When I first broached the idea of starting a food blog, I decided to do a bit of research.
Those who know me well know that I never ever do anything without doing my background research first. It’s a bit of a thing for me. Ever since I was an elementary school kid who took on my own self-study projects through the summer and spent evenings in the air-conditioned library looking for information on Marie Curie’s life, or Greece, to inform my final paper.
At any rate, at the time, I didn’t even really know what a blog was. Is it a web page? What makes it a blog? Why the frig is it called a blog? Such a funny word.
One of the first blogs I found was Annie’s Eats, and it is, to this day, my go-to for so many things. Annie’s posts are short and sweet with just the right personal touch, so that you feel like she could very well be your baked goods-touting best friend. Before I really even started getting into reading her blog on a regular basis, I was thoroughly inspired (and still am) by the fact that she juggles this incredibly professional, well laid-out blog with excellent, thoughtful recipes with being a mother of two and a physician. Annie became not only my favourite resource for recipes that I knew would work, but also the hallmark for what I wanted to accomplish with my blog: an well-presented blog that I balanced with all of the other things going on in my life and an outlet for my creative energy.
I’ve since made and adapted so many of Annie’s recipes. I used her croissant dough to make these pistachio, goat cheese and chili honey croissants:
This croissant dough is Annie’s recipe! Incredible!
When I saw this Strawberry Bacon Balsamic pizza on Annie’s blog, I knew I had to make it.
These quinoa cakes are a regular in our house, thanks to Annie.
As I started to explore blogging a little more, and I had gotten to the point of creating a blog and had started to populate it with some recipes and photos before launching it to the world, I reached out to Kelly Neil, a local food blogger and photographer. You see, when I Googled “Halifax food blogger,” everything came up Kelly. Her blog is visually stunning – well, obviously, she’s a photographer – and her writing concise and thoughtful. As if that weren’t enough, Kelly is just as lovely as her photos, and has been a great support to me. She helped to found Halifax Food Bloggers, which has helped a lot of us local bloggers get a little recognition and make connections with each other. She has been a big inspiration and help to me with my food photography, and is always quick to answer any technical questions I have.
