Three Layer Cake

It seems irreverent to confine a description of his work to those two words—magazine editor –because he has performed (with excellence) every possible duty someone in that role might be tasked with from the creation of a title, Food Illustrated, (which one year later, in 1999, was picked up by the UK food giant Waitrose and is now Waitrose Food Illustrated) to the 2001 launch of delicious.  In a ridiculously short time, delicious. has already become Australia’s third highest selling food magazine, beating out titles which have been in the market for many many more years.  It was in fact so successful, it was successively launched in the UK under the same title.  (Hence, Neale’s current title, International Editorial Director).  He has even spent time at the helm of the world’s first food magazine and finest centre piece in food publishing, Vogue Entertaining + Travel.  

It only made sense then that Neale would draw on his unique and undeniably successful talents at writing, editing, developing eye-catching format, and recognizing good food and good 'foodies' to write his own book.  The book strikes the right balance between cookbook and storybook.  Even if you're not into food or food-related things but you're just into enjoying life, the book will make you laugh and inspire you professionally and personally.  Its only downside is that it is a little bit too heavy to rest against the steering wheel in rush hour traffic to be able to turn the pages without sounding the horn every so often, which is exactly what I did (start reading it in rush hour traffic) when it came in the mail from amazon.co.uk.  If only it were so easy to 'accidentally' be as good as he is (or any of the people he interviewed)...

Note:  Neale has since moved from FPC Magazines (12/05) and is Creative Director (across the media side of bills) for Bill Granger.