My First Food Blog

The very first food blog I ever read was Butter Pig.

It was sometime in early 2003, and I was in the midst of reading “The Making of a Chef“, Michael Ruhlman’s adventures as a student at the Culinary Insititute of America (CIA). That’s the CIA, where they teach you how to cook food, as opposed to the other CIA where they teach you how to cook-up intelligence reports. Ruhlman had written a great book, and I was sure that in my next life, I wanted to become a chef (or a food writer).

I decided to google the CIA, thinking I might want to take a class there some day. I found them, but also found Tom Dowdy’s diary of his three months at the CIA. That diary led me to Tom’s food blog called Butter Pig.

I was blown away by what I had discovered. I had no idea such a thing as a blog existed at that time, let alone this chronicle of life in the kitchen. Tom wrote well, cooked a lot of great food and clearly had a lot of knowledge about food, which he graciously imparted to his readers. He seemed to have a lot of friends. So many that he recruits them as sous chefs for his annual parties. Tom also has that whole long hair thing going on, which I kinda’ like. (Of course, if he worked in a restaurant kitchen, then he’d have that whole hair net thing going on. Better keep to the home hearth, Tom…)

I began to read Tom’s blog as often as he posted. And between that and Ruhlman’s book, the whole cooking thing began to feel more accessible, less intimidating to me. I really started to think differently about cooking. I had always copied my mother-in-law Irene’s cooking but always felt that I was doing just that – copying. Now I felt set free to expore more on my own. I had found my own cooking territory.

There was no time in my life for cooking school, but there was time to read food blogs and to cook. I bought the CIA textbook The Professional Chef, got myself some good knives, read some Harold McGee and started to cook more and more. I even began to tape my recipes up on the kitchen cabinets just like Tom does.

For awhile, I only read Tom’s blog. I had no idea there were others out there. Then one day, Tom led me to the Julie/Julia Project, and from there the whole world of food blogging opened up to me. When I hit on Kiplog’s Food Blog list, I knew I had found Nirvana. My world has not been the same since. In fact, I discovered so many wonderful food blogs, that I am ashamed to say I somehow lost track of Butter Pig.

Today, however, I stumbled upon Butter Pig again. And it was like coming home. Maybe it’s because Tom was my first. Or that his friends are always around. Or that he shows himself cooking in so many of the photos. Or that his site hasn’t really changed since I first found it. Or the whole long hair thing.

Whatever, it’s good to see you again, Tom. I love Butter Pig.

My apologies to Salvadore Dali for multilating his painting “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus”.

Category: Food