Food Blogs: Peaked Yet?

[russ parsons]

On one level that's surely the case -- you love what you do, and think it's fun -- but on another level I've got to question the absoluteness of the statement. As an analogy, a porn star might say "there is no separation between what i do for a living and what i do for fun," but there's still a difference between recreational sex (where you choose your partner, and maybe even like the person) and sex for hire (on camera, on demand, with whomever they tell you to do it, in whatever position they say, even if you don't feel like it at that moment). As someone who has done it both ways -- writing, that is -- I can say that recreational writing offers many rewards, not least of which is near-complete freedom and independence. And that's not the same as, "My editor gives me tons of freedom." When you're blogging, nobody has to give you anything -- you just take it.

←

well, admittedly, i am in an extremely privileged position. i would be the last to deny that. and without belaboring your metaphor, that's not quite how things work for me. it's more like i either come up with things that i want to do or my editor says "would you like to do this?" and i either say yea or nay.

granted, story edits are rarely much fun, but i really shiver at the thought of my words being loosed on the public without the benefit of someone else taking a look first. i am neither a poet whose prose cannot be touched, nor so supremely confident that I must have the last word on everything. as painful as edits might be, i've had far more stories improved than damaged--and if i think a suggestion would hurt the story, i'm never shy about speaking up.

Granted, as I'm sure FG is itching to point out, mine is not a typical experience. i have been doing this for 20 years with some success, so i have more freedom than a freelancer just starting out. and, frankly, before that I was usually a one-person food section so I could write pretty much whatever I wanted, too. this isn't to brag, just to point out that there are alternative experiences to the porn star metaphor.

[Fat Guy]

I think you need to try blogging, Russ.

[Carrot Top]

I think at this point some editors should post who are willing to work for food.

(As in, "The world of food blogging eagerly awaits your services" )

Edited March 20, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Sam Salmon]

Looking through my Bookmarks I was struck by the numbers of places that looked interesting but I've rarely returned to-of course there are dozens of Blogs bookmarked.

←

Why do you not return to them, Sam? What is it that keeps your finger from making that click of destiny?

←

Too much of the same old/same old-for instance I've been to Trinidad/ate the food/ate regularly in a Trinidadian restaurant here in my 'hood for years.

Once that place went under I visited the blog and few times and saw too much of the past and no fresh ideas.

The problem I have with this thread is that I've found new exciting places to bookmark!

And as always there are only so many hours in a surfing session.

Some wonderful insight here so far-Thanks to everyone for their contributions and for keeping the thread on topic.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

And that's not the same as, "My editor gives me tons of freedom." When you're blogging, nobody has to give you anything -- you just take it.

←

Ahhh, writing for that type of editor would seem like a beautiful thing! My first edited almost nothing I wrote and I felt very special -- at first. When I read those first few clips, I wonder what in the world she was thinking of.

As someone who hasn't seen her own byline for a while, I still have to agree with russ parsons. I love to write. Mr. FB loves to do executive searches. I'm sure FG still loves the law. Would you do any of that for free, on a regular basis? Why? For the most part, value is assigned by people to a product they have to pay for, or try to get access to. And honestly, has any blogger ever roused the response that Mr. Bruni does on a regular basis? (again, please correct me if I'm wrong!)

[PamelaF]

Must have been a slow news day, because the headline story on the front page of today's San Francisco Chronicle is a story on food-blogging:

Food bloggers dish up plates of spicy criticism

The article covers lots of interesting ground: the damage that on-line reviews can do to a new restaurant, restaurants offering to comp meals for prominent bloggers, review sites offering restaurants paid ads that feature good comments, can a restaurant sue a web site.

[CaliPoutine]

I started my foodblog as a way to document what I cook. Nothing more, nothing less. If I don't get comments, it doesnt bother me at all.

Lately I've started posting pictures from the parties we cater at work( I'm a sous chef). I actually receive less comments on those entries than my personal entries.

I've had my blog for almost 2yrs and I think I'll always have it. I enjoy looking back at some of the meals I've prepared and remembering them.

[Davydd]

I'm an accidental blogger. It started a little over a year ago experimenting with the Macintosh iWeb software to see how easy and how fast I could create a website. That was basically my iPhoto photo gallery of vacations and grandchildren for my relatives. Then I got the wild idea to post a gallery of breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches that I had been taking pictures of for posting in another forum's message thread that had been kept alive since 2003. I was just part of a gang perpetuating a message thread. One particular breaded pork tenderloin sandwich caught the eye of the Minneapolis StarTribune WebSearch writer, Randy Salas. He said once he saw it (World's largest at the St. Olaf Tap, IA) he knew he had to feature it. He did but also mentioned that I did not comment on them. That comment of his was a challenge. Also, hits and emails from Salas' feature exploded. I'm not a writer and god knows I've had emails correcting my grammar, I blogged anyway simply to chronicle all the questions and requests that were coming in about the photo gallery.

Blogging has connected me with cousins and relatives whom I've had no contact in over 40 years. It garners me email from all over the country especially from Midwesterners who moved away to the south or the coasts. It has been fun. I get tips. I get requests to visit. I've used it as an ice breaker at work as you can read in my last two blogs. People seem to get into it because it is so unusual. After all it is not hamburgers and pizza that everyone knows about. It is also a vehicle for studying the dynamics of the web from a personal standpoint so I do unabashedly promote it to see what effects result in hits, email and links.

When the Super Bowl came around interest exploded again. Newspaper food editors around the country knew Chicago hot dogs and deep dish pizza but were puzzled by what food represented Indianapolis. They soon zeroed in on the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich and Googling led right to me. The Minneapolis StarTribune feature probably boosted me to the top of the relavence list. I filled many a request for information and got cited several times. With all the calls and emails I decided to help it along and invented the mini-tenderloin Super Bowl snacks and blogged it the week before. Hits increased again to the point Apple was going to shut down my site because I would exceed my .mac bandwidth allowance of 10 GB per month. I gambled not paying extra money and it ended at 9.91 GB. Oh yes, people actually made those mini-tenderloins for the Super Bowl and let me know.

It's calmed down again. It's just a sandwich few ever heard about. I'll pick it up again in May when I blitz Indiana on vacation. I don't expect this to last forever. There are only so many sandwiches you can eat. But it has been a blast and it is strictly a hobby.

[Diner Girl]

But it has been a blast and it is strictly a hobby.

←

And that's what makes reading certain blogs so much more enjoyable... when you can tell the person is doing it purely because they love it -- not for the big book deal or whatever other motivation comes to mind. The food blogs I enjoy reading most are the ones written by people who do it as a side thing and let their "voice" speak for itself.

[Carrot Top]

I'm curious as to what "Serious Eats" is considered to be, by most. A professional blog, or something else? What would you call it? Is it a horse of a different color, or not?

←

I think the challenge with taxonomy is that most observers don't have the patience to pay attention to the fact that the larger web efforts are multifaceted. I mean, take the eGullet Society's webspace. It's virtually impossible to get anybody in the press to describe the Society or any of its web services accurately. We're constantly seeing things like "I used to be really into all the blogs, like eGullet" (that's a quote from an article about Grant Achatz). Our web pages are often cited as eGullet.com even though we shifted to .org years ago. So, I'm sure the poor folks at Serious Eats have the same problem, because they provide so many different services, including blog aggregation. The problem when you're a category-defying effort (like we have here, and like Serious Eats is) is that everybody still puts you in a category.

←

I've decided in my own mind to title Serious Eats a "blogeteria". A collection of many things, laid out nicely, easy to access.

[MarketStEl]

As someone who hasn't seen her own byline for a while, I still have to agree with russ parsons.  I love to write.  Mr. FB loves to do executive searches.  I'm sure FG still loves the law.  Would you do any of that for free, on a regular basis?  Why?

←

Would you consider this writing?

Even though the tone and style of the material here approximates conversation, it does involve composition, even if it's not thought out in advance, and that's close enough to writing for me.

And since we've heard of eGers being offered paid work based on the strength of things they have posted here, other people apparently consider this writing too.

[TAPrice]

Personally, I don't consider it writing if it hasn't been rewritten. Honestly, this is why I'm less enthusiastic about blogs these days. Writing is a hard slow, process for me (I know others do it with more ease). Given the choice between reading a considered and edited article and a blog post that runs on far too long, I choose the article. And if I read too many blog posts, I no longer have time to read the articles.

[Carrot Top]

And since we've heard of eGers being offered paid work based on the strength of things they have posted here, other people apparently consider this writing too.

←

Can you give the examples of whom you are speaking of in the phrase written above please, Sandy? I'm curious.

Personally, I don't consider it writing if it hasn't been rewritten.

←

Most bloggers are writing more in the style of personal journaling, perhaps? Blogging seems to have that sort of personality as a natural trait, unless one actually *tries* to stretch it.

[TAPrice]

Don't get me wrong, some bloggers produce writing as good as you'll read anywhere. I assume many of these carefully polish their prose.

I think I've just been overwhelmed by too many people who write too much. By this point, I skip most blog posts that run longer than a paragraph. A few years ago, blogging seemed more exciting and my tolerance for long posts was higher.

I've also realized that I'm more likely to learn something from an article with reporting than blog posts that (almost never) have any reporting.

[Carrot Top]

I've also realized that I'm more likely to learn something from an article with reporting than blog posts that (almost never) have any reporting.

←

So your hopes from a blog would be to find reportage (if that's a word ).

What did you think of the Julie/Julia thing?

Did you bother with it at all?

I'm curious because it did end up being one of the most famous/successful blog concepts that I've ever heard of (though there may be others that I simply do not know about . . .)

[Carolyn Tillie]

And since we've heard of eGers being offered paid work based on the strength of things they have posted here, other people apparently consider this writing too.

←

Can you give the examples of whom you are speaking of in the phrase written above please, Sandy? I'm curious.

Actually, I was -- but that was seriously before the rise of the personal blog. I started the first wine blog (tracking the growth of a wine from sprout to harvest in 2004). I actually got a ton of writing contracts then; Hugh Johnson's World of Fine Wines Magazine, Gayot.com, the Napa Register, etc...

Three years ago, there were only a handful of blogs and very few of them were food-centric. But you have to remember how the 'net has changed in three years. If you look at eGullet's traffic on Alexa (putting in a comparison of eGullet.com vs. eGullet.org and then clicking on the 5-year link), you will see that the traffic reached a peak at the end of 2003 and going into 2004. Since then, blogs have taken over and that is where the new writers are coming from. Less and less from sites like this.

Edited April 5, 2007 by Carolyn Tillie (log)

[FabulousFoodBabe]

Would you consider this writing?

Even though the tone and style of the material here approximates conversation, it does involve composition, even if it's not thought out in advance, and that's close enough to writing for me.

And since we've heard of eGers being offered paid work based on the strength of things they have posted here, other people apparently consider this writing too.

←

Coming in late, here ...

To me, it's not professional writing if you are accountable to no one else. It needs to be edited, you need to back up what you've written. I can say that Cool-Whip has a half-life of 10,000 years but if I can't back it up with a reliable source, it's just me, yakking.

Purging all over the page is a diary to me and while it's sometimes amusing, it's not "writing."

as for the eG people who have been offered paid work based on their writings, to that I say, "now you're a pro."

[snekse]

Coming in late, here ...

To me, it's not professional writing if you are accountable to no one else.  It needs to be edited, you need to back up what you've written.  I can say that Cool-Whip has a half-life of 10,000 years but if I can't back it up with a reliable source, it's just me, yakking.

Purging all over the page is a diary to me and while it's sometimes amusing, it's not "writing." 

as for the eG people who have been offered paid work based on their writings, to that I say, "now you're a pro."

I'm asking because I honestly don't know the answer to this.

How much fact checking, editing and accountability are applied to editorial columns?

[Fat Guy]

FFB, to me that's an outmoded distinction. I think the web has shattered whatever old rules distinguished amateur and professional writing. At this point, unless you use the old Olympics system -- "If it's for money, it's professional" -- you're not going to get very far with distinctions based on quality and accountability. There's less quality and accountability in a lot of print publications that pay money than there is at a lot of unpaid online publications. There are also plenty of "professional" blogs, where editing is minimal.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

FFB, to me that's an outmoded distinction.

What can I say? I'm just an old-fashioned girl.

I think the web has shattered whatever old rules distinguished amateur and professional writing.

Of course you believe this! If you didn't defend it, well, there goes your blog ...

At this point, unless you use the old Olympics system -- "If it's for money, it's professional" -- you're not going to get very far with distinctions based on quality and accountability.

I'm really not trying to get far with this. I'm not trying to get anywhere. The "blogs" I read are either people I know and like, or pros like Ruhlmann, Liz Johnson, or the dude from New York Magazine. People who learned the right way first. ::ducking::

I still think that Bruni wouldn't cause as much fuss if he wasn't in print.

[russ parsons]

i do wish that all writers--bloggers or not--would get the opportunity to work with a talented editor at least once in their careers (do bloggers have careers?, interesting question). in 30 years of journalism (jeez, now almost 35), i've worked with some really bad ones and some terrific ones. unfortunately--but not totally--you generally get better editing as you move further up the food chain, when you tend to need it least.

[barolo]

And since we've heard of eGers being offered paid work based on the strength of things they have posted here, other people apparently consider this writing too.

←

Can you give the examples of whom you are speaking of in the phrase written above please, Sandy? I'm curious.

I can't speak for Sandy, but Chad Ward was given a book contract to a large degree on the strength of his eGullet writing on knives: An Edge in the Kitchen

[Marlene]

eGullet has never been a blog, and The Daily Gullet and eCGI has spawned a few people who have had articles or books published. Monica Bhide, Andy Lynes, and Maggiethecat to name a few.