A {culinary} fork in the road

I apologize.  I fear this note may become a little gushing, a bit on the sensitive side, even perhaps a little emotional.  But it needs to be said.  Forgive me.  It is what it is.

So I feel like I’ve unwittingly reached a bit of a crossroads.  Or a fork in the road maybe.  No.  That’s not it.  A fork in the road has only two paths to choose from – or to go back the way you came, and that would never do.  It must be a {culinary} fork in the road.

Since this bloglet came tip-toeing quietly into the world 9 months ago it appears to have been growing into something rather more than I had imagined.  It had never occurred to me to write a food blog, despite my culinary background & fondness for {great} food, so it’s very existence was all a bit of an accident really.

It started out quite innocently enough.  These things always do, don’t they?  I planned to start a photography blog where I logged my plethora of travel adventures.  I regularly packed up Ralph, my trusty 4-Runner, & headed off to think & photograph & write & just be.  This virtual notebook was to be a place where I could dollop all those experiences & images & endless scrappy bits of paper with equally scrappy scribble on them into something tangible.  A container if you will…a kind of online scrapbook.  Just for me, really.  I can’t believe I just aligned myself with the idea of a scrapbook.  Mercy.  So I built a website & was waiting for my next horizon to roll into view.

With my next new horizon not scheduled until towards the end of March, out of the blue I decided, in a moment of spontaneous abandon, (which just goes to prove what mischief you can get up to at the hairdressers) that I was going to eat my way through the 55 Best Breakfasts in Seattle.  I called it The Big Breakfast Adventure.  I am not sure at what point I decided to include it on my virgin blog, but I suppose that I must have.  You can read the very first breakfast adventure here.  My very first post.  I was off!  I had a blog.  It just wasn’t the blog I had planned.  But oh! it was fun!

Then, before I knew it, I had a big ol’ bunch of readers from all over the {world-wide} joint following along on my Big Breakfast Adventure, whether they lived in Seattle or not, whether they knew me or not.

“When I read your blog I just want to lick my computer screen”.

“Your food blog is my happy place”.

“You write brilliantly.  I think you’ve found your niche:  not just the photography, but the writing too”.

Were they really talking about my little bloglet??

Then one day in October I just threw caution to the wind & rambled on about {a particularly tasty bucket of} Kentucky Fried Chicken, despite that fact that I thought my burgeoning band of happy blog-followers might desert me for wilfully getting all touchy feely.  And about {fast-food} chicken to boot.  But the strangest thing happened.  I got an avalanche of emails, calls, texts…messages in all their forms.  People loved the chicken love.  I was surprised.  I was stunned.  Who knew how much people would relate to KFC?  Who knew how much people would be moved by a tiny glimpse into the life of cb?

A few days later I realized, as if in an instant, that I was excited about food again.  When I found a new treat somewhere I wanted to photograph it & share my new love with the world.  Or at least a little corner of it.  The way you rush home to tell your nearest & dearest, & surprise them with a delicious new treat that you hope will make their mouths smile & their taste-buds sing.  Yes.  Like that.  Only I found, not so surprisingly, that my beloved kitties just didn’t quite share my blissful enthusiasm for most of my tasty treasures.  Now I admit, Dougal really does like getting his way with a piece of KFC when a bucket of bird makes it’s way home.  And Florence (aka The Dairy Queen) will always appear, in stealth mode, as if out of thin air, when ice cream or cream cheese are out & about.  But the other stuff.  Nah.

Then I had this urge to share what I knew about ingredients, especially strange ones that might add some spice, as it were, to a few new kitchens.  Plus a mounting barage of requests to share my own recipes.

Still other lovely readers were demanding to know when I was going to start The Delicious Dinner Adventure so they would know where to head for a great evening meal.

So what does a girl do?

She eats & cooks & snaps & writes & then pushes that magic blue button in WordPress: “PUBLISH”.

But expanding the whole food bit somehow didn’t seem to fit into the purpose of the original photography blog.

Thus, I found myself – after 9 months of veritable gestation – at the point of birth.  I conceived.  I pondered.  I brainstormed.  I cogitated.  I chewed the cud.  I ate lots of chocolate.  I made the leap.  I pushed…& Foodie Footnotes was born.

So, lovely readers far & wide, I do hope you’ll stay & linger longer.  Take the bits you love, the bits that make you smile, the bits that make you roar until your belly aches, the bits that stir up your emotions & the bits that make you want to rush off & do something.  Whether that something be to eat Tom’s Big Breakfast at Lola, rustle up a batch of Raspberry Cheesecake Ice Cream or just buy a Lumpy Bumpy Bar at Trader Joe’s.

And then just merrily skip over the bits that don’t inspire you.  Of course it is my hope that it all does, but I won’t mind at all if there’s some things that just don’t float your boat.  Not everyone gets excited at the prospect of eating sheep’s lung & I totally get that, even if I don’t quite understand it.

THANK YOU for following along.  All feedback is {very} gratefully received.

Please share my little bloglet with anyone that you know that might just love it too.  They can take the bits they love & leave the bits they don’t, just like you.

I wish you wonderfully exciting, fun food adventures & a super-happy mouth.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!