Posted by Sheryl Kirby in news and media, on the web, wide, wide world of web on July 7, 2008 at 3:39 pm

The internet has always been a place where people feel it's perfectly okay to say things they wouldn't say in real life because they can hide behind the anonymity of a screen. This has been the case since way back in the days of bulletin boards and usenet, and unfortunately hasn't changed much in this era of blogs. And while we have a fairly open policy of what we'll allow as far as comments go here at TasteTO, we still consider personal blogs to fall under the "my house, my rules" policy. I bring this up now because the big food story in the media last week was obviously Dinner in the Sky, and because someone was going around to various blogs and leaving bitchy comments in any case where the writer wasn't completely thrilled with the event. I got a critical comment in my personal food blog because I didn't seem to like it well enough for the commenter in question, although they must have been disappointed when they discovered the comment was screened and deleted. Personal blogs are not a public space for commenters to air their point of view, don't come into my "house" and shit on my floor.

I'm not sure if my cranky commenter was the same person who left a comment on the post at Torontoist, but it seems like the event didn't really please anyone - the people who got to go up were mostly unimpressed, and a lot of other people seem either angry at not being able to take part or angry that it blocked off the square. Comments were mostly positive on the BlogTO account of the event, but even then, there was griping about "privilege", even though the event was free to anyone with an Amex card.

Also at BlogTO, Tim checks out the new home of Messa Bites, and has a neighbourhood round-up of Lawrence Avenue East.

At Spotlight Toronto, Suresh has photos of the food at Afrofest, and Mehreen reviews Not Just Noodles.

Following fellow writer and blogger James Chatto, David Lawrason ends his blogging run (but not his monthly column in the print edition) at Toronto Life.

Noelle climbs to the rooftops at Gremolata with an article about Toronto chefs and their rooftop gardens, and James discovers that used coffee grinds are like black gold to gardeners, while Malcolm reviews a 2005 Ontañon Crianza Rioja.