PERTH’S rapidly developing cuisine and coffee culture has been spun-off into the virtual world, with a small group of food bloggers now posting their personal views online.
PERTH'S rapidly developing cuisine and coffee culture has been spun-off into the virtual world, with a small group of food bloggers now posting their personal views online.
There are at least three Perthbased food blogs that, although they remain (mostly) a hobby for those behind them, are well worth a look.
Two of the most popular blogs - Café Grendel and Abstract Gourmet - started because of a passion for food and places...and DIY coffee roasting.
Michael Carroll started his coffee blog, www.cafe-grendel.blogspot.
com, to keep a journal of his experiments as a coffee roaster.
"I never liked coffee.
Growing up, there was only horrible instant coffee available," Mr Carroll said.
"I went to Armenia as an aid worker and discovered Turkishstyle sweet and strong coffee that they drink all day," he said.
When he returned to Australia, Mr Carroll couldn't find the same coffee and decided to roast his own.
"That's when I started to record what I was doing.
I built my own roaster from an old bread maker, now at work we drink my coffee," he said.
The Café Grendel blog deals with anything and everything related to coffee, and has a strong following with coffee afficionadoes.
IT consultant Matthew O'Donohue also delved into coffee experiments, but eventually decided to stick with cooking and restaurant reviews in his blog Abstract Gourmet (www.
abstractgourmet.com).
"Like every person who works in IT you need something to balance it out," said Mr O'Donohue, who believes Perth's cafe scene needs more media coverage.
"There are more coffee roasters and people into coffee, not only wanting to make money.
"It felt like I had a real reason to keep the blog going as I had a subject that people were getting more interested in and it started to get more serious." Mr O'Donohue said he also discovered a passion for photography with the blog, which features magazine quality shots.
For one local blogger - editor of the WA-based food publication, Spice magazine, Anthony Georgeff - the hobby has turned into a fulltime job.
While teaching English at Tafe in 2003, Mr Georgeff started his blog as a writing and cooking exercise.
When Jeff Atkinson and Kate Lindsay looked at starting a quarterly food and wine magazine called Spice three years ago, they contacted Mr Georgeff to check on any copyright issues.
The trio ended up starting the magazine together, with Mr Georgeff becoming full-time editor a few months later.
But Mr Georgeff still finds time to write his food blog, which can be found at www.manthatcooks.com.
