Ten reasons why everyone should have a food blog

Milestones
Eating is one of the most enjoyable experiences in life and many special occasions involve food.  At The Ordinary Patrons we are of the view that eating is not just about the food but also the company and the occasion. Having a food blog provides a platform to document these happy occasions. As for the unhappy ones, you can either leave them out or still keep them there. With the passage of time, unhappy events may not seem so bad after all.

A food blog will not only capture the major milestones such as your first date, birthdays, anniversaries and meals on holiday, but also some everyday meals that you only realise their significance some years later. For example, you could in 2025 be reading to your young children a routine post that you had written in 2015 and say “…and kids, this was the restaurant where I first met your mother.”

Memories
Whether you are young or old, one thing is clear – we are not getting any younger. Which means that slowly but surely, your memory is fading. What is now crystal clear in our minds now will get murkier. The food blog will outlast our grey cells.

Accessibility
A blog is accessible from anywhere and at anytime. Where was the restaurant in Kyoto that you enjoyed so much during your honeymoon there in 2005?  Whether you need the information when you are in Singapore or during another holiday in Japan, you have those memories readily accessible. Even if you don’t speak Japanese, you can show the pictures on your phone to the taxi driver and he may find it for you.

Organisation
With the right inputs, the information on your blog can be organised and be searchable in as many ways as you like. By chronological order, by type of occasion, by location, by type of cuisine. Any which way but lose.

Adventure
We are creatures of habit. We are also lazy. Once we are comfortable with a few restaurants, we tend to keep going there. Or we tend to select the food according to our ethnicity. Exploring new places or different cuisines happens only once in a while. Since having a blog we noticed that we are motivated to be more adventurous, otherwise the blog will be so boring. We also realised that there is so much to explore in the Singapore food scene.

Therapeutic
Some people watch fish swim. Some read books. For us, writing a blog is therapeutic. Penning our thoughts down into text has a calming feeling.

Dance
Remember the song by Lee Ann Womack with the lyrics “… And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.  I hope you dance” ? With so much internet action going on, we can sit it out or dance. A food blog can be a baby step to dance, to be a participant and not just an observer in the online world.

 Payback

We have benefited from the efforts of others on the net. We hope sharing our experiences of eating will benefit others. This was not an objective when we started this blog. But when we receive our readers’  feedback and comments (mostly good we are proud to say), we are quietly happy to be contributing to the online pool of knowledge to make it easier to find the restaurant that you want to go to.

Planning
Whether it is a special occasion or a routine lunch, a nice meal (which need not be expensive) can lift the spirits of our family, our friends and ourselves.  Money, time and calories are too important to be wasted on bad food. Having a food blog makes us more critical of where and what we eat, which makes us plan our meals in advance. Planned eating is the secret to eating well and yet conserve money and calorie intakes.

Skills
Finally, the food blog has also helped us pick up some new skills.  We are not IT savvy people, so the blog has forced us to pick up some IT skills. Food writing and photography are other skills that we hope to continue to improve on.  Potentially, many other skills can be learnt in the course of having a food blog such as marketing and advertising.

Cheers!