Monday, September 13, 2010

What Will it Take?

What makes a simple food enthusiast and home cook great? Is it their creativity with various ingredients? Their embrace of worldly cultural influences? Or is it their ability to go into the kitchen unafraid every day and create, drawing inspiration from sources blatant to the innocuous?

I like to think that any good foodie must not only relish cooking and eating, but must also take delight in exposing others to their discoveries and teaching them to the best of their ability. Blogs have become some of the most important, not to mention accessible, teaching and communication tools out there in recent years, and the authors have become storytellers, photographers, chemists and critics to an ever-changing audience. With the popularity and easily accessible medium of the internet also comes the ability of both authors and readers to change their preferences and styles on a whim, with writers even going so far as to end their communications seemingly mid-thought and disappear completely.

Since the demands of the blog-reading population are so fluid, it only makes sense that food blogging would begin emulating it's television counterpart and feature competition a la The Next Food Network Star. FoodBuzz, my publisher (and amazing food blogger connection resource) is doing just that, with a venture they're calling Project Food Blog. You can see my contestant profile here. But what qualifies me to take top honours? Well honestly, I think I'm just like anyone else with an undying passion. I'm incapable of going a day without cooking, thinking about cooking or creating new recipes to try out. I'm in the grocery store almost every day searching for inspiration and will try out even the most unlikely combinations regardless of their potential for failure.

What makes me different, as you know if you've been reading my blog for a while, is that I'm only aware of my successes and failures well after their creation. With few exceptions, I don't have the ability to cut bait and abandon a project after tasting it midway through. Instead I've become to rely on an army of taste-testers to give me honest feedback and critique with each new creation. Rather than being a burden on my creativity, the varied preferences of those I feed give me neverending ideas and encouragement to try new and unusual recipes. As a recipe writer and blogger, it's also given me the ability to take criticism (even if it's not constructive) and turn it into something useful that I can share with the rest of the world. Over the years, I've not only developed and grown in terms of my writing and photography skills, but I've also discovered my true passion for health and wellness through nutrition. Eventually, I turned this passion into a career path, completing a college degree in traditional nutrition and even enrolling in my current graduate program studying holistic nutritional therapy.

For all the nutritional knowledge that I have behind me now, though, the truth is that I am still 100% addicted to the pursuit of good food. I still bake up a storm with butter, flour and sugar, and I'm first to turn my nose up at bland, boring meals. The thing that I've really come to realize during my culinary journey is this: good food isn't just about taste.

4 comments :

  1. I keep forgetting to log into FoodBuzz. I need to learn how to get the most out of the site. I'd love to be in on those sorts of contests.

    Good luck!

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  2. good luck! I totally agree with you.. Food should taste good and be healthy. I'm a contestant too!
    check out my post at http://studioofgoodliving.com/2010/09/project-food-blog-defining-myself-as-a-food-blogger/

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  3. I totally agree! I make a point of looking for recipes that are delicious, but also healthy and cheap. Just voted for you! Best of luck in the competition.

    Lick My Spoon

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  4. hey i am sorry you didn't advance. i voted for you.

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Thanks for the feedback!