Part I:

Of the many texts assigned on the syllabus this semester, I believe the two that stuck with me the most were the Guy Fieri review and the piece about lobsters.

The Guy Fieri review was so memorable, in my opinion, because the writer was ripping the restaurant, Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar, to pieces. Pete Wells, while seeming like a pretentious prick in his writing, used only questions to break down his experience in Fieri’s restaurant. His style criticized each and every aspect of the 500-seater restaurant in Time Square and simultaneously kept entertainment alive. I will say, however, I’m glad I’m not Guy Fieri.

I suppose this particular review stuck in my brain because it reshaped the way I considered restaurant reviews. Prior to this particular review, while I understood there were good and bad reviews, they were fairly straight forward, almost boring, simply written short snippets of text. By using only questions and stinging sarcasm, Wells changed the game in reviews.

The piece that I chose as part of my outside reading that I found most memorable would have to be heat maps, the subject of my original composition. After spending so much time researching a number of heat maps, their physical traits, and their greater significance, I find myself having a greater appreciation for food writing, or ‘writing.’ What these heat maps taught me was that food writing does not necessarily mean you are reading words on a page about food; rather, food writing can be videos, short stories, and even a text-map hybrid, like the heat maps.

Part II:

I think the major take-away I’ve had from the Rhetoric of Food course is that the rhetoric of food does not limit itself to analyzing writing on a page. Rhetoric of food forms itself depending on the author, the situation, and the audience.

For example, if a college student is looking to create some sort of food writing for fellow college students, it is likely that the author will first take time to understand the style and taste of his/her audience, and then take steps from there. If students prefer not to have a lot of extensive reading, perhaps the food writing prepared for the college audience will result in a video rather than text on a page.

The rhetoric of food also looks beyond what is being served on the plate in front of you. The rhetoric of food, in whatever medium it is being delivered, explains who the food is for, what the purpose of the food is, and usually the places the food came from—the “food cultures” bring life to the food and allows audience members to hear its story.

The genre I’ve decided to further analyze is Eater’s ‘Heat Maps.” Eater is a website that offers food news and dining suggestions and guides from across the country through videos, reviews, articles from a variety of writers, etc. Among multiple features of their website, Eater offers a particularly interesting dining guide called ‘Heat Maps’. These maps are used to offer a list of new and popular restaurants, best of’s in a food category (i.e. burger, Thai food, etc.), and top ranked restaurants all in one particular city among other things. The unique aspect of this particular genre, however, rests in the visual aspect. Eater uses a digital map to help the reader visualize where the restaurant’s location is in the city.

Here are a few texts that I found to use as sources:

• The 38 Essential Austin Restaurants: Winter 2017

http://austin.eater.com/maps/best-austin-restaurants-38

•  The Hottest Restaurants in Austin Right Now: March 2017

http://austin.eater.com/maps/best-new-austin-restaurants-heatmap

•  17 Burgers to Eat Right Now in Austin

http://austin.eater.com/maps/best-new-burgers-austin-heatmap

•  10 Hot New Pizzerias to Try in Austin

http://austin.eater.com/maps/best-new-pizza-austin-restaurants

• Where to Find Fully Satisfying Cheap Burgers in Austin

http://austin.eater.com/maps/best-cheap-burgers-austin

Although these texts offer a variety of different material and content, there are a number of aspects from each source listed that share formal elements and functional purposes.

What should it contain to be considered a ‘Heat Map’?

ALWAYS:

• An entire map background with a left side column (left side: the list of curated restaurants)
• The placement of the restaurant on the left should correlate with the number labeled on the map (clear markers)
• An introduction before the list is presented
• A note stating that the list of restaurants is not ranked in terms of best to worst; it is dependent on what the map is representing
• Includes the address of the listed restaurants
• Ability to scroll the left side (list of restaurants) up and down
• Ability to move around the map visual
• Images of food from each listed restaurant

SOMETIMES:

• Offering suggestions of what to order
• A direct link to the restaurant’s official website
• The official phone number to the restaurant
• A list of “what’s popular”
• A list of “go-to’s” in a particular food category

 Functional Purposes:

The Heat Maps provided by Eater serve a number of functional purposes. They allow readers to select a particular category of restaurants choices, so they aren’t forced to be overwhelmed with the number of restaurants in Austin—they can select the map that shows the best burgers, pizzas, etc. in Austin, so they won’t have to sift through food they’re not interested in eating.

The maps also make the decision of where to eat easier as they show distance and commutes for readers. By providing the visual of the map and the exact location of the restaurant, readers are able to decide before even leaving their homes if the desired restaurants are within their commuting desires.

What is the mentor text of choice?

I decided to analyze the Heat Map from Eater.com (an online source that delivers food news and dining guides from across the country through reviews, videos, articles from a variety of writers, etc.).

What is a Heat Map?

The Heat Map is a list curated by Eater of, “what’s new and what’s hot.” According to Eater, the Heat Map “reflects the city’s freshest restaurants where people are flocking to right now.” The Heat Map is updated monthly and it representative of particular cities.

What is included in the Heat Map?

The Heat Map includes a curated list of restaurants, the all-time favorites or go-to orders on the restaurant’s menu, the address of the restaurant, the direct link to the restaurant’s website (if one is available), directions to the particular spot, and most importantly, the Heat Map includes a visual of a map where each restaurant sits in a particular city. The restaurants are listed numerically, so they are easily distinguished on the visual map.

Eater includes that the restaurants are listed in a numerical order that is dependent on where they are located from North to South on Austin’s map… It is not a ranking.

So what?

I decided this would be an interesting genre to discover because it is unique in the sense of how much it offers on one simple website page. I initially discovered the Heat Map during the annotated bibliography project; I used a review from Eater, and after some light browsing, I found this fascinating guide and suggestion list of restaurants. Including the visual of the map and the restaurant’s location on the map, Eater supplies reading with a detailed description of where they could potentially be going to eat. I think this genre is so interesting because the map would drive readers to actually going to the restaurants, as they can visualize their commutes.

Chaudhury, Nadia. “The Hottest Restaurants in Austin Right Now, March 2017.” Eater Austin. Vox Media, 02 Apr. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

http://austin.eater.com/maps/best-new-austin-restaurants-heatmap

For my annotated bibliography, I decided to cover unlikely authors of cookbook as my topic. The inspiration came from a birthday present I bought for my sister—a Salvador Dali cookbook; I read somewhere that his book was being republished for the first time in 40 years, and I knew she was fascinated with Dali, so it seemed perfect.

After being assigned the annotated bibliography where the topic could be just about anything regarded food, I thought about the present for my sister and realized it would be a fun and hopefully unique track to follow—unlikely authors of cookbooks.

Luckily, there are plenty of celebrities out there who want to continue their time in the spotlight, so the number of unlikely cookbook authors is not small. The striking authors I came across, to name a few, were Boy George, Dolly Parton, 2Chainz, Chrissy Teigen, and the list goes on. I took it upon myself to simply pick at random, which celebrities whose cookbook I wanted to dive into, and I honestly have to thank good ol’ Salvador Dali for sparking that interest!

As far as texts good and things to actually create the annotated bibliography, I decided to take a different take on the cookbooks; I wanted to focus on the actual books I could get my hands on or access easily, of course, but to avoid spending a lot of money, I decided analyzing reviews on these authors and their cookbooks would be an interesting spin on the project. I plan to focus on the writing style of reviews for these particular authors and how they differ from more expected authors, per se.

I’m hoping that using reviews, I’ll get a wide variety of writing styles and voices. There’s more research to be done, but I’m looking forward to what I find.

I’m still in the developmental stages of my research for this annotated bibliography assignment. While I have a general focus on my project—unusual authors of cookbook—I want to find something that brings everything full circle. My inspiration started after buying my sister’s birthday present, a Salvador Dalí cookbook, which seemed quite out of the norm. At least to me, it did. So with that purchase came the heart of my project! For resources, I suppose I could use the present I purchased, or I could use that to find a particular kind of unusual author. Maybe I will focus on singers, movie stars, or other unlikely figures. All I know thus far is that Snoop Dogg and 2 Chainz both have cookbooks, so I doubt I’ll fall short of finding fun and unusual cookbook authors.

As far as research methods go, I’m still using Google just to find out who the unlikely celebrities are that have cookbooks, and from there, I’ll probably do further research into those specific authors. Once these particular sources have been discovered, I plan to keep track of these sources through a GoogleDoc, I suppose. It’s an easily accessible source and it’s simple to keep organized.