New Year, New Changes, Some Announcements

I hope you’re not all still nursing hangovers!  I’ve got some exciting (well, I think it is, anyway) news and announcements about upcoming changes to Feisty Foodie!

First and foremost, and directly related to pretty much every change, I am – wait for it – going back to school – starting January 26th.  This means a lot of things.  I’ve been pretty steady on updating FF nearly every weekday, but eating out is going to (already has, actually) be cut severely back.  I’m really looking forward to evening up the score here and going back to an almost 1:1 ratio of recipes to restaurants, but honestly, I’m expecting to be pretty tired and not really cooking (or even eating that much – gasp!) more than one or two huge dinners a week that’ll see me through the whole week via leftovers.  Who knows?  I guess we’ll see, right? 

(Before you ask me, “What are you going to school for?” I’ll tell you that, in the last 3-4 weeks since I began telling people this news, I have been asked that about 12 million times.  The simple answer is: I don’t know.  The larger answer is: more of a personal nature that I don’t want to share on a public forum, but if you’d like to email me to ask, I would be more than happy to discuss with you and take your suggestions into consideration.) 

To that end, posting about restaurants will be drastically reduced, especially those of the more upscale, higher end nature.  I will probably be posting a lot more about restaurants on the cheap end – I’ll be on a student’s budget, afterall – but I’m really aiming to get back to cooking.  Hopefully.  With the addition of some new kitchen gadgets from Christmas presents, we’re going to shake things up here…

And that’s just the first announcement! 

Secondly, though I intend to begin posting more and more recipes, I am, for now, keeping the Recipe Fridays installment, since it seems to be pretty popular.  I may either wind up switching it so that it becomes “Restaurant Fridays” – if I post a recipe every day instead of a review – or I may switch it so that it’s simply a specific type of recipe while I’m cooking a lot.  If I do that.  This is obviously just stirring around in my head…

Thirdly, Feisty Bento, I assure you, will still be up and running, possibly even more steadily now that I am on a student’s budget.  If I’m ambitious, I may start packing two bentos a day.  We’ll see…

Fourth, I am starting a new installment titled “Serial Thursdays”.  Some of you may know already that first and foremost, I am simply a writer, not a food writer.  I am passionate about writing, and I obsess over food, of course, but I never really brought the two together until a really random twist of fate inspired me to begin doing so back in 2005.  I have written a few things during the course of my lifetime – including an as of yet unpublished, unedited novel (written in spurts during NaNoWriMo ’06, but completed), although that was a fictional food mystery; a novella when I was 15; an entire book of poetry, among other things – but I’m keen on putting myself out there for (constructive) criticism and seeing what a real audience reaction might be to some of my writing.  To that end, “Serial Thursdays” would be just that – an ongoing story, posted piece by piece each week on Thursdays.  I have the vague ideas of how it may begin, but I’m not entirely sure yet, and hope to get that together soon after the new year (if I’m really ambitious, it’ll start the first Thursday in January 09 and end the last Thursday in December 09, but… we’ll see!). 

Fifth, lastly, but SO not the least, I am planning a move to my own domain.  I’ve been toying with this idea for a very, very long time, but until recently, I was kind of stumped and clueless.  Thankfully, I’ve gotten a lot of help from two wonderful people – one of them an old schoolmate of mine, who is helping with the actual move (thanks again, Gary!!!), and the other, my favoritest bento-buddy, Jenn, who has been putting up with my endless questions for months now.  I was hoping to get it up and going for the new year, but let’s face it, with the holiday crunch, there just didn’t seem to be a point to my stressing myself out further by trying to get this all together.  So, I won’t, and I can’t even guess when this will all come together perfectly, but I assure you, it is going to happen, and I am REALLY excited about it.  Like, COMPLETELY head over heels with that one. 

And a small extra for you: I received a few really cool kitchen items for Christmas, and intend to show those off as much as possible via my blog.  I’m in love with them both, and while I haven’t been able to find a space to set up the 2nd one… well, things are happening, and things will continue to happen, so I can’t wait to share them with you 🙂

I hope everyone had a SAFE and HAPPY new year… here’s to a wonderful 2009!!!

<3