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On overcast days I feel that way about restaurant blogging, which boomed in an explosion of populist Internet enthusiasm a few years ago. But the reality was that much of it was done with at least one eye on a career, and many of Chicago’s restaurant bloggers—like Michael Nagrant of Hungry Magazine, Carly Fisher of Chicago Brunch Blog, and, uh, me—have mostly had professional gigs since, while others just faded away after a season, like the subjects of this Reader piece two years ago. The blog moment passed; genuinely amateur commentary moved to social media, where it was easier to find an audience and get instant gratification for one’s (much shorter) wit or insight.
“When sites like Chowhound, eGullet, LTHForum, etc, started there really weren’t many places to make your voice heard about food,” says Josh Steinfeld, a compensation consultant whose blog is Stuff I Eat. He participated on all of them, but in time came to feel that an open platform like Twitter was “far more democratic—with Yelp and sites like that there are a lot of sacred cows, politics, etc, that I think get in the way of productive discussion.
Ultimately, for all of these bloggers, blogging what you eat is a personal endeavor for which readership, influence, or anything else is very much a secondary issue. Wendy Aeschlimann, an attorney, launched her blog, Travels & Tables, after a trip to Lima to check out its much-vaunted dining scene. “I feel like I lost the opportunity to capture some of my travel or eating experiences when I wasn’t blogging. After going to Spain last year and eating at some great restaurants and touring some awesome wineries, and later talking with people about it, I thought that this is kind of exactly what a blog is for—to place your pictures and capture your thoughts.”
