EDIBLE: The Internet can be our friend! We should have it over for dinner. And food blogging.

One friend faced down cancer without freaking out her young kids. Another friend inspired a deep team of South Coast yahoos to run marathons with her amazing rehab effort from paralysis. Another moved hundreds to help replace his right leg after a freak accident.

As I wrote this spring, they are three happy, kind and talented locals. Each saw unfair events shatter their realities. Each carried out a rare feat of resilience.

After that piece ran, three different locally sown fundraisers helped Monterey’s Heather Ream, Carmel’s Rachael Short and Seaside’s Chris Fowler face down their latest challenges. Today they continue to help others do the same, instinctively.

Theirs ranks among the most stirring stories that appeared on the food blog in the last four months, but many readers might’ve missed it, as it was a web-exclusive. I scrambled to publish it online even though it would miss its sunshine in print because I wanted it up in time for all three fundraisers.

Producing constant online content can feel like an ever-increasing burden for those in journalism. I know the feeling.

So do Ream, Short and Fowler, who understand better than most that life rarely fits tidy time and space constraints. So I look to what the web can give us rather than what it takes away.

For me, often by way of the food blog, the web provides space for quick and tasty new niblets that merit attention but not a full-blown story – of late, local legend/lightning rodBill Lee on the outs at another restaurant (Rocky Point), eco-pioneer Sorke Peters earning a much deserved chef of the year from the local chapter of American Culinary Federation and a Zeph’s One-Stop mainstay retiring. It means freedom for lengthy rankings (like Best Food Stories of the Year), showdowns (Best Restaurant Block in Monterey County) and experiments (GourmetFest giveaways). It means extended director cuts (see the one on Salinas’ medicinal chocolate factory story), service pieces (farmers market guides) and extended Q&As (like Daniel Boulud’s). It means videos, bonus bits and guest writers. And that’s all in the last four months, though that does include 100 blogs.

By the way, the aforementioned triple story got richer when cancer survivor Ream earned honors as Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Woman of the Year and money for the sick kids she did it for. Short’s Run for Rachael relay teams outdistanced their record of $30,000. And Fowler’s friends raised enough to outfit him with a leg. I’d like to think the blog helped. Who knows. I do know it helped me squeeze in another meaningful story. Here appear six other online stories which recently augmented print:

6. Landmark winery Chateau Julien sells for $12 million, will become new winery.

The timing made it too big to sit on until the next print deadline, so news that the massive and multifunctional property will become Folktale Winery & Vineyard found its way to the blog. And from there it got a barrel of “shares.”

5. Chef Todd Fisher’s top 11 behind-the-scenes moments from NBC’s “Today Show.”

Fisher’s gift for the spotlight translated on the morning show, even as he secretly nursed a cut without getting blood on the hosts or in the food. On the blog he shared highlights.

4. David Bernahl, Coastal Luxury Management win breakthrough in battle for L.A. restaurant.

Sometimes the blog is the place for stories about subjects so relentlessly newsworthy (and gossiped about) that there isn’t enough patience for another in print. We’re onto our sixth or seventh CLM story of the year by now, with good reason, but I understand the reader fatigue.

3. Fifty images of 32 hours in SLO Wine Country, California’s next big wine lover’s crush.

San Luis Obispo looks like the next wine discovery of the West – the next Monterey County, if you will. And like MoCo, visitors can take 500 photos and barely crack the top of its cultural crème brûlée. So it’s nice to have the freedom to invest dozens of photos to illustrate what it offers.

2. Sharp vegan response to death of controversial meat-lover Joel Ozersky, after local Meatopia event.

The PBFW Meatopia video we did was, as promised, a love poem to red meat (and a fun way to use the web). When its vegan-bashing founder died soon after, an enraged reader – yes, a vegan – wanted to know why we didn’t talk karma. I felt it was relevant, so we ran it.

1. In N Out move to Seaside cancelled, Burger King to make it featured location for left-handed sandwich.

This story was impossible in print, because the week’s issue came out April 2. The foodE-newsletter comes out a day earlier. (Sign up to get the blog-loaded letter atwww.mcweekly.com/subscribe.) Now people still accost me about the April Fools “special report,” often still angry, but mainly relieved.

Two final notes:

1) A web exclusive two weeks back revealed In N Out is running on schedule, expected to open in November.

2) Ironically and poetically enough, the last time we had a print issue land on April 1, we announced we were going all-blog, all-digital, all the time.

QUICKBITES

• Reuben egg rolls, duck empanadas and sliders are among the $5-$8 treats during a 3-5pm daily happy hour at Forge in the Forest in Carmel (624-2233). Well drinks and Chalone wines run $5. That and 33 happy hours appear on the blog. Email edible@mcweekly.com to nominate other worthy spots.

• Namu Korean (624-3318) does a pork-prawn pancake I want to marry. More on www.mcweekly.com/edible.

• Live music acts visit under-appreciated Phoebe’s Café and its ample decks on the Asilomar Conference Grounds Fridays 6:30pm until sunset. Weekly until Sept. 4 (except July 31 and Aug. 7).

• Restaurant 1833 (643-1833) would seem too young and fun to undergo something so dramatic as a renaissance. But it is. Find out how on the blog.

• Marina’s Wild Thyme Deli & Cafe is celebrating its 13th anniversary with big, throwback-priced Atlantic City subs: $6.99 throughout July.

• Inspired by Weekly contributor Thomas Gray’s forthcoming farmers market home chef challenge (coming with this week’s issue on Thursday), an updated day-by-day guide to the farmers markets of Monterey County is now live on the blog, www.mcweekly.com/edible.

• Every Wednesday through Labor Day is Wine & Whiskers day at Montrio Bistro, with new parklet, $1 per glass of wine benefits Peace of Mind Dog Rescue and Animal Friends Rescue Project.

• Wine. Dine. Jazz. Winemakers Dinner Thursday, July 16, has a live jazz and jazzy desserts by Monterey Meringues at 6pm and four-course dinner and Cima Collina wines at 6:30pm. Happens at Hyatt Regency Monterey ($85, hyattmontereywinedinejazz2015.eventbrite.com).

• Speaking of Cima Collina… its tasting room (620-0645) celebrates four years 2-5pm Sunday, July 12, with wine and birthday cake on the patio and $99 select case specials.

• jeninni kitchen + wine bar (920-2662) now has a great five-table sidewalk patio on Lighthouse in Pacific Grove. Plus some new apps. More on jeninni’s evolution on the blog soon.

• Randy Pausch: ”You just have to decide if you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.”