Meet the bloggers of Oak Park

Sometimes I fantasize about starting a hyper-local blog about my adopted home town, I love Oak Park so much. But since we're blessed with two local newspapers, Chicago Parent's headquarters, Annette's amazing MomMail email newsletters and the community site Live Here Oak Park, there isn't exactly a gaping hole in the online version of our great community (or my schedule, for that matter).

So I've decided to do my part to promote my fellow Oak Park/River Forest bloggers. The most famous, of course, is the 14-year-old fashion phenom Tavi Gevinson of The Style Rookie, but Making It Lovely has an impressive following for her design blog and the beautifully-photographed food blog Lottie + Doof has received tons of accolades in the mainstream press.

I can count among my personal friends Carrie Kirby, the penny-pinching expert behind Frugalista and fellow synagogue members Emily (expert canner and author of West of the Loop) and Marta Block (aka The Wedding Maven). I'm also friendly with Angela, who writes about her family at P Four and her family dinners at Peas 4 Dinner and Molly, who writes about food, farming and family life at Virtual Farmgirl. Matt, the daddy blogger behind The Cote Boys, is a fellow parent at our Montessori school; and Vanessa Druckman, who writes the popular food blog Chefdruck Musings, recently moved from Columbus, Ohio to nearby River Forest and treated my family to the most delicious Rosh Hashanah dinner we've ever eaten.

Future Oak Park bloggers hang out on their home turf

And although I cut a mango for her at a PTO healthy eating event, I only feel like I know Chef Melissa Elsmo of Inspire Mel and Tales of the Elsmo Four.

Oak Park is also home to the home blog Four Thick Walls, which chronicles the renovation of an energy-efficient home, and Health at My Size, a blog that's only nominally faithful to its title. There are probably more local blogs I don't yet know about. If you can think of any, please drop me a line in the comments.