Thursday, February 26, 2009

Getting meta at the WBUR food blogger meetup

Oh em gee dudes. I just returned from the food blogger meetup for WBUR's Public Radio Kitchen and am now going to blog about it. And I probably won't be the only one. How meta.

There was an impressive turnout for this event - maybe 20-30 people from all corners of the blogosphere. There were twentysomething women sharing tips on Twitter with middle-aged ladies, professional writers and chefs mixing it up with cooking hobbyists and graphic designers-turned bloggers, and of course, lots of delicious and sustainable foods to share.

I am such a glutton that I could not even wait until the food event to start eating food, so I scarfed a delicious tofu bánh mì from Pho Viet and some Thai iced tea at Super 88 before I arrived. Yeah. It was probably for the best, since I may have eaten all of Sweet Amandine's eponymous desserts had it not been for my pre-emptive snack attack.

I was pleased to meet people like Pam of Cave Cibum (with whom I write at Bostonist but had never met face to face); sad to find that JJ Gonson was unable to make it (she most assuredly would have added some, ahem, spice to the conversation); and happy to run into my old buddy Andrew Phelps, who's currently shaking things up at WBUR alongside Ken George, the new media production manager for the NPR affiliate. I felt grateful to George for arranging such an inclusive, casual event and for providing both mingling time and moderated discussion about The Future of Journalism. There were plenty of interesting comments (one woman recounted being insulted publicly by Helen Thomas, of all people, who told her that bloggers were going to be the death of journalism). Many well-designed, perky business cards were exchanged. And we all agreed that we should do it again sometime.

Above all this event made me feel grateful for the opportunities I've had in my life, since many people told me how much they would like to "break into" food writing and how insecure they felt because they weren't "real journalists" with degrees or newspaper experience. I don't tend to think in these restrictive terms. But it reminded me that my colleagues, especially the ones just beginning to discover their voices, deserve all the encouragement they can get. We're all in this together, after all.

4 Comments:

Blogger Pam said...

So glad we finally got to meet!

4:56 AM  
Blogger Jess said...

Great write up, Ryan. Thanks so much for the mention! In case you would like the recipe for said eponymous dessert, here you go:
http://sweetamandine.blogspot.com/2009/01/first-love.html
I hope we can meet up again soon!

9:52 AM  
Blogger Joey, Amber, Ken , Ellie, Bruce and Patrick said...

Sounds like a great opportunity!

11:49 AM  
Blogger Ken George said...

Great to have your participating Ryan.

And many thanks for the generous write-up of the event.

Hope you can join us at the next one!

1:15 PM  

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