A beautiful sunrise off of Coney Island.
For a while—really, months—I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with my sweet little Harmonious Belly blog here. The good news is that I’ve decided to start writing here again, but with some changes, including more content about food in and around NYC. Read on for the rest of the story.
Content started to fall off around February 2012 when I was contracted to write Food Lovers’ Guide to Queens—an amazing, awesome, fun project. During my research, I was eating a lot of conventional food, with no stomach space for things like raw milk, fermented foods, or really any home-cooked meals. I ate out all the time so that I could authoritatively write about what I was recommending, and I feel good about that.
After I submitted the book manuscript to my editor in June 2012, there were additional edits and such through the fall, plus I took on a full time editorial position that consumed my life, writing six to eight stories a day along with other various and sundry related tasks (I did very good work there and am proud of it). With this blog, there were a couple of sputtering starts, but that was it. I just couldn’t get momentum going.
Lately, I started to really miss writing here. But my current interests when it comes to food didn’t fit the limitations I had put on this blog at its start. Yes, I still like writing about local, sustainable food, as well as traditional foods such as raw dairy, pastured meats, and lacto-fermented sauerkraut, but my interests have expanded to a broader idea of “traditional food.” I love getting to know food from cultures other than my own—learning about the history, any cultural aspects, and of course, eating it. Writing my book really opened up my eyes to a much wider world of food.
So, I’ve simply decided to make some changes in the focus of this blog. From the About page:
During my book research travels, I ate plates of the incredible bandeja paisa (a huge Colombian breakfast platter that includes, among other things, chicharon, avocado, and plantain), ramen in a pork broth with cha-su (barbecued pork) and menma (a fermented bamboo condiment), morkovcha(a Russian-Korean carrot salad), Dongbei cuisine (beautiful food from northeastern China), wontons in spicy sauce, chicken momos (Tibetan or Nepalese dumplings), naeng myun (a cold noodle dish from Korea) on a sweltering day, butter mamon (a sweet, buttery, and slightly salty Pilipino sponge cake) and much, much more. I continue to explore the vast foods of NYC and beyond and write about them, and have decided to do so here on Harmonious Belly.
So, look for content—words, images, and video—on interesting things I’ve eaten at places old and new; festivals, markets, and specialty shops; food I’ve cooked and/or grown at home; and traditional, nutrient-dense foods, as I’ve written about before. I also look forward to sharing some of the awesome work my colleagues are doing. I’m happy about the expansion of subject matter and look forward to writing again here on Harmonious Belly!
