happy 1 year to us!

Happy one year blogiversary to Braised Anatomy!

July 7th marked the one-year “blogiversary” for Braised Anatomy. I guess I should feel honored to write the celebratory post, but to be completely honest it makes me a little stressed. How am I supposed to write a post to sum up everything (food, school and otherwise) that’s happened over the past year?! I mean the fact that we’ve kept this up for a whole year is kinda surprising. Maybe surprising isn’t the right word…Anita and I are both pretty stubborn individuals, so I didn’t really expect this to be a failed experiment, but we’re also pretty busy people and I guess I assumed it would reach a point when we decided maybe the blog wasn’t worth it anymore. But here we are – one year (plus a couple days) since that first blog post. We’re already 101 (well this makes 102) posts in, and still going strong.
If I think back to when we first decided to do this, the whole exchange seems a little fuzzy, but I can remember the key moments in the decision making process. We had just moved into our new place, and were taking full advantage of our well-equipped kitchen. We were both really enthusiastic about all the things we were going to accomplish during the 10 weeks we had off from school, and for some reason I suggested that we add food blogging to the “to do” list. Anita had been an avid follower of food blogs for some time, but I was a bit of a newbie. I knew I liked to cook, but I also knew that I couldn’t stand writing, didn’t really know how to take pictures “properly”, and figured I only had about 10 good recipes I could contribute. Despite these shortcomings, we decided to go ahead with the experiment. We agreed that we would only continue the blog as long as we were both enjoying the experience, and that it wasn’t adding any stress to our lives. We realized that not only would this be a fun way to keep our families up-to-date on the goings on in our lives, it would also be a cool way to archive our adventures in cooking and something we could one day look back on remember what life was like in med school.
This whole experience has been a game of trial and error. We’ve gone through a few site redesigns (thanks to my partner in crime), I learned (well I’m learning) how to use a camera, and have more or less gotten over my stage fright when it comes to writing blog posts. I realize that most of you probably just look at the pictures (and I definitely don’t fault you for that given that I usually do the same with other food blogs), but some of you might have noticed that we also write little introductions to each recipe. We try to tie them into whatever we decided to share in that post, but in reality, these “intros” are supposed to be an opportunity for us to jot down a few notes on life so we can one day look back on it and recall those little snapshots in our earlier lives. As much as I’ve always hated writing, and as much as this has been a challenge for me, it’s also been pretty cathartic. At the end of the week, I am given a platform to voice my thoughts, opinions and concerns, and regardless of whether or not anyone reads it, getting it out of my brain and onto my computer allows me to evaluate everything in a new light (the glow of my computer screen that is).
Perhaps the most important thing this blog has done for me is that it’s given me something to be proud of. I’m not saying that I’m not incredibly proud of everything I’ve accomplished in my short life, but the blog is something tangible. Each blog post is like a small accomplishment in and of itself. The fact is, medical school can really beat you down sometimes. Studying for exams is like trying to fit the Pacific Ocean into a bathtub…oh, and the bathtub has a leak. So no matter how hard you try, it won’t all fit…and it’s only a matter of time before the stuff that you do manage to squeeze into your brain leaks out. Simply put, it can be pretty discouraging. The blog somehow manages to combat some of that discouragement. The support we’ve received from friends, family members, and even some strangers has been overwhelming. There few better feelings than having someone approach us and mention having tried out one of “our” recipes.
Now I’m supposed to tell you about this week’s dish… Well I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out what would be the most “appropriate” recipe for this particular blog post…and I came up with nuthin’. I mean I could have braised something in honor of our name, but let’s face it, BA isn’t exactly known for meat heavy dishes. I also considered some anatomy inspired dish (brain shaped jello perhaps?), but it still didn’t feel special enough. So finally I decided to take a rain check, and force all of you to read through my sappy reflection on the last year. Now this doesn’t mean we’re not gonna post an awesome “blogiversary” recipe, but you’re gonna have to wait a little longer until we find one worth of this honor. In the meantime, we’ve decided to share some photos taken by our good friend Myles Nickolich (the co-author of our first ever guest post).

Stay tuned for more recipes, stories and photos from Braised Anatomy…

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