Julie & Julia were so 2009. 2010 was all about Nicole & Food.com! At the start of last year, Nicole, also known here as run for your life, took on the daunting task of cooking, reviewing and photographing every recipe on our Top 100 Recipes of 2009 list in one year's time. We applaud her for her efforts, and are so impressed that she made it to the finish line just under the wire. Lucky for us, she's agreed to share her story in her own words and lessons learned so we can all go along for the ride!
At the beginning of 2010, I was jobless. Jobless by choice, but jobless nonetheless. My goal for the year was to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, career-wise. I was excited by this time off, but I was also bored. I am one of those people who has to be working towards some sort of goal to feel productive, and that is where the Top 100 project came in to play. I joined Food.com — Recipezaar at that time — in early 2009 and enjoyed finding new recipes on the site. I also have always had an interest in photography and started taking pictures of some recipes and posting them on the site.
One day in early January I came across the featured "Top 100 Recipes of 2009" and thought it would be a good place to find new recipes to try. Lo and behold, they had featured one of my photos — I was so excited! Looking through the list, I had already tried a few of the recipes, and I had saved others with plans to make them at some point. Having recently watched Julie & Julia, I was inspired the idea to cook, photograph and review all 100 of these recipes throughout the next year. It would give me attainable goals to reach every month, force me to try new recipes and hopefully help me get better at photographing food. Plus, it would give me a chance to break in the knife set and, pots and pans I had received for Christmas! When I talked to my husband about it and showed him the list, he was ecstatic, mostly I assume, because there were several Chinese recipes on the list, his favorite type of food and, conveniently, my least favorite. And so it was on!
My first recipe was Fannie Farmer's Classic Baked Macaroni and Cheese. I had never made mac-n-cheese outside of a box, and it was number three on the Top 100 list, so I thought it would be an excellent choice to start with and it was! As the year went on, I learned a lot. I learned about cooking, I learned about photography, I learned about food in general, I even learned a little about myself. When the nice people at Food.com asked me to write a blog about my experience, I was honored and a bit overwhelmed. How do I properly summarize a year's worth of cooking, 100 recipes, into a fairly short piece that people will find interesting? I thought, perhaps, the best thing to do would be to share some of the lessons I learned along the way. Please feel free to laugh at my expense, gloat in your supreme knowledge over mine — even correcting me if necessary, or maybe, just maybe, learn a little something too. These lessons are in no particular order and are mostly just random things that have come to mind as I've been reflecting on the past year — please enjoy.
• People love Chinese food and the Olive Garden — seriously, look at the list.
• Sometimes new recipes are better than your old standbys; sometimes they are not, either way they may be worth trying.
• Boiling chicken not only makes it perfect for shredding but also gives you chicken stock to use at a later date!
• My enclosed patio is usually the best place for lighting.
• Homemade pizza is often a great way to use leftover ingredients from other recipes.
• There are enough good meatless recipes out there that, if my husband weren't so opposed to it, I think I'd be quite happy as a vegetarian.
• I'm sick of my dishes — for photographing food anyway.
• I really enjoy cooking, especially when I don't mess something up.
• A garden is the best place to get good veggies — we plan to have one next year.
• Popular isn't always better.
• Real buttermilk is awesome, way better than milk and lemon juice.
• On that note, real butter is in every way superior to margarine. I refuse to use anything else.
• I don't hate banana cream pie. In fact, I really like it.
• My husband thinks I'm an amazing cook and I've decided to stop arguing with him, even if he is wrong.
• Don't give a recipe a poor rating if you didn't follow it! If you tried something different, please tell me about it but don't skew the recipe's rating if you changed something and it didn't work out.
• I need a bigger food processer (and got one for Christmas — thanks again, Hazeleyes!)
• You can usually use 1/2 to 3/4 the amount of meat called for in a recipe and not know the difference, with some exceptions. This also saves money!
• I should have made more recipes in the summer when there was more light in the day.
• My husband is usually a better food stylist than I am.
• Learning more about your food, where it comes from and what's in it, can be interesting, frustrating, motivating and worth doing, especially if you live in the U.S.
• Good light is key to a good photograph.
• Though complicated dishes are often very rewarding, simple recipes are what I usually prefer. Is it any surprise that Boeuf Bourguignon was the recipe I made on December 31?
• Sometimes dinner can actually be better than dessert. Sometimes.
• I still don't love Chinese food, but now have a few recipes that I am willing to make for my poor, deprived husband.
All in all working though the Top 100 list has been a great experience! While I'm sure many of the more seasoned cooks out there could have prepared some of the recipes far better, most of them turned out quite well. There were also a few recipes I had to make again if I couldn't get a photo I liked the first time around. Sometimes I just had to settle for a photo that was less than satisfactory to me for time's sake. If anything, I learned new cooking techniques (I had never actually deep fried anything before in my life!), used new ingredients and found new go-to recipes.
As for me, I am no longer jobless, but just working part-time because of my decision to go back to school. We haven't had as much disposable income for entertainment purposes, but have had more friends over for meals this past year than ever before. Most, if not all of the meals have included at least one dish off the top 100 (many friends have even asked for the recipes).
I also have some new Food.com-related goals for the future. I'd probably go into withdrawal if I didn't have something to follow up the Top 100. My next goal is to make and photograph all recipes that I've posted — all ten of them. It sounds so simple, but there are a few I've never even made, several that I haven't made in quite some time (I was a little busy this year cooking other things) and most of them don't have photographs. Let's be honest: Someone is about 100 times more likely to try a new recipe if there is a photo that makes the dish look appealing. From there I would like to start cooking though my Food.com cookbooks and finally make all those recipes I've thought looked appetizing enough to save, but have yet to make, review and photograph. I'd like to have one recipe for red velvet cake rather than ten, even if I have to make them all to decide which is worthy of a place in my "Cakes" cookbook. During this time, I also want to limit the amount of new recipes I save in my cookbooks so I can actually get though all of them before I die. My husband has told me 2010 has been the best year of eating in his life — let's see if 2011 can top it!
So now, my challenge to you; what's your food-related goal for 2011?
Check out run for your life's page to see all 100 reviews and photographs!
Community Blog Archive
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Pressure Cooking
The Big Cheese
Australian Holiday
Taste Buds Redux
Organic Gardening
By the way, what was your favorite recipe of the year?
