I attended my first-ever bloggers get-together last night. I was a bit apprehensive as I’d never met a group of bloggers before and I had images of nerdy trainspotter-types talking about the latest piece of IT kit. Thankfully I was wrong.
It helped that we met at an Italian wine tasting. Nothing like booze to liven things up. Of course there were nibbles too, and to accompany a glass of Bisol Prosecco Crede NV, out came ‘baccala’. It looked suspiciously like Portuguese dish bacalhau, tasted like it: damn it was bacalhau. Now I’ve always believed the dish was a Portuguese invention and a quick google search of its history puts its roots in Portugal. It turns out salt cod has been produced for at least 500 years as a way of preserving the fish in many different Mediterranean countries. But this was before we were blessed with the wonder of refrigerators. Why then, must we still endure this terrible stuff? To give it credit, it did work well with the Prosecco.
Most of the bloggers were foodies and I wondered where all the wine bloggers were. Too busy writing their blogs? I came to the conclusion there are simply more foodies. But if blogging is the future and traditional media is on the decline, surely there should’ve been more drinks bloggers, especially at a wine tasting.
I also note I was the only one there who actually makes a living from writing. While I don’t make any money from my blog – yet – the likes of Jamie Goode do, and as commissioning budgets are slashed, other drinks writers ought to get more involved in this network of bloggers to give themselves a better chance of surviving in the long-term.
Other bloggers to look out for:
Niamh Shields’ eatlikeagirl
Rob Mackintosh’s wineconversation.com
Stephen and Kerri’s dinnerdiary.org
