Friday Five

This week seemed to both fly by and slow to a halt at times. I'm super glad that it's Friday, and I am looking forward to a travel-free weekend at home (aside from the requisite trips to Target and the like). Let's finish off this week with another round of the Friday Five -- this week's topics range from books I'm reading to some final thoughts on the Foodbuzz food blogger festival I attended last weekend.

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1. I've been a voracious reader of late (heh, what's new?). The latest book to grace my bedside table is Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). So far, so good. I love that two funny and opinionated women have written books such great books this year. Prior to starting Mindy's book, I read Markus Zusak's The Book Thief (beyond highly recommend, though I suggest you have a box of tissues handy), and Suzanne Morrison's Yoga Bitch (which I had high hopes for, but it wasn't quite as good as I thought it would be). Waiting on deck is Wendy McClure's The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, which I just picked up from the library yesterday.

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2. In between session programming and the Taste Pavilion event during the festival last Saturday, I jumped into Whole Foods with Natasha and Rachel to grab a quick snack. I left the store with three Seasonal Clif Bars -- which include spiced pumpkin pie, iced gingerbread, and peppermint stick flavors. Thus far I've had the peppermint stick bar, which satiated my hunger on the six-hour return flight from SFO to PHL (seriously, what's up with the lack of any food snacks on such a long flight, United?! Sure, I could've bought an $8 snack box, but, um, no.) I'm looking forward to trying the pumpkin pie and gingerbread flavors in the near future.

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3. Add this to the list of things that I don't really need, but kind of want anyway -- a whoopie pie pan. I made whoopie pies once before, but found that it was quite difficult to make evenly-sized (and rounded) tops and bottoms. (Apparently my resulting whoopie pies were so hideous they didn't even merit a blog post.) A whoopie pie pan would be a brilliant way to bake uniform whoopie pie tops and bottoms. A bit of a specialized tool, and it's not as if I make whoopie pies all that frequently, but still. It could be fun (and a bit dangerous) to have this pan on hand!

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4. Yesterday's search for pie-baking inspiration has cemented my plans to bake an apple pie this weekend. Sheri, whom I met at the Foodbuzz Festival last weekend, suggested that I try this Fine Cooking recipe for an apple pie covered with leaves.  Fingers crossed I can make it look half as good as the slice pictured above. I think this could definitely be a show-stopper dessert for our Thanksgiving table. 

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5. Speaking of Foodbuzz, I've spent a good portion of this week contemplating some of the topics that were discussed during the sessions on Saturday morning. One of the most thought-provoking discussions occurred during the opening panel covering the topic "Taking Your Blog to the Next Level." Let's face it, I would LOVE to take my blog to the next level. As much as I love you, my dear 50 readers, I would be lying if I said I didn't want to have 5,000 readers. (Ok, yeah, or Pioneer Woman-style 500,000 readers, whatever.) The biggest advice the successful bloggers on the panel had was to "Be yourself." And secondarily, from Joy the Baker (who I kind of want to be best friends with -- or with whom I'd like to be best friends, if you're into old-school grammar):

"Only blog if you LOVE it. Only make it if you want to eat it. Only photograph it if you think it looks pretty, sparkly, or otherwise awesome. Only write about it if you’re really into it ... When it comes to blogging ... only do it if you love it."

This advice directly contrasts with one of the other bloggers on the panel, who said that the secret to successful blogging was "quantity over quality." Though I will be the first to admit that some of my posts have been phoned in -- I think ultimately I'd like to think that there's a point to everything that I post. I'd much rather one quality per week that draws readers in than write 15 posts a week with 10 pictures of the same thing from 10 different angles and 20 meaningless words. 

I've spent much of this year trying to figure out what I want to do with this blog, and where I want it to go. I definitely don't want to be one of those people who blogs every meal that they eat, because, let's face it, no one really cares. (Or at least, I sure as heck hope you don't care.) And, honestly, my meals aren't that interesting, anyway. I enjoy doing recipe posts, but there are plenty of blogs that do that well already. Since baking is one of my favorite things to do (there's just something therapeutic for me about following a recipe to the T and knowing there's a good chance the results will be just as expected). One thing I'd like to focus on in the future is the nutritional benefits of certain foods, and maybe a look at the history and/or future of food products as well. I think there could be a lot of interesting things to to look at when considering the foods that we choose to (or not to) eat. 

Overall, I'm glad that I attended the Foodbuzz food blogger festival. I met a number of interesting folks and tasted (way too much) delicious food. There are a lot of bloggers out there, and it seems like there is a lot of randomness when it comes to who makes it big and who doesn't. There are plenty of people putting interesting content out there who don't yet have the readership they deserve. Whether my blog ever moves from a personal passion to the "next level," I'd like to think that at the very least the content that I'm producing is interesting, engaging, and useful to my readers.