Blogiversary | chicago foodie girl

3.04.2013

Blogiversary

*I had planned to post this last week, but my body was taken over by an evil stomach virus that left me completely out of commission and soooo not interested in thinking about food for days. Ugh. 

February 22nd marked the one-year blogiversary of chicago foodie girl! To commemorate the first year of brilliance (haha), I thought it would be nice to put together a mini-retrospective. Of course, I couldn't fit in everything that happened over the last year, but I think I hit enough of the highlights...

Five favorite restaurant dishes (it wasn't easy to narrow it down to just five, as I visited a lot of fantastic places during the last year; there were also several other restaurants that I could have easily added to this list, but I haven't blogged about them yet):

Mercat a la Planxa (Chicago Restaurant Week 2012)

Sushi Samba Rio (Restaurant Week 2012 - Mario & I went back for even more deliciousness
during his birthday)

Pasta D'Arte (Diana discovered this place shortly after moving to her new neighborhood - this peach appetizer was perfection!)

Bandera (I normally wouldn't categorize a chain restaurant as one of my best of the year, but the Macho Salad was *outstanding*)



Mexique (Chicago Restaurant Week 2013)

Foodie festivals:
Along with all of the cooking and restaurant dining, I also had the opportunity to participate in some fun food festivals: Baconfest (definitely the best festival of the year!), the Chicago Fine Chocolate Show (where I discovered my new favorite wine), the Food Truck Social (where I had the best octopus *ever*), the Andersonville Dessert Crawl (always one of my favorites), and Cider Summit Chicago (watch for an upcoming post on this!).

Yes, I plan on attending all of these festivals again - plus more! Diana and I took the plunge and bought tickets for both the Chicago Gourmet festival and Good vs. Evil: An Evening with Anthony Bourdain & Eric Ripert. I cannot wait to kick off food festival season with Baconfest in April!

Randomness (the non-foodie part of my life):

I attended some great concerts: Lenny Kravitz/Raphael Saadiq, Fiona Apple, Seal/Macy Gray, Anita Baker, and most importantly, PRINCE! (Morrissey was also supposed to be a part of that group, but he rescheduled twice).

I received some life-changing/awesome news back in May and started my fab new job (yes, it's still in the fab category, which is obviously a very, very good thing) at the end of August.

It was a much slower travel year than I would prefer (one of my goals is to get to a few more places this year), but I did manage a short hiking trip to Starved Rock and a lovely girly-bonding weekend in Madison (I must get back to that amazing farmers' market!).

I read a lot of fantastic (and a few not-so-fantastic) books and had an awesome Christmas break (jellies! the Holiday Train!).
And last, but certainly now least, I celebrated my 13-year anniversary with Mario. 

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Thanks to all of the awesome chicago foodie girl readers out there and my two fantastic regular contributors (Diana & Sarah W). It was a wonderful first year and I'm looking forward to another year filled with cooking adventures, new restaurants, and delicious cupcakes! :-)


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15 comments

  1. Happy Blogversary! You've had a great year and I'm so glad that you're part of the blogging universe. I love your blog and always look forward to new posts. Hope the next year is just as great for you!

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  2. Wow ! You certainly were busy :)) Congratulations :) Hope you have many more!

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  3. Happy blogiversary! Love your blog!

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  4. Congratulations on your one year blogiversary. Wishing you many more years of fun.

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  5. Happy blogaversary! I love the banner! :-)

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  6. Congratulations!!! I am your newest follower and am so excited to try many of your great looking recipes:)

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  7. Hooray! Here's to many more years and yummies!

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  8. Cheers to you on your first blogiversary!!!! Loved the pictures in this post... but now I'm STARVING!!

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  9. Congratulations and you're certainly working hard on your blog. You've got some seriously good food here.

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  10. Happy Blogiversary (belated)! Oh that macho salad, must go get one soon. Looking forward to lots more from your blog.

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  11. Such a yummy recap. I can't believe that it's only been a year. Love it! Wishing you many more years of awesome.

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  12. Happy Anniversary! Lovely recap of your year. The cakes look good but I am most jealous of the Prince gig. When he performed for 21 nights in London a few years ago I went to three concerts and a couple of aftershows and I still get goosebumps when I think about it. Amazing!

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