Three Years...Still Blogging

Hard to believe...three years since I posted my first post on this blog. A fun run, and it all started in the fall.

I love the fall! Good things in my life have often started in the fall. I was always one of the kids who was thrilled to be back to school. My first marriage, problematic in itself but which led to the birth of my dynamic and delightful daughter,

began in the fall.

On my first job after college I started wearing my hair long in the fall. This was good because I had worn a wig to the job interview (I had been told they were looking for someone older and I looked marginally older in a wig, but thought that it made all the difference...ah youth!). My own hair was waist length and heavy. Putting all that hair under the wig every day for work wasn't much fun. By the fall I knew that they valued me for my work, so I literally let my hair down. My boss's expression the first time he saw the full mane was priceless...confused, amazed, then (I think) appreciative.

One of the best things lately to start in the fall is this blog. Three years ago I barely knew what a blog was and there were far fewer food blogs.

I checked back to the brave folks who were the first few to comment here. The first four or five no longer are blogging. I guess it didn't match their needs in the same way that it matched mine:

I love the fact that I have 'met' people from all over the world through blogging...and that we are mostly the same...food obsessed :)

I love that blogging brings out my creative side. I get to play with food. I borrow lots and lots of cookbooks from the library and sometimes even bring the librarians samples of things I've baked to enjoy, especially of the sweets. I love that my photography has improved. I love that I have come under the sway of the magic of bread baking, seduced by all things baking, inspired by combinations of flour and butter and sugar and seeds and grains. Most of all I have been amazed that I can sit down at the computer, find words to fill the Blogger template time after time, and create something that other people actually read and look at and are occasionally inspired by.

As Sweetie would say (in jest), "Not bad...for a girl." He is actually my biggest fan and promoter, telling perfect strangers that they have to go visit my blog. Sometimes they even accept the URL from him.

I love hitting the Publish Post button and I especially enjoy the comments...and wish that there were more. You CAN comment anonymously as Natasha did recently. If you give me hints and I already know you I can even figure out who you are...a sort of puzzle. However, even if you never comment, I do hope you will continue to visit now and then. The place to click on to comment is usually at the bottom of the post. Try it...you might enjoy it.

Believe it or not, I don't have a clue how many people actually visit this blog. I could find out easily, but I guess I'm not really interested. Recently one of my sisters assured me that many family members stop by and read to see what I am up to. I suspect that there are a few folks beyond immediate family...and I welcome you all!

This is the 360th post. I think that comes out to an average of something like a post every third day.

When this blog's first birthday rolled around I had posted 144 times, had done memes, challenges, blogging events like this one

and had joined the Daring Bakers in March.

Inspired by bloggers who promised to blog each day during November (many accomplished that awesome challenge!), I blogged each day in February from the first to the 14th...with a Valentine theme and a number theme, too.

Still finding my way, I blogged about a couple of odd cooking gadgets and asked folks to guess what they were, did some birthday recipes for various Daring Bakers (we were a small enough group them to be able to keep track of birthdays), did a few restaurant reviews and met a few bloggers in person.

My posts were of all sorts of food, but heavy on the baking and simple cooking. Local foods like these Gravenstein apples were a big part of my posts right from the start.

The second year was similar and I met more bloggers. The Daring Bakers grew and grew to a huge group, I continued to do blogging events and I was getting better at food photography.

Early in the second year I decided to try something different for the Daring Baker challenges...with so many bloggers posting about the same thing it seemed like a good idea to inject a bit of whimsy and fiction. I created the Land of St. Honore', where baking is a birthright. St. Honore' is the patron saint of bakers. The posts about the denizens of the Land of St. Honore' are fictional, but still speak to the challenges faced while executing each Daring Baker recipe. On occasion I visited the Land for non-DB post, too. I hope to expand my fiction writing in the Land of St. Honore' this year.

As I entered the third year I came under the spell of sourdough starter...wild yeast! Before the year was out I had filled this blog with so many bread baking posts that I decided to devote a new blog, Bread Baker's Dog, to bread baking.


I still post some bread recipes here, but there are lots there, too, and will be more soon since my new sourdough starter is almost ready. A blog that has been a constant source of inspiration for yeasted baking is Susan's Wild Yeast blog and her event, Yeastspotting, one of the few events I participate in of late.

I continue having the pleasure of meeting other bloggers in person and occasionally exchanging cookbooks or food gifts.

One never know what the future holds, but I hope that the next year of this blog will be as much fun as the last three! I hope to meet more bloggers in person. I'll be writing just a bit more biographical posts, perhaps doing a series of posts with recipes from a single cookbook, and maybe even getting back to doing blogging events. I'm also hoping to teach some friends how to enjoy baking with yeast instead of being afraid of it. Who knows, they may become addicted to bread baking, too!

Come by and visit and pull up a chair, comment if you can stand to, enjoy what you find if not.

A special thank you goes to others who try one of the recipes I post and then let me know how you liked it. That is a special treat for me!

To make it easier to find those recipes, there is now an index at the top right. Click on the photo and you'll find a looooooong list of recipe links, arranged by category.

Happy cooking and baking! Happy blogging! Now where is that champagne?

Love, Elle