The Accidental Blogger

Interning at Maven has been my first exposure to modern public relations, and also blogging as a useful and not entirely silly medium. (Cough: Perez Hilton.) Maven was also the cause of my blog: Kate McAdam, another Maven intern was scanning a clip from the January issue of Philly Magazine about Salon Vanity, and we were flipping through the list of the 239 Dishes You Must Try—she gushed about the roast chicken at Fork, and Megan pointed out the mahi-mahi tacos at El Vez, and Sarah put a check next to Village Whiskey. I hadn’t tried any of them. Three and a half years of living right outside Philly, and I hadn’t had a single must-have dish!

I made an impulsive resolution to try every one of the 239 dishes. Day one: Jones. I trekked fifteen blocks through the cold and ice, and it dawned on me how time consuming, expensive, and awesome this journey was going to be. So I decided to take the world down with me. I called my mom and told her my half-serious plan to grandiosely name it: “Love to Eat & Eat to Love: A Gastro Tour de Phorce, Getting to Know Philly the Tasty Way!”, and she could barely hear me, she was laughing so hard.

By the fourth day, Philly Magazine had emailed me for an interview. By the fourth week, ABC had emailed for an interview. And the requests were piling in from potential dinner companions. And now, in the sixth week, I have just been hired for my first paid writing gig, a blog entry for Philly Mag.

The magical part about the tale of the accidental blogger is that it really was an accident. Aside from my lifelong fantasy to write a series of parenting books in the style of Machiavelli, I haven’t even thought about writing anything besides lab reports and financial analyses in the past half-decade. I’m a finance major, looking to go into real estate. And I don’t know anything about food besides simply really liking to eat.

So what’s next? Everyone asks. Have you decided to be a writer? Um, no. I still like commercial real estate and have every intention of pursuing that career. But in the meantime, I will continue searching for and writing about the most mind-blowing dishes in Philly; and I hope that writing plays a role in my future. Perhaps I will have the opportunity to write a Machiavellian parenting book, after all.

You can read Lauren’s adventure in food on her blog love to eat & eat to love here