GASTRONORMOUS

If you are going to leave coffee stains on your good linen, they might as well be cute stains. These mugs have “stamps” as bases—one has a floral pattern, the other a sort of wave—so that when your coffee overfloweth, you will leave a pretty design on the table rather than a wearisome ring. What is really cool is that if you put some thought into placement, you can actually create a recurring pattern with the cups. [$56 at Greener Grass Design]

One of the unintended outcomes of this blog has been that restaurants and other companies have contacted me to offer free meals or products, I assume in exchange for a review/plug on my blog (This condition hasn’t been explicitly stated in any of the offers). Such propositions don’t exactly pour in, but I have been surprised to receive the offers that I have. Thus far, I have not taken anyone up on it. In fact, the first time someone emailed me to ask them to be their guest at their restaurant, I deleted the email, thinking it fishy. I have since learned that this sort of thing is pretty commonplace in the food blogging community.

When I review a restaurant, bar, or product on this blog, I have paid for it with my own money, received nothing in return, and the review should be considered as true and pristine as freshly fallen snow on the butt of a newborn baby. Or something like that. (I should also mention when I blog about cool products that I don’t actually own, I am not doing it at another party’s behest–these are just products I happen to come across on various websites.)

I must say, if I were ever to accept one of these invitations for free products or meals, I would still review the product in an honest, warts-and-all, manner, if I even chose to review the product at all. I would, of course, also disclose the fact that this was a freebie in my review.

I lean toward continuing to not accept such offers, but what do you think? Would this sully your opinion of my reviews? Or am I crazy to refuse, as long as I adhere to the tenets of disclosure and honesty?

Please let us know what you think by commenting below (comments are working now, btw).