This Week in Food (Blogs)

Hello, and welcome to the first (and potentially last) edition of the YIFY Food Blog Roundup. This could probably go in a couple of directions from here. Either it could become wildly popular and create it's own spin-off blog, or I could offend a bunch of people that I don't even know, feel guilty about it, and then go back to blogging about my dog or hard alcohol. Only time will tell. A few of the ground rules:

1. Blogs were selected at random. And by random I mean I'm commenting on the handful that I read regularly, or those that seem to be popular because they get frequent shout-outs in the blogs that I read.

2. If you have your own food blog that you want to be included, or, if there's one that you read and you want me to comment on it, just leave it as a comment. No promises here - remember that this might be the last edition.

3. I'm not trying to be an ass. Really. This is about as edited/filtered as I get. Sorry if it is still in some way offensive. This is the first post where Kate actually has editorial control. Mostly because she's the nicest person that I know.

4. If I write something about you and you don't like it, you can email me and I'll edit the post, print a retraction, or apologize profusely - your pick. But if you don't think it's too painful, I'd say just laugh it off. There may be some symbiosis here eventually. If we hit the big time, then maybe we can help drive traffic your way.

Alright, now that we've got that our of the way, here's your roundup

Blog: Kath Eats Real Food

Blogger: Kath

Kath returned from Africa last week and got back to her normal blogging schedule. I'm not going to lie...life was a little more difficult when Kath was in Africa. Posts were inconsistent. Matt did his best to fill the Kath shaped hole that was left in blogworld, but it was hard on all of us. And when Kath did post, there were comment battles popping up everywhere. It was very difficult.

But now Kath is back and all is right in blogworld. She had a bunch of contests in the past week. I think it might be related to her trip to Africa. I have a feeling that next week she's going to announce that she's actually a Nigerian princess, and if you make a small deposit (of barney butter) into her account, then she can access all of the riches of her motherland and shower you with gold and ivory and probably some oatmeal. Be on the lookout for that, as I think it might be a scam.

Speaking of oatmeal, Kath and Oatmeal were fighting earlier this week. And by fighting, I mean that she chose other breakfast treats for a few days. It was difficult to watch. I felt like I was sitting in the back of the minivan and plugging my ears and saying la la la to myself to drown out the noise of Mom (Kath) and Dad (Oatmeal) fighting. I was worried that I would have to pick sides if they split up for good. I mean, we really like hanging out with Kath and Matt, but Oatmeal and I have such history together. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. Kath and her oats are reunited once again. 

Did I really just write an entire paragraph about someone else's relationship with oatmeal?

[Leaving the United States. Driving North. Going through Customs. Welcome to Canada] 

Blog: Oh She Glows

Blogger: Angela

OSG just launched a "Bikini Body Bootcamp" contest. Basically she's having her readers send in some 'before' pictures in bikinis (along with their measurements) and then they'll have a winner at the end of the thing. I'm trying to figure out how I can show my support. Which of these would be the least creepy?

1. I could take my picture wearing a women's bikini

2. I could go with imitation being the most sincere form of flattery, and also ask my blog readers to send in bikini pictures

3. I could send in my picture wearing a speedo and an "I Glo" baby tee

I think all of the above are pretty creepy, so maybe I'll just send in a celebrity bathing suit picture and say its me. I'd probably go with the famous Tyra Banks or Jennifer Love Hewitt pictures or something like that. 

But best of luck to OSG and the rest of the contestants. I know that bikini season is only about three days long in Canada, so hopefully they've got the scheduling figured out.

Blog: Zestycook

Blogger: Hmm, Zesty, I guess. Mind if I call you that? Perhaps Zest for short...

I have to admit that I don't really read this blog. I'm going to start, I just haven't gotten around to it. But it seems popular and fancy enough so I thought I'd write about it. Also, Zesty is successful in a female-dominated space, and I applaud that. I compare it to my success on the Taylor Swift Karaoke circuit, where it's usually just me and a bunch of women. But since I don't read his blog (yet) this is probably going to be a fairly superficial roundup.

I love Zesty's beautiful bald head - and I don't care who knows it. Have y'all seen his head? It can be seen in all its glory on the "About Zesty" page. It looks so damn smooth. It's probably good that we haven't met yet. I'm 97% sure that I'd start the conversation with "is it cool if I feel your head?" I used to think to myself that I'd much rather have gray hair than go bald, but a couple of things have changed my mind on that topic:

1. I started getting gray hair. And it seems to be coming in on the sides faster than the top. That was not part of the plan. I was hoping for George Clooney, but I'm worried it's going to be more like Grandpa Munster.

2. I saw Zesty's glorious bald head, and thought, yeah, that's definitely better than the Grandpa Munster look that I'm working on right now. 

I promise I'll stop talking about Zesty's head soon, but one more thing on that topic. When I was 14 and had to go to the dermatologist, there was a picture hanging on the wall. It was a side by side comparison of a 50-something plains Indian woman, and a 90-something Tibetan monk. The plains Indian woman spent all of her time in the sun so her face looked like an old catcher's mitt. The Tibetan monk spent all of his time protected from the sun and his bald head looked flawless. For the last 14 years I have been looking for a bald head as flawless as the monk head, and now we have found it...This concludes the somewhat-creepy section of this post where I describe another man's head.

I promise I'll actually read the blog next week so I can actually talk about it instead of Zesty's head. 

[Leaving Canada. Stopping briefly at Duty Free to buy some booze. Next stop = Florida]

Blog: The Inner Workings of a College Graduate

Blogger: Meghann

It's been a very exciting week for Graduate Meghann readers. At long last, Meghann addressed her relationship status. For those of you who haven't been following along (shame on you), Meghann has been spotted out with this guy named Derek, since the Valentine's day time frame, but he has not yet received a title on the blog. So every time Derek and Meghann do something, there are usually a handful of comments saying something like "are you and Derek dating" or "is Derek your boyfriend." 

Well, Meghann finally cleared this up for us. Sort of. In a recent post, Meghann stated:

"Truth is Derek and I discussed it this weekend and we both honestly do not know what to label each other. We both know that we enjoy each other’s company and that we are just seeing how things move from here. There is no rush to produce labels, so one day at a time people! LOL"

Well, that might be good enough for you two, but those of us in blogworld need a label. It doesn't even have to be an accurate label, as long as it is used consistently. So if you don't want to go with 'Boyfriend' or 'Dating', that's fine, but give us something. You can call him the Easter Bunny or the Pope or whatever you want - just give the guy/relationship a title. It can be like a game of blog Mad Libs.

In other Graduate Meghann news, Meghann and her Easter Bunny, Derek went rollerblading this week. Wait, what? How did they do that? Did they get into a DeLorian with Michael J. Fox, get it up to 88 miles an hour and set the flux capacitor for 1996? I can't remember the last time I saw rollerblades, but I'm pretty sure Clinton was in office. I'm not really sure why Rollerblades disappeared. It wasn't like a better technology came along like with the Zach Morris cell phone or the Betamax or laser disc player. People just stopped using them. But maybe Meghann and her Easter Bunny are bringing them back, and I support that. BTW, spellcheck doesn't even recognize 'rollerblades' as a word anymore.

Blog: Eat, Live, Run

Blogger: Jenna

Alright, this will be a short one...mostly because this post is already too long. I don't know what happened here. I went out of town last week and Jenna was like the queen of yoga and every post had something to do with yoga. Then I came back and now every post talks about swimming. What the hell did I miss? It's like someone did a big 'search and replace' on the entire blog and took out Yoga and replaced it with Swimming. I'll get over it, but I feel like it was all really abrupt. It's a good thing that this isn't a 'Single White Female' scenario, otherwise I would've already invested in my own yoga mat and personal Yogi, only to have to switch it up and buy goggles now.

In other ELR news, Jenna and her BF were at the beach, and apparently Jenna's BF is friends with Albert Haynesworth and other professional football players. Now I don't doubt that it's true, but it would be an amazingly funny inside joke if it wasn't. Like he could just give her another random celebrity every week and she would have to weave that person into the blog. Almost like a Barbara Walters-style namedropping (I was horseback riding with the King of Jordan just last week...I was in a hot tub with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). Also, I'd really like to see a photo of Jenna with Albert Haynesworth. And yes, he's the one stomping on the other dude's head. If I was decent with photoshop, I'd make that happen...instead you'll all just have to imagine it in your mind.

Blogging Trends or Stock up/Stock Down (not sure what to call it yet)

Stock Up

Barney Butter

Tempeh

Commenting with ALL CAPS and plenty of !!!!

Fake signatures at the end of posts

30 Day Shred Level II

Stock Down

Yoga

Protein Powder

Labels for boyfriends

Black tar heroin

30 Day Shred Level I

Stay tuned for next week (or next time that I get around to this) when I'll review Brew and Bake, Healthy Tipping Point, Bites and Bowls, and whatever other blogs y'all tell me to write about.

That's all. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.