Blog will eat itself!

As a self-confessed foodie diva, the whole concept of food blogging intrigues me. When I started blogging back in April little did I know where it would lead? I'm not really sure what inspired me to start a blog; it was really one of those "I could do that" moments and a general curiosity about blogs. I'd never been an ardent diary keeper; I always favoured list writing. I received the odd 5-year diary as a child but was generally more interested in the little lock and key than the prospect of filling all those white pages. I suppose I could have written a lot of lists!

I was aware of blogs; I'd read the much publicised consumer power of blogs and how large corporations were having to pay attention to those bloggers as they posed a threat to their corporate reputation. I guess one of the most famous examples is the fruit-based company that produces little white boxes of music were having aspersions cast about the longevity of their batteries. On discovering that these music boxes had a rather rapid built in obsolescence disgruntled purchasers vented their spleens in their online diaries. The mainstream media then picked up these rantings. Now suddenly everybody was talking about it, a class action ensued and the fruity company were forced to remedy the situation. Suddenly bloggers became so much more powerful. There's also the flipside, the well-known story of Heather Armstrong who wrote (quite explicitly) about her awful boss in her online diary, they found out and her services were no longer required. Her blog is Dooce and the world ‘Dooced’ has now become synonymous with being fired for writing about your company and/or bosses.

The most pleasant surprise about the blogosphere is the virtual community it stems. Your blog is written in isolation but they are so many other blogs writing about similar things and food blogs especially. It seems we all have to eat (well, apart from one!) and so many of us love to talk about and especially share some of the fabulous foodie experiences we've have. So the next logical step was to set up a blog for food bloggers. And I'm sure there are many of these also but I'm most familiar with "Is My Blog Burning?" This particular blog was borne out of a German bloggers idea of suggesting a theme (which was soup) and seeing what favourite recipes other bloggers came up with. These recipes were posted on their original blogs and the German host collected links to all these other blogs on his blog and everyone could click through to all the other recipes. He thought it would be interesting to see the various takes on the soup theme all the different international bloggers had. And now these themed foodie blogging events are a regular thing. And after stumbling across “Is my blog burning?” a while ago I thought I’d have a go at some of the themes myself. The best part of joining in is checking out all the other contributions, visiting their food blogs and adding a few more ‘must visit regularly’ links to your own blog.

So for example, I added my take on Jamie Oliver’s Cauliflower Risotto to the HHIDHD (Hey, hey it’s Donna Hay Day) – on Cavoletto di Bruxelles and have been enjoying checking all those tasty looking risotto, and gained a few more visitors on my site. I also send my first parcel in the latest BBM (Blogging by Mail) event. This BBM is hosted by Dispensing Happiness and is a kind of secret Santa experience. You are given the address of another food blogger and you prepare and send a parcel representative of you, your life and your country to this mystery person. When the parcel arrives, they will hopefully create a post about their parcel and everyone gets to see what everyone else receives. I will hopefully get my mysterious parcel before Christmas and will be able to write about the goodies I’ve been sent. There’s 70 of us food bloggers taking part so it should be fun to see how we all fare.

I also added one of the photos I posted to my blog in October to the DMBLGIT (Does my blog look good in this?) hosted by Spittoon Extra this month, and was lucky to have it chosen as the most aesthetic!

My, don't they like their acronyms? I haven’t taken part in the EoTEoME (End of Month Eggs on Toast Extravaganza) yet. This is a surreal themed end of the month event based around egg and bread. The last one seemed to be about the Da Vinci Code – really it’s anyone’s guess how this one works. There’s also SHF (Sugar High Friday) for when only a dessert will do.

I now feel part of the wider food blogging community and it’s a tasty world out there!