It's been a lovely year of experimentation in the kitchen, learning the ins and outs of food photography (an ongoing process), how to style food, and getting to hob nob with some of the coolest food bloggers in Los Angeles, the FBLA.
I'd like to thank all the readers and Facebook fans for your support, and hope to give you more and more good stuff!
To start, how about a retrospective? Here are the Top 5 Moments in G+F First Year:
5. Surviving the first Chopped-Inspired Dinner. Luckily the gathered friends and family made it easy. And we now have a running joke about Kevin Bacon and shrimp shakes (see the video here).
4. Learning the very simple art of canning! This was so much fun, and completely cured me of my fear canning. Which then led to my next favorite blogger moment...
3. Making sweet and spicy poblano jam. What happens when you add blueberries to jalapeños and poblano peppers? DELICIOSITY. It's a new word. I loved this jam so much, it's one of the few G+F recipes you'll see on both the blog and the calendar.
2. Meeting Chef Aarón Sanchez on my mom's birthday. He is such an incredibly nice guy, and we had the greatest time that evening.
1. The absolute highlight of the year, however, was being voted top pizza among the gathered food bloggers at Rosti Tuscan Kitchen last April. Getting to meet everyone who's blogs I'd been lurking on, and then having them pick my pizza was mind blowing.
There are, of course, plenty of other memorable moments. Finally getting to meet Oakley at the OC Foodie Fest AND learning her bacon scotch recipe—which was later featured on BaconScotch.com!!—are just two of the many.
Thank you all again. It's been hectic, heartbreaking, and wonderful all rolled into one!
