Blogging Your Food

San Francisco Chronicle has an amusing article on food bloggers and their cameras.

Once it was cell phones. Now cameras are becoming a new focal point in dining room etiquette. Restaurateurs and their staffs suddenly find themselves in a tricky pas de deux with what they describe as a blossoming number of camera-wielding patrons.

The marriage of food bloggers with the availability of small digital cameras and camera phones has given rise to often extensive photo essays of fancy meals. While cameras once signaled a diner trying to capture a happy moment, many restaurateurs now view them as the badge of a would-be critic. While the resulting photographs allow hungry Web surfers to preview their meals online, they also signal a new level of scrutiny for restaurants -- and less privacy for diners.

"It's basically something that's unstoppable," says Chris Cosentino, chef at Noe Valley's Incanto, who posts his own Web musings at Offalgood.com. "When somebody pulls out a camera, we know they're a food blogger."