Kelly the Culinarian: DCblogs photo entry and a little bit about me

Friday, November 16, 2007

DCblogs photo entry and a little bit about me

Happy Friday! We made it.


First order of business: here are my entries in dcblogs.com photo contest. The theme is “What inspires you?” I chose to showcase two photos I took last weekend on Veterans Day near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. The sacrifice that these men and women made to protect our freedom and that of others inspires me to exercise those freedoms. Journalism is the only profession specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights and I make full use of it. I was also inspired by these selfless veterans to write a column for the Lake County News-Sun.


At play: I took this near the Washinton Monument.

Mental prep: This was taken right before the presentation at the Wall on Veterans Day. She's prepping for her performance while facing the crowd gathered at the Wall.


Another point of business: Diane at Much of Muchness tagged me earlier in the week and I’m finally getting to it! What a week.

1 How long have you been blogging?
Since May of this year.
2 What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors?
So, so many reasons. I love food and would like to write a cook book or be a food writer at a newspaper. When I started the blog, I was in a class that didn’t have a ton of writing in it, so I wanted to stay sharp. I’d never done a ton of photography, so I thought I’d give it a try. I also wanted to see what kind of digital community existed out there. I have a pretty common name as well and I wanted to be the No. 1 Kelly Mahoney on Google, as opposed to the WWE rink girl or the meteorologist (all fine Kelly Mahoneys, I'm sure).
I love Amateur Gourmet and admire the blog over there. In real life, my mom is quite the inspiration -- she did not know how to cook at all at my age at all and is now a kitchen guru. It gives me hope that I might be able to cook without a recipe one day.
3 Are you trying to make money online or are you doing it for fun?
It would be nice to make some cash off of this, but much like journalism, if I was in this for the money, I’d be bitterly disappointed. I make roughly $.09 per day off of this site.
4 What three things do you love about being online?
A. Writing about food! My mom always says food is love, so I like to share the wealth. You have to eat at least two to three times per day, and there’s so many facets to food writing – recipes, dining out, baking, cook books, food on television … I’ll never get bored with this.
B. Meeting people. I’ve learned so much about cultures and food while doing this. I love seeking out other blogs and taking in people’s suggestions to make this one better.
C. Getting feedback. I’ve learned so much from my readers. It’s been a great experience and I hope it will continue.
4 What three things do you struggle with online?
A. Haters. I have a hard time believing that there are losers out there with nothing better to do than stalk the same blogs in order to leave nasty, nitpicky comments, but I guess there are people like that who need a hobby. It’s kind of sad, but it gets to you.
B. Readership. Like I said, I’d like to write a book one day, so I’m always trying to reach out to blogs for inspiration, ideas and networking (Got a suggestion about increasing readership or my site in general? I’d love to hear it!)
C. Staying current. I get out and I try my best without a kitchen, but it’s hard without an oven. I’d also like to freshen up the layout, but I don’t know enough about HTML. One day …

In return, I’d like to pose the same questions to the following bloggers that I’d like to learn more about:

My Kitchen Snippets

Trish at The Coffee Shop

Andrea at Mom to the Fey

Winedeb at Deb’s Key West Wine and Gardening blog

Rak’s Kitchen

14 comments:

Raks said...

Thanx Kelly,for tagging me and I will do it ASAP....
I read urs too....Interesting to know (these things) about you:-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for tagging me...give me a day or so and I'll throw something together. These are new questions I haven't done before so should be fun :)

About increasing readership all I can say is what brings me back to a blog is 1. frequent, short-ish posts and 2. responses to my comments.

Argus Lou said...

Interesting to read about why and how you blog. Are you taking any Journalism courses by any chance?

I was at the U of Montana in Missoula, US, in the late 1980s taking courses in Print Journalism.

Here's wishing you an enjoyable journey towards becoming the most famous Kelly M!

sage said...

Nice photos! Your oyster "review" inspired me to write an oyster story in my blog today. Thanks for spurring my mind on to another topic. Read it if you get a chance.

Manggy said...

Yeah, The Amateur Gourmet has a certain something I aspire to, too. Beautiful pic of the flags!

Katie Zeller said...

Great photos! Love the kids and the flags!
I've been lucky with comments, I've never had any nasty ones....I've had some porn ones, but that's what the delete key is for!
Keep blogging, we enjoy it!

TC said...

Those photos are amazing: I can't imagine getting to be there to see that.

It would be nice to make some cash off of this, but much like journalism, if I was in this for the money, I’d be bitterly disappointed.

Ha! As a J School grad from Wisconsin, I understand that well :)

Homeronica said...

Hola Kelly te vengo a saludar y a desearte un feliz fin de semana. Un abrazo. H.

Unknown said...

Ok. I did it. Go read it. :)

(can you tell I'm tired? it's the only time I'm not wordy...)

ICook4Fun said...

Kelly, I will do the tag later. Thanks :)

JamyTan said...

Good on your. Nice pics and nice post.
Jamy

naechstehaltestelle said...

Wonderful! Thanks for your entry to our contest!

SmartlikeStreetcar said...

Kelly...

I posted the first in a two-parter on ways to increase blog readership here, but probably haven't included anything you don't know. (Judging by the number of comments here!) I should write another before NaBloPoMo ends.

Thanks for visiting my little corner of the universe yesterday.

Keren Brown said...

Keep up the good work, Kelly
and then drop by Seattle so I can take you on a foodie tour