When Jan Newberry sits in a restaurant to survey and then taste a dish, sentences often start to form in her mind. Half the time, though, “it’s just words falling together, because I’ve read the same ones to describe a dish so many times. I know right away that that sentence is a cliché, and I throw it out.”

Newberry, who has steered San Francisco’s food and wine coverage for a decade, discards a lot of sentences—both her own and those of her writers. She also axes a lot of words within sentences, rowing against the tide of the billions of adjectives spilling from the minds of food bloggers and Yelpers in this 100-year flood of food writing. “I’m looking for something I haven’t heard before,” she says. “It’s getting harder to find.” Here are some of the words that go on Newberry’s chopping block:

Crispy: “‘It sounds like baby talk,’ my first editor told me, and I agree. Crisp means the same thing.”
Foodie: “More baby talk. Plus I hear a preciousness there. Food nerd is better—nerd is no longer a bad word.”
Toothsome: “It’s an archaic way of saying ‘savory,’ and it’s lame.”
Pristine and impeccable: “They make food sound sterile.”
Eatery: “This word exists only to satisfy editors who worry needlessly that they’ve used restaurant too many times.”
Mouthwatering: “Good writers can use it in a way that’s funny or self-referential, but otherwise it’s an instant-cliché adjective.”
Atop: “Presentations have become so architectural, writers try to give physical descriptions—and they all sound the same: ‘atop a nest of’ whatever.”
Locavore: “The first time someone wrote this down, it was funny and original, but then it got seized upon. Now it’s a marketing term.”
Haute: “I use it in headlines—it has a fun sound, you can make puns with it, and it’s a quick way to say ‘high cuisine.’ But it’s a silly word.”
Gourmet: “Also silly. Sounds like the ’70s, the Galloping Gourmet and all that. And it speaks to class division. ‘Gourmet food’—what’s that? Good food is for everyone.”
Alas: “Leave it to Shakespeare.”

On the other hand, Newberry doesn’t reject simple adjectives that others have almost ruined: “When a writer has a very clear voice that’s original and personal, he can write the most overused words in a way that sounds fresh.” Newberry is talking here about delicious (“People try so hard to avoid it, but it’s a perfectly fine word”), vibrant (“It can be a good way to describe a specific dish that has life, where you can see the energy on the plate”), and savory (“an easy fallback for writers who don’t think about what it means, but when it connotes food that’s deeply flavorful, or the opposite of sweet—it works”).

In our 2010 food issue, Newberry picks her annual Best Chef Award winners (“Meal Tickets”); turns our restaurant critic, Josh Sens, loose on the next wave of local chefs (“Shift Change”); and sends our wine and spirits writer, Jordan Mackay, to profile Randall Grahm in his attempt to redeem his winemaking reputation (“A Terroiriste’s Plot”). She hopes all these voices sound understated but strong, set far apart from the bulk of writing in her field. “You can talk about food and wine in a very direct, conversational way,” Newberry says, “the way you would with a friend. That translates to the page much better than when you overthink and overcraft it—or, worse, don’t think about it at all.”