Of all the new jobs created thanks to the great American food frenzy, the most astonishing has to be how-to-start-a-food-blog instructor. Charging for something so free and easy is like paying a restaurant for tap water plus a lesson in how to get it from glass to mouth.
This is the golden age of do-it-yourself publishing, and the bar for entry has never been set lower. Anyone with a computer, a camera and a fascination with the world's most fascinating subject can compete with top food blogs such as Smitten Kitchen and Chocolate & Zucchini. The result has been a proliferation of great-looking blogs showcasing real life and real cooking. No wonder professional food photographers are looking over their digital shoulders.
Even better, food blogs can exploit every form of communication. If you want to write, you can just write. If you want to embed videos, you can embed videos. If you just want to link to other blogs, the blogworld is your oyster.
Getting into the cyber-kitchen used to take money, for every step from registering a domain name to contracting with a server to host a website. It also required expertise worthy of molecular gastronomy -- five years ago, I had to pay a designer who could write HTML code. Now anyone looking to unleash his inner A.J. Liebling can sign up for a free blogging program and start typing.
To prove it, this techno-dunce decided to actually walk the walk into cyberspace rather than repeatedly talking the talk. After five years with a website built by professionals, I set out to create a blog, from choosing a name for it to posting an avatar for myself and compiling a blogroll, the list of other blogs that will pump up traffic to mine. The sense of accomplishment was almost like what comes from cooking a fabulous dinner. Unlike the perfect cassoulet, though, a blog is forever. Even if I commit the all-too-common sin of abandoning it after a few posts, foodfake.wordpress.com will be around long after I am ashes.
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Strong points of view
Google only knows how many food blogs are out there, but the amazing thing about cyberspace is that there is always room for more. (Kiplog.com/food, maintained by a photographer outside Chicago, has an extraordinary list.) A few bloggers have made names with their musings on such niche foods as ramen, pizza or cheese or such trivia as food media and gossip; others have readers who check in daily to see what dinner was the night before. The best have a strong point of view, an easy way with words and something more profound to say than "here's what I ate or cooked."
