Food-Centric

Don’t you love it when people use catch phrases like Food-Centric? Yeah – me too. It makes us all sound so hip and with it, don’t you think? Anyway, I wanted to give regular readers a little of bit of a heads up about some differences you will notice around here over the next little while.

I am going to change the schedule around to some extent. You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting on the weekends very much lately, and that is likely a permanent change. I just don’t have time to do seven posts a week these days, so I would rather post 5 really good entries than 7 just okay ones. The biggest change though, is going to be in the number of recipe and food related posts as opposed to humor, photography, gardening and other subjects. Those things will still be here, but only twice a week – the other three posts will be devoted to food. I love taking photographs, but I’m a much better cook than I am a photographer, so I’m going to let the food take center stage.

Part of the reason for this is purely mercenary, I’ll admit. Recipes draw more readers, more hits and more page views than any other content. Hits and page views pay the bills, but they also highlight where my readers think my strengths lie. If 500 people visit on a day when I have nice garden shots, and 1500 show up for a muffin recipe, what does that tell you?

Beyond that though, is something even more important to me. That is the satisfaction of seeing other people discovering the joy of cooking their own food. Not a week goes by that I don’t get emails from people who were inspired to try their hand at making real food because of a recipe they found here. Food made from real raw ingredients – fresh vegetables and herbs, meats and dairy products. The stuff that you find around the edge of the grocery store, not the prepackaged mixes and cans you find in the middle aisles.  There’s nothing wrong with eating that stuff if you want to – here is the only place you will ever find a mention of my secret life long affection for Chef Boyardee Ravioli.  But it’s obvious from the ever expanding proliferation of food blogs and other related web content that cooking is of great interest to a whole lot of people. 

What is it that makes food and cooking so important to people? And, seemingly more important as time goes by? Food is elemental – a basic thing we all need every day. It is very satisfying to take a few simple ingredients, create something delicious and feed it to people you love. To be able to do so with confidence, knowing that the end result is going to be enjoyable, makes life easier and more relaxed. The world is a stressful place, so it just makes sense that we would be drawn to an activity that relieves us of tension and brings us a sort of communal pleasure.

That level of competence in the kitchen can only be attained one way – with practice. I’ve been cooking since I was 10 years old, and I was a pretty cook before, but cooking for my blog the past two years has improved my skills ten-fold. When I hear from a visitor that one of my recipes gave them the courage to try cooking something they had never made before, it thrills me right down to my toes. In addition, we are all more interested in where our food is coming from, and anyone who hangs around here much at all, notices that I am usually posting about food that is seasonal, and more often than not, local. I try to provide you with ideas for preparing the food you might be seeing at your local farmer’s market this week, or maybe even in your own back yard.

So what does this all mean? Like, is she ever going to come to the point? The point is that you will see more food related posts here now. My goal is three recipes a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday and Thursday will be the same photography-garden-nature-family type posts that have been more common up till now. I mean, if a blue jay starts talking, who am I to ignore him?

I can’t put up a post like this without including my thanks to those of you who stop by here every day – far more than one would guess from the comments. I’m grateful too, for the great emails I get from all of you [dlynk (at) htva (dot) com], as well as my Twitter followers, friends on Facebook and for all theStumbles on my posts. [if you love a blog, Stumbling the posts are the biggest favor you can do for the author – it drives an amazing amount of traffic to them, not to mention helping you find more web content that you will enjoy] As always, I am open to feedback and suggestions, and I hope I can continue to bring you all kinds of stuff that you will enjoy. Now – go cook something!