Happy 4th Blogoversary to Hungry Passport

Four years ago today I posted my first blog entry. Most unwillingly. Himself had been pressuring me, trying to make me understand the importance of having this type of presence on the Internet. Finally I relented and began blogging.

For the most part I’ve really enjoyed it. Blogging has enabled me to explore and comment on an awful lot topics, most of them food and travel related. I’ve experimented in the kitchen, sampling cuisines, dishes and ingredients I never thought I’d try. One blistering hot day I even baked meringues in my car (see “Solar Powered Oven, Courtesy of Honda”). Blogging has in turn fed my other writing. The professional stuff, the paying stuff.

Some days, though, I’d sneak up behind my blog and shove it off a cliff. Run it over with the car. Read it so much bad poetry that it slashes its wrists in despair. Because sometimes I feel like I’m so busy looking at everything with an eye toward what I might blog about it that I miss out on the enjoyment of the actual experience. And sometimes it seems like the blog gets in the way of my paying work, which it’s supposed to be feeding. And then there’s the gnawing feeling that if I write something really great and post it on the blog, I’ll never be able to sell it, since it’s already out there for free.

I know I shouldn’t look at it this way, because it all goes hand-in-hand. These days a lively web presence with lots of followers is crucial to a writer’s success. As in relationships with other humans, I guess my relationship with my blog is always going to be an up and down thing. Some days will be better than others, and the best I can hope for is that the ups outnumber the downs. I’m betting that they will.

I checked the list for appropriate anniversary gift giving, and the traditional fourth anniversary gift can be either fruit or flowers. The modern gift: appliances. I can’t think of any appliances I need (yeah to that!). Flowers just invite themselves to be played with, nibbled on and destroyed by the cats. So I guess I’ll go out and buy a bag of apples or pears and make a tarte tatin or something. And with a contrarian attitude taking hold, I’ll enjoy that tarte but I won’t be blogging about it!