A new chapter

So it begins; a new chapter. Hello.

Some of you may already know me as a food blogger, friend, or an acquaintance. Maybe you’re simply a lurker who just happened to stumble upon my blog. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I welcome you to be a part of this new chapter in my life.

Over the last year, I’ve done a significant amount of personal development and work on myself (and am still doing it everyday). I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty details at this point, but it’s been made clear to me that I want to do bigger and better things in life – new, extraordinary, and unfamiliar things, things I’ve wanted to do but had excuses to not accomplish them. If my dreams don’t scare me, then they simply aren’t big enough. It may sound cliché to some, but I don’t doubt that there are many of you reading that know exactly what I’m talking about.

In fact, I’d like to really start off by sharing my experience from last night, something new that I wouldn’t have really ever seen myself getting comfortable doing or getting the opportunity to do. It was a night filled with passion, excitement, and inspiration – the perfect ingredients that gave me the last little push to start blogging again, and this time it’s about my personal life.

It started off from a few weeks ago, when an old classmate, Fatima, had sent me a message via Facebook, and asked if I would be interested in speaking at a Meetup dinner/event about being a food blogger. I was very flattered, but I told her over the phone, “Hey, that sounds amazing, but I haven’t blogged for a whole year now.” She assured me it was fine, and that she’d love for me to come in and talk about my successes and experiences nonetheless.

So, I said yes, and she gave me the date and time and details. I didn’t know what to expect, but hey, it was scary, new, and honestly really exciting. I can’t remember the last time I did a presentation outside of school (probably means never) and I don’t go to networking events much, but they were unfamiliar things, and I wanted to challenge myself.

The dinner was at the Hungry Guys Kitchen on Granville St. I was met by many friendly faces, and most people, if not all, were food enthusiasts or bloggers. The other awesome part was the food! So, great people and great food? What more could I ask for?

Aldo (owner) sharing the inspiration and story behind Hungry Guys Kitchen

Delicious salad bowl from Hungry Guys Kitchen

This burrito was love at first bite

I had the honor of meeting Stacey, a Vancouver food and lifestyle blogger, and sitting and chatting with him. He introduced me to an app called If This Then That (IFTTT); where if you (did this) then the app would (do that), which is amazing and awesome to use for social media mavens. He is also one of the funniest people I’ve had the honor of chatting with and listening to speak, and is just an overall super energetic and creative guy all around.

Stacey Robinsmith passionately speaking about IFTTT

I got to meet executive chef and award winning cookbook author Theresa Nicassio as well. I had a chance to chat with her and look at her book (which is incredible, by the way), and she shared her stories with me, ones that really inspired her recipe pieces. They were so heartwarming, genuine, and authentic, that I couldn’t help but get a copy of the book to read for myself. She is incredibly inspiring and such a warm and genuine person. I recommend you all check out her book as well, especially if you have a preference for gluten-free and healthy eats.

Theresa Nicassio speaking about emotional eating

So it came my turn to speak about my food blog, and honestly…it was great. I felt confident overall and felt really happy while speaking. Many people were nodding in agreement and/or smiling, and it was just a really incredible experience to know that I could have an effect like that while presenting. I received really great feedback afterwards such as what they loved – the message(s), energy, authenticity, just all really fantastic stuff and I loved all of it. The people there were amazing – there were people of different ethnicity, backgrounds, occupations, but we all had one thing in common: a huge passion and love for food!

(Left to right) Theresa, me, and Stacey having too good of a time taking selfies

Ultimately, the key takeaways and what I really discovered for myself were:

1. I’m actually pretty decent at public speaking
2. I miss blogging (hence this post)
3. Networking is pretty fun; I think I may be a bit in love with it
4. I love being around people who are passionate about what they do and I want to be around more of these people
5. I can’t wait to go to another one of these, and I plan to in May!

Of course, there is a lot more that I’d love to say, but we’ll have to wait until my next post. In the meantime, I definitely encourage you to try something new and unfamiliar, make changes, and try and conquer your fears (big or small). The bigger effort you put into it, the higher the reward you can get out of it, and I can assure you that the results will be phenomenal. Believe you can do it, and that’s already a good more-than-a-half of it.

Until next time,

Kerri