in Canadian Culture

Canadian Food Blog Awards (2010)

Canadian Food Blog Awards : Eat Local London.

Nominations are now being taken for the Best Canadian Food Blogs. How exciting! This is a great way for us to share our favorite Canadian food blogs and find new addicting blogs to peruse through the winter. You can vote here http://www.beerandbuttertarts.com/cfba/nominations/nomination-form/

It got me thinking about my own favorite post on this blog and it would have to be the Cookbooks, My Friends and Treasures post I wrote back in November of 2009. You can find it here – http://www.eatlocallondon.com/2009/11/cookbooks-my-friends-and-treasures.html (wink, wink – nudge nudge)

I have some favorite food blogs (which I am going to nominate in different categories) that I would like to share here with you. They are in no particular order:

http://thelocavore.ca/

http://ontariolocavore.wordpress.com/

http://southwesternontariofoodie.blogspot.com/

http://onehundredmilemel.blogspot.com/

http://seasonalontariofood.blogspot.com/

http://ethicalgourmet.blogspot.com/

All nominated blogs must:

be based in Canada

have at least 75% food and/or drink content

use a blog-based interface

be regularly updated and current, with at least one post per month in the past 12 months

Here are the categories:

People’s Choice – Best Canadian Food Blog

Who is Canada’s best food blogger? What blog stands out with great writing, fantastic photos and interesting topics? The winner of this category will be chosen through a public vote.

Best Writing

This category is for blogs that demonstrate consistently outstanding writing. In both the short list and final judging we will be looking for a unique and insightful writing voice, attention to detail, fact checking, and journalistic integrity. We’re also all grammar fiends, so spelling, grammar and punctuation will count as well.

Best Photography

Not specifically for photography blogs, in this category we’re looking for the Canadian food and drink blog with the nicest photos. Do they complement the writing, are they well lit, attractively styled and professionally edited?

Best New Blog (Under 12 months)

The category is open only to blogs that have been created in 2010. They must have a minimum of 1 post per month from the time of creation to November.

Best Restaurant Review Blog

For bloggers who concentrate on restaurant reviews. We’re looking for professional quality photos, well-worded menu item descriptions, and overall assessments that fall within standard professional guidelines for restaurant critics (trying a number of dishes, giving new restaurants a grace period, supporting opinions).

Best Recipe Blog

This category is for the folks who primarily post recipes, but – take note – we’re mostly looking for original recipes or interesting tweaks to published recipes. Simply copying recipes from cookbooks or other blogs is probably not going to make the cut. Bonus points for having a story to go with it, or a critique of a published recipe, not a just a copy of the recipe and pictures of what you ate for dinner.

Best Baking and Dessert Blog

Cake, pie, candy, fudge. Lots of bloggers love the sweet stuff. Here we’ll be looking for original recipes, great writing and lovely photos of beautiful sweet treats.

Best Professional Blog

This category is for anyone involved in the food industry on a professional basis. We’re looking for blogs from chefs, restaurants and food businesses, as well as blogs from food organizations and personal or professional blogs from professional (eg. paid) food writers.

Best Beer Blog

Canada has a huge number of beer bloggers, so they definitely get their own category. Knowledgeable and informative writing is what we’ll be looking for here.

Best Wine/Spirits Blog

As with the beer blog category, we want to see nominations here for bloggers who demonstrate knowledge of the subject and can pass that on to readers in an interesting and informative way.

Best Individual Post

Any Canadian food blog, any category. We want to know about the one post from 2010 that made you laugh, cry or jump for joy. The one piece of writing that inspired you, or that made you run out to try that new restaurant, search out that unique ingredient, or just think about things from a different perspective.

Best Niche (Single Subject) Blog

Some people love their poutine, chicken wings, sushi or dim sum. This category is for blogs that feature one specific type of food or technique. We want to hear about bloggers that not only love their subject but are able to write about it, photograph it and inspire others to love it too.

Best Healthy Living Blog

Vegan, vegetarian, macro-biotic, flexatarian, or just environmentally-friendly, this category will feature blogs that write about nutrition and healthy foods. Note – we will not consider dieting blogs (eg. weigh-ins and calorie counts) in this category.

Best Family-Oriented Blog

What to feed the kids for dinner? This is the place to nominate food blogs that focus on innovative solutions to feeding families.

Best Regional Blog

Blogs that focus on the food and drink of one specific city or region. (For example, TasteTO – although as these awards are being run by the owners of TasteTO, we have taken our own websites out of contention for these awards.)

Best Group Blog

This is for any Canadian food blog with 2 or more regular contributors.

Best Seasonal/Local Blog

With so many bloggers focusing on seasonal, local and sustainable produce and what to do with it, we felt they deserved their own category. We’re looking for bloggers that write about everything from field to table and in between, from farming and gardening to canning and preserving.

Vote now at http://www.beerandbuttertarts.com/cfba/nominations/nomination-form/