I have just discovered the side benefit to the torture I went through in migrating this blog from MovableType to WordPress.

The spammers can not find me!

Yes, I know it is only temporary, but this blog has now gone from literally thousands of spam messages a day to – drumroll please – NONE!

I give it another week.  Until then, I am going to bask in the glow.

PS:  More Wine Country Capers posts to come….

For those of you who may have noticed our absense, I’m pleased to announce that we are back.

I admit, our updates have been few and far between as of late.  Between server problems, blog software problems, stressful lives and a multitude of other excuses…. errr…. reasons, Cuisine Capers has been a lower priority than we would have liked.

But no more!  Get ready!  We’re back!  (I think.  I just migrated to another blogging platform today, so I may be terribly premature in my triumphant announcement!)

This evening I participated in a Madison area “foodie” panel. It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed meeting people of like minds, and I hope to continue to connect with all of them in the future, in one way or another. My thanks to the moderators: Eating in Madison from A to Z.

One of the questions was this (paraphrasing…): “Foodie has become a politically charged term… do you still consider yourself a foodie?”

My first response was a resounding yes. I do consider myself a foodie. I added this disclaimer, “I didn’t know that it was controversial… so maybe I shouldn’t admit it that readily”.

I was the only person who admitted to being a foodie. An odd situation, for a “foodie panel”.

The argument seems to be that “Foodies” are elitists who prefer to horde the sheer foodiness to themselves. If foodies had their way, only the wealthy could afford to enjoy good food, when, in fact, food should be for the masses.

I chose not to turn the panel discussion into a debate. But it is very clear that my definition of foodie is not the same as some that exist. To me, a foodie isn’t about repression to the little people. Often, it has nothing to do with economics. Here are a few bullet points that I’ll throw out there which represent my view of “foodie-ism”.

• Foodies appreciate the dining experience.
• Foodies consider dining an adventure, not a neccessity.
• Foodies connect emotion with food, and vice versa.
• Foodies are often motivated by tradition, in terms of family as well as heritage.
• Foodies do indeed have a smug and superior attitude… not because they can afford to be a foodie, but because they get pleasure out of it, they take the time to do it, and they are committed doing it well.
• Being a foodie isn’t all about eating. It is about the process that goes into creating food. It is just as much about thinking and planning as it is about eating.

Foodies care about the social aspects of dining. It’s not about the money you spend, it’s about the time you spend enjoying your dining exprience. Good food does not need to be expensive. It needs to be creative, it needs to be enjoyed and it needs to be shared.

I contend that “wealth” is not the underlying required demographic in being a foodie. I know plenty of people who exist in my demographic world who would rather go to MacDonalds, or order a pizza from Pizza Hut, rather than put in the time, interest and dedication that is needed to qualify as a Foodie. These people can easily afford organic food (though I would note that organic food is not a foodie necessity), and could easily spend all kinds of money in an effort to qualify to the ranks of “Foodie”.

But that is not what it is about. It’s about attitude. It’s about interest. It’s about creativity. It’s about investing your time and effort and about becoming enthralled with the challenge.

With creativity, food becomes art. At one point I stated, “We’ll sit down to dinner and smugly ponder the fact that nobody else is my town is eating what we are right now”. That smugness has nothing to do with having something that others do not, and everything to do with the pleasure of having created something so artful it is unique.

I live in a city that can overpoliticize anything. I refuse to do that to the philosophy and motivation that drives my inner Foodie.

To my fellow panelists, please don’t take this as criticism about the discussion. It was truly enjoyable to share thoughts with people who live in this world. It was clearly thought provoking for me, and I sincerely enjoy exchanging differing views.

Perhaps we should hold another panel in the upcoming months… or simply share a beer…, and have a great time debating this specific point! I’d love to bounce this concept around a lot more.

Comments are open, thoughts are appreciated.

Hi all, I’m out of town at the moment, but thought I’d drop a quick note about a local Madison event coming up, featuring a Foodie Panel. It should be fun!

Madison Interactive, a group for people who work on public websites – both for work and for play – in the Madison area – is hosting its third free event. Whether you’re uploading articles to a local media website or just tending a personal blog, we want you to join us and share your experiences. And to make it all even more interesting, we’ll also be having a brief panel discussion with some local online folks who focus on writing about dining in Madison.

Please pass this note on to everyone you think might be interested.

Panel Discussion Details:
MadInteractive Panel No. 3 – Food Blogging in Madison
Location: The High Noon Saloon

Event Time/Date:
5 – 7pm on May 31, 2007

Panel Time:
5:30 to 6pm

Details
———

Topic: Food Blogging in Madison

The discussion will center around the various writers in town covering the food scene.

Moderators:
JM and Nichole of Eating in Madison A to Z

Panelists:

* Christopher Robin from Christopher Robin’s Fresh Foods
* Jonathan Hunter of Underground Food Collective
* Irene Cash of Madison Dining Online, Cuisine Capers, Cooking Out of the Box
* Monnie Halberg of Nutritilicious
* Linda Falkenstein of thedailypage.com

We hope to see you there!
MadInteractive

This entry doesn’t have much to do with food or cooking, I’m afraid.

I’ve become somewhat frustrated with the platform that this blog runs on. I’m using MovableType, which I have always loved, but which is becoming increasingly frustrating for a few reasons.

Most of my other blogs (Madison Dining Online, Cooking Out Of The Box, etc) have been implemented using the latest versions of WordPress.

I have become extremely impressed with the growth of WordPress within just the last year or so. MovableType seems to have come to a screeching halt for the average user, while WordPress is forging forward, mainly by the efforts of the community that uses it. The plugins are terrific, and the flexibility is really impressive.

But. I have hundreds of entries on Cuisine Capers, with hundreds of photos. In addition to that, Google LOVES this blog. Migrating to WordPress will be a very painful process, and it will set me back a great deal in terms of search engines, etc.

Having said that, I now get over 2000 spam messages a day. Yes, that is right. In a mere 24 hours my filters catch anywhere between 2000 and 3000 messages. This has made the commenting, trackback and interaction portions of Cuisine Capers an impossible goal. All comments are getting caught in the filters, and it is impossible to visually inspect the comments to find the legitimate ones. So, they all get deleted. I’ve also had to turn of trackbacks. On top of that, when I get hit with pings and spam comments in rapid succession, it takes down the server that this blog is running on. That makes my host very, very unhappy.

So, do I live through the painful migration, and then spend months rebuilding search engine traffic to avoid the above situation?

Decisions, Decisions.

After weeks of frustration and beating my head against a brick wall, I’ve finally figured out that it was my blog roll that was breaking my Movable Type template.

So, it has been removed until I can figure out how to add it back in without breaking the entire blog!

I give up. I’ve spent a lot of time pondering this, and I’ve been unable to come up with an answer.

Why do people search for “Rachel Ray’s garbage bowl”?

An enormous number of people find Cuisine Capers each and every day in their Google quest for information on this item.

Now, granted, one could turn the tables on me and ask – well, why would you write an entry about Rachel Ray’s garbage bowl? That is a very good question. It was a true moment of, “now why didn’t I think of that”?

But still – for those of you searching the web on information for Rachel Ray’s garbage bowl, could you give me some insight as to what it is you are trying to find out?

Thanks. It would help me sleep at night

It is amazing what you can learn from your blog when you look at your web stats:

• It’s football season! This is proven by all of the people searching for Packer Elvis, The Bears Still Suck Polka, and the famed Johnsonville Truck/Grill.
• The Bratwurst seen around the world! For some unknown reason, websites around the world have linked to this image. From German newspapers, to media forums, to blogs, to websites surrounding lots of different topics, this image has been embedded and linked to world over. While I am not sure why, I do have to admit – that is certainly one compelling bratwurst.
• Edamame is in the height of it’s season. People are searching and searching for ways to make it. So am I! Someone wanted to know how to make Edamame Pesto. That sounds interesting – so if you find out how, could you let me know? Thanks.
• Another poor soul asks Google, “Can you get ramps in the winter?”. Alas, I believe that answer is no. It’s a shame. I love ramps.
• I would say that there are a ton of people out there looking for a Chocolate Gravy recipe, but it is probably more correct to state that there are a few people out there looking for the recipe, and they all find my blog because I’m the only person on the internet who has ever written about Chocolate Gravy and Biscuits!
• Madison’s Isthmus has continued to feature bloggers. They first introduced our blog to their readers in their print newspaper, and from my stats I have discovered that they refer to Cuisine Capers often.
• And last but not least, there is a blog aggregator in town that sends people my way: Dane101.net. This is very cool. And one day, when I have spare time (heh), I may give them some competition. About 3 years ago I registered “Blogging Madison” as a domain, and my concept at the time is much like what they implemented on their blog. Kudos to them for moving forward with it.

I hate Spam. No, that isn’t a comment about the food product (or would that be alleged food product?). That is a statement against the reviled comment spam that almost anyone who has a blog deals with.

I have spent hours and hours deleting spam from this blog. In addition to that, my blacklist program was catching over 1,000 spam messages a day that it was NOT allowing through. It became an exercise in futility. So much so that I’ve actually dreaded dealing with this blog in general.

The solution was to upgrade to the latest version of MovableType. But that in an of itself was a dreaded thought. I put it off and put it off.

So yesterday I bit the bullet and did the upgrade. I had two pleasant surprises:

1. MovableType has changed their pricing model so that software for personal blogs is once again free. Cool! Though I admit, I would have gladly paid the reasonable fee that they asked for the software. It’s really great stuff.

2. It was an incredibly smooth upgrade! It didn’t live up to the anticipated dread levels at all!

So now I have a blog that should be much easier to manage in terms of Spam. Maybe I won’t dread it as much, and maybe I can start writing about cuisine again!

Well, never gone, really, just on hiatus.

Life has been busy, but with summer winding down and the threat of winter moving in to take its place, I figure some serious cooking is going to start setting in.

So, I’m back, and I’m going to start to get back into the food blogging grove!

A few observations til the real food post -

- I stop blogging and traffic picks up?? I am getting double the hits was getting a couple of months ago. Oh, I know it is because of search engines, but I find it ironic!

- Comment spam is driving me nuts. Sure, I use a blacklist program, but it has gotten so prevelant that it doesn’t matter. Spam sucks. And that can apply to food and cooking too, so that is a completely appropriate comment!

- I have been working on a food/cooking related project that I am going to really start to focus on now that the fall football season is coming to an end.

- I actually have lots of food photos that I just haven’t posted – so I may just do one big photo post today!