Voice Post

Natalie is a NJ in LA (which looks like NINJA when you are quickly glancing at it). I can't see her bio, but if you don't mind me taking an educated guess, she was from New Jersey and had moved to Los Angeles. The subject of her blog is food. (Whodathunkit?) What Natalie does is food reviews many different restaurants across the Southland and posts magnificent photos of the food. Her blog is clean and crisp.

I went through several pages of her blog and many compose of voice--both personal and professional. The professional voice in the blog is to be read as an objective point of view of the food she is reviewing. The personal voice is then lightly sprinkled and gently mixed in with Natalie's professional voice. Personally, I think having both is vital for a food blog. Here are some examples:
  
"I was psyched when I was invited to 800° Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria in Westwood because   recently my friend Whitney was telling me how much she enjoyed it – not to mention, how perfect of a spot it was for a casual date. AND CUZ PIZZA!"  

Right here she is introducing the restaurant she is reviewing, but also letting us know her personal feelings about the food. She starts off lady-like and calm, but she then transforms to this giant who is ecstatic and hungry for her favorite food. I understand, girl. 

"It wouldn’t take you long to realize from looking at my Instagram to know how much I LOVE BURRATA."

The giant also loves burrata. 

"This style of pizza is eaten with a knife and fork in Italy but since I was in Westwood I didn’t feel any pressure. There’s something about holding a slice of pizza like a little baby in your hands that feels rewarding."

This is a simile. A simile is a figure of speech which compares one thing to another. Here she is explaining how you are supposed to eat the pizza, but she is a rebel. And giant has developed feelings for PIZZA. These feelings are absolutely parallel to a mother's love for her child. 

"Ethiopian cuisine is one of my greatest culinary loves so I was psyched when a friend of mine from the Craft & Folk Art Museum invited me to come eat at his family’s new restaurant, Azla Vegan."

Pretty normal sentence, but the use of the word psyched caught my attention. She could've use other words, but she didn't. That's a good thing. The word "psyched" reminds me of this down-to-earth person who can get excited about the little things. The word "psyched" has a lot of voice within itself because, usually when I hear it, it is said from a close friend. Did we just become best friends?

 "I had a tall glass of refreshing Sorrel with ginger, which complimented my meal, a drink that spoke to this Mexican American girl forever in love with  jamaica – hibiscus to much of the world."  

This. I was bummed when I couldn't read her bio because I like knowing a bit about the author. But when she revealed her identity I felt as if I can relate to her more. First, she mentions "Sorrel" and when it is in italics it makes it seem as if it were the most precious and mysterious liquid delicacy that few have actually drank. Pfft. But then she mentions her identity (yay, yo tambien un mexicana-gringa) and reveals it's just jamaica I thought of King Taco. When she writes "hibiscus" I believe she is simply explaining what jamaica is. It's "hibiscus."   


"DID SOMEONE SAY ETHIOPIAN PIZZA?"

Once again instead hearing the blogger who has a trendy blog with a sophisticated voice, we hear the giant. And she is ready for more pizza.

 So after reading these blogs (as well as many others) I  assume she has a pleasant personality. She doesn't over share her hopes, dreams, and wishes. What she is excellent at doing is combining her personality into her work without overdoing it. This makes me like her because I can relate to her (especially on the part about pizza!) but I can also fully respect her line of work.

Profile Post

It was difficult to look for a blog about food and culture because there's so many damn foodies out there! Many of the blogs that I sorted through ranged from food review blogs to food photography blogs. I don't think I have the authority to rate food, nor do I have the knowledge to give you food recipes, and the only camera I have is on my phone, and that's why my blog is about the cultures that surround food.

The name of the blog is "Eating L.A." with the clever tagline "it's your city, you might as well taste it." Thanks for the suggestion Pat! Pat is a local from the Silver Lake area who is a writer for Variety and she has other blogs that she writes for as well: Silver Lake Story and hipstavore. She has been bloggin' since 2004 and has done fantastic blog posts.

Pat's latest post was on February 25, 2014 and she seems to post a few times a month. One blog that I enjoyed reading was about a new bar, the Hyperion Public opening up in Los Feliz. I thought it was interesting because the community was concerned about having a "sports bar" in their neighborhood and the typical "sports bar" character didn't quite fit the neighborhood's persona. Pat mentions, "The upstairs bar does have TVs showing sports events, but with bingo, karaoke and live music nights, the owners are working hard to make sure the bar has something for everyone in the community." This gives me something to think about, because my blog is about food and culture and it never occurred to me that restaurants may have a hard time fitting in with the area. It seems the Hyperion Public has revamped the interior to make it look chic and they also serve food that is appealing to the community. Another blog that caught my eye was about a Yelp review. Apparently Pizzeria Delfina in NYC was clever enough to make t-shirts of their bad Yelp reviews. It was a knee slapper!

This blog does not specifcally relate to my work, but it does provide some interesting insight. The posts seem to vary on details, but the blog would help me best for my own blog ideas. I don't think its an academic blog, because it is targeted toward Los Angelinos that do want a taste of the city.

Hipsters Bite

Somehow I end up having conversations about hipsters with my friends. It’s usually because we’ve recently encountered one and it resulted in a negative experience. From my own experience they seem to look down upon my presence for whatever reason, but what do I care, it’s their fault for being so pretentious! Despite my friend’s and I constant complaints about these hipsters (I can assure you we are not the old dude’s from the Muppets) we always conclude that they have brought us one good thing---food.  
I have no clue what the exact definition of a Hipster, but through my own observations I have  noticed a few common things. Normally, they don’t call themselves hipsters (the ones that do are probably 14 year-old kids that popped out the lens of their 3D glasses from when they saw Frozen) they might not even know they’re a Hipster. If anything the term “Hipster” serves as an umbrella term for the many types of people that are "alternative". The sketch comedy show Portlandia does an accurate depiction of the many types of hipsters there are. Here is one example:

As mentioned before, I tend to think of the term "hipster" serving as an umbrella term for the many types of lifestyles people live. Look at the comic below as an example:

I don’t mean to glorify the fad, because as Reddit user, ratchetthunderstud, whose best friend was a hipster states that a hipster’s attitude is like the following: “if a lot of people are starting to like this / do like this, it is automatically crap.” In my opinion this attitude is just “young adult angst” and no one wants to be around that, but they have made a significant impact in the restaurant industry by synthesizing their pretentious attitudes with food.

Many things make a restaurant hipster here let me make a list of those things

Hipster things about restaurants:

The location—Was it kind of hard to find? Is it in an area you haven’t explored yet? Did you have to yelp it before hand?

The furniture—Very minimal, nothing too flashy, but boy does it look sharp!

The atmosphere—Is there dimmed lighting? Are people talking over each other? There’s music playing, but I’m sure you haven’t heard the song before. Is it crowded and people are wearing eccentric clothing?

The food—Do they have vegan, gluten free, free range, locally grown, organic options? Is it kind of expensive, but totally worth it because it was delicious and you can never make it yourself?

I know I’ve been poking fun of hipsters, but the restaurants that are inspired by the lifestyle have, in my opinion, been delicious. Maybe being pretentious goes a long way with food because it allows these hipster inspired restaurants to experiments with exotic food fusions or create off the wall cuisines that are remarkable. So I encourage you to check out the hipster-esque restaurant, (for all I know the hipsters could be your cup of tea; loose-leaf oolong tea made in a French press right?) and enjoy the food.