FAQ
Have a question? Email me at laura [at] laurafries [dot] com and I’ll answer ya here. No question too silly.
Why do you blog?
Well, I never much intended to. College pal HunterCross.com pretty much set up a blog for me, and told me I’d enjoy doing it. And, boy, do I!
But because I’m a giant nerdicle, I learn a lot by doing this. I’ve learned how to create content fast - instead of hemming and hawing over leads and sentence transitions. I’ve learned a lot about software and the Internet and taking pictures and oh, so much more.
Blogging has forced me to re-think basic journalism concepts like transparency and objectivity; which is especially important to me as the line between newspapers and blogs keeps getting muddier. I feel I’m better equipped to tackle those challenges, because I too straddle that line.
I love writing, and right now my job doesn’t consist of any. So, this helps. For now.
I move a lot, and meet a lot of people I really like that live all over the country. I wish I had the time to keep up with all them, but I’m not very good at it yet. So at least there exists a place on the web where folks can check in on me, if they so wish.
And, hell, sometimes I get lonely, and there’s no one to talk to. It’s nice to be able to write these posts, sending my thoughts off the island in little bottles, knowing that some of them come back.
Laura Fries, Hello from Philadelphia! It’s your old Aunt Mary trying to figure out what a blog is? Who better than yourself to ask. How does this creation of yours generate a pay check? Please help an old lady get hip to the new media. Love, Mary
Hi Aunt Mary. Glad to see you found the blog.
Where to begin?
Well, a blog is generally a website that is put together with easy-to-use software that allows writers like me to focus their time on writing, instead of coding a website. Because the software is so easy to use, people create blogs on virtually everything there is to write about.
My blog is about the stuff I’m interested in — food, online journalism, pop culture, and growing up. I try to update it daily, but since my job is working with computers, sometimes I’m too busy with work projects to post here.
This creation doesn’t generate a paycheck — yet. It’s my hobby. But my familiarity with blogging — among other things — did lead me to my current job as a Web Editor for a newspaper chain, so in the grand scheme of things, it generated a pay check by helping me get the job I have today.
Thanks for reading, Aunt Mary. I’m debating coming up to Philly to do a series on cheesesteaks. Atlanta’s alright, but I miss the desert.
Why do you take pictures of food?
I get asked that a lot … mostly by waiters.
It’s gotten more complicated.
I used to think I did it because I was a food writer, and it was an essential part about writing about a restaurant — ya gotta have a picture. But recently, I’ve stopped writing as much about the food, and started just having fun with the pictures.
I’ve surprised myself by attaching so much meaning and memory to lunches.
A picture of Atlanta’s Taco Cabana is more than just tacos. I miss pieces of my past — I ordered my first beer with a fake ID at the original Taco Cabana in San Antonio (sorry, Mom). I wish I had taken pictures of every meal I ate in Europe in 1999 — when I first discovered that food was a really awesome thing, and perhaps adult life held pleasures for me that I’d yet to imagine.
I post them because they’re pretty, because I enjoy sharing them with you, because I’m happy to remember all my meals and friends and conversations. And I post because it’s a piece of my life I’ve yet to figure out — here are these beautiful scraps — what will I do with them?
How do I find the food? I want the Recipes!
Three ways:
Click on this link: LauraFries.com/archives/category/food/
Use the pulldown menu labeled “Topics” on the right side of the page. Select “Food,” then hit “view.”
Click on “Posts” — in the green section on the top of the page. Then, under “Topics,” click “Food.”
Why are some of your posts doubled?
Well, due to the amount of comment spam on the old Movable Type blog, we ended up manually transferring a lot of the archives (in fact, I’m still in the middle of that process!) I tend to do this late at night while watching bad movies on Lifetime, so sometimes I screw up and transfer something twice. Point it out, and I’ll fix it.
