"food bloggers" news and stories

It used to be fairly common for restaurant reviewers to receive notes penned by chefs after a review came out. If the review was favorable, the handwritten missive would be polite and congratulatory. If the review was negative, sometimes the chef -- perhaps oblivious to his posterity -- might unleash invective.

Later, of course, the pen dried up in favor of email as the medium of choice for irate chefs to write to critics, and the practice has continued. In my work with the Village Voice, I personally have received angry emails from chefs, though polite thank-yous still predominate. The waters have further been muddied by the ascendance of blogs as a medium of review, and the rough-hewn quality of criticism they often exhibit. Many chefs have commented, both in public and in private, of their distaste for blog reviews, which often occur just days after a restaurant opens for business, and are hence deemed unfair by the chefs.

Restaurateurs and chefs have decided to fight back. New York chef David Chang banned food photography in his restaurants, in an apparent attempt to keep bloggers from taking pictures of food and posting them with reviews. In a 2008 roundtable discussion conducted by the Chicago Tribune, chefs Graham Bowles and Bill Kim expressed irritation at instantaneous reviews of their restaurants that appeared on foodie websites like Yelp and MenuPages, igniting a debate in the Windy City that continues today.

Tomato and Olympus camera. Photo: Emily Farris.

These days, food porn seems almost to be giving the old-fashioned kind a run for its money. Everyone with a digital camera and an appetite fancies him or herself an amateur food pornographer, which is to say there's a lot of bad food photography out there alongside the good stuff.

Camera companies are catching on to the trend and trying to make a buck, with digital point and shoot models that are manufactured with food photography settings, like this Olympus which has a "cuisine" option, and this Sony, with its "gourmet food" mode. Chances are good that if you purchased a camera recently, it has some kind of food photography option and you don't even know it. If your food photographs are less than porntastic (like the tomato shot here), it might be worth your while to consult your camera's manual or look online to find out.

If you don't have a food setting, don't rush right out to buy a new camera that does.

One pro shutterbug's opinion, after the jump.

• The entire staff of the Philadelphia Inquirer food section has gone through the stacks of cookbooks they received this year and have featured their absolute favorites. Makes me want to head to the bookstore immediately.
• For the bakers on your list, check out these latest cookbooks.
• In addition to training your brain, your Nintendo DS can now teach you how to make dinner.
• This week's Market Basket has got Baked Ricotta di Bufala from Claudio's, head chef tools for kids and Khaya Cookies from South Africa.
• Rick Nichols attends the local food blogger potluck and offers his take on the experience (my online cooking show and the salad I brought get a mention).
• This week, the Rush Hour Gourmet is serving up Pepper Steak.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Philly-area food blogger potluck. I love these gatherings, because it is an opportunity to taste a huge variety of foods, all prepared by people who more than usually interested in such things. At the last potluck, someone had brought a tray of what looked like plain tea sandwiches. Triangles of white bread, crusts removes, and a thin layer of orange-y cheese in the middle.

I steered clear of this particular tray for sometime, a little appalled that someone would have brought something so seemingly basic. Then, as I was talking to a friend, she said, "Have you tried the pimento cheese sandwiches? They are amazing!"

Upon her urging, I walked over to the food table and picked up a triangle and bit in. I discovered that what I had taken for soul-less white bread was actually a bit chewy and sour, with a fresh, newly baked aroma. And the cheese that was holding the slices together? Pimento cheese that was pungent, sharp, tangy and wonderful. These were not my Aunt Doris's tea sandwiches.

Earlier this week, Cookthink ran a post about the many ways that it's possible to reinvent pimento cheese, which made me start thinking of those potluck sandwiches. I think that there is pimento cheese in my very near future.

Source

If you are here reading this post, chances are good that you probably read other food blogs as well. You may even write one of your own. If that's the case, you might be interested in checking out the survey that Shuna Fish Lydon posted about over on her blog, Eggbeater (a favorite food blog around these parts) on Tuesday. An Australian graduate student is researching the impact that food blogs are having on traditional forms of food media. If this sounds like something that floats your boat, feel free to go over here to the survey and participate.

Source