About the short past of CaffeIna and about her long future!

When I first read about the Project Food Blog competition organized by Foodbuzz I thought: ”This is going to be a great incentive for me and my blog to grow!” That’s how I see this competition: as a way to grow. Not to increase the numbers of followers, or of comments to my posts, or of “page hits” in my stats (although, that would be really nice too!). But to grow as a person and as a blogger. I started to blog 6 months ago and still consider myself a newbie. I think I will always consider myself a newbie, even 5 years from now, because blogging put me in touch with a whole new world, of which I knew very little and that is continuously changing and expanding. This, for sure, keeps up pretty well with my insatiable curiosity.

Yep, I've always like to eat! And, yes, this runs in the family

I never thought I would one day have my own blog! I sure never thought I would have a blog about baking and kids! I migrated from Italy 4 years ago for my PhD in agricultural economics. In the middle of the fourth year of the PhD program I decided to drop out – yep, it took me that long to decide.  I then became a pre-school teacher, got married after dating my husband for a mere six months (!) and started my blog a few months later. Baking had been a real passion only for a few years and I had just started to organize cooking activities with the kids at school. I wanted my blog to put these two big but unexplored passions together.

Well before blogging, I was already sharing my baked goodies...I started by making my wedding cake

I cook probably 90% of our meals. Cooking at home (instead of eating out) is very much part of my cultural heritage and of my family habits. Cooking is something somehow “normal” that does not challenge my mind. Baking, instead, is a whole different story!

“Oh, you are Italian! You must have learnt to bake amazing goodies from your family!” That’s usually how the story goes when I tell people where I am from. Wrong!! Nothing could be further from the truth!  I come from a family that was always forced to be frugal. My parents were born right after WWII and both in poor families. Baking was “not a necessity”. Yes, my mom used to bake for family occasions but they were the same 4 or 5 cakes. She never had a chance to try new recipes, or to experiment.  And she never wanted to – she has no sweet tooth at all. 

In a way, it is exactly this lack of family baking tradition that defines me as a food blogger. I am a sweet tooth. I could survive on desserts alone (although I don’t)! It was during my PhD years that I started to bake. Despite having little money and limited ingredients (which I made up for with passion and curiosity), I found that my friends loved what I was making! Needless to say, I made many new friends J

I sure had lot to learn about photography: for the first two months the pictures on my blog were terrible compared to the most recent ones

Baking quickly became a very important part of my life. It became clear to me that it was an effective source of stress relief and that it satisfied my strong curiosity and desire for challenges. At the time, I knew very little about “serious” baking and I decided to find the answers to all my questions by myself. This was my first introduction to baking books, tutorials, videos, and the whole food blogosphere. My curiosity was insatiable. As one question was answered it gave birth to many more. That’s why I’ve decided to focus my blog on baking only. Sure, a blog about baking limits the number of posts per week I can actually have but I chose quality and challenge over quantity.

Some of my favorite goodies of all times!

Well, it's very hard to pick but usually the simplest recipes are the ones I prefer

There is another important thing that I immediately developed: the love for sharing what I bake and for sharing my passion with the children. Sharing my passion for good fresh ingredients and the focus on the process more than on the end result is now an integral part of my teaching. So, if for my family baking was “not a necessity” it became that for me. Sharing my baked goods is in perfect harmony with my nurturer nature, the same that brought me to become a pre-school teacher.

All this is shaping my approach to blogging. I try hard to keep my blog true to myself: comforting, loving, and, yes, also opinionated. But more than anything simple. I’ve always been a simple and in the same way I try to keep my blog unpretentious. I’m not a professional baker (I wish!) and I have never done photography until a few months ago (and you can see that from my pictures!). I have a lot to learn and I love sharing what I learn, even my failures. I love to challenge myself with more complicated recipes from time to time and I like to surprise myself in actually succeeding. But at the end of the day, when I make something for my loved ones I like to make those simple yet comforting recipes.

And some of my challenges! I still have an unfinished business with some of these goodies!

Now, if all I’ve written makes me deserve to move on with the challenges and eventually even win….I think it’s up to you to decide. I’m probably one of the less competitive persons of this planet but this does not mean I’m not excited about this competition. I’m thrilled at having a chance to share my thoughts with you and I hope I am able with this blog to show you my passion for all I make.  So, thank you for reading and thank to Foodbuzz to organize this competition.

Uh oh, and voting starts on the 20^th of September so, check out my profile if you want to know a bit more about myself!

Have a sweet day!


ps the first few terrible pictures of this blog were not taken by myself but by friends of mine with iphone. I do not remember exactly who took them so I can't give full credit, but I'm sure they don't mind 'cause they are really bad :)