From “22 cool eats and drinks for your summer in the city” by Julie Van Rosendaal. (Page 12 of the July/August edition of Calgary’s Foodie magazine, ‘City Palate.’)

Thought: Could you write more (or even a little) like this?

“#5 Pie from Decadent Desserts…

Hardly any fare is as universally nostalgic, comforting, and generally pleasure-inducing as home-baked (not home-assembled using a frozen shell and tin of filling) pie. In this world, there are pie-bakers and pie-eaters. If you fall into the latter category but are unlucky enough not to have a mother, husband, grandmother or friend who bakes pie from scratch, go immediately to Decadent Desserts and introduce yourself to Debi.

She makes spectacular pies, the way I imagine myself making them in a parallel universe in which I bake pies and breads daily from scratch for my husband George (Clooney) in the open kitchen of our Italian villa, and have a 28-inch waist.

Debi’s pies are piled high with fresh fruits and berries encased in pastry I’d be proud to serve grandma (taking full credit of course.) She makes a mean lemon tart too. (#103, 1019 - 17 Ave. SW.)”

Oh, how many ‘learning points’ about writing could we reverse engineer from just the above 100 words??

Hint: I read City Palate cover to cover, inch by glorious inch, every time I get my paws on it, alas only 6 times a year. But oh it’s wonderful - intimate, vivid, saliva-and-laughter inducing (sometimes at the same time, a bit of a problem.)

Oh the whole, I find that foodie magazines like this are a tremendous learning playground for me as a writer. I learn how to tell a story in just a few sentences. I experience what happens when writing grips my senses (good and bad.) I soak in the use of language in surprising ways.

If you’d like to up the ‘compelling factor’ of your writing, find the City Palate of your town or state, and grab hold. It’s quicker, cheaper and a more organic way to spice up your writing than many a copywriting seminar. (No comment on your eating habits though.)

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll do so again: “good writers are the programmers of our civilization.”

What (and how) are you writing?

They say a person’s handwriting changes as you grow older. You hold a pen differently; the pressure you use to put pen to paper changes; you scrawl more because the kids are late for school.

As you evolve as a person from the inside out, is your writing?

Postscript: Other great resources to consider modelling…

(1) Clothing catalogues such as Coldwater Creek…how is it they can make every outfit sound like a lifestyle upgrade, really?!

(2) Skymall Catalogs, the ones you get on the plane. For some reason the online Skymall catalog isn’t nearly as compelling.

(3) The J. Peterman catalog, a la Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes and the job she held as writer for the clothing retailer, truly a wonder of writing.

Where else do you observe and learn the craft of writing? (And by extension, give meaning to your speaking/teaching/coaching/storytelling?)