The Food Blogger's World

Pictured here: one of the roosters at TLC Ranch. NOT the one that jumped on Jim Dunlop's leg with his big spur, almost puncturing Jim's boot (and his leg). That rooster was upside-down and being throttled (not to death) within seconds. You can tug on Superman's Cape, you can spit into the wind, you can pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger but you don't mess around with Jim.

So this post is about being a food blogger, and doesn't have much to do with farms in particular, so feel free to skip it if it's not your cuppa.

A few weeks ago, there was a storm causing some ripples in the international community of food bloggers. Two, actually. The first was when Food and Wine magazine columnist Pete Wells, wrote an article, "In the Belly of the Blog," ostensibly about food blogs.

I say "ostensibly" because three of the so-called blogs he cited are not actually blogs at all. Saute Wednesday, the Food Section, and Regina Schrambling's ramblings, aka Gastropoda, are more information clearinghouses. This is not a criticism, but merely reality. Wikipedia defines a blog thusly: "A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order." It also says: "Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular 'area of interest,' such as Washington, D.C.'s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences." I think anyone who reads food blogs can tell the difference between Saute Wednesday and, say, 101 Cookbooks. Heidi always offers an anecdote or a vignette from her life before posting a recipe and a beautiful photograph. This is commonplace among food bloggers.

But I digress.

Pete's article ruffled some feathers, and with good reason. He seems to have spent maybe five minutes picking blogs at random from Food Porn Watch and, not liking what he saw, used some quotes from the blogs proving how lame are food bloggers. In general. So with exaggerated sentences like "Today, eating a cheese sandwich qualifies as a hot scoop for legions of bloggers," Pete tarred and feathered hundreds of people, happily blogging along in their own little world, with a single brush.

The authors of some of the "offending" blogs came forth at Food Blog S'cool, a forum for food bloggers started by the Patron Saint of Food Bloggers, the beloved Sam Breach of BecksPoshNosh. (You'll find there Sam's explanation for having removed a discussion of Pete Wells that very nearly turned into a lynch mob, except that cooler heads prevailed. And I'll be returning to Sam shortly.) The food blogging community ultimately decided to turn the other cheek, and thus was born a movement for everyone who wanted to, to participate in Cheese Sandwich Day.

I like the creativity involved in this campaign, frankly, and appreciate the bloggers who could separate the chaff from the grain in the Food and Wine piece. Because you know it's true: there are so many blogs that have insufferably bad photography and mundane content. I saw one who reviews packaged cake mixes, for God's sake. Yes, I consider that a waste of bandwidth. Sue me.

Anyway. Cheese Sandwich Day came and went, and other bloggers offered their own insight into the ripples through our world.

FumblingFoodie: "Wells has barely scratched the surface of the blogosphere. If he dug deeper, he would find virtual communities teaming with intelligent life. Something profound is going on here. The linking between blogs, the camaraderie between bloggers, and the conversations across multiple blogs form the metaphorical protozoa of a whole new kind of network or communications medium. Blogs and the Internet are to traditional mass media as the telephone is to television. Blogs are the people's network."

Madeleine: "So while I do agree that the world of blogging can become so self-referencial that it becomes a bore & a burden on the history food writing (I am, therefore I blog) but there is so much to the "information highway" that is useful, valiant & inspiring."

Running with Tweezers: "I blog because it is the catalyst for experimentation and challenges in the kitchen. I blog because I am inspired by beautiful blogs like Chubby Hubby and Delicious Days. I blog because I learn something new every day from blogs like An Obsession with Food and 101 Cookbooks. I blog because I meet great people, like Ali at Something So Clever. I don't know about you...but that looks like some serious cooking, serious photography, and serious writing. No sense of purpose!?!"

SaltShaker: (One of the better responses, all in all, to the Pete Wells article.) "His article had many valid points about the quality of writing and the content of many food blogs out there. But, in my view, he completely misses the point of blogging. He seems to feel that while blogging allows anyone to jump in and share their life and viewpoint, that they shouldn’t really be allowed to. “Listen up, bloggers: Nobody cares what you had for lunch today!”. He’s just plain wrong. Hundreds, often thousands, of people do care, or at least have a passing interest. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t read the blog, they wouldn’t comment on it, they wouldn’t correspond with the blogger. Is it logical that someone cares what any one of us had for lunch on any particular day? Who knows? But they do. And, over time, blogging is both self-selective and peer-selective. Someone who is truly a bad writer will probably give up on their blog at some point - either because of a personal lack of interest in maintaining it, or because they get hammered enough times by commentors, and they get tired of it."

And then Andrea Strong herself responds directly to Pete Wells, who culled a quote from her blog that was, well, a cheap shot. (I didn't know she had a blog, but I'll subscribe. Andrea pulls no punches, and she is smart and well-informed.) Wells doesn't come across looking like he really knows what he's talking about.

So then.

That is Brouhaha #1. The auxiliary aspect of this scenario is that Sam Breach took some hits on the chin for having the temerity to have removed some hot-headed posts (including my own) from Food Blog S'cool. I have no problem with anything Sam has done, because I trust her. I was a smartass and I'm glad she removed my words. They didn't help.

And now Brouhaha #2 in the food bloggers' world, which started earlier this month. You can start at the KQED Food Blog website, where Shuna Fish Lydon's report about some food bloggers giving a presentation at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco stirred up some passionate feelings about whether or not food bloggers have, or are, a community. Frankly, it's astounding to me that anyone could think that we are not a community, as we occupy a virtual neighborhood with friendships, interests, and experiences that span the globe. The community exists because of the commonality, and isn't destroyed by antipathy or lack of harmony between any members. (Not everyone gets along with their neighbors, huh?)

I saw one of the food bloggers who had spoken at the Commonwealth Club accuse food bloggers who didn't attend of being jealous, which was hotly contested (and rightly so) by another food blogger. Boy, it was rocky reading, and most of it's been deleted. My own comment stands, in response to "Why weren't there more food bloggers there to applaud us?": "I didn't attend that event for reasons of my own. I like Bruce Cole and appreciate his work, think the world of Heidi Swanson and what she's created (forum, blog, photography!), and never fail to learn something while enjoying Alder Yarrow's good stuff. But a panel didn't interest me, not under those circumstances. I think I already know what's happening with food blogging because I read my feeds...186 of them! (The vast majority are food blogs, of course.) The audience would, in my eyes, include people curious about food blogging, and I can satisfy my curiosity by reading my feeds and their comments."

Shuna Fish Lydon commented: "Call me crazily naive but I think 'community' is a positive word. It doesn't mean we all think alike, act alike, look alike, write alike, dress alike et cetera. Perhaps because I come from the professional chef community which tends to be much more competitive, I found food bloggers to be, overall, more communal, more helpful, more friendly and more social. I liked it, it was a nice change." (Well said, Shuna.)

Once again, Sam took some direct hits from people who questioned her motives for having had second thoughts about her own comments, and having deleted them. Sam then posted that she was going to be withdrawing somewhat from blogging.

Where am I going with all this? I have no scientific evidence or even actual stats, but I believe I have experienced a sag in the food blogging community. It doesn't seem that people are posting as much lately.

• • • • • • • • • • •

I've been thinking about community, and my own identity as a blogger. When I started Small Farms: A Blog from the Heart last April, I didn't think of it as a food blog. That has changed. The first time I really felt like a food blogger was when Sam herself appointed me Bay Area Blogger of the Week back during the Eat Local Challenge in August.  That felt really good.

I experienced another shift in consciousness when I began using Bloglines back in September. Having an efficient system to run through the blogs I liked enabled me to quickly acquaint myself with other bloggers, and the more I read, the more I came to realize that I had outgrown the idea I used to have: that bloggers are egotistical, shallow, opinionated, and vain (and sometimes with bad photography skills). We are all opinionated, though. (Heh.) I started reading more blogs and posting in online forums less. Mine is a bigger world with the blogging community.

I started responding to blogs with my own comments, usually just a drive-by saying how much enjoyment I'd derived from a particular post. Blogging can feel lonely when you first start out. Where are my visitors?, I would think, sullenly looking at my stats. And I started recognizing other bloggers from their comments. I learned who cares about sustainable, farmy stuff, and who could give a rat's patootie and would just rather eat food from a box.

One episode in particular defined the food blogging community for me. It was none other than the "Name That Sheep" contest at FarmgirlFare. As the days rolled on, the list of visitors began to read like a Who's Who of food bloggers. This charming little event galvanized the community, and 137 comments, many of them hilarious, were posted. (Am I right? Could you believe all the interest in naming a piece of living mutton?)

As the months rolled on, I found myself getting to know people via their blogs, and via their own comments to my blog and others. It began to feel like a party, with people entering and leaving the room I was in. You never see everyone at once, but you know they'll visit soon. And sometimes the uncommon visitor would leave a comment to their own blog, and I'd get to go make a new discovery that I could turn other people onto. (Harriet's Tomato being a happy example of that phenomena.)

So...Sam's laying low, and I think I''m seeing a sag in the community. Coincidence?

I'll say again, there is not a single person on this earth who has been a better food blogger or cheerleader for us, than Sam Breach. She set up Food Blog S'cool so we can help each other. As the Quakers say, "Many hands, light work." It's also true that "many brains, good ideas." I have received so much help with my own blog, as the learning curve for Typepad has been steep indeed. Tell me there is a better definition of community than a bunch of people with a common interest, not competing with each other, but helping—suggestions, tech support, tips and hints and absolutely arcane knowledge that a visitor from 1950 would have a difficult time understanding our language. "You need to tweak your CSS tags, and make sure you use the right Technorati terms." 

I'm just saying.

Sam, your blog as a reflection of you has been an inspiration to me. You're diligent, thorough, and god knows, irreverent. Your wit and kindness are like Vitamin B (for Blog) to so many of us. I'm not speaking for everyone, because we're not all under the same roof, despite our commonality. Speaking for myself, I miss my daily dose of BecksPoshNosh, and I completely respect your need to do otherwise. I am being selfish.

• • • • • • • • • • •

I'm just in a sentimental mood, and tender, from the circumstances in our family over the last few months. It reached some resolution last week, and the dust is settling. I've found that writing in my blog has been a lifeline to sanity and a good world, and for that, I am most appreciative.

And now, it's time to take Logan to his daycare. I let him have an extra-long morning at home so that he could reset his little emotional meter. Oh, I love this boy.

That's all for now.

• • • • • • • • • • •

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "If you support the community, they will support you." —Jerry Greenfield

• • • • • • • • • • •

Thanks for visiting.

P.S. I hate the word "blog" passionately, and would like to spank the person(s) who popularized it. There. I said it.

Comments

[Cy]

Some blogs are way too self-absorbed, and it is sad to think that the writer and/or any others care about the mundane thoughtless aspects of "its" existence. And, extrapolate that to what is wrong with the world today.

[stephen]

Hi Tana...nice post..I love your thoughtful, well-ruddered approach to the issues in our community...hope things continue to improve on the home front...

best, Stephen

[mary g]

I have noticed, too, that some of my favorite bloggers are posting less. I was wondering if it might be as a result of having other food-related projects that have come about because of their blogs?

[clare eats]

I really liked this post. I to believe that community is a good thing, we may have different agendas but ultimately we are all linked by one love FOOD!

[cookiecrumb]

I'm new (ish) to blogging, and I'm already seeing an ebb to the tide. There seemed to be a private, insy group at first. Then they resented the arrival of the arrivistes, and circled the wagons. To them, new food bloggers were "AOL," naive, intruders. Established food bloggers wanted to distance themselves from the rest of us.
Well. It's the Internets. Wide open.
Whaddya gonna do?
Nice, Tana. Food for thought.

[melissa_cookingdiva]

Wow, Tana, I loved this post.

I have been already enough time in the food blogosphere to understand and join you in this cause.

Hugs from Panama :)
M

[Greg]

I've seen a number of mainstream comments about bloggers..most negative.Bruni took the if you can't beat em join em theory. There's always room for independent thought what ever the technology.