Where was Rita born?

Checking out a few things on my blogsite yesterday, it struck me how much the food blogging landscape has changed over the last four years since the world of blog first came into my life.

I owe the fact that Rita (and her blogsite) exists to a few things which were, at the time, impacting on my life. My oldest daughter, the veritable Nellie, (mother of legendary Eliza – she of Maccas Sandy Bay poo fame) started out her own food blog site which she named Breakfast in Hobart. I believe she in turn had started out her blog having read, with much interest and amusement, her sister-in-law’s Hobart food blog (Hobart Life, by Food Kitty). Both girl’s blogs are sites I genuinely regret are not still in existence, as between them, these two managed, with deft and unerring accuracy, to succinctly sum up many points about food and venues, and their pleasure or displeasure about the state of same.

Food Kitty in particular was at times quite acerbic in her descriptions or commentaries, and I often read blogs today, thinking whilst reading them, that FK would have gone straight for the jugular instead of skirting around the issue!

FK provided me with the fabulous experience of her cheese-making class (camembert) via her blog, amongst many other things. She also kept us appraised of her husband Mr Bok’s activities and opinions which I found most enlightening and entertaining!

FK pulled the pin quite suddenly one day, and deleted the whole site, so it was literally ‘here today, gone tomorrow’, with no accompanying explanation when you tried to get to the site. I think she did in fact publish a post on the day, explaining her intentions, but later that day the whole thing was gone.

Nellie has a lot less time for blogging these days as her family life is so hectic, so she has her blogsite languishing, on hold. Maybe she will resume blogging down the track, but I doubt it. I think blogging is a lifestyle choice.

The other reason the site exists is due to my work. On being appointed to a new role which focused on the future careers of young people aged 13-19, a main proportion of my job entailed “disseminating career-related information” to these young people. Taking my job seriously, and having been amongst this target group more than a few years ago, but remembering vividly how boring adults are, I researched thoroughly on the internet to find out ways I might successfully achieve this main aim and came up with a foreign word - ‘blogging’.

Having established the fact that this was one of a few methods I could in fact achieve this, I set about attempting to start a blog for career information dissemination. Easier said than done for an ‘oldie’! It seemed to take forever, and I stuffed it up so many times at work, so decided to take the problem home over the weekend, and fiddle around with it there, in peace and quiet.

At home, there was no way I wanted to bog down my home computer with career-related info, so I decided to mock up a blog and write about what I was on firm ground with – hospitality. My official job title at work was Regional Industry Career Adviser – or RICA, for short, and thus was born RITA.

Well – you know the rest……Rita survived, gaining more and more readers over the years, and daily receiving emails from restaurant owners and workers, diners and fellow bloggers. I have made some very firm friends as a result, and the blog has taken my life in a totally different direction to what it was before Rita existed.

And guess what? The work blog (which I started after establishing Rita) hasn’t really targeted the young people I set out to reach, but is HAS targeted their teachers and career advisers, so I suppose that’s success in a way.

When I started the Rita blog, Steve Cumper was at that time the Garrulous Gourmet food blogger. I was most amused when I subsequently found out the identity of this hitherto mythical GG, as I had had previous dealings with Steve in his capacity as exec chef at Peppermint Bay, which had involved him mostly ranting at me one day (in my capacity as Apprenticeship Centre staff) mercilessly about a certain training organization and their professionalism, or lack thereof! He blistered me with his verbal fire! To put it bluntly, I wasn’t a fan!

Next time I was down there at PB for work, I stumbled over him on my way into the bar one day. I knew who he was, and we had by then had many friendly exchanges on the blogs, (during which time I hadn’t let on I actually knew him) but he hadn’t as yet clapped eyes on the mythical Rita.

I greeted him in a friendly, happy way, calling him ‘Steve’ and acting as if I knew him – which I felt I DID, having read his words, thoughts and opinions on his blog daily. It was only after I added (seeing his obvious perplexed look, and enjoying that fleeting moment myself) that I was ‘Rita’, that he then understood the reason for my assumption of comradeship!

I was devastated when he abruptly closed down GG, but elated a short time later when FK emailed me with a hint to check out a new food blog site, which turned out to be The Gobbler, and whose writing and commentary style was so obviously Steve’s!

We are now established friends, and Steve’s is an opinion I respect more than anyone else’s I can think of. How strange to compare this with my first meeting with him!

Yes, I owe the world of blog a lot, and I thank you all.

(Pictured above is the Rita-family - Mum, Dad, and their six adult children lunching at Home Hill last Friday. This was a celebration of the fact the original family is still intact, and entirely appropriate given that we were all bought up in the Huon, and that Rosemary & Terry Bennett, owners of Home Hill, are family friends. My thanks go to JS for providing us all with the pictorial evidence, and I trust he will forgive my using this shot here.)