Happy Easter!

This morning, during a disgracefully long lie-in, it struck me exactly why I love food blogging ... it may sound very obvious, but I love the way it puts you directly (and immediately) in touch with the people and ideas you want to follow up. It means you find out about the way life is really lived by other people, nothing is filtered out by the metropolitan elite who run our media, and who like everything to be how they like it to be.










I had this thought because of an offhand comment I read yesterday on domestic cat's blog: introducing her recipe for rolled chicken with spinach, she said "It is such a well-known dish, there is almost no need for a recipe." I've never made it ... ever. And I'm not sure I've ever really heard of it, either. But now I really want to make it, and I'm sorry that I've already bought the ingredients for a fish pie tonight.

This is related to the question Ilva at Lucullian Delights posed a couple of months ago: do food bloggers need editors? The answer, as far as I am concerned, is a resounding NO - blogging is not the same as writing a book or newspaper column, or making a television programme; it's a lot more exciting precisely because it's raw and unfiltered, and you can take it in any direction (rather like a food bloggers' event, really!). I'm sorry I can't find the exact post, because there were some interesting comments.

These days when I want to find a particular recipe, I look increasingly to the blogosphere first - although you'd never think so if you looked at my collection of recipe books. So this morning, I have weeded out a large boxful, and I'm going to take them to the charity shop on my way to buy coffee, which I forgot to get yesterday, and which gives me an excuse to go to the deli for it rather than the supermarket.













Writing this reminds me that I need to update my favourite blogs, because the list is out of date (and almost as untidy as my bookcase!). Here's one, an Easter present to you all, the not-quite-truthfully named Venice Daily Photo (to tell you the truth, I'd like two or three photos a day of Venice of this quality). Not quite food blogging, I know, but, all the same, food for the soul.

Happy holidays!