A couple of great frugal blogs

I don't want you to think I've entirely forgotten the main point of this blog which is about eating frugally, not just fasting on the 5:2. And I've recently discovered a couple of blogs that do that job incredibly well.

One is A Girl called Jack written by a single mum who feeds herself and her son on £10 a week. Ten pounds! It's also far more than a food blog but covers politics, volunteering and other aspects of life in Southend. Her latest post is on a delicious-sounding fig, rosemary and lemon bread she made for 26p. And there's a great post about how the price of supermarket basics is sneaking up.

The other is written by a guy who calls himself The Skint Foodie which is more food-focused but is particularly interesting in that he's used the blog to overcome his mental health issues, an admission he makes in this admirably frank post.

It's also beautifully written - how's this for a line? "I turned love into hate, respect into pity, affection into disdain."

And he ends up. "At the heart of the concept of recovery in mental health is the idea that for anyone to have any kind of meaningful life these three elements must be present: hope, control and opportunity. If you're an alcoholic mentalist on the dole those things tend to be in short supply. Writing this blog and volunteering have, in the last year, given me a glimpse of all three."

Humbling.

PS He also has admirable taste. There are many good, simple recipes on the blog like this Indian takeaway substitute.

So farewell Frugal Cook . . .

How long should a blog last? It's a question, I guess, that more and more bloggers will be asking themselves over the next year or so. This one has lasted just over 21 months which isn't bad but I feel its time has come.

The online world has changed a lot in the past couple of years. When I started in January 2008, with the specific purpose of recording my progress writing The Frugal Cook book, there weren't nearly as many blogs as there are now. But the big change has been Twitter which has in some ways made blogging superfluous - especially if you already have a website. I know you can't tweet a recipe but you can tweet ideas with an immediacy and an effectiveness it's hard to match in a blog.

It's also true that you can get to a stage of casting round for things to write about, particularly if your remit is as narrow as frugal cooking. I do write about other aspects of food and drink which I'd like to explore more. I don't want to get to the stage of repeating myself.

Of course I won't give up writing about frugal eating altogether - after all I've always cooked frugally - but you'll now find my recipes and tips on my student and budget eating website Beyond Baked Beans.

The biggest wrench is the very personal interaction I've had with those of you who have followed this blog and contributed so many useful tips and comments. I hope I won't lose touch with you. Please sign up to the Beyond Baked Beans fan page on Facebook and/or follow me on Twitter where I now 'tweet' as food_writer. Fellow cheeseaholics may also like to know that I have - for the moment - a cheese blog called The Cheeselover (so you can see why I had to give something up!)

Anyway thank you all for visiting, for reading and for sharing. This blog has been richer for it.

Food blogging is better than Facebook!

Having been a food writer for some 18 years now I've got to know a lot of my fellow professionals. Very nice people they are too. I belong to a couple of good forums which are incredibly useful if you want to find out, for instance, in what respect English flour differs from American flour and the impact that will have on a recipe. People are more than generous with their advice

But frankly it doesn't compare with the heady sensation of joining the blogging community and finding out what people are cooking and eating on a daily basis. There's a joyous lack of inhibition about blogging, a manic enthusiasm, a total obsessiveness about ingredients and techniques, however off the wall, that's hugely liberating. Recipes don't have to be perfect, in fact it's better if they aren't. Everyone is on a voyage of discovery.

Every week, sometimes every day, I find out something new. Such as that Nicolas Clee, the author of the excellent and thought-provoking Don't Sweat the Aubergine has a blog called Sceptical Cook. Through Nicolas I find there's a terrific blog called Baking for Britain which not only gives recipes for forgotten treasures such as Deddington Pudding-Pie but meticulously charts their origin

Yesterday I got invited to join an American group of bloggers called The Foodie Blogroll (right) by a blogger who calls herself The Leftover Queen. A fellow spirit! This is much better than Facebook where you have to keep your food-related obsessions within reasonable bounds

At a time when you can't open a magazine without being told how to cook a perfect dinner party by yet another celebrity chef an army of bloggers is quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) creating the kind of food that they want to eat.

Writers can become photographers, photographers writers. There are no rules in the blogosphere.