Fake Food Free Is 10 Years Old

Fake Food Free is 10 years old this week! While I haven’t had many recipes up lately, I have been doing plenty with food. This is a little photo tour.

Other than working on projects for clients and throwing a holiday cookout last weekend, I haven’t been in the kitchen much in May. 

We’ve been eating a lot of leftovers from shoots. Other things have been less than glamorous which means there isn’t much of a recipe to photograph and share. 

My point with all of this is to say that I know I haven’t been posting much recently. Even with the fresh produce of the spring and summer coming on, I still have nothing. 

I plan for it to change some in June, so hang in there with me. 

While I haven’t been developing recipes fit for this site, I have been taking a lot of photos. 

And guess what? Fake Food Free turns 10 years old this week! 

10 years. I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog for 10 years. 

When I think about what would be best to share to commemorate all this content, I think it comes down to focusing on the evolution of my work. 

I’m at a point where I don’t plan to stop blogging and developing recipes, but I have reached a place where I know what I enjoy the most about my work – the styling and photography. So that is what I do more of these days. 

To think, this blog went from a platform to discuss health and reducing fake foods, to a recipe blog based on that, to embracing more cultural foods, and finally to a creative outlet for a little fun in the kitchen and a lot of fun in my studio.

It’s been a long and enjoyable journey. 

So today I’ll show you a bit about what I’ve been up to besides being in the kitchen over the past few weeks. Coming up, I’ll share a round-up of some of my favorite recipes on this blog (bad images and all!). 

Whether you’ve been reading since the beginning, or just started a few weeks ago, thank you! I greatly appreciate it. 

Strawberries started showing up at the farmstands a few weeks ago. I finally found my favorite variety. I don’t know the name, but I do know how to get them. I love the small, sweet berries. They remind me of those I used to grow in our garden in Kentucky that came from my dad. 

I stopped by the farmstand last week and noticed that the berries available were the small variety! So I asked about them. This type gets picked in the morning because they are more fragile and spoil much more quickly. The large, harder variety gets picked in the afternoon. Long story short, I’m now only buying my strawberries in the morning. 

I’ve been thrilled to start finding more heirloom varieties of produce at our farmers market. Some different things have started to show up and it makes what little cooking I have been doing much more fun. These shunkyo radishes were my first find. Next, I’ve been buying all the baby squash. I’ve also been loading up on purple garlic. 

Our cherry tree in the backyard is doing much better this year. Our first year in the house we got 10 pounds! But that was because the tree had not been controlled at all. It was much too huge for the yard. So we cut it back. Last year, we ended up with a very small amount of cherries, as expected. This year, we are back up to 4 1/2 pounds. 

Meanwhile, cherries are also showing up at farmstands. I can’t pass up these varieties so basically we spend the season with double the cherries. 

A lot of the succulents and cacti we have on the patio are in their second and third years, so we’ve started seeing blooms. I was anxiously awaiting this one and it did not disappoint. 

Toads are everywhere around our house this time of year. The babies are in the 100s around the neighborhood. No kidding.

What are rarer, though, are frogs. We had a couple adults around the garden last year. This spring, we’ve been noticing baby frogs which are just the coolest! It is amazing how high they can jump despite being so tiny. This one has decided to make his home in the herb garden so I spot him every time I water. Earlier this week he was hanging out in the sage. 

To finish up the what-I’ve-been-up-to report, this past holiday weekend it was hiking. We haven’t been out on the trails since the 35K race we completed in early April. 

Most people would be disappointed with the view on the Little Baldy and Big Baldy Trails in Sequoia Kings Canyon National Parks, but I didn’t mind. It was cold and foggy which also meant there was practically no one around and completely silent for most of the hike. We’ll go back for the view eventually, but I couldn’t have asked for a better day. 

I hope you enjoyed the photo tour. I’ll share my favorite recipes after 10 years of blogging over the next week.