Wandering, Wondering, Working, and Word Block

The last few weeks have been busy and distracting. I've been traveling (a week in Vermont, a weekend in San Antonio, a few days in Vancouver and then a weekend in Seattle). I've also been putting a lot of time into helping to bring a food co-op to South Philly. It's a 2+ year process that will hopefully end with a member-owned food community shopping center. What is a food co-op? It's a grocery store that is owned, operated and financed by its members. By being member owned, the hope is to provide members lower prices or discounts, more control over what's on the shelves and a community for sharing and learning about food, sustainable practices, and the neighborhood we live in. We are well on our way with a website and are currently conducting a organizing feasibility study to learn more about the shopping habits and opinions of the people in our neighborhood. It's exciting, but a lot of work.

I got some disappointing news about some upcoming cookbooks - some other people had my boozy recipe idea and will launch their books this fall. I feel this is a bit of a set back, and has made me rethink exactly what I want to do with this blog. Like a pair of skinny jeans, it's restrictive and confining to only write about recipes that contain alcohol. And now that I'm working on the food co-op, I'm entertaining the idea of have segments to highlight a theme...there would be The Soused Chef segment with alcohol, the In Season segment focusing on things being harvested locally, and maybe a Bake Sale segment which would feature things that could be sold at a bake sale, or easily wrapped up and given to friends and family. That is just a start and I'm still working on the idea. I'm going to the Food Blogging Conference this weekend and hope to find some more inspiration.

I also just learned of a Philly Blog Tax...apparently I'm suppose to pay a yearly $50 for a "privilege license" plus I'm required to pay the appropriate taxes on the income I earn from the advertising on the blog. Considering that I've only made 80 cents in the last few months. This really isn't a good deal for me. I'll probably need to remove the ads until I have the 100,000 followers to make it profitable. Sometimes Philly sucks.

With all of this uncertainty and rethinking my approach to the blog, I've had a little bit of a word block. In addition to all of that, I spend my entire work day at a computer, so it's tough to sit down in for another hour or two to put out a blog post. I'll also blame the beautiful summer days/night for my writer's block.

So here I am, about to get over my word block - one of the food blog conference homework item was to let our readers know about it....and we also were challenged with doing some real time blogging/tweeting/facebooking. Beginning Friday evening, I'll try to do all of that! It's going to be a great conference, if for the food alone. All the meals are catered by local chefs. I'm especially looking forward to the lunchtime cart scavenger hunt. Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me fame will be the opening speaker. To learn more about the conference, check out the foodista website or get real time updates by following me on twitter/facebook. If you are not already following me via social media, well shoot me a comment and I'll friend you in the medium you prefer. I can't seem to figure out how to put the "follow me" widgets on the blog.

Until Friday......