Using Blogs to Raise Social Awareness
The Leather Gourmet Promotes Sustainable Seafood Online
Oct 10, 2008
A growing interest in sustainable seafood issues and desire to share recipes, tips and resources with each other.
Now in it's second year, Ms. Jacqueline Church's blog event Teach A Man To Fish (TAMTF) takes October's National Seafood Month one step further.
What is a Blog Event?
Her blog event is fairly straightforward. She asks chefs, food bloggers, home cooks and others to contribute recipes and photos to her blog, as well as a statement about why using sustainable seafood is important to them. She then takes all of the submissions, tidies them up, and posts them on her blog. The 'event' is the dialogue that happens around these postings.
Church says that blog events are fairly common, especially in the food blogging community. “The internet gives us an opportunity to have an online coffee klatch, if you will. Share a recipe, have a cuppa, talk about our day. But these events create a certain energy,” Church says. Energy which helps her keep up her fight for sustainable seafood.
Connecting with Readers
When asked about what she, as a writer, takes away from the blog event, here's what Church said:
“As a writer, one seldom has the satisfaction of knowing what our audience is doing with the work we put 'out there'. We may have some stats (number of visitors to our site, page views, or books sold) but we don’t often know what the impact is of something we’ve done.
“I was having this very conversation with a pig farmer I was interviewing for my book. I had his pork and told him how much I enjoyed it, in great foodie detail. He was really touched. It sort of surprised me, but then he said something that really resonated. You know, we believe we’re doing good work here, raising our pigs right, giving the consumer a fine product, doing right by all. But, we seldom get to hear directly from someone like you, a consumer.
“It’s like that with writing, especially in the online medium...
“Also, the fact that many visitors to the site and to the participants’ sites and blogs got the message...we just know the impact is far greater, we touched far more people than just the number of people who submitted recipes.”
Blogging for Social Awareness
Ms. Church says, “If we can raise awareness and just a couple dozen people make different choices in their families, in their choices at restaurants, it has to make a difference.” Using her blog to promote sustainable seafood is one way that she can use her position as a writer to make a change in the world.
She encourages other writers to start up blog events of their own. Her advice to those starting out? “Stock up on coffee!” She says it's a lot of work, but worth it in the end.
Star Chefs Participate
Sustainable Seafood Blog Event boasts an impressive list of participants, including:
- Rick Moonen of RM Seafood in Las Vegas, whose book Fish Without at Doubt is the new seafood bible
- Barton Seaver - then with Hook DC - and a leading sustainable seafood advocate.
- Peter Pahk executive chef at Silverado Resort in Napa Valley - also a leader in sustainability issues.
- Award-winning food writers like Carolyn Jung of FoodGal.com and author Raghavan Iyer of 660 Curries.
- Many food bloggers, personal chefs, and sustainable seafood advocates.
For More Information
To find out more, including how to contribute, check out The Leather District Gourmet blog.
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