Big Spud writes all in cookery journal

Thursday, 30 August 2012

FOOD BLOGGER: Gary Fenn.

By Charles Thomson

A RAYLEIGH man has become one of Britain’s best-known food bloggers.
Gary Fenn, 33, of Heron Gardens, started his website ‘Big Spud’ as an online cookery journal.
But it has become so popular that companies now lavish him with free products in the hope that he will give them good reviews.
Gary said: “Most people, in their cookery books, have all yellowing bits of paper and scribbles where they’ve written down recipes or what did and didn’t work.
“The blog replaced all of that. It was like a scrap book, but it was searchable.”
Gary – a married IT trainer with two children – has now been updating the website with his latest recipes and reviews for five years.
It has built up a big following, attracting 20,000 page views every month.
Gary said: “I put it all down to Twitter. I fell in with a load of other like-minded food writers on there and it just gently snowballed from there.”
Such is the blog’s popularity that Gary is now sent a steady stream of freebies, from crates of fizzy drinks to a family-sized George Foreman grill.
Companies send him the goods in the hope that he will give them his seal of approval – but Gary promises his readers that he will always be ‘brutally honest’.
The blog’s success has also given Gary the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of his heroes, from attending a cookery class with Jean Christophe Novelli to partying with Heston Blumenthal.
He said he hoped to one day follow in their footsteps and pen his own cookery books.
He said: “I never had any aspirations for the blog. It’s always going to be for me. Even if for some reason it goes stratospheric and I’m making thousands of pounds from it every month – I won’t change it. It’s like my personal food diary. It’s more fulfilling that way.
“I wouldn’t like to work as a chef. It’s long shifts, difficult conditions, unusual hours. I might grow sick of cooking, which would make me really sad.
“I’ve got a few ideas for books, but I haven’t got round to putting them on paper yet and I won’t tell anyone my ideas until they’re ready to go.”
Gary’s blog can be found at http://bigspud.co.uk

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1 comments on this news item

Posted by : Paul, Basildon | Saturday 01/Sep/2012 | Report this comment

I have been fortunate enough to be invited round Gary’s for dinner and I can honestly say it was the best meal out I ever had. Probably the Best Chef in Essex!