Why do we need another food blog anyway?

Day two of my blog and I am still excited that I have joined the blogosphere. But I still have reservations about if we need yet another food blog?

I was taken with a comment in an article about blogs in The Age newspaper a few weeks back where one of the analysts commented derogatorily that people just write about what they ate laste night and no one is really interested. (see end of post)

Of course I was black affronted (a lovely Scottish expression I get from my lovely Scottish partner) because I am fascinated by the what-I-ate-last-night blogs. So why have I started a food blog?

The advantages of the internet over cookbooks
Cookbooks are polished and finished. The net is an organic work-in-progress which seems foster cooking by inspiration rather than following a recipe to the letter. (But I will continue to buy cookbooks.)

Plus the immediacy and rough edges of the web also suit me because I never have enough hours in the day and I was told at school that presentation was my weak point.

To express myself
Writing delights and soothes me. So, yes, I anticipate satisfaction at describing the joys and challenges in my cooking. With any luck I will develop my writing skills so you, dear reader, won’t have to put up with mere drivel. But no promises!

A home for my recipes
I need lists, catalogues, databases and systems that bring about order in my chaotic life. Recording my ideas for meals, appeals to me. But, really, it will only add to my miscellany of recipes in jottings, food magazines and cookbooks.

A community of cooks
I love sharing recipes with others. When I couldn’t find a vampire cake to copy and had to create my own on the weekend, I wanted to make it available to all those who were seeking inspiration.

Discipline
To challenge and inspire myself to try new things and record what I do. It is so easy to get into a rut and I hope the watchful eye of the net will give me the little spur I need on lazy days.

To keep in touch with friends and family
Maybe I am too optimistic but I am so slack at keeping in touch that I hope this will be somewhere people can go and get a glimpse of my life (or at least my meals).

Finally, this blog feels light years away from binding my handwritten recipes with wool in primary school. I hope I still have a long way to go…

What I cooked tonight:
And to prove I have a long way to go, here is my photo of dinner tonight.

It doesn't even have a name but it did make me think maybe I should have named the blog - What's In the Fridge? as that is the way I cook some days when I am tired after work and wet from riding home in the rain.

I found the stew in the freezer which I can't remember exactly what I put in it - tomatoes, pumpkin, peas, spices, vegie sausages and beans or lentils. Served it with brown rice and a salad (lettuce, red & green capsicums, cucumber, dill pickle, mushrooms) and my fave dressing of yoghurt, tahini and lemon juice. Plus my potato bread I made on the ANZAC Day holiday last week. (From the freezer also.)

On the Stereo:
Echoes: the Best of Pink Floyd - Pink Floyd

Update 20/5/07 - Hurrah - I found the article - referred to above - in our piles of papers. It was an article in Insight section of The Age on Saturday 7 April 2007, entitled 'The Blogs that Ate Cyberspace' by Dan Silkstone. The quotes which I refer to were

'Then there are the diarists who post pictures of their cats, details of last night's dinner, and other random thoughts as though they were papal pronouncements....So are many bloggers deluded when they think their lives are interesting or worthy of recording? "Of course they are", Rebecca Blood says.'

I could say many things in reply to this woman but it aint worth chewing up more of cyberspace with them, suffice to say that it is a big busy world out there - if she doesn't read it, it doesn't make it worthless.

Related posts:

• Reflections on 2007 blog entries
• Blogging Reflections and Resources (2008)
• Reflections on 2008