Skype Call with Javier Cabral on 3/29

These are the notes I took form the Skype call with Javier Cabral. It was really interesting to hear his back story and all about his current career at VICE.

• He couldn’t believe how much the media blew up about our class
• our class — the chew created a show off of our class
• started reading Johnathon Gold- the only food critic when he started his career by reading his stuff
• How did you reach out and make it happen?
  • He still ahs his food blog (he is 27, started it when he was 16) he says it is embarrassing lol
  • He started asking for the food people he knew and asked them if hey needed nay help
  • “no matter how many food writers there are out there, it doesn’t matter. You’re thoughts are your own and as longa s you have an idea or a good idea go for it. We all have different takes on a burrito”
• He recommends going broke for a little bit and buy a camera to take food
  • You have to be able to be a Jack/Jane of all trades (pics and writing)
• Instagram is about being candid- he is neurotic- instagram is clutch when it comes to reading and writing things. Pics can come in handy when writing and composing things about food
• Different styles of food writing
  • News reporter- GMOs in food
  • Critic- food and ambience (narrative)
• “food writing is a matter of making nothing into something”
• he still uses the basic guidelines of a narrative-
  • good opening sentence
  • thesis
  • and a good though provoking clincher
• advice to young writers
  • “whatever happens in your life, it is a learning experience to use in your writing” — difference between a good writer and a bad writer
• what is it like working for Vice?
  • “utterly insane”
  • Writing for food for money for 11 years
  • worked under Gustavo Arellano for a little bit
  • VICE is a universal angle
  • A lot of his stories get translated into Dutch, German, French, Mexican sites
  • He writes something everyday (about 1000 words)
  • Been there for a year and just now getting the hang of it
• Evelyn’s question about the elote cart- does he put pressure on himself to enlighten others about where we actually get our food (gentrification)
  • He tries to wrap it up neatly
  • The owner of the elote cart uses a card swipe so he can sell his elotes
• What did he study when he went to school?
  • He dropped out of college
  • Studied journalism and reached out to food critic
  • He also studied a little bit of culinary arts
• Journalism is all about networking, being nice and being a “yes man”
• How does social media influence his job?
  • 100% important
  • plugs all his stories into Facebook, twitter and sometimes Instagram
• the age of food we live in: “food is cool”
• overarching theme in your food writing?
  • Social issues
    • Refuses to write about food street vendors—illegal in LA
    • He thinks here is a big demand for political food writers
  • Pictures tell 1000 words? Do you think there should be a focus on sharpening the use of photos
    • We live in an age of visual stimulation
    • Long posts are easier to swallow when it is broken up by photos
    • He also uses pics for rhetoric (pizza box guy doing coke)
    • Good for our world because our attention spans are getting smaller, smaller and smaller
  • Because he is Mexican-American background, did he feel pressured to write about Mexican food
    • Both parents from Mexico
    • He was pigeonholed in Mexican food writing in his stages of finding jobs
    • He thinks you can specialize in whatever and how much you want—so not just Mexican for him, but also aliens
  • What is your take on “authentic” Mexican food?
    • Complex topic
    • he thinks : suffers when you take the food out of the original region
      • not the same corn, same meat or same cheese
    • He talked about Tex-mex, KY-Mex, LA-Mex
      • we have to be open to change
      • Don’t judge someone if they like orange cheese on their tacos
    • He also talked about his article about the tacos not being good in LA and he got a lot of slack from it
    • Being a food writer is all about having an open mind
    • Favorite food or dishes
      • Like asking a parent who is their favorite kid
      • He cant sleep very well at night if he doesn’t know what he is going to have for breakfast the next day
      • He likes a lot of Asian food- regional Chinese food, dumplings
      • Death row meal: a good rancho feast- perfect beans, salsa, nopales, quesadilla
      • Indian food- beautiful cuisine because of the spices
      • West coast food-seviche
    • Were you surprised that UK was the place to have class on tacos?
      • Who is to say that you all can’t do it??
      • A lot of the comments were negative
      • You just have to have an open mind
    • Favorite story that he has written as a food writer?
      • He has probably written over—- insane he didn’t even say
      • A cover story he write for Suburb magazine in 20011
        • He was still in college
        • “secrets of Mexican cooking”
        • people worship Puebla, Quahaca, Mexico and other places for different things all around Mexico
        • he and his parents went to a place in Mexican that is very glamorous- great rice and beans
        • the magazine paid for his mom and himself to fly out there to them
      • that’s how he et his girlfriend—that was the first magazine of the year she had ordered and she looked him up on Twitter and bam- now they live together
    • as a Mexican- American how do you go about writing about things that nobody really knows exist (American)?
      • Don’t exoticize them- someone else’s food, but not exotic
      • It is someone else’s food-not crazy
      • You have to find things that they can compare to (like an apple seed)