My Imperfect Kitchen – Two year blog-iversary!

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to watch the movie Julie and Julia again. For foodies who love Julia Child, it’s a fun few hours to learn more about her life. For bloggers, it’s a painfully accurate portrayal of what we do every day. The ups and downs, the excitement of learning new techniques and the frustration when things don’t go quite the way we plan.

August 7th 2013 was my two-year anniversary of blogging. In that time, I’ve only done one Julia Child recipe, the classic Boeuf Bourguignon, and I’ve never tried 365 days of anything other than breathing. However, in the last two years I have learned a lot about myself and a lot about food!

I started this blog for a few simple reasons. The first, was to escape from a stressful job. Just like Julie, I worked long hours and loved coming home to a kitchen where I could cook, be creative and make comforting, delicious food every single night. My friends were always asking me to share recipes and every week it seemed I was signing up for different cooking classes to learn more! Secondly, I love teaching and writing. Growing up, I wanted to teach High School English/Drama and write an epic historical romance. In fact, I probably have several drafts of my novel somewhere on an old computer hard drive.:-) Starting a food blog was a perfect match for me to share my cooking, teaching and writing passions. Finally, most of the food blogs I read were “perfect.” No one seemed to be sharing the things that didn’t work in the kitchen. I wanted to know how to fix things that didn’t go right. I wanted someone to tell me it was Ok if I burned the chicken because they’d done it too. My kitchen certainly was NOT perfect, but cooking and sharing the things I learned, both good and bad, on this life journey was something I dearly wanted to do! Because of that, My Imperfect Kitchen was born. It’s my little corner of the universe where life isn’t perfect, but it should always be delicious!

So what have I learned in two years? I’ve learned I’ll never learn it all! The world is FULL of new flavors to experience, new cuisines to taste and new skills to master. My culinary bucket list is varied and grows longer every day. I don’t take as many classes now. I rely on the things I’ve learned to create new and unique recipes of my own. I’ve learned blogging is hard work! It’s definitely a labor of love, but the experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met have been PRICELESS! I’ve learned knife skills are important, Farmers Markets are awesome, food should never be photographed in poor lighting and eating meatless meals occasionally isn’t so bad!

The past year, especially the last few months, I have been blessed with opportunities I could have never imagined possible. I’m humbled every day by the people who stop by my pages on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram or leave thoughtful comments on my posts! I’m so very excited to see what next year will bring! You can count on my sharing great recipes, all my mistakes, my culinary travels and introducing you to some incredible people who are part of the wonderful world of food!

Let’s celebrate two years of blogging! Here’s to the future and to many more adventures! As Julia Child would say “Bon Appetit” my foodie friends! Thank you for being here and inspiring me every day!