Knowledge is Power, always!

Knowledge is power and news provides that knowledge.

By Lisalee Solomons.

Learning to know the know.

Writing a review of any sort can be quite tricky, yet tons of fun if that is your passion of course. It’s not always every reader  or listener that will listen or agree with what you have to say, but it comes with the territory, some readers might dislike you for what you write, whilst others will simply enjoy your pieces because they give balance and curiosity. One just has to try and understand what it is that your audience actually enjoys reading about, in this instance its food!

Brent Meersman, who’s a well-known Cape Town based author, writer, journalist and reviewer has had his fair share of backlash and praise for the pieces his written about. His accomplished publishing his own novel, reviewed more than 200 shows for the Mail & Guardian as their theatre critic, given book reviews and even covered some politics, to name a few. But his media career took a slight turn for the better, when he started writing about food in 2008; this gained him so much more recognition.

It’s no secret that Cape Town loves food, how can you not?! Have you tried the Gatsby’s and salomies at Golden Dish in Gatesville! It’s revolutionary.

In his Mail & Guardian article, Meersman, makes mention that “only when he started writing about food that I began to get stopped by strangers. For the first time, people began to text and email me about what I had written that week.”  He also makes mention that when his at a restaurant, people would literally come up to him and point directly at him and declared, “So, you must be Munchkin!”

Munchkin was a grumpy old foil that Meersman invented for his reviews, and proudly states that “Munchkin is whomever I happen to be dinning with so they weren’t wrong.”  His food reviews speak to the Cape Town food lovers, and writes of his experiences on tasting the different kinds of food his eaten in Cape Town, than any other part of the world.

There are different ways in which Meersman writes his pieces, some are straight to the point, most of his reviews are lengthy pieces, but they are in-depth pieces that honestly makes one give a slight nod when reading it, because you can somewhat attest to what his writing about, because honestly food is life!

Confused but content which is a review piece by Meersman; he highlights his experience in making a booking with the chef of Café Giulia, in Green Point ,Cape Town. He tells of how he found the lunch waiter hardly trained, and that after the chef took his booking down, failed to tell him that the Café’ does not open on a Sunday; of course this is the day Meersman booked for.

Grahamstown is well known for its flashy, classy festivals which is home to 80 000 residents, writes Meersman. He recalls 10 years ago,an elderly man in the lane next to the City Hall, who for R5 would play a game of chess with you, as well as he’d recall the man from landlocked Cookhouse who made beautiful model sailing ships to sell at the festival.

Grip the audience.

Writing a review piece is not always easy; it’s a critical evaluation of a text, event or phenomenon. You want to grip your audience’s attention, so refrain from using ‘I personally think’, a review is you telling your audience your brief summary of what transpired at the event you attended, short  and to the point.

Ends/600 words.