23/5 Meme

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I was tagged by Plum (cute) of My Favourite Plum for the latest and greatest Meme, cleverly entitled 23/5. The object is to quote the 5th line of your 23rd post and reflect.

So far, this is what I learned...blogger (the program) is confusing, each month of my archive appears twice (over there, to the left) and the first year or so this blog was fantastically boring!

It all started when a friend of mine who has a political blog, asked me to check it out. I had never heard of such a thing but loved the idea, since my cooking classes can always use a little PR. At first, I was posting recipes purely for my clients talking about what we had made, and how it went. Blah, blah, blah. It was all business all the time, and completely and purposely void of my personality.

One (fateful?) morning, I was chattering with a girlfriend of mine, who commented that she had looked at this site and said "It'll just say 'I like eggplant. Here is an eggplant recipe' why not write something? I want to hear what you have to say!" Oh sure, easy for HER, she is brilliant and funny (a comic-writer natch), and me? I'm a girl who has an obsession with brunch and cocktail hour nibbles. But a little light did go off, and I started adding some more comments before presenting recipes. I still had no readers other than my clients and friends (especially Ms. LaRue and P.K. The-Writer-Who-We-All-Adore) who were all very enthusiastic and encouraging, (and still are) so I was happy and merrily tooled along.

It was Legs McGee who changed all when she (very kindly) nominated my site for a Food Blog Award at the uber-fantastic blog, The Accidental Hedonist. Suddenly, I saw there were other "food bloggers" out there, and I had visitors galore. It was then I made a conscious choice to make this something more quirky and light, and very, very much, me. (My writing "voice" really is how I talk, paranthetical ticks and all) I began improving my photography, tweaking the formatting and adding my unique touches (my below the line comments and including pictures of ingredients, both of which I am tickled to see have taken off in various guises on other sites) to reflect who I am instead of keeping it as a biz blog.

So here am I writing post 357, and am pleased to report this site is exactly what I want it to be. (Minus the fact I am not tech savvy enough to tweak the template and make it look all fab.)

So a heaping thanks to Plum for tagging me and to all of you for reading, (this crazy-self-indulgent post.) I really like this silly little thing, (even if I was going to quit last week...) and despite the fact that in my daily life I am irrationally embarrassed at what a peculiar past-time it really is, (harassing from my friend the Ombudsman doesn't help) I quite enjoy myself and I hope you all enjoy it too. Most of all though, I really hope you are inspired to cook!

OH, and here is the quote from my 23rd post (or there-abouts):

They all seemed to love the food

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My first food related job was at The Center For Culinary Development. I had a terrible crush on my boss

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