The Dinner Plan: A Newsletter (and Podcast!) for Cookbook Lovers Who Don’t Know What to Make for Dinner
I’ve played a lot of roles in food media—as an editor at Serious Eats, the digital director of Epicurious, as the author of two cocktail books published by Ten Speed, as a freelancer for numerous sites, magazines, and newspapers. Like many IACP folks, I’ve written thousands of articles over the years. But I kept getting emails about just one: a story I wrote for Epicurious about cooking burnout. And when I left Condé, I couldn’t get those messages out of my mind.
Even if you like to cook, figuring out a dinner plan night after night can be a lot. And even great cooks go through seasons where cooking is not appealing, where the ideas just don’t arrive. So I launched The Dinner Plan podcast in 2024 to offer fresh dinner inspiration, and also to help anyone who’s feeling burned out in the kitchen feel a little less alone.
Every week on the show, I interview a cookbook author about what they actually cook at home and how they find cooking inspiration. We talk about each guest’s latest book, but also about ways to make our time in the kitchen more enjoyable, and the new or long-out-of-print cookbooks they treasure most. It’s a heart-to-heart, and I always leave each chat with more books I want to find and more desire to get in the kitchen.
Guests have included:
….and more than a hundred(!) more.
Podcast Plus Newsletter
That weekly conversation is only on the podcast, but my newsletter, The Dinner Plan on Substack, offers important bonuses: a few highlights and takeaways from the show and then a peek at a recipe or two from the book, often a day or two before the book comes out. I give away a cookbook with every episode, too. (I’ve also been known to host some pretty epic giveaways of cookware, fun pantry items, and even more books… This one is closed, but the next one is coming mid-July—subscribe now so you don’t miss it!)
For paid subscribers, the newsletter also includes seasonal collections of dinner ideas and a collated list of hundreds of book recommendations, gathered from every guest on the show so far.
The Good Advice Series
In order to highlight even more cookbook authors and share even more tips, I also publish a monthly newsletter series called Good Advice, which has been particularly fun—and popular with readers. I asked folks like Arnold Myint, Sho Spaeth, Joe Yonan, and Jerrelle Guy about their favorite flavor-boosting pantry staples. I asked Anna Stockwell, Mariana Velásquez, and Amber Mayfield Hewitt for their best hosting advice. I really love this list of essential summer food traditions from Jessica Battilana, Rashad Frazier, Justin Burke, Julia Turshen, and Abra Berens. We all need a summer bucket list!
On Growing My Substack
Something I’m always reminding newsletter-writing friends is that subscriber growth isn’t actually a reflection of how hard you’re working or how good your writing is. That’s not actually how the growth works, and we are not feeling bad when other people have bigger subscriber lists!
It’s valuable to use a newsletter as a writing practice and a way to hone your message and focus. If you can’t sum up what your newsletter is pretty succinctly, that refining process is probably still continuing for you, and as you write and see what resonates, you’ll get more data to shape your strategy. If you’ve written book proposals, this process is probably pretty darn familiar…
How do Substacks grow? Sometimes from capturing an audience elsewhere: TikTok, or Instagram, or Threads... and funneling that audience to a newsletter that’s really clear about what it’s offering subscribers. And THEN (this is important) what I’d argue is the single most important structure of the user experience, in terms of growth here, is the little recommendation widget.
Maybe you see someone you love on social media sharing their newsletter; when you sign up, you’ll be encouraged to subscribe to other newsletters, too. This is where we can all help each other. Recommend the newsletters you enjoy! Be generous with that list! I’ve been really so grateful that so many colleagues and many of the cookbook authors I’ve interviewed have added The Dinner Plan as a recommendation, and luckily, most of their readers have stuck around, because they like getting recipes and cookbook recommendations and a cooking chat to listen to every week.
@Leafhopper by Max Falkowitz my old Serious Eats coworker writes beautifully about tea.
Meghan Splawn: Radically honest posts and advice on food budgeting.
Dinner: A Love Story: I will always take a Jenny Rosenstrach recipe recommendation.
What Are We Having?: I love Hillary Dixler Canavan’s way of thinking about feeding a family, including the adults in that family! She prints carefully-tested recipes from fairly-paid developers.
I love to see what Sarah Tane is cooking, especially for catering gigs.
APPLE / SPOTIFY: Follow The Dinner Plan podcast
INSTAGRAM: maggiejhoffman
SUBSCRIBE: Click below!
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