All that work paid off. Sadly, it has expanded my middle as much as it has expanded my horizons. Food writing is the combination of creative cooking with creative writing. It's joyous and promising. Every dinner I eat out or recipe I create or revise is playtime.
Newspaper editors are always on deadline so they like brief contact.
Some are very responsive and helpful, others leave you hanging, steal ideas and insult you. Overall I've learned to accept the different personalities if I want to write for them. Sometimes it's not worth the hassle, sometimes an editor just isn't social and appears abrupt when he just doesn't have time to waste. It doesn't hurt a writer to be humble and learn patience, just understand where abruptness ends and abusiveness begins. I did expand it to include a lot of other ideas for a potential food writer.