Having gone through some of the growing pains of our [almost] first “year”, here are the best things that we’ve learned from blogging in 2011:
1. A good life’s lesson, reinforced from blogging is this: with anything new, there is a learning curve. The cliché of “we’ve got to learn to crawl before we can walk” still holds true. Learning to blog has been a humbling process – in writing Low Sodium Blog, we’ve definitely fallen down a few times and had to pick ourselves up off the ground on more occasions than we would like to think about. If you are one of our “early adopters”, you deserve a gold star-and a special toast!
2. “Cerca trova” (seek and ye shall find) is still very much alive and kicking. We inadvertently stumbled across some of the most amazing travel spots and delicious foods in 2011. Reflecting back, these are some of our favorite serendipitous finds:
Our neighbors surprised us with fresh sour cherries
which sparked cooking a delicious sour cherry rice dish
While traveling, we flipped open our travel book and went to the Maras Salt Pans, Peru
We walked into the Finger Limes stall at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market
We whipped up this paella in response to Slow Food USA’s $5 challenge -
paella is one of our favorite dishes
Driving down a road in Santa Ynez, we came across a U-Pick farm where we were introduced to pluots. Inspired, we created this cedar plank salmon recipe with plout glaze.
Wandering around the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market -
we were introduced to several “secret” spots in and around Santa Fe.
Barbequing oysters on Tomales Bay, CA – sublime!
We’re in awe of Romanesco Broccoli’s beautiful fractal patterns
3. The wildcard popularity of some of our posts is somewhat mind-boggling. Some of our most popular posts were things that we could not have predicted or topics that we didn’t really feel “shone the light on low sodium” (cooking Cake In an Orange Peel/camp side was a very popular post this summer).
I guess this means I have to find more ways to be more fun in 2012?
4. Blogging is a constant lesson in humility and a reminder that there are many things to learn. The early days of blogging this year were rough going: we hit the ground running, coding/supporting, and writing the blog. Inadvertently posting “draft” posts and pages as “actual”; linking the wrong pictures; accidentally activating the Word Press “Easter egg”, thinking this was a malicious virus caused by “the Matrix”, and calling our back-end server support/hosting team to troubleshoot a fire drill; unintentionally breaking the blog code/template… Supporting the IT side of the blog was enough to cause a meltdown.
We’ve learned the hard way how to avoid hitting some of the same potholes…and we’re still a long way from mastering (or even stepping into) the art of social media. It always seems that there are things left over at the end of the day that are still waiting to get done.
5. The best thing we did this year was to seek out a little help when we needed it. Thanks to everyone in our circle of friends/fellow bloggers who have become our “blog support network” — we could not have done this without you!
and last but not least, Thanks to everyone who drops by to read and share our adventures.
In short, here’s to a less bumpy, more tasty, and travel filled 2012! We’re planning some more changes to the blog in 2012, so keep posted… Happy New Year!
- Johanna & Jeff
