Food is free

Another piece of mine on The Guardian blog,

Increasingly I get sent books because of my blog. Whether publishers think it's hip to connect with the blog crowd or whether they're just looking to buy a large jar of Google juice, or both, I dunno.

If the book sounds interesting, I usually accept the offer. There's always a hint, sometimes strong, sometimes weak, but always an unmistakable hint of "and it would be so cool if you blogged about it, but, you know, whatever ...".

I'll be totally honest and say that whenever I have accepted the offer of a book, I have had absolutely no intention - zero - of blogging about it. And I never have. More often, I end up flicking through it in front of the TV, putting it aside five minutes later and forgetting about it.

And I expected to do exactly that when a preview copy of Trevor White's Kitchen Con arrived four days ago. But after I opened it on Tuesday, I couldn't put the thing down.

Enter the debate on opening up newspaper food reviews to the public here.

Comments

[russell]

thanks for the link in there. very kind.

[Graham]

Pleasure, as always :)

[honglien123]

1) So THAT'S what you look like.
2) I will be checking out Kitchen Con as anyone who quotes Denis Leary and someone who disses Madonna are ok in my book.
3) Kitchen Confidential was not a bad read although Tony Bourdain, the anti-"sleb chef" seems to be a much better TV personality.

[Hsien Lei]

Have you no sense of shame? ;)

I also get offered stuff and do blog about it but never in a prescribed sense. They can't buy a positive review but they can "buy" a review by giving me some freebies.

[pieman]

My attitude is, send me all the free stuff you want, I've no problem accepting it all and there's no way I'll be blogging about it thank you very much. If I do actually end up blogging about it means it's extraordinary. I won't blog the ordinary. But please don't let that put you off if you happen to be a PR for any of the following;

http://www.apple.com/
http://www.leica.com/
http://www.astonmartin.com/
http://www.delonghi.co.uk/

Thank you for your attention and I very much look forward to hearing from you ALL.