So I know a lot of folks don’t seem to understand the whole “rage” behind taking photos of your food and posting them online for the world to see. When you do so with Instagram, you seem to go from “Idiot Who Posts Photos of His/Her Food Online – Who Cares?” to “Hipster Idiot Who Posts Photos of His/Her Hipster Food Online – Who Hipster Cares?” I understand that, and that’s fine. It’s not for everyone. For those of us who it IS for, however, it’s such an incredible thing; to be able to share sexy food with other people who also enjoy sexy food.

It was also really cool for me to read, recently, about a restaurant in New York City that has taken advantage of the food porn / Instagram craze by encouraging patrons to check out other people’s food photos on the popular app to better assist them in making a decision on their dinner for the evening. So neat to see how powerful, and actually useful, this technology has become, even if a lot of people think it’s stupid.

If you’re still, somehow, in the dark, I’m an avid Instagram user and I love to take photos of food. And while it’s just a goofball hobby, it’s turned out to be pretty darn profitable for me. Up until yesterday my food photos had won me $30 in gift cards (for posting photos of goodies from my favorite food trucks) and top spot on my favorite food blog, FoodBeast with their “Top 6 Instagram Photos of the Week” a few weeks ago. But this post is titled “Winner” for a reason:

My last two posts have outlined the contest they were having at work: an opportunity to get a “sneak-peek” at the new Food Network Kitchen that opens on Monday & a free lunch. Turns out, the mini-strawberry shortcakes were deemed a winner and I got down on some of the new kitchen’s wares yesterday! I chowed down on some fried chicken tenders, creamed-corn corn bread, baked beans, roasted asparagus, fruit salad and homemade apple cobbler among other things. They spoke of how the kitchen will consist of food that is made fresh daily and change seasonally and occasionally incorporate items from the current month’s Food Network Magazine. It’s both a blessing and a curse, however, to know that all I have to do is walk down two flights of stairs to get to a Starbucks barista or a bottle of Naked Green Machine. We decided our company needs to offer a meal plan with a maximum limit you can set.

But wait, there’s more! Before I left work yesterday I found out that I, again, made it to FoodBeast’s Top 6 Instagram Photos Of The Week with the awesome and stupendously tasty Mac & Cheese Fried Pie from the lovely Dale’s Fried Pies. That particular post is special now, in that not only did the photo it featured get me back on my favorite food blog, but it also pretty much woke this blog up (and consequently – apparently – turned this into a food blog!).

So tell me it’s stupid to take photos of my lunch and share them with the world, again. That’s cool.