year 2: learning about food
happy second anniversary to my food blog! the last year, i remade some favorite dishes including the couscous with seafood and a fresh tomato sauce, red grape haricot salad, lemon yogurt mousse, tuscan white bean and garlic soup and herbed focaccia with tomato. i experimented on some new recipes like the fresh fruit salad with honey vanilla yogurt, watercress & pasta in spicy tomato sauce, cerveza-battered fish taco, beef stew and adobe lime salad. i also learned to cook a few korean dishes, including seasoned spinach (shigim-chi moochim), rice and vegetable medley (bibimbop) and vegetarian dukboki. from visitors, some fun blog metrics include:
- the most clicked on new recipe i tried last year:
lemon fish over spinach by jessica seinfeld
a very simple and tasty recipe that reminds you that you can eat more fish and enjoy it too!
- the most popular post with regards to food art is:
charm city cakes + harry potter = explosive cakes
- the most searched for restaurant for second year in a row:
- US: bobby flay’s sloppy joes throwdown at Snipper’s Quality Kitchen, ny
- outside US: carton king creativity park, taiwan
in addition, i read more about food. whenever i saw an article talking about health, concerns and tips on food, i’d add it to my blog, highlighting the key information so i can reference it quickly. there is a lot of great advice and ideas to be healthy and i appreciate learning more. of course all of the reading and cooking isn’t complete without exercise. on average, i’ve been working out 3-4 times a week. on an environmental note, i started composting and changed my storage containers from plastic tupperware to glass containers.
as for next year’s goals, i plan to continue learning more about how to eat healthy, try new recipes (including a new cuisine: thai), and exercise 5-6 times per week. on an artistic note, i may invest on some new dinnerware so i can take a more creative photographs. to year three!
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2011 aug 10
a delish year of food
happy anniversary blog! indeed it has been a year writing, thinking and experimenting with food and it has been a tasty journey! i’ve learned some new cooking techniques, admired the beauty of food and tried food i had previously been not interested in eating.
since i really made the blog for myself, i was not expecting anyone to visit it except for myself! so it was a pleasant surprise to have readers! it was fun to see which posts were the most popular. here are a few notables:
- the most clicked on recipe:
chicken stuffed potato puff by sunny anderson
we love our mashed potatoes and we love another way to make chicken! this is the perfect recipe that combines the two! it is such a fun and yummy recipe!
- the most clicked on page and searched for restaurant in the US:
bobby flay’s sloppy joes throwdown at Snipper’s Quality Kitchen, ny
i could always tell when the episode repeated on food network because the next day, the metrics on my blog would spike!
- the most searched for restaurant not in the US:
carton king creativity park, taiwan
innovation and green is in! what a fun and creative way to be good to the environment and serve up food!
some things i’d like to do in the new year is come up with new words to describe yummy and delicious, play with my camera to capture the different looks of food, but most importantly, keep cooking. wish me luck!
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2010 aug 10
i eat therefore i blog
i used to think that making something from a cookbook wasn’t really cooking. my mom never cooked with a cookbook so i thought if one cooked from a recipe, it was … well … cheating (this bit me on the butt when i tried to document some of my mom’s recipes a few years ago — but more on that later). it wasn’t until a decade or so later that i made the leap to purchase a cookbook!
the first cookbook i invested in was better homes & gardens®: new cook book. my first & a fav recipe was spinach lasagna. part of what made it my fav was that i took liberties to put in my own substitutions and additional ingredients! i started to play with more recipes and i continued to give myself the freedom to substitute ingredients that appeal to my taste palate and may be better for my health. as my dishes grew, my memory of my substitutions for past recipes faded. enter this blog.
one of my goals will be to document foods i enjoyed MY way and remind myself how to make them again! a cook book to me — after all, a blog is all about ME! this blog officially begins the day i watched the movie, julie & julia. (btw, good movie … go see it!)
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2009 aug 10
