Nice Pear
Nice Pear is a weekly(ish) feminist foodletter. Subscribe to get every new edition in your inbox.
In Nice Pear, you’ll find:
Food news with a UK/vegan/intersectional-feminist slant
Recipes or inspiration for the tastiest things that have come out of my kitchen in the past week
Original food writing/essays/opinions/reporting by me, produced exclusively for the newsletter
I like that the newsletter format is more intimate than a blog post and more personal than an article. You get new food writing, I get to experiment with my words.
Occasional self-promotion of anything I’ve written or been involved in recently.
Most weeks I also include a run-down my freelance numbers (stories pitched/rejected/commissioned/published), because I know a few fellow writers are subscribed and I think it’s important to be transparent about these things
If you get sick of the newsletter, you can unsubscribe any time - no hard feelings.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels
Why I started Nice Pear
This newsletter gives me a space to explore the kind of food writing I want to do. It lets me bridge the gap between the topics I write about on my blog (vegan recipes, mostly) and the topics I want to report on as a journalist (wider issues and inequalities in the food industry).
Nice Pear also gives me somewhere to build an audience for my food writing, independent of a specific publication.
I care about:
Food produced by women, BIPOC and other historically marginalised communities
Ethical food supply chains
Issues affecting hospitality workers and independent food businesses
Particularly issues that disproportionately affect the people who tend marginalised in the hospitality sector and in food media
Food equality and ending food poverty
Veganism as a political and environmental movement
Really good cake
About the name
Nice because it's nice to be nice.
Pear is obviously a vegan food (also, avocados are pears and I'm all about that avocado life).
The phrase ‘nice pair’ is reminiscent of the comments I would hear a lot in my late teens and early 20s, and particularly as a woman in the hospitality sector. The idea is to reclaim the misogyny of 'jokes' like that.
The whole vibe I'm going for is like, a feminist vegan dinner party in your inbox.
How you can support Nice Pear
I love writing Nice Pear every week, and it will always be free-to-read, but it does take time and effort to produce.
If you enjoy reading it, there are some (non-monetary) ways you can show your support:
Please share this newsletter! Either on social media (tagging @ZoePickburn on Twitter or on Instagram), by word-of-mouth (Share this link in the group chat or forward the email to a friend you think would enjoy it). Every new reader makes this project feel more worthwhile.
Interact with the newsletter! I see your likes & comments directly on Substack and I genuinely treasure every single one
Give me your feedback! Reply to an email or slide in my DMs to let me know what you think - I’m still pretty new to this and any (constructive! or lovely! not just mean for the sake of being mean!) feedback can help me improve the newsletter
Eventually, I hope to be able to dedicate a full working day every week to the newsletter and deliver more in-depth independent reporting, but I will only be able to do that through monetisation. If you want to support Nice Pear and my other writing financially, you can always
Thanks!
Zoe
Freelance writer & journo | Food blogger & newsletterer (she/her)
Say hello@zoepickburn.com with stories, commissions & foodie chit chat
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.