HI Cookery is 1!

April 11: HI Cookery Blog Anniversary

Dia duit and aloha! We launched our blog on April 11, 2010, as a personal project to chronicle our cooking adventures, share recipes with family and friends and get experience in digital media. Instead of a recipe, this post is a reflection of our first year.

Maintaining a blog most definitely keeps us busy! It is a time-consuming process to shop for ingredients, “cook the calendar,” style and photograph various dishes, write about what the recipe means to us and do all the technical uploading to the site. Sometimes it is fun (we are especially encouraged by readers’ positive feedback) and sometimes it is frustrating (see our Food Flops page). We are amazed at how other food bloggers can maintain their sites so frequently as we realize that this hobby requires discipline! But HI Cookery is our labor of love.

We hoped to have better photography skills and added more video and audio features this past year. Islander’s little Sony Cyber-Shot digital camera has gone through a lot of abuse to photograph the cooking process; it has survived the stains and stickiness while she took step-by-step pictures for the visual tutorials. Highlander’s bigger Canon Rebel digital camera is older and bulkier but it served us well in capturing the final food shots, most especially when one of our photo entries for Ham and Leek Tarts was accepted into the highly-selective FoodGawker site. We thank Islander’s brother, Kahuna, who produced our first YouTube video for the Oreo Turkey Cookies and helped us post our first audio file for Hawaiian Hurricane Popcorn.

Other HI Cookery blog supporters we want to acknowledge are Lisa L., our frequently mentioned friend, for sending us interesting international ingredients; the MacTweets network, a macaron-making community, for the opportunity of exchanging ideas in the blogosphere; our family and friends for sharing their food-related memories and recipes; co-workers and students for being guinea pigs eating our culinary creations; and our subscribers and readers for visiting and commenting. We thank you all for motivating us throughout our first year of food blogging.

We are proud of what we have been able to accomplish so far. Our main goal for the next year is to fill in the blanks in our new Cook the Calendar page. We look forward to trying more new recipes and sharing familiar favorites in future posts.  We appreciate everyone who has joined us in our journey of cooking and blogging. Have a happy cyberspace celebration with Highlander and Islander on HI Cookery’s first blog-o-versary!

Notes

• As of today’s first blog-o-versary date, there have been 165 posts published, with Cookie Monster Cupcakes being the most viewed.
• Our blog has challenged us to try “ethnic and eclectic” recipes and get out of our comfort zone. Cooking new dishes has broadened our tastes and enhanced our interests in cultural cuisines.
• Several other recipe posts have been already scheduled. Sometimes we cook in advance to compensate for when our time is dedicated to work or travel. We try to post early on the food holiday or feast day, in case blog readers are inspired to cook the dish of the day and can plan ahead and prepare their menus accordingly.
• Have any other food bloggers gained weight during their first year?!?! It sounds like a good excuse anyway to blame the blog!
• All good things, like our blog, is made possible by the grace of God.