I made the decision this week to make a hearty effort to get back into this blogging thing. I miss it- I really do. Strange as it may sound, I miss the dialogue in my head as I cook and prepare a dish, and start planning the words that will flow out onto the computer screen. I miss the excitement as I realize how spectacular a dish is and then cannot wait to hop onto the blog and share it. Honestly, a huge factor in not blogging much has been my camera. It’s really gotten wonky and it’s so much work to get a picture ready to share. But since camera replacement is not a possibility anytime soon, I’m just going to have to make the effort.
Yesterday I spent some time trolling through my old food blogging stomping grounds. I went through my entire blogroll and I became very sad. Way too many have stopped blogging for one reason or another. There were also way too many food blogs that simply didn’t exist anymore. I can always hope that some of those voices will return some day, and I decided that I didn’t want to be one of those empty blogs anymore. Where people pop in every couple of months and see that no blogging has happened. So I will try. As I go through pictures I have on my computer right now, I do have quite a few things to share with you that I haven’t before, so I will start there and see what happens.
I’m trying to set myself some realistic goals. Daily blogging is not realistic to me. Once a week is not often enough. And with school and dance both starting up next week (what was I thinking!) there will have to be some fluidity in my planning. But I will make it work. Because I have noticed a very disturbing trend in the blogosphere this last year. Once upon a time, us voices who started the food blogging movement did so because we truly loved food- and most of us loved cooking. Now, so many of the popular food blogs of today are… well, they’re not my cup of tea at all. They’re heavily ad driven. I can appreciate wanting to make money doing something you love… but enticing readers to subscribe because subscribers get to enter contests and giveaways leaves an off-flavor to me. And then they give extra entries into a giveaway because you share it on social media… Blech. I like to put thought and meat into my blog posts. I am aghast when I click on one of these “food” blogs and they give a few short sentences about how much they love this new chocolate spread product, and then there are hundreds of comments below agreeing or disagreeing. That’s not a blog post- that’s an advertisement.
Anyway. My current plan is to make an effort. To cook something delicious and pull my camera out and then share it right here. In fact, I was coming on here to share a recipe when I started on this tangent and decided that I better save the recipe for another blog post. I’m working on tweaking my website a bit. There are some areas that I never post in, so I’ve hidden them for the time being. Of course, it’s been so long since I played behind the scenes that I feel like I’m learning all over again. My homepage is a disaster area, but hopefully I’ll figure that out soon.
So coming up, a delicious and easy pizza-like bite that works for a quick lunch or snack idea. Perfect for afters school or to grab when dashing out the door on the way to dance. I also have a recipe for something really interesting- Chinese Red Cooked Bear. I almost forgot about that one, but my thoughtful husband took a picture of it, so I must share it. It’s not everyday you get to sample delicious bear meat. Stay tuned!