by Vivian C. Cadbury
2008, Delmar Cengage Learning, $39.95

Gone are the days when you settled into one good job and stayed there until you retired. Like it or not, it's a different world — the foodservice industry no exception — and the skills needed for long-term employment include marketing your own “brand” and developing creative “storytelling” skills.

Winner of the People's Choice Award at the 2008 FENI (Foodservice Educators Network International) Summit, A Taste for Writing: Composition for Culinarians, is the first composition and grammar textbook especially for culinary-arts students.

Whether a chef must write a menu, a speech, a cookbook, or in any instance where getting a story across is necessary, A Taste for Writing helps make the writing process as logical as a recipe. The idea of “brainstorming” early on when writing is compared to peeling a potato. Commas are compared to a server's hands cradling a tray.

A veteran English teacher at both the high school and college levels, Vivian C. Cadbury, Certified Hospitality Educator, joined the Culinary Institute of America in 2001 as part of the newly established writing department. Cadbury witnessed students struggle with composition, and got inspired to write the book.

The back of the house analogy is used throughout, from “Mise en Place/Getting Started,” a chapter on beginning to write, all the way to “Seasoning/Revising” and finally, “Cleanup/Proofreading the Final Draft.”

Helping culinary students with grammar, research and all the fundamentals of composition is the goal of the book, one that's neatly realized through a friendly style that's clear and not at all condescending.