HI Cookery is 5!

It’s HI Cookery’s fifth year blog-o-versary and Highlander and Islander are still here trying to cook our way through the calendar year. Since we began this foodie project in 2010, we have posted more than 525 recipes. Other noteworthy happenings since last year include the following:

We have moved again! Last year we lived in south Texas. Just four months ago, we moved slightly northeast—about 3.5 hours’ drive away—due to Highlander’s job. We miss our family and friends but we are still in the same big state and can visit each other. We are also adjusting to our new kitchen; we no longer have an island and our oven is smaller but the pantry space is good. Unfortunately, we do not have much natural lighting so it is more challenging to photograph our food. However, we like our new kitchen and hope that we can continue to cook for our blog and ourselves and host new friends in our dining room.

HI Cookery’s new kitchen (December 2014)

Islander joined the local cake club and culinary book club. She is still a member of the previous cake club and helps with their graphic design needs. The one she just joined only meets quarterly and is less formal but members visit cake club events all over the state and sometimes the nation. So she is able to see familiar and friendly faces at various sugar arts events in Texas. She also joined the culinary book club at our local library. Members meet monthly for a potluck and follow a food theme. Some of the recipes exchanged at the culinary book club meeting will be featured in future posts on our blog.

We are now a “Cottage Food Law” certified kitchen. Although we don’t sell baked goods, we sometimes participate in church bake sales and other benefits. Some organizations require that volunteer bakers and home cooks get a food safety training certificate if their state has a cottage food law. We think it is a good idea just to review the sanitation and food handling information so the food that we cook and serve is safe for everyone to eat and enjoy. Check Forrager, a cottage food community website, for more information about cottage food laws in the United States.

New theme menu on the menu. Navigate on the dropdown menu options above and notice that we have added a new page for “theme menus”. Throughout our fifth year of blogging, we will classify some recipes into themes, such as Star Wars, Halloween, ethnic, etc., to give readers a few ideas on what to prepare for their own parties. As listed on our “cook the calendar” page, there is always something to celebrate in life—so make it fun with food!

We may be slowing down—but HI Cookery is still around! And we hope to continue sharing recipes beyond our five-year milestone. As always, thanks for reading and visiting our blog. We appreciate your loyalty. God bless!

Tapadh leat! Mahalo! Thanks!

Highlander and Islander

HI Cookery is 4!

We can honestly admit that it is getting harder each year for us to continue maintaining a blog. But here we are, on our 4th blog-o-versary, still with our initial intent of completing the goal of cooking our way through the calendar year, albeit at a much slower pace.

HI Cookery is 3!

April 11: HI Cookery Blog Anniversary

What a difference a year makes! As we, Highlander and Islander, continue to cook our way through the calendar, we pause to post not a recipe but our reflections.

In the past year, Islander has returned to school recently to learn basic web design (perhaps she can re-design this blog someday?). She says that homework assignments are taking up her cooking and blogging time! Highlander travels constantly for business, especially with current corporate restructuring (hopefully we do not have to be relocated to another state again). So he has not been able to help her as much with the food photography.

Although we are posting recipes less frequently than before, it is also because we are closer to our goal of cooking something ethnic or eclectic for each day of the calendar year. We know it takes a lot of work to maintain a food blog. Some of those we follow have discontinued or have become less regular in their postings. We admire those whose food blogs are still going strong. They are an inspiration for us to finish what we have started three years ago on April 11, 2010.

We are thankful to Catholic Cuisine for including our feast day recipes on its blog this year. We are especially grateful to all our blog subscribers and readers who “like” or “pin” our posts. We are appreciative of our family, friends and co-workers (the guinea pigs) who continue to show their support by giving us recipe ideas and/or taste-testing our cooking. God willing, everyone’s encouragement will help us reach another blog-o-versary next year!