The mission of Basically is, in the broadest sense, to help people feel more comfortable and confident while cooking. We publish one recipe per week, with step-by-step visuals that walk you through the process, as well as articles that go deeper into specific ingredients (like gochujang) and techniques (like poaching chicken breasts).
But cooking doesn’t start and end in the kitchen. We cover everything from navigating the wall of shelf-stable milks at the store to doing the dishes without wasting gallons of water and bottles of soap—and we want to hear from you, too. If it’s cooking-tangential and service-forward (as in: it teaches something!), it can be a good fit for Basically. Pitch us on a technique that changed your pie crust game (hello laminated dough) or a tool that made your life easier or more enjoyable (like this planetary pan cover). Write about why you always keep a bottle of abalone sauce in the door of your fridge, the cookbook that helped you overcome your fear of fish (and how!), or the best way to turn a bunch of wilted basil into a flavorful bright green oil.
Here are a few more specifics:
General pitching guidelines
- Start with a sentence about who you are, with any clips (i.e. articles you’ve written) that you’d like us to look at.
- Please pitch a headline. (This will also help you to figure out if what you’re pitching has a clear hook that makes it compelling.)
- Be as specific as possible. Our articles are generally short (in the 500-800 word ballpark), with one major takeaway. Instead of pitching a tahini tell-all, pitch a story about why you’ve started adding tahini to your favorite granola recipe.
- Think about why you are the best person to write the story and how your personal perspective will factor into the article. If applicable, tell us who you’ll talk to, what sources you’ll reference, and/or where the idea came from. Compensation generally ranges from $200 to $500, based on the length of the piece and how much research and reporting it requires.
- Check to see if we’ve covered something similar recently.
- If there’s a social component that makes sense—let’s say you’re going to write about pajeon and you want to film an Instagram story showing how you make it—let us know and we can figure out how to make that happen, too.
- We’re committed to featuring food, ingredients, and cooking techniques from a wide variety of culinary traditions and to building lasting relationships with BIPOC writers.
A couple of existing rubrics
These are recurring articles that are published regularly and follow a similar structure every time. If you’ve never written for Basically and don’t know where to begin, start here:
7 Day Healthy Meal Plan (June 22-28)
My Anxiety Symptoms Were Ruining My Life
