“I grew up on canned vegetables and processed foods,” says Mary Cunningham, the home-cooking blogger behind The Arugula Files. “Now my goal is to throw away my can opener.”

Cunningham started the blog in March 2008. She says it helps to keep her motivated to shop at the farmers market and learn how to cook with fresh ingredients. “I’ve cooked a lot of vegetables I’d never tried before and learned that I love arugula in everything,” she says. “Parsnips? Not so much.”

Her blog tracks what she buys at the markets and includes recipes as well as photos of her kitchen successes. She also writes about meals out—she favors hole-in-the-wall ethnic places, such as those on The Washingtonian’s Cheap Eats list—and tests recipes from food magazines and cookbooks.

We caught up with Cunningham to get her take on the best and worst home-cooked meals. Read on to see recipes for her favorites, stories of kitchen disasters, and farmers-market ingredients she’s looking forward to for fall.

Daddy blogger Matt likes to keep his last name under wraps, and he won’t spill the beans about his daughter’s first name, either. So he calls her Mini-Kamp. “One of my coworkers came up with the moniker before she was born,” he says. “She just said, ‘So when is the little Mini-Kamp due?’—referring to my last name. It just fit.”

On his blog, DC Urban Dad, Matt documents his day-to-day life as a first-time father—and all the joy, mishaps, and hilarity that go along with it. He says the blog started as a way to keep friends and family up to date on his wife Amy’s pregnancy and, once Mini-Kamp was born, to post pictures of the latest addition to the family. Then other parents started reading the blog, he says, so he’s kept it going for nearly two years.

Matt’s latest venture, which he posts about on his blog, is a weekend running group for dads with stroller-bound tykes called DC Dads on the Run. “It’s our time to talk about work, sports, raising kids, politics—you name it,” he says. The group can usually be spotted Saturdays or Sundays on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park or at Hains Point.

We caught up with Matt, a Mount Pleasant resident, to find out what it’s like to be a parent in Washington. What’s his favorite kid-friendly (and free!) activity? Where does he go for an adults-only date? And how the heck does he pass those middle-of-the-night-when-Mini-Kamp-won’t-sleep hours? Read on for his answers.

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a new reality show in town—MTV’s The Real World has hit the streets of Washington. Cast members have been spotted everywhere, from the Dave & Busters at White Flint Mall to the Capitol Skyline’s rooftop pool to the Clarendon Grill.

Perhaps predictably—this is Washington, right?—a debate has taken shape among locals who love and hate the show, and lots of local bloggers are at the helm. Adam Rosenberg, one of the founders of the Anti-Real World DC blog, lives across the street from Ground Zero for the show: the Real World house at 20th and S streets, Northwest. He says he started the blog in June “to chronicle the show from my couch.” Rosenberg has since recruited a team of contributors to follow the cast’s shenanigans through Washington—with a good dose of snark, of course.

“We wanted to have a little fun because we’re in a city driven by point/counterpoint debates and campaigns,” he says. “So of course you have to have an Anti-Real World voice to compliment The Real World.”

Elizabethany Ploger, a video blogger from Woodbridge who vlogs at Love, Elizabethany, is on the other side of the fence. “I love reality TV,” she says. “The Real World was the start of it all.”

A self-proclaimed Real World: DC stalker, Ploger’s goal with the show is simple: to find the cast wherever she can and capture her encounters on video. More than a month into her gig—and with more than six videos under her belt—she says MTV’s production crew knows her by name. The Real World videos have increased traffic to her site tenfold, she says.

We got Adam and Elizabethany to hash out their differences in a head-to-head interview on all-things The Real World. Read on to find out what happens when bloggers stop being polite and start getting real. 

Annie Elliott says her brother came up with the name for her home-design business and blog, Bossy Color: “That says a lot about our relationship, doesn’t it?” She founded the company in 2004 after earning a graduate degree in art history from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The blog soon followed when she started hearing the same design questions from clients over and over. “I figured if three people are wrestling with this, there must be more out there,” she says.

Elliott’s “Dear Abby”-style blog was born. She collects questions from design-stumped readers and offers advice. Her blog has been mentioned in the Washington Post and the Seattle Times, but Elliott says many of her readers come from Google searches. “People all over the world seem to be perplexed by accent walls,” she says.

Elliott lives in a 1910 Woodley Park rowhouse with her husband, twin daughters, and cats. She grew up in upstate New York but moved to DC after graduate school to take a job at the Corcoran. “As for my age,” she says, “let’s just say that I’ve taught my daughters to tell people that I’m 26.”

We caught up with the perpetual 26-year-old to pick her brain about home design and some of her biggest decorating challenges. Read on to find out how to make a small space look bigger, where to glean design inspiration in Washington, and, of course, what to do about those darn accent walls.

Jason Storch started DC Foodies in 2003 as a way to pair his love of food and dining with his computer skills. “It was also a way to keep myself from going completely crazy at my job, which at the time was really boring,” says the software consultant. His wife, Amy, whom we’ve featured before, was having success with her blog, Amalah, so Storch wanted to give it a try.

Two years ago, he decided to bring on writers to bolster the site—with growing demands at work and home, Storch didn’t have much time to blog. “I wanted to keep donating the money I made on ads to DC hunger charities,” he says. “I took on additional writers and moved into more of an editor role.”

Rob Rutledge and Drew Long were two of those writers. Both had writing experience—Long was a food columnist for a newspaper in North Carolina, and Rutledge was an English major in college—and both were interested in the food-and-dining scene in Washington. Rutledge’s beat is wine and beer—it fits in nicely with his former job at the Wine Specialist near Foggy Bottom—while Long focuses on beer and grilling.

Today, DC Foodies has expanded from its dining roots to include posts on local food, farmers markets, home cooking, and more. Though it caters to a largely foodie audience, Long says he’s not a foodie . . . well, maybe just a little: “To the extent that I’m a food lover who spends too much of his time fixated on what he’s eating and drinking now or what he’s eating and drinking next, then yes, I’m a foodie,” he says.

We caught up with these three food lovers to find out what they like and dislike about the local dining scene. Read on to learn what trends they’re looking forward to for fall, what they’ve been cooking at home, and their biggest kitchen disasters.

Brooke Kao became interested in fashion four years ago. Prior to that, she says, “I was one of those emo kids who wore the same black cargo pants every day and barely showered.” Then one day, after thumbing through old issues of Vogue that her mom had lying around, “my heart began to change,” she says.

Kao started her blog, the Fashion Void That Is DC, in 2007 when she began reading fashion blogs during her downtime at a summer job. Her blog began as a place to post pictures of her eclectic ensembles—Kao likes to layer thrift-store finds and pair them with chunky accessories and bright lipstick. While her Daily Wear posts are still a staple of the blog, she has also branched out to include write-ups on local stores—she says her list of secondhand stores is extremely popular—and lists of clothes and accessories she wants to buy but hasn’t.

Kao is a rising sophomore at American University who hails from the Maryland suburbs. She turns 19 next week and hopes to get a job in graphic design when she graduates. “All I really want to do is something creative,” she says. “If I can’t do that, then it’s back to school.”

We caught up with Kao to quiz her on Washington style and fashion. (Don’t worry—she’s not as hard on the area as you might think.) Read on for her favorite summer fashion trend, advice for the fashionably inept, and where she shops for bargains.

Pete Ryan rolls up his sleeves once a week and tests new recipes in his Adams Morgan kitchen. His blog, Pete Bakes, documents his successes—and occasional failures.

Ryan started the blog after college when he moved into his own place and missed his mom’s home cooking. “She didn’t do it for a living, but I remember my mom always taking a tray of brownies out of the oven or icing a cake,” he says. After reading lots of food blogs, Ryan decided to start his own.

A self-taught baker, Ryan has tried his hand at everything from bread to candy to pastries to crackers. He aims to teach his readers something new with every post. Though he hasn’t won an award for his blog (yet!), Ryan recently won the first-ever Foodie Fight, an Iron Chef-type competition among local food bloggers. His winning recipe: potato-wrapped cod.

We caught up with the Web producer/graphic designer—that explains the slick Web site!—to find out his favorite recipes and his biggest baking flop. A warning before you read: This interview might make you very hungry.