Assignment #2: Evaluating a Food Blog

About the Blog:

I chose to post about the blog from Bennison's Bakery in Evanston. It's a busy bakery that has been around since 1938, and it's one of the most popular bakeries on the North Shore. The blog is written by the owner of Bennison's, Jory Downer, who is also a pastry chef. The last time he posted on the bakery's blog was last July because he keeps his Twitter posts current, and they all appear on the blog.  Here's the link to the Bennison's Bakery blog:  http://bennisonsbakery.blogspot.com/

How the Blog is Organized:

The blog is organized similar to most of our blogs for Eng 357/457 on blogspot, but there are extra features included. There is a link to Jory's twitter posts to the right of the main blog, and all of his Twitter posts are readily seen on the blog. There are even links to the pictures he posts on the bakery's Twitter page. The Bennison's Bakery blog  also includes links to several other food blogs.

The Blog's Content:

Jory talks about the activities of his baking team, including their travels to various locations where they practice baking techniques. He also discusses their activities in the community such as the various farmer's markets where they sell their breads and their baked goods made with fresh fruits, participating at the green market at Lollapalooza, the goings-on in Evanston, certain baking techniques, the people on his baking team, certain items they are baking on a particular day, and important events going on in his life like his daughter's graduation from college in California. It seems that out of all the items the bakery sells, there is a huge focus on discussing how well the Parisienne macarons are selling.

Purpose of the Blog's Content:

This detail is not easy to pinpoint. Some of the content seems to focus on informing customers and potential customers about what the bakers are working on, the ingredients they are using, and new items they have created. Other parts of the content are included for the purpose of connecting the bakery and its staff directly to the community through discussions of their community involvement and talking about what is going on in Evanston. This is another way to relate to current customers and to draw in new customers. I also think his discussion of his family is another way of relating to everyday people because a good percentage of the customers at Bennison's are people who bring their children into the bakery to buy cookies and cupcakes.

The Twitter posts that appear on the blog discuss items that are on sale, what is going on at Bennison's, and baked goods that the baking team is working on right now. For example, yesterday's Twitter post talked about the 2 for 1 specials on donuts, and it included a Twit pic of the freshly baked donuts to make people's mouths water.

However, some of the posts get very technical about topics like the best baking technique for sourdough bread. Jory talks about the refrigerator equipment, the exact temperature that is best for storing sourdough, and about the perfect texture, crust color, and flavor of the bread. This information would be useful to people who are proofing dough before baking bread, but otherwise it would not relate to a customer who is just interested in purchasing and eating bread. From the way these portions of the blog are written, it seems to me that part of the blog is written for Jory's baking colleagues and to aspiring bakers.

Finally he mentions sales trends on items such as the Parisienne macarons. Again, I think these discussions relate more to people on the business end of things. Maybe customers are interested in knowing how well an item is selling, and this part of the discussion may even intrigue a customer to try a particular item that seems to be such a popular seller, but this part of the conversation seems more business-related than customer-related to me.

The Blog's Language:

Most of the language is really casual, and is meant for everyday people. For example, the most recent post starts out by saying, "Man it's hot in Chi town!" This instantly relates to the community. Certain parts of the blog are written in a way that entices customers to purchase certain items. For example, in one post Jory talks about how they are making items for the farmer's market with fresh blueberries. In another post, he talks about how the bakers spent the morning pitting sweet cherries that just arrived. The language is used strategically to appeal to the senses because fresh fruit in the summer always sounds so good to people. We as readers can taste the fresh blueberries and smell the fresh blueberries by just reading about them.

But other parts of the blog get very technical. I think that Jory stopped blogging on the page a year ago and instead turned to Twitter because it is much easier to communicate shorter bits of information to potential customers. All of the technical baking discussion and the name dropping of his colleagues relates to his colleagues, but I think he decided he should concentrate on relating to his clientele.  

What Can I Learn About the Writer?

Besides the fact that the blog tells us the writer's name and the fact he's the owner of Bennison's Bakery, from reading the blog itself I learned that Jory is very active in the community outside the bakery, he is family-oriented, he is genuinely passionate about baking, he enjoys traveling to learn more about the European baked goods he bakes and sells at Bennison's, and he loves the Chicago area. Quality of the product is important to him, and he strives to make Bennison's the best it can be.

WWBS (or What Would Bourdieu Say)?

(disclaimer for my friends reading this who are not in my class: Pierre Bourdieu is a French old school theorist who relates food to both class and gender with a highly rigid set of rules)

Being the pretentious Frenchman that he is, I think Pierre would say that Bennison's Bakery caters to the middle class because so much of the blog relates to how things taste. He may also say that many of the hearty breads, the light bite-sized Parisienne macarons, and the fruit-based pastries discussed on the blog are foods for women and children because sweets are satisfying to the palate, but they are not the "nourishing food par excellence" like meat: the man's food. Since women and children don't have a taste for "a man's food" according to Bourdieu, women and children prefer sweets and savory breads to supplement their salads and other trite fare. Pierre may also say that Jory is smart for selling light meringue French biscuits for women since the items of substance (such as heavy, dense cakes) are most likely more for men.