The Year in Review

A couple weeks ago, quite a few of the food bloggers I follow did year-in-review posts (I love those, by the way!). I thought about doing one, but I wanted to save mine for a different occasion--on the date that marked my year of blogging.

I started blogging Jan. 21, 2010 (so I'm a little late on this post), and it all began with this post, "Let's Get This Started" (I see my title capitalization was different at that time (I'm such an editor nerd)). I thought after a year of blogging, I could look back at the year, and think about my favorite posts, meals I made, restaurants I visited and what was most popular.

I think most of my favorite posts are focused on foods we really, really liked, or foods we've been making for ages and are some of my favorites. It's definitely more difficult to blog about foods that were just so so or ones I labeled "dud." Some of the favorites are veggie and bean burritos, pizza on the grill, spicy beef and pepper stir fry, BBQ chicken sliders, our recipe for quesadillas, Korean beef with rice noodles and pasta with grapes.

It's been fun doing restaurant reviews, too. I've gotten over feeling uncomfortable with taking pictures in restaurants. Some favorite restaurant reviews include Irie Palace, Seoul Korean Restaurant, Hue, Painted Parrot and Christie's.

I started using Google Analytics a bit too late into the year, but I'm glad I started it, no matter what. Through Google Analytics, I can see how many people visited the blog on a given day, the average time they spend on the website and, my favorite, the most popular posts. The top five posts of the last year (well, really, since I started using Google Analytics, which looks like it was Aug. 5) were:

• "Brussels Sprouts--Eat 'Em Like Candy"
• "Best-Ever Pumpkin Dip"
• "Excellent Korean Beef with Rice Noodles"
• "Easy Asian Slaw"
• "Pumpkin Pie in a Cupcake"

It's very cool to see what people really like reading, and it's interesting for me to try to figure out why people like certain things so much (the Asian slaw blog post is one of them!).

Overall, it's been a great year and I've really enjoyed blogging. There have been moments when I've contemplated stopping or slowing down and wondered if anyone really reads it. It's encouraging when people talk to me in real life about the blog or when strangers leave comments--I very much appreciate it! I've also had some cool opportunities come my way because of the blog: I've done some guest blogging for Your Milwaukee Dining and Milwaukee Brunch Reviews, I was featured in M magazine and I've met a lot of great other local foodies through the blog, Twitter, a blogger junket and tweet-ups. One of the most exciting opportunities is coming up on Feb. 10--I'll be doing a cooking demonstration in front of lots of people (!) at the Milwaukee/NARI Home Improvement Show.

I very much appreciate you reading this blog, taking the time to leave comments or talk to me in person about the blog and, maybe most important, using the recipes or restaurant reviews for yourselves! :) (For more, follow me on Twitter, @OnMyTableBlog, and become a fan of the blog on Facebook, search "On My Table."