Typical Day
It's 7:00AM when R.J. Edible's alarm clock goes off. He staggers out of bed, wishing he was still asleep; he stayed up too late last night, sampling beers from a local brewery and blitzing through the latest season of Orange Is the New Black. But if R.J. doesn't exercise first thing in the morning, then he won't exercise at all, and all of the food and drink he consumes will cause him to blow up like the MetLife blimp.
R.J. is a restaurant critic, or at least he likes to think of himself that way. In reality, he's a freelance writer who reviews recipes, alcoholic beverages, food-and-drink-focused events, and local gourmet and ethnic food stores as well as restaurants.
The job isn't quite what he visualized it would be when he was a journalism major at the University of Houston—he had dreams of working for The Gray Lady and charging $1,000 dinners to his company credit card—but, hey, at least he's found a way to combine his love of writing with his love of delicious food.
R.J. throws on his workout clothes, drinks a big glass of water, and heads to the tiny gym attached to his apartment complex. He spends thirty very sweaty minutes on the stationary bike, and another fifteen minutes lifting weights. Then, it's back to his apartment for a shower and a simple breakfast of oatmeal. By 8:30AM, R.J.'s brewed a big pot of coffee and is seated on his couch with his laptop, ready to work.
R.J. spends the next two hours writing, revising, rewriting, and re-revising. He has a 500-word review due in by 5:00PM this afternoon; the piece is on the three beers he sampled last night/very early this morning, and it'll run in next month's edition of a local food-and-beverage magazine. For this assignment, R.J. will earn $50—not to mention the three bottles of free beer he got to drink.
At 10:30AM, R.J. decides he's satisfied with his review and sends it off to the magazine. Then, he throws on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and walks a couple of blocks down the street to his favorite taqueria. The food is inexpensive (which is great for his limited budget), but tasty. R.J.'s nearly worked his way through the entire menu.
After lunch, it's back to his apartment for some R&R, or "research and reading." R.J. has a dinner reservation tonight at an expensive steakhouse that just opened near the Galleria. The owner is a local millionaire who's supplying the steakhouse with beef from his own ranch, and so R.J. reads up on Mr. Moneybags, the old man's business ventures and interest in food, and then browses the steakhouse's website.
At 2:00PM, R.J. pulls out a cookbook sent to him by a men's magazine he writes for occasionally. The cookbook promises to teach single guys how to make quick but tasty meals that "will wow your woman's tastebuds." R.J. reads through the book and selects several dishes that he'll cook in his kitchen tomorrow.
Because this particular piece is going to be a video review, R.J. writes out a script of everything he wants to make sure to include. Then, he shoots a quick email to his college friend, Guinea Pigg, asking her if she's still able to act as his female taste tester tomorrow evening.
At 3:30PM, ingredient list in hand, R.J. heads to a local high-end grocery store; he figures any man who wants to woo a woman with food will buy the good stuff, right? He has a $200 shopping budget for this assignment, so R.J. spends the next hour carefully picking over produce, cheese, meat, and fish. By 5:00PM, he's back home and his groceries are in the refrigerator. It's time to get ready for his dinner reservation.
At 5:45PM, R.J.'s dinner companion for the evening, a college buddy named Tom LeMooch, picks him up. They spend nearly an hour fighting rush-hour traffic to the Galleria, but manage to make it to the steakhouse fifteen minutes before their reservation time. The restaurant is packed with people, mostly guys in suits from all the law firms, brokerages, and oil and gas companies located in this part of town.
This restaurant review is for the city newspaper. Although R.J. isn't the critic for the newspaper—an elderly gentleman, Wont Retire, has that job—there are so many new restaurants opening that the paper has to farm out reviews to contract employees like R.J. He and Tom will get to enjoy a $300 meal on the newspaper's dime tonight, and the review itself will net R.J. $300.
At 7:15PM, R.J. and Tom are shown to their table, a two-top beneath an enormous oil painting of a cowboy roping a steer. A basket of hot bread and fresh butter, along with two glasses of water, promptly appears on the table. R.J. and Tom browse their menus and the wine list, and wait…and wait…and wait.
Fifteen minutes later, a flustered waiter, "MynameisRandy, andI'llbeyourserverthisevening" appears. R.J. and Tom place their orders, selecting different wines, appetizers, and entrees, so they can sample a variety of dishes at the steakhouse. Randy practically runs from their table to another. The steer in the painting above the table seems to give R.J. a pained expression.
R.J. takes surreptitious notes about the service thus far (Randy needs some work), the ambience (the steakhouse practically smells of money), and his other impressions of the restaurant. Tom keeps an eye out for any wait staff, so R.J. can hide his notepad if he needs to, in order to maintain his anonymity as a restaurant critic.
Whatever issues Randy the waiter might have aren't shared by the other employees at the steakhouse. The sommelier herself appears with their wine selections; she is both charming and informative. The kitchen has their appetizers out in a matter of minutes. R.J. and Tom spend the next two hours thoroughly enjoying their meal, occasionally commenting to one another that the steakhouse definitely lives up to its hype. R.J. takes copious notes for his review.
By the time R.J. and Tom have finished eating, the restaurant is almost too crowded. If Mr. Moneybags can iron out the quirks with the service and maintain the high caliber of the food, then the steakhouse will definitely be more than a one-month wonder. R.J. knows that his mostly positive review, which will be read by the tens of thousands of people who take in the city newspaper and browse the paper's website, will help cement the restaurant's reputation.
R.J. pays for the meal in cash, so there will be no record of his having been at the restaurant. Full and contented, he catches a ride home with Tom. By 10:00PM, R.J. is sprawled on his sofa, reading his notes on his steakhouse experience.
He feels a spark of sympathy for Randy. Once upon a time, R.J. was a waiter, too, at a small but popular restaurant in his hometown. It was there that R.J. fell in love with food and the restaurant business in general. He decided to become a restaurant critic, but then realized that the rise of the Internet and the death of newspapers had rendered most full-time restaurant critics obsolete.
The trick, then, was to figure out how to make his two favorite things, food and writing, pay. During college, R.J. worked as a bartender at an upscale restaurant; he learned a lot about French cuisine, wine, and other kinds of alcohol. Drawing on his experiences behind the bar, R.J. wrote a weekly piece on food and drink for his college newspaper.
He built up a portfolio of his work, and went looking for freelance writing gigs. Before he'd graduated from college, he'd secured enough assignments to give freelance food writing a real go.
It's been five years since R.J. started working freelance, and he's busier than ever. The pay isn't great and the career path he's on is less than stable, but R.J.'s learned a lot from his work. More importantly, because he doesn't just review restaurants, he still enjoys going out to eat when he's on assignment.
Where will he go from here? Over the last month, R.J.'s been submitting his portfolio to publications like Bon Appétit and Food Network magazine. He's gotten a couple of callbacks already and hopes that he can go from working freelance to having an actual full-time job as a restaurant critic or food writer.