Il Forno

Blog triff Gastro: German food bloggers meet

Food needs company, so what better than a meeting of food bloggers and food blogger readers? A few days ago I received a friendly mail from Thorsten, who writes Speisekarten-Blog, inviting me to join other fellow food bloggers in Wolfsburg on the 26th of February for this Blog trifft Gastro event, taking place during a relaxed lunch in the restaurant of the local Ritz Carlton Hotel.

I really hope to be there, it would be my first real-life meeting with other bloggers. I must admit that I know almost no other German food Bloggers apart Petra who won't be able to make it, so no better chance to make new friends. The only thing that could keep me from going there is a date shift for a trip to Italy I had planned in March. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

2005 Bloggies nominations

Food bloggers just can't stop. First Kate, aka the Accidental Hedonist, came up with the fantastic idea of the Food Blog awards. And now. . .

. . . the 2005 Bloggies have a single category just for food blogs. Nominations submissions are open so be sure to visit the page and  suggest your favourite blogs. If you enjoyed hosting or taking part to an IMBB event, then don't forget the "Best meme" category.

(thanks to Pim for announcing the news first)

2004 Food Blogging Awards

While we all wait to see if one or more food blogs manage to be nominated for the Bloggies this year, repeating Clotilde’s  nomination last year (IMBB would be a great candidate for the “Best meme” category don’t you think?) let us take a chance to celebrate our own blogging community through the exciting idea Kate at The Accidental Hedonist has put forward: the first edition of The Food Blog Awards.

Kate will be accepting nominations in each of the 16 categories until 12AM Pacific time of December 19th.

What are you waiting for? Go and vote for your favorite food blogs!

IMBB goes on a short hiatus

December is here. So where is this month’s Is My Blog Burning? event going to be this time?

IMBB will be on an early Christmas vacation and will be back in January with a new appetizing theme. The holiday season is there, with its preparations, present shopping and Christmas cooking and baking; I though a little pause would do good. See you in January and enjoy your Christmas holidays!

Word of the year

And the winner is....

BLOG!

P.S. OK, not food related but something every blogger should be proud of.

Trinacria amore mio

I try, from time to time, to spend a good word on producers, chefs, winemakers, which I have tried and particularly liked. I don’t know if this does these people any good, but if even one person follows my suggestions and tries these products out, I’d be happy. For once I’d like to spend a word on something that I haven’t yet tried, it would have been impossible to since it will start operating next year, but which I’ve been following in its evolution with great interest in the past few months: Love Sicily, the tourist service run by fellow bloggers Katia and Ronald.

You might know Katia and Ronald from their Via Ritiro n.7 blog, and, if you’ve taken part to one of the last IMBB events will almost certainly have come across the incredibly useful Is My Blog Burning Website Ronald put together to keep track of the various food and wine blogging events. . Some months ago Katia and Ronald started putting together an Internet based travel service, called Love Sicily . As the name says, the region their service specializes in is Sicily, while Love comes from Katia’s last name, Amore.

IMBB news

Two quick IMBB related news.

First of all the next edition of IMBB, IMBB9, will be hosted by Derrick of An Obsession with Food. This time we have Terrines as a theme. Scared by this haute cuisine item? You shouldn't be. Derrick has made a fantastic job in explaining everything you'd like to know on terrines, giving a few good pointers in the process. Just look at his announcment.

Second, we now have a real IMBB dedicated webpage. Thanks to Ronald of Love Sicily IMBB now has a spot for announcements, news and the like. The page is just at its first steps but we hope to develop it into a full fledged IMBB-central. Have a look and tell us what you think.

News flash: IMBB 7

Once more a new edition of Is My Blog Burning is ready to tickle our cooking creativity. For this edition, Jarrett of food porn watch and life in flow, has decided to tempt us with a dumpling feast. Just reading his description of the many possibilities these tasty morsels offer made me hungry already!

IMBB goes local

I'm proud: IMBB has a baby. A few Italian bloggers, a bit English-shy, decided some time ago to organise an IMBB.it edition. The first edition was on "salse e intingoli" (hard to translate, something like sauces and dips). I completely forgot to submit something but definitely will next time. I think it's a great idea for bloggers who like the IMBB idea but don't feel at home with writing in English. If anyone else feels like organising a local IMBB edition feel free, as long as you give a link to the original IMBB post, here crediting the idea.

Hi Norway!

A big hello to all the Norwegian visitors who are getting to this blog through the VG net article on blogs. Feel free to look around, browse the archive, leave your comments or search for a topic. BTW anyone out there who could translate or sum up the article for me? I'd be really thankful.

I don't really understand why the author of the article linked this blog as matblog, i.e. foodblog in Norwegian if I'm not mistaken, and not under its real name (it took me quite a while to find where the link to my page was!) but on the other hand I'm flattered to have been picked by Verdens Gang, Norway's largest newspaper, together with a bunch of celebrities such as Micheal Moore, Moby, the good old Jaimie and our own celebrity foodblogger Clotilde. Oh well, let me stop the bragging and back to work