Six months of comiendo como Kiki

Reflecting on half a year of writing

With my visit in the US coming to an end, it seems like a fitting time to celebrate the six month anniversary of Come como Kiki. When I started this newsletter at the end of April, I never really imagined I would be writing it half a year later. I mostly started it as a creative outlet: I’ve always loved writing, and since David and I cook (and eat!) a lot, putting together a newsletter about food and our life in Spain seemed like a no-brainer.

Does making popcorn count as cooking if we don’t use a microwave?

Six months of dedicated writing has taught me a few things. Among them:

• Writers are undervalued. Recently I heard someone complaining about a blogger getting paid for a post that “probably took her 10 minutes to write.” The post was something along the lines of my Friday favorites write-ups, but longer, and with more text for each “favorite.” Believe it or not, my Friday posts can take me a couple of hours to finish, between writing the actual text, editing pictures, and checking everything over for errors (several times). Now imagine the time that goes into professional writing!

• Sticking to a regular schedule has been key. I think if I just wrote whenever I wanted/whenever I felt like I had time, I would have dropped this little experiment months ago. Having a routine has forced me to keep going, and I’m thankful for that.

• That regular schedule is way easier to stick to in Spain. Because of the way my day is scheduled in Madrid, I’m able to carve out time to work on this newsletter in times that make sense for me. This has been significantly harder to do in the US, as I’ve been forced to work on my posts later in the evening (when I feel less on top of my game). That’s also why my publication timing has been all over the place this past month!

• Social media isn’t for me. I still maintain a couple of my personal social media accounts (although I post less and less), but I’ve found that it isn’t worth it to me to keep up with social media linked to this newsletter. I’m not saying that I’ll never post again—the accounts are still there—but I feel like the interactions I have here in the comments are way more authentic and take place in a space that feels more like my own.

• The Substack community is incredible. It’s been amazing to connect with people all over the world, here at CCK and in the comment sections of other newsletters. I’ve learned so much from my fellow authors and readers.

  

  One of the pictures that David took and edited for my dad to commemorate all the foods he ate on his first visit to Madrid

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Since I publish twice a week, plus a discussion post every other Sunday, it turns out I’ve written a lot over the past six months. As a summary of sorts (and a great introduction for new readers of CCK), I’ve outlined the majority of them below!

Posts about traditional Spanish dishes:

• Talk escabeche to me: Escabeche

• It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Rosquillas

• Take me out to the (soccer) game: Bocadillos

• Gazpacho is a dish best served cold: Gazpacho

• A paella by any other name…: Paella

• In (the summer) drinking horchata: Horchata

• The Great Tortilla Debate and Tortilla time, parte dos: Tortilla de patata

• Empanada: your new favorite weeknight dinner: Empanada

• “Baby” food, cochinillo edition: Cochinillo

• Lentils are my love language: Lentils/lentejas

Posts about Spanish food culture:

• Never use a knife to cut tortilla: Unspoken rules of Spanish food

• The Abuelos: A tale of a food culture misunderstanding: A look back at my time studying abroad in Valencia

• Why can’t we buy fish on Mondays?: The million questions I asked David when I first moved to Madrid

• Pancakes in a paella pan: How David and I navigate combining Spanish and US food cultures

• Catch you on the flip side: Observations on culinary differences in the US and Spain

• The humble frutería: Celebrating local fruit shops

In addition to the posts above, we’ve had an interview with a true Madrileño (more interviews to come!), traveled to Cancale and Algarve, and overanalyzed soup. You can also find some other fun posts hanging around in the archives, like my ode to food tourism.

Every Friday (okay, once it was a Saturday—I blame the French fries!), I’ve written a roundup of at least three of my favorite food-related finds from that week. I won’t link them all here, but you should be able to easily find them in the archives if you search Friday favorites.

If I would have been writing at the time, the huevos rotos above definitely would have made my Friday favorites

Then there’s our Sunday Sobremesa tradition; we’ve had eleven of them! I won’t link them all (the current one is always pinned on the newsletter homepage, and now there’s a separate Sunday Sobremesa section at the top of the web landing page that links to all of them), but here are the top five in terms of number of comments:

• How many cookbooks do you own?: Bet you can’t top 500 of them!

• Let’s talk about travel snacks: Airplane and roadtrip munchies

• What’s your favorite food-related movie or television show?: Calling all cinephiles (and…telephiles? I guess?)

• What’s your favorite fast food or take-out pick?: I’ve eaten 1.5 out of 3 of my US choices this trip (The turkey shortage thwarted my Arby’s visit, although I did get my curly fries!)

• Do you meal plan?: Something that I’m looking forward to doing again once I’m back in Madrid!

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As a parting note, I’d love to hear what you like to read here, so please let me know in the poll below! It will be live for one week.

Thank you for the past six months, and here’s to six more!

Un abrazo muy fuerte,¹

Ki

1. Un abrazo muy fuerte: A big hug