleep), I know the value of having access to recipes that don’t mean you’ll have to only eat dry fruit while everyone else is gorging on a cake.

Bruce McMichael (whose Substack handle is ) writes The Lemon Grove. He says: “Open just about any cookbook and you’ll find references to citrus fruits from oranges and lemons to finger limes and yuzu. The Lemon Grove, is all about these flavours and the writer's passion for the how the fruits have influenced communities, food history, migration, kitchen tools, gastronomy and cooking.”

Given that I consider the taste of a freshly squeezed orange juice to be one of the best things in the world, I am always excited to read what Bruce writes.

writes , a newsletter “exploring the many facets of our imperfect world through food, through people, and the stories that bind them. What began as a memoir of food and cooking during the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina (April 5, 1992-February 29,1996), has grown into a space where [she] writes about food, literature, language and memory”.

Amela and I share a former country, one that no longer exists. We also share a passion for hosting people and story telling, which Amela does in an absolutely exquisite manner.

And I, , write two publications and . I am a coach, social anthropologist, a foodie, a polyglot, a story teller and a generally curious (and nosy) person. My two publications reflect this eclectic personality mix.

This it for this month. Remember that is a free membership group that was started by and is supported also by and myself. We are all volunteers and this publication is free and open to all food writers/readers. If you wish to support our endeavours, do consider subscribing to our respective publications.

You can check out links to the publications of our members here — and if you are a member but not yet listed here, do let know so she can add you:

And remember that you can use the Chat section of this publication to connect with other writers here. Also, you can always join our monthly meetings, with the next two coming up on May 6 (UK/Europe/Africa/Asia time zone friendly ) and May 13 (US time zones friendly) - with registration links coming later this month.

Thank you for reading and see you soon on one of the future calls in the time zone of your choice.

At first glance, Substack Recipe Cards might seem like just another formatting tool. And it is… but, as many of you have already noticed, it’s kind of clunky and lacking in the kind of functionality you might expect from a recipe card template.

But let’s take a moment to talk about WHY this functionality is suddenly available for food writers at all. Why has Substack invested resources in creating it? Food writers have been publishing recipes here for a while. So, why now?

I don’t have an inside track to the answers to these questions, but as someone who’s been publishing recipes online since 2013, I have some educated guesses.

Educated Guess #1:

If you’re a food writer on Substack, recipe cards can help you organize the recipes you publish here in a way that makes them easier for readers to find. For example, in this issue of my newsletter, I included a recipe for Fettuccine with Chicken and Tomato Cream Sauce. This is how I’ve been publishing recipes on Substack since I started writing here in early 2024. I’ve published somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 new recipes on Substack so far and every single one is buried in the middle of one of the 150+ issues I’ve sent out so far.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of my readers. You are standing in your kitchen thinking about what you’re going to make for dinner. You remember that there was a chicken and pasta recipe in one of my newsletters but you can’t remember which issue. How would you go about finding it? How many archived issues would you scroll through before giving up?

What if, instead, you could just go to a “Recipes” section of my substack to find it?

This is one way I am using the recipe cards to improve the experience for my readers. One by one, I am creating a dedicated post for each and every recipe I’ve published on Substack. All of them live in one place and make it easier for readers to find the recipes I’ve published here without having to sort through the archive of newsletters. Because it’s easier to show than to tell, here’s where you’ll find the recipe section of my newsletter: : www.rebeccablackwell.com/s/recipes

Summary: Publishing recipes as their own post using the Recipe Card makes it easier to build an actual recipe archive within your publication instead of letting recipes disappear into the general stream of posts. That’s better for readers, because it makes your work easier to browse and return to, and it’s better for you because it helps you build a catalog of work that’s more durable than your newsletter archive.

Educated guess #2:

The recipe card functionality makes your work easier to find outside of Substack, and create posts that keep working for you long after you hit publish.

That last part is worth paying attention to.

A newsletter post can continue to generate views over time, but usually not at huge volume. You send out your newsletter. A lot of people read it in the first few days. After that the readership diminishes significantly.

A recipe is different. A recipe can keep bringing people to your Substack indefinitely through Google, Pinterest, social sharing, and links from other websites.

That’s a very different kind of asset.

Here’s an example: Right now, if you type these words into Google, “whole wheat carrot bran muffins” one of my recipes on Substack will show up in the search results. That recipe will continue showing up in search results for people who are looking for whole wheat carrot bran muffins for as long as Google includes it in search results.

One of the earliest recipes I published on one of my recipe websites is Napoleon Dessert. Over the past 12 months, that recipe has generated 12,000 clicks from Google to that recipe. In other words, 12,000 people found my recipe when they went to Google and searched for “Napoleon Dessert”. And that’s just over the past 12 months. I originally published the recipe in 2019.

Will a recipe you publish on Substack today bring you 12,000 new visitors to your Substack over the next 12 months? Probably not. 🙂 But, what if it brought you 400? That’s 400 people who may not have known about you before they clicked on your recipe.

And what if that one recipe brought in 400 new people next year and the year after that and the year after that?

Will all of those 400 people subscribe to your newsletter? No. But what if 25 of them do? And what if that one recipe continues to generate 25 new subscribers every year?

Now consider the possibility that an additional 400 people are coming to your recipe every year through Pinterest.

Do you see the long term potential?

As writers and recipe creators, we spend a lot of time trying to get our work in front of people who might be interested in it. A lot of those people are searching for recipes outside of Substack. By formatting your recipes as their own post and using the recipe card template, every recipe you publish on Substack becomes a bridge between your work and the people who are looking for it.

Summary: Recipes are one of the clearest ways to reach people who are not already in your Substack world. Someone might never discover you through the app, but they may absolutely find you because they are looking for whole wheat carrot bran muffins, or whatever kind of recipes you publish.

Recipes stick around and can travel. Individual recipes can be found through search engines, Pinterest, and social media. If you want your Substack to reach beyond your existing subscribers, recipes can help do that.

Educated guess #3:

Formatting recipes as their own post using the recipe card makes it easier to link to individual recipes from other websites.

I publish recipes to two recipe websites. Including recipes in the middle of every newsletter issue made it more difficult to link to recipes I published on Substack from a recipe I published on one of my recipe sites. Publishing individual recipes as their own post makes it much easier to accomplish this.

You can see what I mean here: If you scroll down to the bottom of this post for Apple Upside Down Cake, you’ll find a section titled, “Year round recipes for apple lovers”. In that section, you’ll see a link to Apple Dutch Baby, which is a recipe I’ve published here on Substack.

As said during our last Mastermind Meeting, you can think of that link as a bridge that has the potential to bring people from one site to the next.

The big picture: Even if you don’t publish work to other websites, by formatting your recipes as their own post, you make it easier for other people to link to your recipe from their website.

Building Bridges and a Big Picture Strategy

What if paid subscriptions aren’t the only opportunity for revenue creation?

Or maybe the better question is: How does Substack fit into your larger business goals?

If Substack isn’t a part of your business goals, if publishing here is a creative outlet that you do to enrich your life, not build a business, I doubt you’ve stuck with me this far. 🙂

For me, I started publishing here because I wanted to expand my creative reach. As someone said during the last Mastermind Meeting, I wanted a space where I could write about whatever the fuck I wanted.

This is one of the best things about Substack and I have no intention of abandoning that privilege. But, my work here is one part of my business and it needs to fit into my larger business goals.

One of the ways to do this is to start thinking of your recipes as long-term discovery assets. You’re not just publishing for the readers who open this week’s email. You’re also building a library of work that people can discover on and off Substack over time.

This can support growth in all kinds of ways that are not strictly subscription-based.

On Google, search results have been shifting away from “how popular is this creator?” to “who would find this genuinely useful, and how do we get it in front of them?”

That is a meaningful shift, and I actually think it favors a lot of Substack writers.

A smaller, highly engaged audience can outperform a large passive one, because engagement is now a distribution signal. Topical authority matters more than breadth. The people who deeply serve a niche are often the people these new systems want to surface.

Most of you are already doing the hard part. You’re honing your craft, pouring your heart and your resources into creating really good content for an audience of readers who trust you. You are building something real.

Taking the time to think about the strategy behind building your audience is, for many of us, one of the most valuable things we can do to create something sustainable.

Many of you started publishing on Substack because you wanted to avoid SEO. But SEO is really just doing everything you can to help the right people find you.

That’s it.

And honestly, a lot of people who say they hate SEO are already doing exactly that on Substack. They’re trying to make useful work. They’re trying to connect it to the right audience. They’re trying to be findable.

That same principle applies to search engines.

One of the best things about SEO right now is that there are fewer ways to game the system. That means there is more room for those of us who are creating something real.

2 practical things to keep in mind

1. If one of your goals is to help people find your recipes off Substack, consider using a custom domain. Substack has instructions for setting that up here.

2. When adding images to a recipe post, be sure to fill in the alt text. The alt text is for people who are visually impaired so they know what’s in the photo. So, when filling in the alt text, simply tell those people what’s in the photo. Alt text is also important information for Google because it tells Google what’s in the photo AND tells Google that you are doing the bare minimum to create content that everyone can access.

Final thoughts

My real takeaway is that Recipe Cards are not just a nice feature for food writers. They’re a structural opportunity.

They can help you organize your recipes, make your archive more useful, improve discoverability, and create content that keeps working for you over time.

And if you’re already creating recipes that serve a clear niche and a real audience, this is exactly the kind of feature worth thinking about.

Yes, it’s clunky and buggy right now. But, I can’t imagine that Substack is going to abandon the feature, which means it will improve over time.

One important question that came up during the Mastermind Meeting: Can’t I just publish my recipes as their own post without using the recipe card to format them?

A: Yes. However, the recipe card has some back-end code that tells Google (and the rest of the internet) that an actual recipe is a part of the post. This makes it MUCH more likely that your recipe will show up in Google search results.

What to do now

In May, I will be teaching a comprehensive online workshop that dives much deeper into everything I’ve written about here.

• What SEO really is, how it’s changed, and how creators who are focused on creating real content for real people have a significant advantage.

• How to set up and use Pinterest to drive new readers to your work on Substack.

• How to create a big-picture strategy for your work that will help you connect your creative work to your business goals.

• How to make money as a food writer. This is something I am very passionate about. If you want to make a living through your creative work, we’ll talk about the ways to do that.

• Keyword research: This is simply meeting people where they are by using the same words for your recipes that they are using to find your recipes. We’ll dive into the tools that make this easy and how AI has changed the game.

• How to format your recipe posts and the Substack recipe cards to increase the chances that the recipe will show up in search. In other words: How to make it easier for the people looking for that recipe to find it.

Registration for this workshop is not yet available but if you are interested, please let me know in the comments below and I will reach out directly with more information when I have it.

Questions? Comments?

Please leave a comment below or send me a direct message.

Until next time,

Hello everyone,

If you weren’t able to join today’s Mastermind Meeting, the recording is now available. Click the button below to access the recording. If prompted, enter this passcode: vN+lS2Ge

April Mastermind Meeting Recording

We talked Substack's new recipe card functionality and its benefits for food writers. A few of the topics we covered:

• How to use recipe cards to create a dedicated, reader friendly recipe section.

• How using the recipe cards can improve SEO and make content more discoverable on platforms like Pinterest and Google.

• The process of extracting existing recipes from newsletters to create standalone recipe posts.

• Challenges with the recipe card feature including limited print functionality in the app

We also talked about our individual reasons for being on Substack and our desire to build something real in an increasingly AI driven world.

Besides the recording, I assembled my notes and some additional thoughts into this article. If you’re publishing recipes on Subtack, I hope this offers some valuable things to consider.

Upcoming dates

Mastermind for Food Writers Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific

Wednesday, April 8: 8am, London (British Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by Liza Debevec

Follow this link to register for this meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3iv7pxfQRiqPyq-PtlL65Q

After you register for the meeting, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone. Please register a day in advance if possible, to make sure you get the meeting link on time and to avoid ‘waiting at the door’.

Office Hours

Join us for 60-minutes on Wednesday, April 29th, at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time for Office Hours. Come as exactly as you are, bring what you’re working on, and choose your own adventure for how you want to show up that day (screen on or off).

In this month’s meeting, we’ll dive into the Creative Mindset with guest, and focus in our your:

• Creative Mindset: What does it look like to create, getting stuck in perfection, move through creative blocks, and keep consistent when life lifes

• Story Telling: You want feedback on what you are working on or want to talk about an idea you’d like to create

• Growth: If you want to discuss the nuts and bolts of growth on Substack or your business

*More info and a registration link coming soon!

More ways to connect

is creating a Condiment Recipe Roundup and you are all invited to participate. Here is more info from Maggie…

If interested in participating, please create a post with your favorite condiment. This could be a salad dressing, mayo-based something or other, chutney, homemade teriyaki, etc. I’m open to anything that can be used to enhance a dish! I mean, isn’t most food just a vehicle to get a good sauce into our mouths easier??

Here are details to consider if participating:

• Post needs to be public for the month of May 2026*

• Post needs to be on Substack

• Can be any cuisine

• Can include a menu for accompanying dishes

• Submission deadline Tuesday, April 28, 2026

• Post will be published Tuesday, May 5, 2026

• Submission of post to include a short headnote (about 150 words) along with the recipe.

• Submission of posts to Maggie Joos (This Is The Real Good Life)

*I don’t have a paid section of my site, so this post will stay free for perpetuity. I would suggest you leave your included post open to the public for all 2026 but appreciate that might be too much to ask.

Please let know if you have any questions!

If you are interested in participating in the new Mastermind For Food Writers Book Club and want to vote for the first book, here’s where to vote!

Book Club Poll

A few months ago, while drinking vermut in a lovely Catalan cafe (see some images below), I () had a brilliant idea of starting a food focused book club. I posted a tipsy message in the Mastermind group chat and many of you responded enthusiastically.

Here we are a few months later and the book club is now almost a reality. — who kindly volunteered to co-host the book club— and I have met a couple of times to discuss the titles (making sure that if at all possible, the books are available through non-Amazon links and the Libby app) and talked about some of the guiding principles for our book club. We are now ready to reveal that we have created a short poll for people to vote in. The poll is available at this link and it contains all the info we have at the moment.

We would like to gauge the interest of the group members to participate in the book club. We want to make sure that the frequency of the meetings and the top choices for books are agreed by the majority (of people who vote- if you don’t vote, you can’t complain). Once we have the answers to this, we will then proceed in proposing the first book selection, the date and share the guiding principles. By voting, you are not committing to anything yet, but it does help us understand the general vibe among the people who are interested in the idea of the food book club.

So, please, do click on the above link and express your opinion. We will keep the vote open until April 2nd (a day after the next online meet-up).

We look forward to hearing/reading from you.

Liza and Linda

PS. In addition to voting, you are welcome to write to us via the direct messages.

Here’s what’s coming up in April

There are two 90-minute Mastermind Meetings each month in different time zones. Meetings are held on Zoom and require pre-registration. Registration links below.

• Wednesday, April 1: Mastermind Meeting, 11am New York (Eastern Standard time with host

• Wednesday, April 8: Mastermind Meeting, 8am London (British Standard Time) with host

Mastermind for Food Writers, North America

Meeting topic: SEO 101 for Substack writers + The new Substack Recipe Card Template: Basic functionality, how to use it to help people find you off Substack, and how to use it to organize the recipes you publish on Substack

Wednesday, April 1: 11am, New York (Eastern Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by

Follow this link to register for this meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/8U8zJQ1sR4KGn03KIsMEFw

After you register for the meeting, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone.

Mastermind for Food Writers Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific

Meeting topic:

Wednesday, April 8: 8am, London (British Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by

Follow this link to register for this meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3iv7pxfQRiqPyq-PtlL65Q

After you register for the meeting, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone. Please register a day in advance if possible, to make sure you get the meeting link on time and to avoid ‘waiting at the door’.

Links and Resources!

• If you’d like to volunteer to teach a mini-masterclass at an upcoming Mastermind Meeting, please sign up here!

• If you’re not listed in the Directory, leave a comment on the Directory with your name and publication and I’ll get you added!

• Community Resources: A revolving list of resources from food writers for food writers

• Collaboration Network: Find other substack food writers to collaborate with

• The Mastermind for Food Writers chat is a great place to connect with other food writers on Substack.

About your meeting hosts

is a writer, recipe developer and food photographer who publishes two recipe websites and a Substack newsletter. Her and her husband are nomads without a home base but with many modes of transportation, namely an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat. Rebecca write recipes and stories for curious people who believe experiences are more important than things and who want more adventure.

is a social anthropologist, African studies specialist, and coach. She writes two Substack publications that bring together her love of stories, food, languages, and personal growth. Originally from Slovenia, Liza now lives in Lisbon, Portugal, after many years in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and other corners of the world. Her work is inspired by the ways people connect through meals, words, and meaningful conversations.

As always, please let me know if you have questions or suggestions!

-Rebecca

On today’s call we discussed seasonality of fruit and vegetables, and what we miss outside its usual season. Asparagus, figs, persimmon and rhubarb were mentioned. We wondered if one could freeze avocado in a way that it would remain tasty and whether it was possible to freeze oranges1. We discussed how long would it take to grow rhubarb from scratch. If you have tried, and know the answer, do let us know in the comments. While I am not a big rhubarb fan (except in a good crumble), whenever I hear it mentioned, I think of this beautiful painting by a Norwegian painter Nikolai Astrup, which I saw at an exhibition at my favourite museum in Stockholm, some years ago.

We also talked about the Welcome email that our subscribers get when they hit the Subscribe button, or when they Upgrade from free to paid subscription. We agreed it makes sense to personalise it but we also wondered about the value of it being very long — some of us even said we were inclined to unsubscribe if the Welcome email’s length suggested a particular Publication could be too much of a commitment.

Here is what Substack support says about Welcome emails:

https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/24034796625428-How-do-I-set-up-welcome-emails-on-Substack

Thank you to and for a great conversation.

You can find the recording here:

https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/CKZ_fFPAP0tVBHaKCyZxCgbdxJ1fk-ezQhZEMmrFcUNeC_tALAqzfXxGNg38poQ8.fIwlp03Ml5iHWNrk

Passcode: !8QDfVsh

[Once more, I am realising I need to up my Zoom skills, this time I did manage to record it in a way that you only see whoever is speaking, not the gallery of all the participants]

Here is a version of audio only, if that is your cup of tea:

https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/play/1oK0aq_E1rNVWnjeH3Yj0m31ljvuEE97RQLDTFTzbziqosCLICHl-bfLDgleaUXVOD5ccnk7bncgMdwz.Z1-m4pj59mLnwKqu

Passcode: !8QDfVsh

Coming Up:

Office Hours

What is Office Hours: It’s a way to get feedback, work through blocks, and spend time with people who get what you’re creating. Whether you’re refining your Substack, working on something specific, or need a focused window to work, this space is for you!

Who Office Hours is for: People actively building or working on something for your Substack: Writing, recipe development, or perhaps, something in the backend of your publication like your welcome emails, about page or starting Notes.

How to join:

Wednesday, March 25, at 12:00 p.m. New York (Eastern Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by Carla Contreras of Nourishing Creativity

Sign up with this link to register for this month’s Office Hours. Bonus: There is no recording to catch up on, this meeting is held live.

Note: You must be a registered Zoom user to sign up for this meeting. After you register for office hours, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone. Need support? DM Carla Contreras

Links and Resources!

• If you’d like to volunteer to teach a mini-masterclass at an upcoming Mastermind Meeting, please sign up here!

• If you’re not listed in the Directory, leave a comment on the Directory with your name and publication and I’ll get you added!

• Community Resources: A revolving list of resources from food writers for food writers

• Collaboration Network: Find other Substack food writers to collaborate with

• The Mastermind for Food Writers chat is a great place to connect with other food writers on Substack.

Upcoming collaboration opportunity:

is hosting a recipe round-up post similar to the curry one that took place a while ago.

The below information is from Maggie: [please reach out to her directly if you want to participate and note that submission deadline is Tuesday, April 28, 2026 and that the post will be published Tuesday, May 5, 2026].

“If interested in participating, please create a post with your favorite condiment. This could be a salad dressing, mayo-based something or other, chutney, homemade teriyaki, etc. I’m open to anything that can be used to enhance a dish!”

Next month’s meetings will be on April 1, 11 am EST and April 8th, 8 am UK time. Links for registration will be shared later this month. As I requested in today’s call, please try to register the night before, and don’t worry if you registered and can’t attend in the last minute. Early registration saves me from last minute checking the Zoom app for additional registrations and/or saves you from the risk of not receiving the link on time.

For any questions or ideas related to this group, reach to and/or .

1

I mentioned this post by

Mira Dessy on Substack

How to Make Homemade Frozen Juice Concentrate

If, like me, you grew up before our current era of endless Ready To Consume (RTC) beverage options, chances are you remember those little cans of frozen juice concentrate mom kept tucked into the fre…

Read more

a month ago · 3 likes · 6 comments · Mira Dessy

What a fantastic, information-packed meeting we had today! If you missed it, shared her process for editorial planning and scheduling, and the tools she uses to significantly cut the amount of time she spends on administrative and repetitive tasks. It was incredibly valuable.

We also talked about scheduling, the pros and cons of sending newsletters on a set day and time, finding a rhythm between scheduled writing and inspired flexibility, the significance and insignificance of open rates, Substack’s new recipe card feature, how to embed one post within a different post, and more!

Watch the recording from today’s meeting:

Click here to access the recording.

If prompted, enter this Passcode: uWqp4R&v

If you’re not already subscribed, here’s where you’ll find Mira’s Substack:

Mira Dessy on Substack

Get weekly holistic nutrition and preparedness insights to help you build a nourishing kitchen, resilient lifestyle habits, and lasting peace of mind—one thoughtful choice at a time.

Upcoming Dates!

Mastermind for Food Writers, Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific

Wednesday, March 18th: 8am, London (British Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by Liza Debevec

Follow this link to register for this meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3YfCOMKrQWSfG4hp-CVD7Q

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Office Hours

What is Office Hours: It’s a way to get feedback, work through blocks, and spend time with people who get what you’re creating. Whether you’re refining your Substack, working on something specific, or need a focused window to work, this space is for you!

Who Office Hours is for: People actively building or working on something for your Substack: Writing, recipe development, or perhaps, something in the backend of your publication like your welcome emails, about page or starting Notes.

How to join:

Wednesday, March 25, at 12:00 p.m. New York (Eastern Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by Carla Contreras of Nourishing Creativity

Sign up with this link to register for this month’s Office Hours. Bonus: There is no recording to catch up on, this meeting is held live.

Note: You must be a registered Zoom user to sign up for this meeting. After you register for office hours, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone. Need support? DM Carla Contreras

April Meeting Dates

• April 1, 11am New York (EST), Mastermind Meeting host Rebecca Blackwell; Meeting topic: The new Substack Recipe Card Template: Basic functionality, how to use it to help people find you off Substack, and how to use it to organize the recipes you publish on Substack

• April 8, 8am London (GMT), Mastermind Meeting host Liza Debevec

Links and Resources!

• If you’d like to volunteer to teach a mini-masterclass at an upcoming Mastermind Meeting, please sign up here!

• If you’re not listed in the Directory, leave a comment on the Directory with your name and publication and I’ll get you added!

• Community Resources: A revolving list of resources from food writers for food writers

• Collaboration Network: Find other substack food writers to collaborate with

• The Mastermind for Food Writers chat is a great place to connect with other food writers on Substack.

As always, please let me know if you have questions or suggestions!

- Rebecca Blackwell

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

Hello everyone!

Thank you to all of you who were able to join us for today’s Mastermind Meeting. We had an incredible group, as always. An especially big THANK YOU to and who taught us about building our audience across platforms and doing it without burning out.

If you weren’t able to join us, you’ll find the recording below. It’s packed with ideas, inspiration, and valuable information! Here are just a few highlights from my notes:

• Be yourself. Be yourself. Be yourself.

• Do what works for you, not the platform.

• It’s important to own your content, your domain, and your list. Export your list and your content on a regular basis and keep it somewhere safe.

• Substack is an email distribution platform for your work. Substack is not your work.

• If you are attracting readers off-Substack, it’s important to teach those readers how to use and navigate Substack.

• Sometimes it feels like we are putting stuff out there into the void, but it’s important to remember that we don’t know who it’s reaching and we often don’t know who they are sharing it with.

• Platforms aren’t about numbers, they are about trust. A small, highly engaged audience is more valuable than a huge audience with low engagement.

• Consistency beats perfection.

On that last point, Stephanie wrote a great post last December about just getting started…

Stephanie

Start Now (even if it makes you feel uncomfortable), Thank Yourself Later.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how authors talk themselves out of starting. Thanks for reading Stephanie! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work…

Read more

5 months ago · 5 likes · Stephanie Moon

Important links and information!

• Are you a Substack bestseller? Would you be willing to participate in a panel discussion with other Substack bestsellers about how you’ve built your audience and created a community willing to pay for your work? Please reach out directly to myself () or if you’re interested!

• If you would like to volunteer to teach a 30 Minute Mini-Masterclass at an upcoming Mastermind Meeting (you do! you do!), click here for the sign-up sheet.

• Continue the discussion, as questions, and offer tips and feedback over on the Mastermind for Food Writers Chat!

• The February Office Hours meeting has been postponed until next month - see the new date below!

March meeting dates:

• March 4, 11am New York (EST), Mastermind Meeting host ; Meeting topic: Creating a newsletter template with !

• March 18, 8am London (GMT), Mastermind Meeting host

• March 25, 12pm New York (EST), Office Hours, Meeting host

Watch the recording from today’s meeting:

Click here to access the February 18 meeting recording

If prompted, enter this passcode: 5V2#91d!

A special offer from : She is offering a 20-minute mini momentum call to two people in this group. Reach out to Stephanie for more information!

If you enjoyed today’s meeting, please subscribe to stay in touch with our mini-masterclass teachers!

Projectkin

As a community, we capture, preserve, and share our stories in every conceivable form. We inspire and encourage one another in posts, events, and conversations.

By Barbara at Projectkin

Stephanie

By Stephanie Moon

As always, please let me know if you have questions or suggestions!

-Rebecca Blackwell

Subscribe now

Today’s meeting in the Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific time zone, brought together a lovely group of members calling in from UK, Portugal, Poland and Croatia. I want to thank Bruce from for making the conversation — on what is yet another cold and wet day in Portugal where I am based — cozy and warm.

Speaking of cozy and warm, we talked about the hacks that make winter bearable and cozy. Soup, candles, pellet stoves, cake and exercise were mentioned, among other things (though some of us more into cake than exercise).

We also talked about what we love about Substack, and Alison, who, if I am not mistaken, has been on Substack longer than most of the participants on the call, said the best moments on Substack felt like a great conversation that you’d have in a kitchen of a dinner party at 2 am. We all loved that image and agreed that connections and interesting conversations with people from all corners of the globe have made our Substack experience meaningful and time well spent.

Subscribe now

We also talked about how notes work, and I have found this useful article from here: 3 Easy steps to Substack Notes (some of the content may be paywalled) that people may wish to check out.

The next meeting for the Mastermind is the US/Europe time zone one, next week, on February 18. You can find the registration info in this post below:

The March meeting for the Europe/Africa/Asia-Pacific group will be taking place on March 18, at the usual time, and registration details will be shared in a couple of weeks. If you’d like to teach a short masterclass in the next call, please reach out or put your name and topic here at this LINK.

And now, here is the recording and bit of a background story, since it seems that I somehow need to experience some technical issues every single time. This time, I have accidentally recorded the breakout room and spent several hours trying to edit it out of the recording (because what happens in a breakout room, stays in the breakout room). I now know how to clip/edit a video (maybe not ready to teach a masterclass on it yet). Another thing I forgot was that when recording a Zoom call I need to use the ‘show self view’ option, otherwise you can only hear me and not see me (mistake I made in the 1st meeting I hosted for Mastermind in November last year). So in this one, I only make a video appearance in the last 20 or so minutes of the recording. So, now you know all the back of the room drama. And here is the video, I hope you’ll enjoy our conversation. And maybe it will inspire you to join us in March.

As always, remember to reach out to or me if you wanted to have your name added to the Directory we host and make use of the chat, so you can connect with food writers in other time zones.

A HUGE thank you to this month’s mini-masterclass teachers Halona Black and , and to and who are working to create collaboration opportunities for interested members of this group!

If you weren’t able to join us this week, you’ll find the recording below and it’s packed with great information!

Halona started us off with a meaty class about what it takes to successfully pitch articles to magazines and other publications. Then Amie showed us how she organizes her schedule to write TWO substacks, a book, freelance projects, and still take time off every week.

Here’s where you’ll find the recording for this month’s meeting.

If prompted, enter this passcode: e=k+!?5q

January Meeting Recording

Additional Resources

Halona has generously shared this great resource with us, 5 Successful Magazine Pitches. I just downloaded this document and it’s incredibly informative. Halona shared 5 actual pitches that were accepted along with and links to the finished articles. It’s fantastic. Thank you so much Halona!

5 Successful Magazine Pitches

Amie shared the slide deck she used for her mini-masterclass plus this great list of resources! Thank you so much Amie!

Resources Amie Mcgraham

56KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Finding A Writing Schedule That Works For You

4.07MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Coming soon: Collaboration opportunities!

by and

As we embark on a new year, we thought it would be helpful to create a shared set of collaboration guidelines for the Mastermind for Food Writers community. This community has already created generous, creative, and high-impact collaborations. A special shout out to , , and for their fantastic efforts so far!

Coming soon: Book club!

, who hosts the monthly mastermind meeting for food writers in Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific time zone, asked this question in the Mastermind Chat earlier this week:

Would members of mastermind be interested in doing a book club? I’m an avid/voracious reader (and eater) and I particularly like food related books, not just cookbook a recipe box, but also food memoirs or fiction books that feature food as an important component. I would love to organize a book club around a food book. If you are interested, drop your name in the comments or send me a direct message. The idea is to read books in a way that is relaxed and doesn’t add to people stress but increases our collective appreciation for good food and good writing.

A lot of you responded to Liza’s question with enthusiasm and volunteered to co-lead the group! If you’re interested, let Liza and Linda know and then stay tuned for more information!

One more resource: Write Up!

For those of you looking for more resources, tips, and insight into pitching articles to magazines and landing freelance food writing projects, I want to recommend the Write Up! community.

Write Up! was created by and . You might remember Kelsey from the December meeting, where she taught a 90-minute masterclass about How to Write a Cookbook Proposal. (You can access that recording here.)

Among a host of other resources, you’ll find monthly events on a variety of topics, including How to Write Better Recipes, happening this Friday, taught by myself () and !

Create a free account, poke around, and maybe even sign up to join Betty and I for this Friday’s workshop. :-)

More about this month’s masterclass teachers:

Halona Black is a food, travel, and wellness writer who has lived in 10 countries since 2018. Her work explores food as culture, care, and lived experience, and she has written personal essays, lifestyle features, and chef interviews for publications including AARP The Magazine, Sisters From AARP, and Business Insider. In addition to her editorial work, Halona has ghostwritten cookbooks, developed recipes, and taught healthy cooking to children through after-school programs in Brooklyn and at Whole Foods Market. She currently lives in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where she continues to write about food, creativity, and building a sustainable writing life.

Wealthy, Wise, and Whole

For women crafting lives of meaning and creative abundance.

By Halona Black ‣ Subscribed

is a food and travel writer who grew up on an island in Maine among a family of writers and artists. As a kid, her career goal was to be a famous novelist. Life happened; the writing did not. After twenty years of wandering the fjords of Norway and partying on every beach in Southern California, she earned a degree in English and landed a career in insurance sales and marketing. After 25 years in the corporate world, Amie stepped down to care for her mom. And suddenly, the words poured out. Today, Amie writes and shares how the two worlds she inhabits—island and desert—have shaped her writing roots. Amie’s work has won awards in literary publications, including HerStry and Intrepid Times, and appeared in anthologies and literary magazines including Brevity, Short Reads, Maine Magazine, Maine Sunday Telegram and Exposition Review.

the micro mashup.

semi-monthly microstories on food, travel and beyond

By Amie McGraham

Cook & Tell

where menu meets memoir: a foodletter about cooking, family and life on a Maine island

By Amie McGraham

As always, please let me know if you have questions or suggestions!

-Rebecca Blackwell

Today’s conversation, first in 2026, brought together Bruce of and myself, . If you are reading this post and are not familiar with our Substacks, I invite you to go check them out.

We talked about what we want to be doing more and/or less of on Substack in 2026. We talked about how this group can support each other, from simple things like outer accountability, to things like sharing tips on how not to f**k up a live by not having the camera settings on (oops, yes, that was me, on the LIVE with Rebecca this week - check it out here). We shared thoughts on daydreaming being great and also how sometimes we have a fantasy self version who is more prolific and productive than our real self. I got excited about lucky lemon pigs:

We also talked about audio voice overs (ones provided by Substack or doing your own), about videos and about collaborations. This is a reminder to everyone that the Subscriber chat is a great place to start a conversation about a possible collaboration, so make sure you check it out. There is also a specific post about Collaboration here:

The invitation to host a 15-min masterclass on a topic of your choice (you can talk about something related to creating content on Substack, something about food writing in general, do a cooking demonstration, or talk to us about an amazing new cooking utensil you’ve discovered or even invented yourself) for the next Mastermind call in Europe/Africa/Asia-Pacific Zone is open and you can register your interest at this link.

For anyone who is a Member (meaning you are a Subscriber) not yet listed in Directory, see this post below to get your Substack listed in the directory or reach out to or .

And now, without further ado, here is the video recording of our conversation. We’d love to hear your comments on the topics discussed. As said so well in our LIVE, we’d rather our posts offended you than get no reaction at all.

Finally, a reminder that the next call in this time zone is going to be on February 11. We will share an invite and registration link at the end of the month.

Thank you again to everyone show showed up for the call and contributed to the lively conversation. If I have forgotten to mention or link to any of the things that we talked about, do add in the comments. Have yourselves a lovely rest of the month.

And if you’re in the right time zone, check out the US time zones call hosted by on January 21, at 11 AM ET.

First of all thank you to over 40 people who joined the LIVE. And thank you to so many viewers who were super active with comments and questions in the chat. Thank you for staying despite our technical challenge. We really enjoyed this conversation and judging by the comments, so have many of you.

Here are some things we covered in the conversation:

• how to find your voice

• why you need to throw some spaghetti at the wall

• once you put content out you have no control over how it will be received

• no one will give you a reward for doing something you don’t enjoy

For more on this subject, see this article.

And finally, since we mentioned the Principles of Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown, here is a list of them, if you are curious:

We would love to hear your thoughts on the subject, do watch the video and let us know what your experience is. And subscribe for Mastermind for Food Writers so you can join us in our monthly calls where we host conversations on the similar topics.

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We had such a lovely conversation in this month’s Europe/Africa/Asia Pacific meeting, and several first-timers joined us. We were a small group, which once again, allowed for an interesting and intimate conversation around a number of great topics. As not everyone will have time to watch the recording, if you want to meet some fellow food writers in the European time zone, I am tagging them here: (Bruce), and . Check out their publications, and subscribe/follow if you can.

We talked about our respective Substack publications, about funny or weird Christmas traditions in the places we live or come from. We also talked about how to navigate Notes and other aspects of Substack, and shared what works and what feels relevant or meaningful for each of us. Also a bit about how each of us handles subscribing, following and unsubscribing. We ended by sharing our dreams for our Substack experience in 2026. It was a really pleasant conversation, and we hope other members will watch the recording as well. We also look forward to more people joining the Europe/Africa/Asia-Pacific Zoom call in January.

Here is the video of the session. I hope you can enjoy our conversation and — if you’re in our time zone — you will consider joining us in January when we meet again.

Dates for January

• Office Hours: January 7, 2026, 12pm New York (EST); Meeting Host

  Carla Contreras

• Mastermind Meeting: January 14, 2026, 8am London (BST); Meeting Host

  Liza Debevec

  Teaching topics to be announced - if you’d like to volunteer, do get in touch with

• Mastermind Meeting: January 21, 2026, 11am New York (EST); Meeting host Rebecca Blackwell; We have two guest teachers for this meeting.

  Halona Black

  will teach The 5-Minute Magazine Pitch Makeover and

  Amie McGraham

  will teach How to Find a Writing Schedule That Works For You

Registration links for all three meetings will be sent out later this month! If you’re subscribed to Mastermind For Food Writers, you’ll receive that email.

Links and Resources!

• If you’d like to volunteer to teach a mini-masterclass at an upcoming Mastermind Meeting, please sign up here!

• If you’re not listed in the Directory, leave a comment on the Directory with your name and publication and I’ll get you added!

• Community Resources: A revolving list of resources from food writers for food writers

• Collaboration Network: Find other substack food writers to collaborate with

• The Mastermind for Food Writers chat is a great place to connect with other food writers on Substack.

It was something I wanted to talk about mostly because I wanted to work out my own thoughts about what it means when people unsubscribe. As with everything, I started by putting my thoughts on a page.

Life, being the unpredictable and uncontrollable experience that it is, threw us a curveball this morning by way of a crippling migraine. Poor Liza is down for the count and our discussion is going to have to wait for another day.

Instead, I gathered up my notes and am sharing them with you here. At some point in January, we’ll try again for a LIVE discussion about this topic. You are only getting my very one sided thoughts on the subject, and I know for a fact that Liza also has a lot of insight to offer. By then, of course, the discussion will have changed. It will widen, and grow, and expand, and we’ll probably all be better for it.

Let’s all send Liza some healing energy. These are some of the things I wanted to share with you today. If it brings anything up for you, I’d love for you to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Have the courage to write, or not write, about whatever you like

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” - William James.

It can feel like caring about everything, being involved in everything, knowing about everything, and having an opinion about everything is what’s demanded of us today.

The truth is that I can’t care about everything. I simply can’t make every cause my cause. It’s not even possible to write about everything I actually care about.

My mom saved a poem I wrote in the 3rd grade about how I was going to save the world.

Friends, I can’t save the world and neither can you.

There will always be critics telling you what you should and shouldn’t care about and what you should and shouldn’t write about. Let them filter themselves out. Let them unsubscribe. You are not for everyone.

Knowing this, we might as well take on projects that are in line with our actual desires - with what you actually really want to do, not what you think you should do. This means doing things you can sustain because you want to keep going even when it’s challenging and murky, and you don’t know where it’s all going to lead.

Your audience is not a concept. It’s real people who resonate with what you care about. They only way for them to find you is if you write about what you care about.

All those unsubscribes are also not a concept. They are real people who don’t resonate with what you care about. Let them go.

The freedom to try new things and make mistakes. Risk nothing, create nothing.

Just this morning I read this line, “There’s no prize for failing to spend your time as you wish.”

Well isn’t that the truth.

The only thing I actually know for sure about creativity is that there is no creativity without doing. You may regret it. You may think it was a mistake. You may regret nothing, and still, it may not work out the way you hoped. None of this matters. It wouldn’t exist in the first place if you didn’t create it.

This of course, is risky. The second you put it out into the world it’s no longer yours to control. The receiving part of your work has nothing to do with you.

This simple realization feels like freedom to me.

Releasing the illusion of control over how something will be received means spending a lot more time immersed in the freedom to try a lot of things, to quit what’s not working, and follow the things that light me up.

Success, whatever that means to you, is largely based on chance. The more chances we give ourselves, the greater the odds that one will land. Experiment widely, build your networks, and embrace uncertainty. Test multiple strategies. Most won’t pay off, but those that do will do so disproportionately.

Let’s pause for a moment to go back to where we started. Trying a lot of things does not mean trying everything. It simply means making choices about about what we really want to do and following through without attachment to outcome. Then doing that again and again and again.

How would you like to spend your time today?

Write without attachment to outcome

I mean, this is the whole story, isn’t it? You have no idea where it’s all going to lead because you have no control over where it’s all going to lead.

So we might as well pay attention to the things that light us up. I am drawn to people who are doing things in the world with passionate energy. So are you and so is your audience.

It’s good to know what you want, but hold loosely your thoughts and expectations about how you’ll get it, if you’ll get it, and where it will come from.

How to view your unsubscribes as evidence that you’re on the right track.

Numbers are simply little pieces of data. Impartial information. We get to decide what they mean and what if it means you’re on the right track?

Maybe you decide that the numbers are telling you you’ve strayed from the thing you really want to write about. Fantastic.

Maybe the numbers are telling you that your list has people on it that aren’t a good fit. Excellent.

Maybe the numbers are prompting you to take that class you’ve been wanting to take, to spend more time perfecting your craft, to get better at the thing you’re most passionate about. Even better.

External validation almost always comes after you’ve done all the important work. And movement of any kind, of people coming and going, opting in and opting out, is evidence that you’re doing the important work.

You are putting things out into the world that are causing a reaction. This deserves a heartfelt congratulations and pat on the back.

Let’s just stop for a moment to appreciate the truth that most people are too afraid to put anything out into the world at all. You are one of the brave souls who is not only putting your work out into the world, you’re receiving a reaction to it. Every single person who unsubscribes is evidence of this.

This is the point in the discussion, if we were LIVE, where I would ask you for your thoughts and read all your comments.

Instead I’ll ask you to leave them here.

What does this bring up for you? Where do you disagree? What has been left unsaid and incomplete?

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Wow! This month’s meeting was so good! A HUGE thanks to who somehow managed to teach us an incredible amount about how to write a cookbook proposal in under 90 minutes.

If you were able to join us, thank you for being there. If you missed it, you’ll find the recording below.

Click here to watch the recording from the December 10th meeting; If prompted, enter this passcode: 3$.jXd&&

Click here to view the slides from the meeting

Kelsey also shared this comprehensive 11 page worksheet from the Dream to Deal Book Proposal Workshop:

Dream To Deal Book Proposal Checklist 2025 Copy

9.47MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Kelsey shared a lot of valuable resources during the meeting. Here are the links to all of those:

• The Dream to Deal: Book Proposal Intensive starts January 28! I took this workshop this summer and it was incredible. If you’re interested in hearing more about my experience, feel free to reach out. If you have any questions about the workshop, please reach out to , or join the free info session…

• There is a Free info session on January 20th for anyone who’s curious about whether the Dream to Deal workshop is right for them.

• Kelsey and Hannah Howard created the Write Up community as a place for writers on the traditional publishing path to find resources and community. There are live classes and workshops, a growing resource library, peer chats, and discounts on 1:1 coaching. Join for free.

• is currently offering her Cookbook Proposal Class for just $99. I have this class and will tell you that the $99 price is a steal. During the mastermind meeting, commented that she has the class as well and highly recommends it. Here’s where you’ll find more information about Sally’s class.

And, if you’re not subscribed to Kelsey’s substack, Cheese Toast with White People, it’s truly one of the best things I’ve read all year.

Cheese Toast with White People

Investigating whiteness in America through memoir, buried histories, and fresh vegetables.

By Kelsey Erin Shipman

Coming up!

The December 17th Mastermind Meeting

Wednesday, December 17th: 8am, London (British Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by Liza Debevec

Follow this link to register for this meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/7UPV5mPxRKu57dNXrndc3w#/registration

After you register for the meeting, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone.

Dates for January

• Office Hours: January 7, 2026, 12pm New York (EST); Meeting Host

• Mastermind Meeting: January 14, 2026, 8am London (BST); Meeting Host

• Mastermind Meeting: January 21, 2026, 11am New York (EST); Meeting host Rebecca Blackwell; We have two guest teachers for this meeting. will teach The 5-Minute Magazine Pitch Makeover and will teach How to Find a Writing Schedule That Works For You

Registration links for all three meetings will be sent out later this month! If you’re subscribed to Mastermind For Food Writers, you’ll receive that email.

Subscribe now

Links and Resources!

• If you’d like to volunteer to teach a mini-masterclass at an upcoming Mastermind Meeting, please sign up here!

• If you’re not listed in the Directory, leave a comment on the Directory with your name and publication and I’ll get you added!

• Community Resources: A revolving list of resources from food writers for food writers

• Collaboration Network: Find other substack food writers to collaborate with

• The Mastermind for Food Writers chat is a great place to connect with other food writers on Substack.

• There are still a couple of spots open for next year’s Food Writer’s Retreat which is being organized and hosted by the fabulous . I’ll be there! And I’d love to meet you!

As always, please let me know if you have questions or suggestions!

-Rebecca Blackwell

To everyone who was able to attend this morning’s mastermind meeting, thank you for being there.

For those of you who weren’t able to be there, we missed you and you’ll find a link to the recording below.

Good stuff you don’t want to miss…

• If you’re new to this group, you may not be included in our directory! If you’d like to be included, leave a comment on the directory page with the name of your substack publication and we’ll get you added!

• Keep the conversation going in the Mastermind for Food Writers Chat! You’ll find ongoing discussions about a host of topics and collaboration opportunities. This is also a fantastic place to ask questions!

• A revolving list of resources from food writers for food writers: Community Resources

• Find other substack food writers to collaborate with: Collaboration Network

Recording from the November 12 meeting

This week’s call was the first one in this time zone. We were a very small group, albeit coming four different countries (Portugal, Croatia, Poland and Australia), so the call was less structured than the bigger group.

The master-class for this week was around values and how how our personal values shape the way we write and run our Substack. We set out to answer questions such as: What are your top three values and how they influence how you write, publish and engage with your readers and other writers on Substack? How does each of the values help you? How might each one hinder you?

Our conversation was centred around values and whether food writing should be political and here is a brief written summary:

Brief Notes On November 12 Mastermind For Food Writers Meeting

23.3KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Here is the recording of our conversation.

I am afraid you can’t see me- the host- Liza Debevec- because I turned off self view (as I don’t like looking at myself and didn’t realise it will mean I don’t show on the recording- so if you want to see how I look- here is a link to a recent selfie in a note).

If you are interested in doing a values and end of year reflection workshop with me (Liza), you can read about it here: 3-part end of year Reflection Workshop.

Upcoming topics include: How to Start Your Cookbook Proposal, The 5-Minute Magazine Pitch Makeover, and How to Find a Writing Schedule That Works For You.

If you would like to volunteer to teach a mini masterclass, please sign up here: Volunteer to Teach a Mastermind Mini-Masterclass!

Coming up!

Office Hours

What is Office Hours? Click here for more information.

Wednesday, November 19th: 12pm - 2pm , New York (Eastern Standard Time)

Meeting hosted by Chef Carla Contreras

Follow this link to register for this month’s office hours: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/-sEt-k7HQ72sam1QBvwi9Q

You must be a registered Zoom user to sign up for this meeting. After you register for office hours, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone.

Future Mastermind Meeting Dates

For those of you who like to plan ahead, Rebecca and I scheduled the meetings through February of next year:

Wednesday, December 10: 11am, New York (Eastern Standard Time)

Wednesday, December 17: 8am, London (British Standard Time)

Wednesday, January 14: 8am, London (British Standard Time)

Wednesday, January 21: 11am, New York (Eastern Standard Time)

Wednesday, February 11: 8am, London (British Standard Time)

Wednesday, February 18: 11am, New York (Eastern Standard Time)

Please let me know if you have trouble accessing the recording or have any other questions or suggestions!

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