My fantasy: spending my weeknights preparing interesting and elegant meals, talking about the flavor profile ad nauseum, and then sharing my thoughts with my thousands of friends.

If I were a prolific food blogger, this could be my life.  Every meal I made would be both a huge indulgence, an outlet for me to talk about myself to the anonymous masses, as well as a huge source of pressure, expected to outdo all the previous items.  I would have to balance being interesting and experimental with being approachable and realistic for the home cook, and my food photography would have to be simply excellent.

As it stands, I am not a prolific food blogger.  I am a prolific reader of food blogs, meaning I read many and never break through the veil of anonymity to comment on a recipe.  I have read some of these blogs for years, and with that sort of dedication bordering on stalking, it’s no surprise that I have started to think of these food bloggers as if I knew them personally.  It’s not that we are friends.  It is, as one of my fellow blog aficionados says, as if they are the cool, popular kids, and we are the awkward girls who want to be them.  (It seems this may simply be my lot in life.)  First is Heidi, something of the queen bee, whose beautiful life and beautiful, healthy, all-natural meals are somewhat intimidating to a beginner and too expensive for me to even imagine making.  Quickly gaining popularity is Deb, who could be the quirky girl turned mainstream, whose creations are also beautiful but are occasionally sabotaged by their complexity.  Elise is the sweet and shy girl who offers simple and flawless recipes with limited personality.  Ree is a little bit of an outsider but lovable anyways, whose classic recipes make my arteries pulse in fear.  David and Luisa are the friends in exotic locations whose lives are so envious they are difficult to hear about, and their recipes simply don’t feel as glamorous in my own kitchen.  There are more.  There are so many more of these bloggers who live in my head that I am ashamed to admit the number.

I am taking action to be less passive in this food blogging world.  I have recently started my own with a few friends, and though we are still finding our voices and improving our photography, refining our recipes and developing our food aesthetics, maybe someday, I will be the quasi-imaginary inspiration for a satisfying meal.  As it stands, however, I am the awkward shy girl, the one who starts sentences and then trails off, who posts food that is a little schizophrenic and pictures of mixed quality.  Each time I make dinner, I try to remember to photograph it and jot down a few notes for my post later.  For now, though I am happy to watch this community and imagine my future, entrenched in food blogger glamour