My 100th Post!

This is my 100th post! Of course, this might seem like a small milestone to most but, considering that I started writing this blog a year ago and didn’t know if I would last more than a few weeks, this makes me very proud. Over the weekend, I went back to look through all my posts and it was interesting to see what my first ones looked like and how my writing and food interests have evolved.

To celebrate, here is a list of my 10 favorite foodie moments so far (in no particular order):

•  Getting my Kitchen-Aid mixer: I spent so much time wishing for one that it really was a dream come true when I opened the giant box on Christmas Eve. (Related post: My Kitchen Dream Come True)
• Participating in the Foodie Pen Pal program: I’m so glad I discovered this program. It’s a lot of fun to share my love for food with new fellow foodies each month. (Related posts: August, September, October, November, January, March)
• Bringing back memories through food: I love when food brings back memories, whether the memory is related to a certain flavor or to the event it’s associated with. (Related posts: Happy Heart Day, Our Wedding Anniversary, Whatever Soup, The Art of Gardening, First Time Cooking Perch)
• Organizing a Julia Child book club meeting: This was such a great occasion for me to share my love of cooking, based on a book that we had all read. And I admit it, I’m slightly obsessed with Julia Child. (Related post: Book Club: Julia Child Edition)
• Hosting the Vogel-Maple Annual Holiday Party: I love this yearly event as it is a fun occasion for me to cook a bunch of food but also try out what everyone else brings. It also happens to be the most magical time of the year! (Related post: The Annual Vogel-Maple Holiday Party)
• Making my first gravy, from scratch: As simple as it may seem, this really was exciting to me. And it also happens to be my most viewed post. (Related post: Bottom Round Roast and My First Gravy)
• Bake Sale Fundraiser: This was such a fun event! It was a great excuse to bake for two days and we raised $200 for the UVA Breast Cancer Care Center. (Related post: Baking for a Cause)
• Teaching children about food: This is a very important subject to me. As a teacher (and parent, one day), I find it crucial to show children that food is fun…in a healthy way! (Related posts: Food Experiments with Little Munchkins, Cooking with a kid)
• Sharing Quebec dishes: Although part of the goal with my blog was to try new recipes, it is also wonderful to share some dishes from Quebec. (Related posts: Savory Quebec Dishes, Date Squares & Sugar Pies (Prepping for Quebec National Day), Tweaks on a Quebec Classic, Poutine, Paleo-Style, A Look at Our First Paleo Meals)
• Growing my garden: This is definitely one of my summer prides. I love taking care of my garden and eating my vegetables. (Related posts: The Art of Gardening, Starting Fresh, Cooking with a kid)

To celebrate my 100th post, I also wanted to prepared a couple of fun, out-of-the-ordinary dishes this weekend: lobster and chocolate cake.

My parents always loved eating lobster but I never wanted to try it when I was growing up. Now that I have vastly improved my palate, I wanted to give it another chance. So The Fresh Market‘s buy one get one free offer on lobster tail was the perfect opportunity. After googling different ways to cook it, I chose the easiest: broil for 5-10 minutes. Before cooking it, I seasoned it with paprika, salt, pepper, and melted butter. For the dipping sauce, I was looking for an alternative to garlic butter (although I made it as well) so I used this Asian dipping sauce recipe. It really went well with the lobster and I didn’t end up using the garlic butter. As we had a big lunch and weren’t looking for a heavy dinner, I didn’t make rice for the side, and instead cut some fresh tomatoes and cucumber to serve with the lobster.

For a week now, I’ve been wanting to make a cake to celebrate my 100th post (as well as my almost-over college time). I looked through lots of recipe and finally decided to combine a chocolate zucchini cake with some cake batter whipped cream. The result was incredibly moist and delicious. I had a fabulous time licking the chocolate batter and almost made myself sick (in a very happy kind of way) eating the leftover whipped cream. After our Chinese fondue dinner, Jeff and I both had a slice of cake and we were not disappointed by the result.

Thank you to everyone who reads, likes, follows and shares my blog posts and I hope to find new interesting food to write about in the future. This blog has definitely helped me develop my taste buds and my cooking skills. But my journey is far from over! Here’s to (at least) 100 more!