On Thursday a writer at Food and Wine magazine published an article about food blogs in which he talked about a few food blogs he liked, but repeatedly stated most food blogs are about as interesting as cheese sandwiches. He even picked out a random sentence from blogs he found on Food Porn Watch as examples of why food blogs were so boring.

All this caught my attention in a big way because my blog was one of the ones that he plucked a sentence from and published as an example of boring writing. And as if that wasn’t hurtful enough, he picked a sentence that referred to “herb bloggers” so that everyone in the food blog world would know it was my blog that the sentence came from.

Because I was hurt, earlier I had a snarky post in this spot, but now I’ve calmed down I realize that Pete Wells has a right to express his opinion, but when it comes to food blogs, he just does not get it.

 

Food Blogs are not meant to be slick and shiny like food magazines. Food Blogs are meant to be whatever that particular writer wants their blog to be. Me, I am a fourth grade teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah, who had my life changed forever by the South Beach Diet and wanted to share that with the world. Writing a blog has expanded my life in ways I never imagined possible. The longer I write my blog the more I’m learning, growing, and making connections with other people who love food and enjoy creating a story about what they are eating.

So when I got over being hurt (and it did take me a bit) I realized that whether or not Pete Wells thinks this is a good blog doesn’t matter. Hundreds and hundreds of people every day like my blog and me, and that’s what I’m writing it for. The people who have sent me supportive e-mails or left comments are my friends in ways that the people who read Pete Wells’ magazine stories never will be. That’s what makes blogs the most rapidly expanding medium in the whole gamut of media. It’s the connections that are created, not only among fellow bloggers, but also between a blogger and the people who read that blog!

Starting on Thursday, February 16, you are going to see those connections exhibited in a big way as food blogs all over the world spread the word that cheese sandwiches taste better than hyper-critical food writing. Mr. Wells may wish he had never picked on such a creative and talented group of people.

If you’re a blogger of any type, feel free to join in as we celebrate not only Cheese Sandwich Day, but also the joy of being part of a world-wide community of people sharing ourselves over the internet. And to add to the fun, my supportive and wonderfully creative brother Rand has produced charming icons that people can copy and put on their cheese sandwich posts if they want to.

Now, I think I’ll go make a cheese sandwich. On low carb bread of course.

Note from Kalyn added later: These cheese sandwich uproar continued for a couple of weeks. If you want to read more, here is the Cheese Sandwich chronicles, a series of posts I wrote on the topic:

Cheese Sandwich Chronicles #1 Pointless Cheese Sandwich Meanderings?

Cheese Sandwich Chronicles #2 Into the Belly With The Cheese Sandwich

Cheese Sandwich Chronicles #3 Cheese Sandwiches Are Like Food Blogger Friends, You Can Never Have Too Many (includes a roundup of all the cheese sandwich posts by various food bloggers around the world.)

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