Project Food Blog Entry #1: Ready, Set, Blog! – If Newbs Can Cook, So Can You!

Hi. We’re Neil and Jessica, and we’re in IT. Inherently you probably have a picture in your head, something that paints us like the geek squad right? That’s not far from the truth, although we’d like to think our services are far more extensive. In addition to our full-time jobs as an IT Analyst and Web Developer, we also moonlight as freelancers. In addition, we’re also going back to school. To say we’re busy is an understatement. But we love it. Taking someone’s idea and making it into something both beautiful and useful is an amazing feeling.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with food. The answer to us is everything. You see, true to the stereotype, we used to eat like complete crap. And it was something we took pride in. We ate very stereotypical meal, at weird hours, in large, uncharted quantities. It was disgusting. Before he met me, Neil even had a website where he reviewed frozen food. While he became the connoisseur of the frozen food aisle, I was eating whatever didn’t put up a fight. I rotated macaroni and cheese, canned tuna, and LOTS of take-out week in and week out. It felt like the salt flats in Utah were being funneled right into our stomachs. Coupled with our sedentary desk jobs, it took its toll. Weight gain, chronic fatigue, and an overall feeling of being run over by a car. Something had to change.

But what? Neil could kind of cook, but I couldn’t. My adventures into grilled cheese had nearly burnt my apartment down. I was afraid of ovens and knives because I cut and burned myself more times than even the most alienated emo kid would find comforting. We were clueless, but decided that the only way to hold ourselves in any way accountable to our attempts at change would be to write about it. Thus the first incarnation of our blog, I’d Roll Need (a World of Warcraft reference) was born.

Two years and a name change later, we’re still documenting all the healthy (or healthified), frugal, and hassle-free meals we’re making in the hour we have between our full-time jobs and our nightly freelance projects. We’ve also become weekend cooking warriors, dabbling into some more complicated techniques and baking experiments. We started the blog thinking our newbness would go largely unnoticed, seeing as there are some amazing food bloggers out there who are much more talented and experienced than us. They have amazing recipes, professional photos and tons of sponsorships. But we’ve been humbled by the amount of people who have stopped by and even tried our recipes, some of them really well-known. In the last two years we’ve gone from eating from a box to entirely from scratch. We no longer eat processed meals, and the only time we venture down the frozen food aisle is to get frozen vegetables.

I think this brings us to the grand finale. You know, where we tell you why we deserve a shot at this. Neil and I are not famous. We’re not experts. We don’t have unlimited resources or sponsorships. We’re two regular people who decided to change our lives for the better by getting to know food. The result wasn’t only getting healthy, but a fundamental change in our perception and relationship with food. It not only serves as nourishment for our physical health but our relationship as well. We joke that it’s the third wheel in our relationship, and it is. We’ve also become so much closer to our friends and family. Cooking to us isn’t about who can prepare the best recipes, it’s about how it brings people together. If we can stumble through a recipe with a self-deprecating sense of humor that sparks a conversation, we still think there’s something valuable in that.

There are a lot of people like us out there. People who are intimidated by the amazing talent, photos, and recipes they see online and don’t think they are good or deserving enough to stand with them, let alone be a part of the conversation. This competition is an opportunity for even the smallest and newest to have a shot at being heard, and we’re excited to even be considered.

Check out our profile linked above and in our sidebar.
Voting Starts tomorrow, and we’d appreciate your support!

For more information on Project Food Blog, visit their official contest page.