15 Tuesday May 2012
11 Friday May 2012
Tags
…to go see the ocean 
It’s crunch time. And I’m starting to feel it.
I told myself when I first got engaged that I wouldn’t stress about the wedding. It would be totally care-free, simple as can be — worries would be my last thing! And I have done a pretty good job with it, but I’m starting to feel the trickles of stress coming in…
…what color cupcake wrappers should I have? Will the color bleed? Should I have colored frosting?…will my dress fit right…am I getting too skinny?…at the same time I can’t indulge too much. Is this guestbook I’m thinking really a good idea…? Did I give enough info in the invitation? Will the tuxes look right with the dresses?…I hope the flowers won’t wilt too quickly day-of…and how the heck should I do my hair?
See?
It’s creeping.
So I’m going away for the weekend. And food is quite literally on the back burner right now.
Chris and I need a little “us” time this weekend. So we’re heading up to our favorite state, Maine — to one of our favorite places, Bar Harbor — to breathe in the fresh ocean air, sip some wine, enjoy some lobster, and most of all (and most importantly), enjoy each other.
I’ll be back in a few days — refreshed and ready for the summer!
08 Sunday Apr 2012
Tags
blogging, food, hobbies, hobby, personal, reflection, reflections
Blogging and I go way back.
And not just the food kind.
I’ve been writing up posts about my life since I was 13. Remember Livejournal? I signed up for that “online journal” when I was in 8th grade at the same time as about five of my friends. And I used to write about how scary math quizzes were, and how much I despised chemistry, and what in the world was I supposed to do about that boy who likes me but I don’t like him back? My friends would read it and comment on almost all of my posts, and I would do the same for their entries. It was a cute little community we had. After middle and high school, I continued to use Livejournal in college — and used it for the same purposes — to complain, rejoice, gossip about my life — and read about the same things happening in my friends’ lives. Again, it was my little online community. Blogging when I was an adolescent helped me a lot. It made me feel connected. It made me feel supported. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone in this world and that other people had the same worries and problems that I did.
The reason I’ve decided to write this post is that there is a lot of confusion and posts and articles about blogging today, no matter what genre you’re in. “Where are all these blogs coming from?” “Why are people blogging?” “Do they realize their blog has a .01% chance of turning into a book?” “Why do you spend all that time blogging, anyway?”
Folks.
It’s simple.
We (me, most of us, anyway) blog for these basic and straight-forward reasons:
Well, Megan, if you’re putting all this time and effort into blogging, why haven’t you banked on your creativity and hard work yet?
I get this question a lot, actually. And it’s also another simple answer: For me, this isn’t about making money. Also, I don’t want stats, SEO, and sponsors to consume me (or my site). For me, this is a personal log of my cooking and baking adventures that I’m writing up to share with you. I want you to enjoy what I’ve made and experienced, too. If I make something delectable, I’m the last one to hide it from you or keep a secret recipe. At the same time, I’m also the last one who’s going to fling herself out limb for limb to get sponsors, or obsess over my stats to get more ad clicks.
So, Megan, why aren’t you doing giveaways like every other food blogger on this planet? That’s not an ad.
Well, it depends on what I’m giving away! Most giveaways are sponsored in some way, or, they’re an ad for what you’re giving away. Some bloggers have extra cookbooks lying around or gadgets and are willing to give those away, but most of the time, companies reach out to popular bloggers and ask them to review and give away one of their products.
a.) So, yes, I’ve been asked to review products and do giveaways, but most of the ones I’ve gotten so far have been for things like protein bars or some other food item I’m not into. If, for example, KitchenAid came strollin’ into my inbox and offered one of their stand mixers to give away on my blog, yeah, that’s a company I’m willing to support and brag about to my readers.
b.) As for personal giveaways — I sort of adore all of my cookbooks and my limited supply of kitchen gadgets, so those are reserved for me
So, Megan, why did you go the food route? Why didn’t you just keep blogging like you did in high school and college?
I grew up! Blogs have a focus, a theme (usually), and my online journal was becoming an anger outlet. It was time to stop crying about life and start living it.
Why food?
a.) I’m in love with it. I think about it all the time. It’s almost obsessive. I often wonder why I’m not obese and why chocolate tastes so damn good all at the same time. So this is a great place for me to be obsessive about it.
b.) I’m in a constant state of learning. And I crave knowledge. I read about cooking. I read about baking. I watch how people chop onions and veggies on Iron Chef America. I try it all out. I fail. I succeed. It’s so much fun.
c.) The wonderful community! The Boston Food Bloggers is a huge, incredibly supportive, humorous, creative, talkative, full-o-fun community that I love being around — whether online or in person. Beyond that, I’m now part of the Secret Recipe Club community, which is equally supportive and fun — I love discovering new blogs across the country and around the world!
Boston Brunchers running a 5K
Boston Brunchers at Harvard Common Press
Now some of my great friends and followers --- at the Boston Food Blogger Launch Party in January 2011
So thank you to all of my readers, vocal and non-vocal, near and far, for being part of my blogging community. I love sharing the recipes I find and make, the restaurants I eat at, and all my ramblings and musings about life in the midst of it.
I look forward to many, many, many more posts to come.
18 Sunday Mar 2012
Tags
I don’t go into too much detail about myself on the blog, but Clair from Finding Clairity tagged me in “11 Things” about a month back — she wrote 11 random things about herself, then asked some other bloggers to do the same.
I haven’t gotten around to doing this until now.
So if you’re a little curious about little CW, here are 11 things about me!
1. I am the only person in my family with red hair. Neither of my parents nor any of my four siblings have red hair. In fact, we can’t seem to find where it came from. There’s no red-headed person in our genealogy as far as anyone can remember. My siblings used to joke that I was switched at birth as a child, and I did believe them for a time. (i.e. I used to think someday my life would be much like the made-for-TV-movie The Face on the Milk Carton — terrifying thought for me, really.) But I’m not — just a stubborn recessive gene passed down for generations and generations!
2. I’m terribly afraid of my food processor. I know that thing is built with safety in mind so you can’t chop off your hand, but every time I turn it on, I’m afraid the thing will somehow break, the destructively sharp blade will come flying out, my thumb get lopped off, and I’ll be dead on the kitchen floor from blood loss.
3. I don’t like to be the front runner in a big conversation. i.e. Thanksgiving dinner. I prefer to sit and listen to what other people are saying. The same thing goes for a big group of people I’m not terribly close with. I’ve always felt more comfortable in the background, especially (what a surprise), the kitchen.
4. I don’t listen to a lot of music. I love music. I love singing. But I’m not terribly in-tune with the latest singers and songs. I don’t listen to music at work, in the car it’s usually NPR (and the occasional country….don’t hate…), and on the T I prefer reading.
5. Speaking of music, I always wanted to learn how to play the piano, but never did.
6. I bite my nails. I always have. I probably always will.
7. I’m allergic to a lot of raw fruits (and it makes me terribly sad/frustrated). Here’s the list (of the ones I’m aware of, though I’m sure there are more): Most severe: Apples, peaches, pears, kiwis, and pineapples. Less severe: strawberries and bananas. With the former, the allergy is pretty strong — I get a nasty itchy throat for about 10-15 minutes after eating them. And it’s worse if I eat them straight. The latter fruits yield just a mild irritation. However, despite this allergy, I still eat all of these fruits. Their deliciousness is often worth the pain. Also, I don’t know WHY this allergy develops. Never had a problem with these fruits as a kid!
8. I am in love with cats, but I’m allergic to them, too. I also love dogs (not allergic to them). But if allergies weren’t involved, I would choose a cat because they are so low maintenance.
9. I break and spill a lot of things in the kitchen. (Things just tend to go flying.) Unfortunately, not breaking things doesn’t appear to be a learned skill for me as the years go by. I’ve shattered glass lids for frying pans, favorite mixing bowls, wine glasses, shot glasses, regular glasses, plates, etc. I’ve also dropped entire meals on the floor as well as soup. Once I actually got pretty paranoid that there was shattered glass in my chicken and, not unlike the food processor fear, someone would find me dead hours later on the kitchen floor.
10. I used to be into acting and singing in college. (No one at work or in the Boston blogging community believes me when I tell them this!) I was actually the president of my college’s improv club, and when it was in its prime, it was the highlight of my college career. I met my best friends in that club. It was the perfect time in my life to get involved in sketch comedy, because at ages 18-21, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself — so what better plan than to gallivant around on a stage saying and doing funny (stupid) things?
11. I’m getting married in July. I’m ecstatic. I’m marrying my high school sweetheart. We’re getting married outside, in a courtyard, in the evening, surrounded by our family and friends. I’m going to be smiling, laughing, and crying the entire day. It’s going to feel surreal. It’s going to be wonderful.
So there you have it
It’s nice to vary things up once in a while, isn’t it?
03 Tuesday Jan 2012
This is a pretty big milestone.
In honor of 300 posts of cooking, baking, recipes, and fun, let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at the history of Cooking Whims.
My first post was about King Arthur’s Fudge Brownies back on November 5, 2009. I was living with my parents, and once a week two of my best friends (now two of my bridesmaids for my upcoming wedding!), would visit every week. My mom nicknamed us “The Baking Club”. We made desserts that should have made us obese. I would find these desserts on blogs. Then they told me to start a blog.
I did.
My blog was originally named Baking Whims, so all of my recipes from November 2009 – April 2010 are all desserts. Then I moved out and soon discovered I needed to fend for myself in terms of food. A few weeks after moving out I went to the library and came back with seven cookbooks. I started reading. I started cooking. I started loving food more and more. I started posting about my cooking. I renamed the blog Cooking Whims.
Then I signed up for Twitter.
I searched for people blogging in and around Boston, and came across The Boston Food Bloggers. I started following the authors of the blogs that I found on the site. I started chatting with them and reading their blogs. They started to read my blog. My traffic increased. My cooking skills improved. I learned how to properly chop an onion.
In January 2011 I met a bunch of bloggers at the Boston Food Bloggers Launch Party, two of them being Amanda (Kitchen Misfit), and Kathy (Kathy Can Cook). They taught me more about cooking and baking. They took me to a Farmer’s market. My cooking started to branch out—I used more and more fresh veggies, and ones that I’ve never even used before (fennel!), and was hungry for more.
I started getting invited to blogger events, including getting a tour of America’s Test Kitchen and Harbor Sweets, and attending the opening of UFood Grill at Fenway and CheeseBoy at the Pru. And then I discovered the Boston Brunchers in March 2011, and started going out to brunch as much as I possibly could with them.
Most recently, I joined the Secret Recipe Club, where I’m assigned a different blog each month to make a recipe from—-and someone gets mine. This is a great way to meet new bloggers and expand my cooking horizons even more.
All in all, these 300 posts here on Cooking Whims have been wonderful for me. It’s fun and exciting to try new recipes. I’m always learning something—whether it’s a new technique in cooking or food photography. I love reading my comments from all of you and hearing the success readers have had with my recipes. I love giving a play-by-play of blogger events and reviews of restaurants that I go to.
But most of all, I’ve loved meeting all of you.
I want to thank all of YOU for reading. It’s what keeps me going. There’s no point in posting about my cooking adventures and the recipes I try and make without an audience. I know most of my readers by name, but if you’re a silent reader, I’d love to hear from you now, and I’d love for you to keep reading as I keep cooking and blogging!
So, what’s in store for Cooking Whims for the next 300 posts?
Here are a few of my goals:
And last, but not least, to kick off my next 300 posts (and the many more to come after that), here’s a list of some of my favorite recipes that I’ve made and posted on here. For a full list, check out the Recipe Index! 
Tomatoes Stuffed with Couscous, Goat Cheese, and Zucchini
Creamy Parmesan Orzo
Creamy Asiago Mushroom Rigatoni Bake
Hummus Turkey Burgers
Rich Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte
Martha Stewart's Outrageous Chocolate Cookies
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
‘Til next time!
16 Wednesday Nov 2011
Tags
exercise, healthy, healthy eating, healthy habits, healthy lifestyle, healthy living, personal, personal goals, working out
This might be a surprise to you, but I don’t just make food and eat it. (That would be nice, though, wouldn’t it?)
So this week, instead of featuring a Whip it up Meal, I’m going to talk about how I Whipped my Butt into shape, despite all the food I eat in my day-to-day life (Boston Brunches, Nutella cookies, apple cookies, you get the picture).
My motto is never to deprive myself of food. I usually eat whenever I’m hungry, no matter the time of day. I do watch my portions though, and I watch what I eat. (No McDonald’s runs or eating out of the ice cream carton at 11 p.m.) But besides that, I’ll gladly eat a burger and fries on a Saturday night, or a work lunch of pasta with cream sauce on a Wednesday, or a few brownies and cookies when I feel in the mood to bake them.
However, I’m also very aware of the shape that my body is in, and understand that with good food also comes hard workouts.
I weighed 10-15 pounds more than I do now when I was in college, and that shouldn’t surprise me. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted (which included pizza at 2 a.m. and crappy cafeteria food), and I think I stepped into my college gym once in the 4 years I was there. I liked food just fine, but didn’t pay attention to what I was putting in my body, and I thought that working out was overrated.
But then I graduated and looked in the mirror. I saw love handles, a stomach that jiggled, and arm flab that wiggled. So I hopped on the treadmill or did one of my exercise DVDs for 30 minutes a day. Moderate exercise — Didn’t really define anything, but I lost some pounds and some extra jiggle.
Then I moved out and started cooking for myself and Chris. Besides that, I was a bridesmaid for my brother’s wedding that summer, so started the Jillian Michael 30 Day Shred workout. And sure enough, a month later, I flexed my biceps and had some definition. “Hey,” I thought, “I could get used to this!”
Then I became more involved in the Boston Food Blogger community and started to go to food events with endless amounts of free food, and started posting more recipes on the blog (some not so super great for you), so I became committed to working out almost every day! Besides making me look pretty good, exercising makes me feel great. I don’t feel weighed down or bloated. And it kicks up my endorphins. After a long day sitting in front of the computer, getting some blood flowing and my heart pumping is just what I need.
And this is what I look like today.
So what do I do to stay in shape? I don’t actually go to the gym that often. Most of the time I use Exercise TV (part of the Comcast package). Most cable packages have Exercise workouts on demand. And Exercise TV is packed with different workouts. I never get bored. I aim to do 30 – 45 minutes of exercise a day. These are some of the workout programs I do: (If you don’t have Exercise TV, you can find all of these on DVD)
That’s it! My never-ending goal is to do one of these workouts 5-6 times a week and keep up with (relatively) healthy eating habits, and hope for the best 
What do you do to stay in shape?
