So, FoodBuzz is running a contest to find the next food blog star, called Project Food Blog. There are are series of different challenges and people get to vote on which entry should win, just like those reality shows everyone loves. Well, we couldn’t resist an opportunity for self-permotion, along with some guaranteed product-placement.

Challenge 1:

The first challenge is to talk about your blog, to describe “…what makes your blog unique and sets you apart from other food blog brands”. Now that is a Challenge! Cookography is not some special snowflake of a blog, it is just a place for us to share some of the food we cook, restaurants we try and weird ingredients we find. If anything, instead of having some crazy angle like expat Russians trying to cook every recipe in the Joy Cooking while only using ingredients they raise, we just like sharing things we like.

Even worse than the fact that we don’t really have some crazy angle, I don’t really like writing. Carolyn does the editing, and I do the writing and photos. That is not a good thing for a blogger. I like eating, cooking and taking photos… but that whole writing about food thing I find sort of annoying. Truth be told, I actually find a lot of food bloggers rather annoying. So much of the writing seems contrived; the breathless retelling of food memories they find self-definition from, the bandwagoning of insular trends, and the cult of chefs which they worship (Jose Andres doesn’t count, cause he is awesome).

So what I am trying to get across is that we probably aren’t going to be the next Food Blog Star. We aren’t too good at being part of this self-cheerleading squad. We are about eating and cooking, two things everyone does everyday. It doesn’t have to be something special, unique or obscure, the important thing is that you enjoy it. And that is what this blog is about, those things that we like, not because that is what the blogging mass is currently about, but because we enjoy them.

If you are cool with all this, then give us your vote ! Lets not let the term Food Blogger become a shallow, media driven stereotype.