Researching Northern African Cuisine

I am a sucker for a “good” challenge.  I truly thought I could have won the Food and Wine’s “Best Home Chef” contest last year.  I gave it a good college try and was a runner up.  One gift that contest gave me was an introduction to blogging.  After being part of their food community I knew I loved to blab about the food I cook and hopefully inspire a few people.  It only took me eight (long) months to put together my blog site, reformat some of the posts I wrote at Food and Wine and write up all the recipes for the menus I blogged about.  Now it is time to blog for real.

I was introduced to Food Buzz through my friend’s daughter, an experienced food blogger.  She has been holding my hand as I developed my site, has given me insights to the proper way to blog and gain readership.  “You really should join Food Buzz”, she encouraged me, “and they are starting a contest to find the best new food blog”.  Now that perked my ears up.  Nothing like a good challenge to get me moving.  Yet, I did not want to subject my readership (I am envisioning I have a big following of readers) to yet another contest that I would be asking them to support me on.  No worries, my friend assured me, your blog and posts are what will carry you to the next round.  Thank goodness, I am not good with popularity contests.

So, I was planning on going under the radar with the contest, just doing the competitions (ten total with eliminations after each round) but then I read the instructions.  “We strongly recommend you post a blog post on Monday, September 20th announcing to your readers that voting is open, and including a link to your entry on Project Food Blog. This is not a requirement, but highly recommended.”  Okay, so here goes:

Dear Family and Friends,

IF you feel my blog is worthy of moving onto the next round, please go onto: http://www.foodbuzz.com/project_food_blog/challenges/1/view/653
and vote for Taylor Made Menus.  Vote for a few other too, why not!  Out of 2000 contestants, 400 will move to the next round.  There is room for a few others to move on, too.  Also, if you are so inclined, tell a few of your friends to vote for me, too. 

Your Friend and Kitchen Inspiration,  Virginia

ps  Please note, this instruction is at the end of every post challenge so hopefully you will be seeing this request again, that is if the powers at be deem me worthy to move ahead.

I am thinking positively and am already preparing for my next contest post, “An Ethnic Challenge”.  I am suppose to pick a cuisine I do not cook, research it, plan a menu, cook it and  then blog about it.  I am doing Northern African, never been there and not familiar with the cuisine.  I researched a bit on the internet without great results but found these four wonderful cookbooks at Barnes and Noble.  I feel like a kid in a candy store not knowing which recipe to choose.  Please keep posted my faithful readers to find out what I choose.  Even if I do not move onto the next round you will still get a good menu around African cuisine.  I am going to channel Charles Perry.