Happy 1st birthday, Extra Virgin Chef.

Today marks the end of my first year as a blogger, and I've often mused about why I blog.


Along with millions of others, I publicise my thoughts and invite everyone and anyone in the world to read what I write and peep into my kitchen on what I'm learning to cook that day. I post on my blog a few times a week or as and when I'm inspired by a dish, a food picture or an ingredient. 

My blog posts tend to be short due to attention span. Yours and mine. Personally, I always prefer a quick read and adopt a "get-to-the-point" approach. And sometimes I just run out of words or am too busy munching on my food or being a culinary paparazzi.

A couple of my posts got some good hits and were featured on official food channels but most of them are ignored.  I don't do all the things I've been advised to do in order to drive more traffic and viewership to the blog so I don't expect a huge following. Now I get just enough attention to stay motivated.

Sometimes when I meet a friend for a coffee or bump into an acquaintance or an ex-colleague from the corporate days, someone will tell me that they enjoy my blog and are inspired to try my recipes. That’s the best compliment of all. It’s even better than hearing that my food tastes good. Well, almost.

A third of my readers are from Singapore, which is not a surprise. Almost a third are from the US which is a big surprise. Who are these silent readers reading my blog so faithfully but hardly dropping comments on the site? 

If you’re a blogger like me, it’s exciting to discover that someone in the Ukraine, Taiwan and Vladisvostok looked at your site. My reach, thanks to the power of the internet, goes to countries whose names I can't even pronounce.

I intend to enter my second year as a blogger and keep this site going.  If nothing else, it will help reduce my anxiety over this transient stage of life.

Then, if I get into some business of my own, I’ll have plenty to write about. 

And if I don't, well, hopefully you will see a more learned cook emerging from the apron of an extra virgin chef.

Follow me on Facebook or Twitter as I continue to cross the kitchen chasm. If you have enjoyed my blog or somehow benefitted from reading it, do share my public page with your friends www.facebook.com/extravirginchef.

In case you're new here, these are some of my food highlights from the the last 12 months. Every picture brings back memories ranging from panic in the kitchen to pure exhilaration when the dish is a success. 

No-bake Cheesecake with Strawberry Hearts 

Pink-blush duck breast with crispy, crackling top

Beef Carpaccio

Raspberry Ripple Cheesecake Ice Cream

Bamboo Charcoal Loaf

Home-made Ciabatta

Slow-roast Duck Legs

American Carrot Walnut Cake

Pretty Ratatouille

Barded Chickens

Seri Muka Nonya Kueh

Baked Sunny Eggs in Ramekin 

Home-cured Gravlax or Smoked Salmon

My duck breast featured on Asian Food Channel

I was thrilled to find my blog post on the sous vide duck breast featured on Asian Food Channel's Official Facebook Page yesterday! It garnered almost 400 Likes in half a day before it got lost amongst the other food posts. And I experienced a sudden spike in my viewership yesterday. Not bad for an Extra Virgin Blogger. Well, my duck breast post is now my most popular post, thanks to AFC! 

Click here to read the entire post. Now ducks and I are one!

Europe pigout - series of blogposts coming up

Thinking of my readers even as we walk the cobbled streets in Munich

First and foremost, my sincerest apologies for the lack of posts in the two and a half weeks I was in Europe. Getting a wireless connection was like feeling warmth and sunlight in my face - which was about 5 minutes everyday. I believe in being a faithful blogger and was utterly disappointed that technology in Europe failed me. It was also the first time I missed my regular Word of the Week! I've never thought more about my readers!

On a brighter note, a very blessed new year to friends from all around the world! (Did you see my post on which countries my top ten readers come from?) Have you thought about what this year holds for you? Personally, I am believing God for an upgrade of my culinary skills to ExtraVirginChef.2! While I  have made significant progress from someone who considered boiling water as cooking, as recent as 12 months ago, to being able to cook a fairly decent meal for my family of 3 teenagers, I am nowhere near where I want to be. There is just so much to learn in life and in cooking. And I want to learn as much as possible while the interest and passion are still there. I don't know how long this fad of mine will last or where it will lead or when my savings from the corporate job will run out but while it's there, I might as well pick up this practical and rewarding life skill.

So, I will be posting again very soon thanks to living in the one of the most connected societies in the world, my beloved Singapore. Meanwhile, here's one view I see every morning that inspired a few thoughts in life and some dishes too. 

Have a blessed 2012, all my wonderful readers. I wish you a year of joy and happiness with your beloved friends and family!

The beautiful lake in Tegernsee (tey-gern-zee), less than an hour's drive south of Munich

Please click on "Europe pig-out" to read all related posts.

My Top Ten readers come from...

1. Singapore

2. USA

3. Malaysia

4. The Philippines

5. United Kingdom

6. Australia

7. Canada

8. Germany

9. India

10. Italy

It feels good to be so connected to the world through a simple food blog. I'm always delighted to hear from strangers who visit my blog, so drop me a note anytime. Tell me more about the type of food you grew up with. Educate me. Or just say hello!

My Top 7 Links

There is a chain going on in the bloggersphere through an initiative called "The 7 Links Project". Basically, a blogger invites another blogger to put up his/her top 7 blog posts and the invite continues to the next blogger. The project was started by TripBase blog who say the project is designed "to unite bloggers from all sectors in a joint endeavour to share lessons learnt and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again."

I don't know enough bloggers to be nominated by anyone but I don't plan to sit around, waiting to be invited. So here's my top 7:

1. My Most Beautiful Post

As I started to blog and post pictures of my experience and my food, I realised the increasing importance of good photography, and so began my plate-to-pixel learning journey. And with great reluctance, I might add. Aperture and depth-of-field and all those incomprehensible abbreviations on the camera were and still are too much for my little brain to understand and absorb, much less apply. This oxtail stew post marked the start of some more decent photography compared to the old ones and I'm amazed I crossed that hurdle at a time I was learning to blog and learning to cook all in one go!

2. My Most Popular Post

An intern at 46.

"My first day at work" continues to be the most popular post amongst my readers, old and new, friends and strangers. It happened in June this year when I ditched my corporate job of 20 years and went to work in a commercial kitchen as an intern with zero kitchen experience but high on passion and at a 95% pay cut. I am pleased to see this as the most viewed post since it was the trigger for starting my blog in the first place.

The spirit of this blog space is to capture the journey of moving my own cheese when I abandoned the corporate cage to become a free-range human and replaced the keyboard with the chopping board. Closely related to this popular post was how I got the kitchen job and how different kitchen politics was from corporate politics, which were the 2 most frequently-asked questions I received.

3. My Most Controversial Post

I don't have any controversial posts but this one on Sarah's birthday did upset one person. He asked why I was condemning the rich when they had a right to celebrate and enjoy their wealth. I was of course not condemning anyone or anything. I only wanted to blog that I now had a perspective of the world of extravagance like I never did before. The Prince of Wales spent a night sleeping in the cold together with the homeless. I had a less extreme experience working side by side with low income earners. And it's made me all the more richer with this experience.

4. My Most Helpful Post

Barding, a culinary term introduced in Word of the Week to mean cooking meat
using wrapped animal fats to retain moisture

I started a category called Word of the Week in which I introduce a new culinary term every Wednesday. I have received encouraging feedback that people find this helpful especially with some illustrations, and the ever inquisitive learner always finds something new there to learn. In addition to French culinary terms, I also introduce Asian and Middle Eastern ones which you cannot find in one place on the web.

5. A Post Whose Success Surprised Me

My post on Home-made peanut butter took me 5 minutes to write but it attracted much attention and hit high pageviews. It seemed to strike a chord with people who are increasingly more conscious about the type of food they eat. Trans fat and processed food are evil and home-made or hand-made or natural are embraced with a passion. Even non-regular followers of my blog wrote to ask me more about the process. For this, I have a fellow blogger May to thank for inspiring me to try it on my own.

6. A post I feel didn't get the attention it deserved

My posting on Lucy, a 9-year-old kidney patient, received little traction.

My blenders ended up with food bloggers rather than underprivileged families.

After my restaurant internship, I signed up for a certificate course with a reputable culinary school called At-Sunrice Global Chef Academy. As part of its social responsibility, the school invited children kidney patients to experience what it is like to be Chef for a day. I posted about my experience with Lucy but was disappointed with the page view hits I got and the number of likes and comments it garnered. 

In the same vein, my blender posting did not get enough attention either. I was hoping someone would pass me a lead or 2 on any underprivileged families who may have a need for this kitchen tool but no one came forward. Instead, it attracted food bloggers who find this useful and I pray they can use it to bless others with their good food. Thankfully, the 2 winners turned out to be very sweet people. We are all blessed to be a blessing to others.

7. The post I am most proud of

Home-cured salmon, my most daring culinary adventure to date for an extra virgin chef

It has to be my 3 posts on Salmon curing, a culinary adventure I took on after hearing about it from a friend and doing my own research on the internet. In the first post, I was just thinking about doing it and shared some research findings. In the second post, I documented a step-by-step photo capture of the curing process I undertook at home. And in the final post, I showed how I served it when it was ready a few days later.

Did I tell you my next culinary adventure will be home-made duck confit (wink, wink)?


So there you have my top 7 and in the tradition of the 7 Links Project, I nominate my 2 blogger friends The Experimental Cook and Hankerie to post their own top 7.

An EVC friend

I met a fellow food blogger and one of the winners of my blender giveaways. She turned out to be the sweetest thing on earth. We had a good exchange of common likes and ideas over butter chicken and fruit naan (have you heard of that?) and laughed about whether we would order a dal makhani, the same dish that won her the blender in the first place.

Besides buying me a lovely North Indian lunch, look what she also got for me.

A magnet sewn inside!

And here's the best part:

Hand-sewn and personalised, from an EVC reader.

I made a new friend, because I blog. She sure made my day. Thanks, my new friend!

Blogging - a celebration of friendship

In the same way that I have learned to bake, so too have I been learning about how to blog. In the past few weeks, I have learned what a widget is, who is blogspot and wordpress, and how to incorporate a facebook badge. I still don't fully understand the difference between a label, a category and a tag but it's ok.

Every blogging tip I read on the internet dates between 2006-2009 so I thought I must be, not just a late adopter but a real lagger on the technology of blogging. But then, my memory got jolted and I suddenly recall writing about my mother-in-law in her final week before her body yielded to cancer. I had 3 blogs back in 2007 which I completely forgot about in the last 5 years. How is that even possible? I suppose it is, since we've also had incomplete diaries lying around in our school days.

For weeks, as I write passionately about my restaurant internship, my enrolment as a student in a culinary academy and my reluctance to learn food photography, I also muse about why I should blog. There are millions out there who can cook better, boast award-winning shots, write more wittingly, they are more famous, more beautiful, more whatever, and the world would soak up every detail. So why bother to write about my little life and my muffins no matter how puffy they get?

There are also many people who guard their privacy like a lion would its cubs. You can't even see a recognisable profile picture of them. They are smarter than to pour their entire life details to a scheming world. Unmanaged digital footprint comes back to haunt you with your next prospective employers, they've been warned. At this age, I need more hair than credentials, so because these future bosses don't matter, I don't mind.

An interviewer once said he googled my name before I walked into the room. I've never loved myself so much to google my own name! I smiled calmly and responded politely, Oh, really. My head screamed, What are you, a perverted stalker? He then played back to me what he found. He told me I holidayed in Switzerland in 2006 with my 12-year-old daughter, we cycled in the valleys and camped in the mountains. After an hour of listening to someone telling me about my life, I walked out with distaste at the interview and of course, my pathetic acquaintance with him ended there and then. Thankfully.

On the other extreme, there are bloggers who shout from the mountain top, Read all about me and my awesome life! You know the toothpaste brand they use and you are even allowed to peep into their bedrooms, if you care to.

I don't need to build a brand or manipulate it so my blog shows up in search engine algorithms or earn some miniscure revenues by shoving annoying advertisements into the faces of my readers, most of whom are friends. Would I blog even if no one read it? Yes. If I stopped and no one noticed, would it hurt me? No. If I didn't get comments on my blog, would I feel discouraged? No. Fast-forward 50 years later, when my great-granddaughter reads this, would she be amused that she had an opportunity to connect with me even when I'm no longer there? A resounding yes. On this basis, I have chosen to blog.

Just in the past weeks, about a thousand people have peered into my fridge to see how I store my food in a safe way to avoid cross-contamination and 3 people from Croatia, Latvia and Romania have read about my restaurant internship as they consider becoming chefs. Technology facilitates cross-border learning amongst strangers.

More importantly, I've re-connected with ex-colleagues from 2, even 3, jobs ago, made a new friend in Connecticut who switched careers at age 52, a fellow blogger from neighbouring Malaysia passionate about baking, and just very decent and sweet people who follow the blog to share our culinary experiences or who motivate each other on moving our own cheese as we go through this midlife phase. None of them seem to give two-hoots if they never gained an ounce of fame, they just want to learn from others to cook well for their families. Love is their motivation, and their passion drive their profession.

So for me to blog is to celebrate love and friendship, old and new. Cheers, my friends!

See my first anniversary blog post.

To blog or not to blog, that is the question

Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few. 

That is my view on blogging and as I've only just started to blog recently, I have made a few more observations about my friends' digital behaviours. I read that the top 5 reasons why people blog are, in ranking order,
1. Passionate about something
2. Want to share with others
3. For business purposes
4. Self-expression
5. Want to put forward new ideas

As I begin my 8-week journey as a student in a culinary school starting next week, I am also wondering if I should continue to blog. My hesitation at blogging stems from the view that blogging may be narcissism in disguise - the awesome adventures of me and my awesome life, read all about it! Really, who cares. But it is also putting yourself out there when you open up your life to strangers.

I receive very few comments on my blog and it makes me wonder if anyone is reading. I guess people are reserved about their views and conscious of their own digital footprint. But I also get many compliments sent to me via personal text messages or emails. One of my friends even dedicated her facebook status to my new venture. I did a screen capture of it and assume it's ok for me to post here since it's also in her public domain. Right, Lotus?

My daughter went, Oh my God, oh my God, Charlotte is meeting up with her 2 friends! Her usual wise cracks.

I blog when I get excited about something and I am a rather excitable person, so you can count on me to talk alot about school for the next 8 weeks. I'm also excited about the results of my foodography so will also continue to snap photos of my food. Hope you'll enjoy them.