Today, Michel Foucault had a cheese sandwich

For those of you who find that you have an insatiable appetite for all things Chodorow, I commend this offering from LX TV, which is evidently some sort of broadband soft news outlet. (Think Naked News + Evening Magazine -Nudity -CBC.)  and you get the idea.) It is a two part interview with Chodorow, and worth a look. I found it hard to take seriously. Chodo's interlocutor rocks a Tyrolean kinderwhore look that is exactly what Amy Poehler would wear if this were actually an SNL digital short. Also, the giant bevs from the sponsor in the shot make the whole thing seem a little less than journalistical.

However, the tag they give Chodo recalled a line of inquiry I've been fussing with recently. Chodo is IDed as "mega- restaurateur and blogger Jeffrey Chodorow." The "when did you realize you were not just a restaurateur, but a mega-restaurateur?" line of inquiry is priceless, but Chodo's status as a blogger interests me more. In the wake of the food bloggers take over the world story last month, there was some discussion on the question of  "what is a blogger?" A sidebar to the food blog article ran under the heading "Among the many New York restaurant blogs, here are a few that are considered to be top-shelf by other food bloggers." It is a distinguished list. Some I've dined with, some I correspond with, some link to me, others used to link to me, some I'd never heard of. But  to suggest that Eater,  Grub Street, Restaurant Girl, NYC Nosh, Augieland, Midtown Lunch, The Amateur Gourmet, Serious Eats, Snack, The Strong Buzz, Gothamist Food, and Megnut are all in the same racket blogs is to push the term past the point of usefulness. This is by no means to suggest that saying "you, sir, are no blogger" Bentsen-stizz is some sort of a dis, but having a presence of some form on the internet is different from having a blog. In broad terms, certainly Eater and Grub Street, and sometimes Snack and Strong Buzz, are clearinghouses for information originating elsewhere, rather than producers of original content. Make no mistake -- these are useful sites that I check more often than 99.9% of the straightup food blogs, but it is something distinctly different from the individual, more or less diaristic approach of most blogs.

Further complicating the issue is the corporate blog, or Clog, as I uninfluentially dubbed it a while ago. A blog, like Chow, Grub St., or Diners Journal, that is an appendage of an entity publishing in a different medium, seems like an inherently different proposition than a standalone blog. Without his mega restaurant empire, Chodoblog would not exist, and would not make sense. The question is not so much if Chodorow is worthy of the esteemed title of "blogger"; instead, is it useful for us to think of what he writes as a blog? It seems like some other term might be useful as we navigate through the ever proliferating food-media jungle.