I Love Ginger Blog

Cheese sandwich, I wondered.   Here’s how the article begins:

Back in 2001, when the entire blogosphere was powered by kittens on treadmills, a couple of smart-asses began handing out awards for atrocious blogs.  One founder of these Anti-Bloggies confessed to a particular dislike of sites where “someone says something like, ‘Today I had a cheese sandwich.’”  The term “cheese-sandwich” blog quickly became Webspeak for all the dear-diary scribblings that don’t acknowledge, let alone describe, life outside the author’s dorm room.

The columnist goes on to offer advice about blogging, which I was quick to snatch up.  I’m trying to figure this blog thing out.  You may have notice that at least it is easier to get to now.  I didn’t realize it was such a big deal.  Once I did, I had lunch with my web designer and asked her, among other things, make it easier to find the blog.  My own mother is reading blog and it is not my blog!  Imagine that.  She’s hooked on that fat man walking across the USA.  Mom, read MY blog, would you please?

Anyway, I digress, but you know -- I get to say whatever I want – after all – this is MY blog and MY website! 

OK, back to the Food & Wine columnist’s advice on blogging, 4 main points.

1)      Communicate passion.

2)      There ought to be consequences – something should be at stake.

3)      Should be timely.

4)      Needs a sense of purpose.  “Above all, the author should know how to complete the sentence ‘This blog is about ____.”

In case you’re wondering, I do have a sense of purpose, and I can complete that sentence.  I say quite happily, this blog is about GINGER.

Hopefully you didn’t spend too much time wondering what this blog really is about.  Today I want to gingerly tell you a ginger story of a brief ginger moment in time – at the International Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.  In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, I took January off for a combination of vacation and business.  The vacation part included the usual general delights of travel, family, and friends.  The business part was where I took the food show VERY seriously.  3 days, 7 hours a day, approximately 1,200 booths.  This is my idea of heaven – the Moscone Convention Center, filled with food, food exhibits, and foodies.  Heaven! 

Here’s me with my name tag that has my name and Gourmet Lady (that’s my retail shop www.gourmetlady.com) on it.  Most vendors just register the “R” code that means I’m a retailer.  When I spy anything with ginger in it, I stop to introduce myself.  “Hi!!   I have a retail store and also a website called I LOVE GINGER .COM and I’m on the prowl for new products that contain ginger.”  Smart vendors immediately engage in conversation and lure me towards products with ginger.  Others nod blankly and smile politely, and their products won’t be found on my website anytime soon. 

So there I am at a booth.  Out of the corner of my eye, I spy a gentleman whose nametag indicates he is one of those folks who is following current trends in the food industry, and presumably writes about them.  Hopefully more than cheese sandwich blog.  Anyway, I am aware of him and decide to purposefully chat up the vendor.  I do my usual introduction and the vendor is thankfully very interested in the iloveginger website and how it is doing.  “Well!  It is really taking off!  I have to say, I’m having trouble keeping up with all the orders.  I really had to *drag* myself away to come to this food show.”  We get busy gabbing about ginger products and Mr. Industry Trends is quietly fascinated and then joins the conversation, meanwhile scribbling in his little notebook.  Wherever you are, Mr. Industry Trends, you made my day – and thank you for mentioning ginger and maybe even www.iloveginger.com in whatever it is you are writing about.

That’s the end of that brief moment in time.  I’m suddenly hungry for a cheese sandwich.