happy first birthday!

365 days (actually, 366 since 2012 was a Leap Year) ago today, I posted my very first blog post here on kitchen frolic.

In the span of a year, what started out as a tentative step into the world of food blogging has turned into lots of wonderful new opportunities, allowed me to meet some incredibly friendly and generous people (both online and in real life) and increased my time in the kitchen. I'd like to believe that my cooking has improved during this time too!

I started this blog in order to encourage myself to become a better cook and to document my adventures (along with Paul) in the kitchen.While I can happily say that my blog has seen us spending more time in the kitchen, many other wonderful things that I never expected have also happened along the way. To name just a few of the highlights from my past year of food blogging:

• meeting Thomas Keller at a launch event for his latest book, Bouchon Bakery
• attending our first Toronto Underground Market
• pulling out a batch of non-cracked, non-hollow, with-feet macarons from my own oven
• getting a Direct Message through Twitter from Nigella Lawson
• becoming a Brand Ambassador for Canadian Beef
• placing the first-ever order at HotBunzz
• becoming a monthly contributor to the FoodiePages blog
• creating my online Cookie Advent Calendar

Plus, I got to see "kitchen frolic" painted on a downtown Toronto wall, pinned to a map in TV show The Glades' production offices, chalked onto a restaurant sign and printed on a T-shirt and a McCafe mug! Even after a whole year, it's still pretty exciting to see my name on something I didn't create.

Of course, one of the best parts of starting this blog has been getting to meet so many friendly and passionate food-lovers from around the globe. There's no way I could name all of you here, but you know who you are. Whether we exchange blog comments, have back-and-forth Twitter conversations or have eaten together in real life, I am so glad that my path has crossed with yours and I hope to meet many more of you in person someday!

And just like any milestone, there are a few people that I have to thank:

A very special thank you to Paul for putting up with my kitchen messes, for accepting the fact that I have to take photos of all the food before he can eat it and for not complaining too much that I bake more than I cook.

Another thank you goes to my family and friends for putting up with my incessant food-fact spouting, for constantly gifting me with food-related Christmas and birthday gifts (especially my sister, Suzie!) and for being brave enough to try my kitchen experiments.

And of course...

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for being on the other side of the screen and spending some of your time reading my blog!