JLoeats.com

WOW, I can’t believe it’s been a year already!!! :)

This is so exciting!! :)

SO I raise my glass of champagne (or beer and chicken wings, as it was monday night football happy hour today after our research methods class…)

and I toast you.

my dear reader, my dear friends who have all been so supportive and loyal thus far.

“If you post it i’ll read it” ;) – roy. amen brothah from anothah mothah!

Thanks for giving me a safe space to indulge my head, my heart, and my soul in food writing, in making sense of my world, and learn as I go along.  Writing about Food has been an awesome chance for me to embrace all that I feel so passionate about – nurturing and inspiring people, and generating a sense of ownership of choice through conversation.  I’m a rebel that way, I love to stir up drama.

But I am so saturated in food stuff that it’s hard not to care about my world, and about you.

I know, sometimes, when in person, or in other internet realms like on facebook or twitter, I may ramble on and on  about food any chance that I get, but it’s true, I have chosen this journey to learn as much as I can about the food world, the moment I killed my first lobster in culinary school, which lead to the moment I decided to write about the process of connecting myself back to my food chain. (which subsequently got me into grad school)

And although it may seem like this program is so new and still fighting to gain the cultural klout that it deserves, I am glad and proud to say that I finally feel like I LOVE what I do. (In knowing that I cannot explain what I do in one sentence or less…;) )

I got the greatest gift today — for jloeats — a name that I consciously had chosen to brand myself with a year ago, and that my friend is professional validation. :) The dean of my dept, also professor of my monday night research methods class, J Berg, complemented my writing and I was BEAMING.

“You’re a great writer! And you should’ve seen their faces when you read your piece out loud today”

“Believe in your writing, and your thick descriptions.  You don’t need to explain yourself, it’s already there. Honour the process, and learn to edit down.”

And for the first time ever, I feel like my voice is strong enough, that it is all coming together.  That this silly process of growing up, of being accountable for my work and my voice, of making something of myself and sharing that with the world, is enough.  I had never believed myself to be a “great” writer before, but I have always believed that I have something to say, and a story to tell.  It’s the theaterical side of me, trained in storytelling and believing in the magic of storytime that has really gotten me to drive myself to practice and become a better writer too.  To be honest, it was really scary and daunting to transition from writing for myself to learn how to write for readership, given the fact that I had been journaling my head vs. heart conversations for years on my personal xanga prior to creating this food studies blog, and also writing reviews and assessments and commenting for other orgs on blogger and livejournal as extra exposure to feedback.

So tonight, I am happy to honour the process of my growth, of my hard work, and my passion.  I honour my investment that i made a year ago in creating jloeats.com, and I tip my hat to you WP, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Xanga, as you provide safe havens for people to share their isms with the world.

Because when this whole blogging phenomenon began a decade ago… everyone was so skeptical, even I, but I remember the moment i decided to hop along for the ride, to stay on top of our infotechie embracing world.  Words can be so transformative, like music, in our ever changing culture, and writing about it has become a fun and worthwhile journey in self exploration and sharing.

“I share, therefore I am.”

Jloeats would be nothing without you. :) Thanks a million for all the love and respect. :) It feels sooooo guuuuuuuuuuuddd to have an imaginary safety net, that embraces my every turn.

Paix*

xoxo J xoxox