Finally Chopped? Not quite! Eleven years of food blogging.

“I would like an eggs Benedict please,” and then, because it is not part of the standard order here, I threw caution to the winds and added, “with bacon on the side.”

It is the eleventh birthday of the blog today and I thought that a bit of indulgence was fine.  What I call #LittleJackHornerMeals, my recent drive towards moderation in food, could wait!

It was a few years back, thanks to a Whatsapp message from my friend and former colleague Kashinath Samant, that I had realised that the 7th of October is the birthday of my blog. A blog which I had started writing in 2007. 

Since then, Kashi messages me on this date every year to remind me of the occasion and to wish me on it. I had forgotten the exact date this year too I confess, till I woke up and saw his cheerful and most generous and kind Whatsapp from Kashi. 

That is when it struck me that the 7th is the day of the month when I was born too. One more reason to not forget the date next year!

So here is a big thank you to all of you who read or have read the blog in the past. And of course to K and to the rest of the family and my friends, for patiently waiting while I clicked pictures for the blog before they could eat. 

Or, for not protesting, when I quietly ducked into a corner to write in solitude.

Why do I still blog? 

This thought suddenly came to my mind a few weeks back.

The truth is that the traffic, growth and engagement on my other social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook is way higher than that on the blog these days. There are loads of folks who come on to my Instagram page for example and who do not even know that I write a blog. In fact, to them an Instagram page is a ‘blog!’

Then I remind myself that I had never looked at stats when I began blogging and there is no reason to start doing so now. I do belong to the Gavaskar school of not looking at the scoreboard when one bats after all.

There is something that I miss about the olden days of blogging though. Comments and conversations. 

Today conversations around my blog posts happen when I share them on social media and on the pages there. Not on the blog. 

That is how things are I guess these days. Even I comment on people’s pages when they share blog posts than on their blog posts. 

The thing is, one cannot hold on to the past. One has to move on.

I do not blog as frequently as I used to I must admit. I scrolled through my archives and saw that I had written 3 (!) blog posts on day zero, 7th October 2007. Each of those posts were just about as long as my Instagram posts today are. It would be safe to say that Instagram has taken over the role of being my ‘daily food diary’ from the blog.

I am a member of a freelance writers (not just food) group on Facebook. The focus of most there seems be to on getting published in print media. I often see comments there which go to the effect of, “I posted this on my blog as it was not accepted anywhere.”

There’s no denying that what drives each person is different and I am not here to pass judgement. However, what I know for sure is that I love writing on my blog. Even after eleven years.

The blog to me is the centre of everything I do. The prime point. Where it all started you could say (if one leaves my initial posts on food on Orkut aside). In foodie terms, this means that the metaphorical marrow bone will always be reserved for the blog in my scheme of things.

I hope that my love for blogging never changes, even if the blog changes its form with time as I change as a writer and as the environment around me changes.

I hope that my love for the blog and my faith and conviction in it will continue to be like ‘flowing water,’ as the saying goes, i.e. “to believe continuously without ever regressing.” (Source: The two kinds of faith: Nicherin Daishonin, WND, @EG).

Thank you very much and hugs,

Kalyan AKA The Knife

PS: Dear reception folks at office buildings who make entry passes for visitors. The name is ‘Finely Chopped’ and not ‘Finally Chopped’!