VanPortlander

The big headline on CNN this morning is a study which found that tap water in many major metropolitan areas contains tiny quantities of pharmaceuticals, both prescription and over-the-counter. Given that the folks at the Portland Water Blog always talk about the high quality of our water, I figured I would click through on the CNN article to see if Portland was one of the affected areas.

Yep. Most of the metro areas had between 1-3 drugs identified, although they found 56 different drugs in Philly. Portland had 4: acetaminophen, ibuprofen, sulfamethoxazole, and (amusingly) caffeine. Darn us and our coffee obsession!

This isn’t entirely Portland-centric, but since Portland seems to be filled with folks who are into the Whole Foods / New Seasons / Wild Oats type of markets…

Have those businesses now reached the point where they’re no longer the cute little healthy local stores they once were?

And since just mentioning the word tends to incite great emotions, I’ll even wonder out loud… are they starting to turn into Starbucks, which once apparently was thought of as good coffee around here?

This is the seventh in a series of weekly interviews/profiles of various local bloggers (links to all interviews). It’s good to learn a bit about the people behind the websites and I hope that you find the responses interesting.

This week’s featured blogger is Food Dude.

1. Start off by telling us a bit about your current blog project(s)… where do you write?
   My current websites are PortlandFoodAndDrink.com which covers reviews, news, and discussion of the Portland food scene, PFMenus.com which lists as many up to date menus as I can find for Portland restaurants, PDXFoodPress.com which gives restaurants and other food related organizations a place to promote their businesses, and one more yet to be named project, that has nothing to do with food.
2. How did you get started? What was your first online blog or journal about?
   My first website started about three and a half years ago. it was a personal blog about living with multiple sclerosis. One night after having one too many bad meals at a highly rated restaurant, I got mad and wrote my own review. People wanted to hear more, and eventually I dropped the blog and began to review restaurants every week. This morphed into the sites you see
   today.
3. What’s your favorite part of blogging about local issues?
   Most people work pretty hard for their money. From my own experience, I know what it is like to plan a night out based on a newspaper article, and find out the reviewer didn’t know what they were talking about. I like to think I am an honest, independant voice with no advertising to sell - no agenda. Hopefully, I keep people from wasting their money on subpar food, or at least give them an idea of what to expect when they go to a restaurant.
4. On the flip side, what do you find most challenging when blogging about Portland?
   Food is a very personal thing. It is easy to be influenced by many factors such as the people you are with, the background music, the personality of the servers, atmosphere, etc. Folks are passionate about restaurants because of their personal experiences. I try to concentrate on the food, and describe the other factors without getting emotionally involved. For every review I write, I probably get 100 emails saying I’m right on target, and 100 emails saying I’m an idiot. One has to have a thick skin.
5. What has been your favorite moment while blogging? Do any particular posts or reactions/coverage of posts stand out in your mind?
   I like the little innocuious posts I think will amount to nothing, that really take off. It’s always a surprise.
6. Let’s get technical for a moment. Do you have any favorite blogging tools? Platforms? Online or offline editors? Anything you use to make your blogging easier?
   At this point I’ve tried lots of platforms, and use Wordpress exclusively. I do all the coding by hand with Notepad ++.
7. Finally, what bit of advice or words of wisdom would you give to someone considering starting their own blog? What do you wish you’d known from the start?
   Don’t do it for money. Very few blogs actually bring in very much, and it would be almost impossible to live on the procedes. Don’t expect people to flock to your site, unless you give them something they can’t already get elsewhere. Realize it is a lot of work. You are making a comittment to your readers - they come to your site, and you will give them something interesting to read. I probably average eight hours a day on my sites. Finally, most everyone eventually burns out. Know when to walk away. Prevent that as long as possible by taking vacations.

Thanks to Food Dude for his participation in this effort. I’ve read several of his reviews on his site and was curious to learn more about the man behind the fork.

Oregon Live notes that Rudy Giuliani will be in town this weekend checking out Rose’s Deli (among other things). I figure if he’s checking out delis, he might as well check out bagels as well. There was quite a discussion over on Metroblogging Portland a few months back about the search for a true New York bagel in the Rose City.

I haven’t yet tried Kettleman’s, but I have had Sunrise Bagels several times and wonder how they stack up.