Once upon a time I had a cooking blog
And it was thwarted by whooping cough
I am a shy person, but I’ve always loved the idea of having an audience. Recently, I visited my mom, who had been bugging me for months to listen to a cassette tape I had recorded when I was younger in which I hosted my own fake radio show. As we popped the tape into the combo record/CD/cassette player (I’m dating myself already), I was filled with equal amounts of dread and excitement. What could 9-year-old Kiki possibly have to discuss on a radio show? Well, a lot apparently. In a heavy Southern accent (that I’ve mostly lost by now), I related not only reviews of the hottest literature at the time (BSC represent!) but also conducted exclusive interviews with family members on surprisingly serious topics such as parents that work far from home, like my dad did at the time. There were ad slots and hummed jingles for made-up car dealerships, and of course no radio show is complete without actual music (Mariah Carey, duh). When the play button popped up signaling the end of side A, I was amused, impressed, and a little sad that my mom hadn’t found more tapes when she was rummaging through old boxes.
Probably like most older millennials, I dipped my toe in blogging as a nerdy 11-year-old editing digital paper dolls to wear cut off shorts, platform sandals, and the essential A+F baby doll t-shirt which I then uploaded to my GeoCities website. I’m pretty sure I never had any followers, but I did teach myself basic HTML and coding which will definitely give me a huge leg-up in case I ever decide to go into tech (ha).
Throughout the years I cycled through various blogs, some public and some private, talking in cryptic codes about boys I liked and drama I was facing. When I studied abroad I sent weekly “sketchy story email” reports to my friends back in the US, replete with incredibly detailed recaps of my escapades. An example of a real-life email subject: “Sketchy Stories #7/#8: Drinking in parked cars, calling Kappa Sigs, and other bad decisions I’ve made in the past two weeks.” With grad school came Tumblr, which was less of a blog and more of a medium to show how cool I was by sharing twee Penguin Clothbound Classic covers and music videos by Vampire Weekend and She & Him.
Then one summer circa 2012 I decided to start a cooking blog.
No one really knew about it except for my family, but I actually kept it up for about 20 posts, which I consider fairly impressive. The biggest number of posts were taken up by what I called the Summer Cookie Project (SCP) in which I planned to try a new cookie recipe every weekend.
The good news: the SCP resulted in the discovery of my now go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe that David affectionally calls CooKis. The bad news: the SCP was tragically cut short when I caught whooping cough from a friend (post title: Big Whoop- An SCP Hiatus).
I did eventually follow up with a few more posts, including a sketchy story email cross-over post that referenced my introduction to Nutella when I was in Valencia (result: waking up after a night out to having eaten an entire jar due to my effort to cut back on post-discoteca doner kebabs) and lots of self-depricating humor relating to my culinary failures. My commitment to blogging eventually petered out, which is sad because if I had kept up with it, I surely would be on the same level as Smitten Kitchen by now ( /s ).
Why am I sharing these stories? Well, a first post has to have somewhat of a background or introduction, so I guess there’s that. But also, to illustrate a bit why I suddenly decided to start a blog/newsletter/whatever the cool kids are calling it these days. I’ve actually been wanting to start one for years, mulling over what to write about (Moving to Madrid? Adjusting to Spanish culture and food? Travel?) and wondering if anyone would care, then wondering if people would care too much. I have a bad, bad habit of caring too much what people think of me which ends in a bucle (translation: loop) of wanting to share something creative or cool I’ve done but then being paralyzed by fear that people are going to think I’m bragging/think I’m a loser/whatever other horrible judgment that comes to my mind as I hit delete on the draft post.
So I guess the purpose of… whatever this is, is to push myself to be brave, to share my opinions, to give myself a creative outlet, and to feed that nagging urge to have an audience (even if the only person who reads this is my mom). The loose plan is to talk about cooking and food in general, but I’m sure there will be snippets of my life in Madrid, Spanish culture (food and otherwise), and maybe even some reviews of the hottest (cookbook) literature. I’ll spare you guys my Mariah-Carey-Dreamlover-inspired car dealership jingles this time around, but only because this is a written medium.
Until next time…
Kiki