Best of 2007 and A Year-End Reflection

2007 has indeed been a tremendously important year for me, both on personal and professional fronts. Personally, my parents and my in-laws were with us for almost half of the year, and there were a lot of fun-filled times, family trips, a time for bonding as well as nurturing relationships. Professionally, besides getting a promotion and accolades for my hard work, I also discovered an outlet for my love of food and cooking by means of this blog. Fun and Food started as a single page filled with a few of my favourite recipes, a page that was created solely due to my husband's encouragement, and the thought that this way I could document some of my culinary experiments. Slowly, the nice people in the blogosphere trickled over and left me some comments, some even emailed me saying I have a nice space here, and maybe I should expand it as they'd love to read more of my posts! Then there were my friends and family who left me some pointers about how I could make this blog look more professional; that was all that I needed to ignite the fire within me, and I set forward to make this blog a resource that readers would look up to, visit regularly, and feel happy and somewhat thankful about what they found here!

I took the initiative to enhance my coding and HTML knowledge, and set forth into converting this blog into a more professional, interesting and easy-to-navigate site. And as I was posting my recipes, I felt there's more to Food than plain cooking; there are so many things I wanted to know besides preparing my meals, like what goes into it? Is it nutritious or not? Can I make a healthier version of this meal? How do I bundle it so my guests would be tempted to eat it? Are there any gadgets that can make my work easier? What flavors go well with one another? And it clicked me that others would probably be wondering about similar things just like me, so why not share my findings with everyone. That led to the idea behind combining "Fun" and "Food", and gave rise to sections on Health, Gadgets, Entertaining and Chef-Talk. We also love trying new restaurants and cuisines, and it kind of made sense to share our experiences and opinions through Restaurant Reviews.

Soon blogging became a passion rather than a hobby, and I saw myself trying to scoure markets for new ingredients, pouring over cookbooks and Food Network shows for delicious ideas, baking and cooking new meals almost every other day and forcing my friends and family to be the scapegoats of my experiments (not that they are complaining, because I do cook well!:)) All in all, it's been a wonderful year. Its been only 6 months since I started this site, yet it seems like a long time. I have surely achieved some milestones, but there are many more to conquer! The path is long, and the opportunity to learn and improvise is immense. Yet my readers have been my constant support and encouragement, showing their loyalty by visiting me often, subscribing to this site, leaving fabulous comments and feedback, and also emailing me suggestions about how I could make this a better experience for them. I thank all of you with a sincere heart, and promise to try my level best to live up to your expectations! And I look forward to even more suggestions and enhancement ideas in the coming years so that I can take this blog to another level.

This has to be my longest post by far!! So if you got bored reading this long and un-ending post, it is Nupur to blame, who urged us to participate in her Best of 2007 Event; but if you did enjoy reading this one, then I'll gladly share some cedit with her:) And now, putting an end to my ramblings, here are some of my favorite posts for the year gone by:

Savoury and Spicy Recipes:
Veg Manchurian Dry
Stuffed Ravioli in Saffron and Cream Sauce
Achari Paneer Tikka Wraps
Vegetarian Lasagna
Malai Kofta Curry

Delicious Dessert Recipes:
Chocolate-dipped Orange Madeleines
Semolina and Rose Syrup Cake(Basbousa)
Pecan Pie with Bourbon Whip Cream
Healthy Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti
Kesar Rasmalai

Favourite Healthy Recipes:
Vegan Rice Paper Rolls
Low-fat Blueberry Muffins

Favourite Drink Recipes:
Beet-Cucumber and GInger Juice
The Blue Hawaiin
Hot and Spiced Vanilla Run Drink

That's all for some of my best recipes from last year. Once again, a HUGE THANK YOU to each of you:

- My regular blogging community friends who are always there to leave their precious comments and words of encouragement

- My readers and subscribers, without which my blog would have no meaning. And please keep doing that, because seeing my traffic and page views go up is like a tonic to my system:)

- The people coming here from searches or recommendations, who sometimes do take time to comment or email me, and I urge you to keep giving me your support through regular visits!

- The various blogging communities like Food Blog Desam, and other web directories, which helped me gain my initial audience.

- And last, but not the least, my family, especially my husband, and friends who have given their best in helping me realize this dream called Fun and Food.

"Ring out the old, Ring in the new; Ring out the false and Ring in the true"

Here's wishing all of you a Joyous, Prosperous and Fulfilling 2008!!