Ten years ago I wrote my very first post announcing this little blog to the world. I had no clue what I was doing at the time, but I’d heard of these things called blogs and figured I’d make one of my own. How hard could it really be?!?!?! (That was sarcasm in case it didn’t come through via text.)
My early years of blogging were just to chronicle my adventures in the kitchen and share them with the world. Sometimes my recipes worked and sometimes they didn’t—and I shared the ones that weren’t so great anyway in hopes of teaching you from my own mistakes. The photos were horrible, the writing was so-so, and the food was hit or miss. My blog mostly existed as a cooking diary of sorts, except one that was posted on the internet instead of kept hidden in a private journal.
But some point along the way I discovered that sharing recipes was something that I really loved. And although there is some value in sharing the failures, it might be a better use of your time to only share the ones that work and taste great—if they don’t, either I re-work them until they meet my new criteria or archive them to my folder of kitchen experiments. So I started posting only the recipes I thought were worth your time and money—and people noticed. (Some of the old not-so-great ones are still up, so be sure to give the text a read if you scroll back far into the archives.)
I’ve never had the biggest blog following, but I’ve been fortunate enough to get recognized by some big brands and websites over the years to keep me motivated. One of the firsts was Pillsbury reaching out to contribute recipes to their blog. Then it was the great folks over at Simply Recipes asking me to do the same. And just the other day, my blog was named as a finalist for the 2019 Saveur Blog Awards in the “Most Inspired Weeknight Meals” category! (You can vote once per day until October 18th.)
Though the outside recognition is great, this blog is now part of my life and is here to stay. Nonetheless, thank you for all of your support along the way, and cheers to more decades of sharing recipes with you!
Congrats to your Ten-niversary from a longtime lurker from a metric country on the other side of the big pond who found you quite some time ago via Simply Recipes.
Your blog is an inspiration to me, and I guess I came some time after the failures, because every dish that I made worked more or less – less when I somehow slipped up in trying to convert things…
As you were added to my feedly shortly after I found you, I’ll go back to lurking, reading, recreating.
Many happy returns and thank you!
Thank you for your kind note! It’s always great to hear that people are enjoying what I put out into the world.
Hi there, and congratulations on 10 years! I’ve been enjoying your recipes courtesy of Simply Recipes, and started following your blog today. Please, please share the recipe for the babka-looking bread in the pictures for this post. I’m pretty sure I need it in my arsenal. Thank you!
Thank you for following along. The babka in the photos was purchased from Breads Bakery, but I’ll have to add it to the list of future recipe ideas for the site!