Here we go then...

I've decided to start my own food blog. I'm not new to the internet foodie-ness - indeed, I've been managing an online recipe website since 2002, if I remember correctly. My former partner Heigo, now sadly no longer with us, was a software developer and he insisted that I'd put my recipe collection online. I'm not sure whether it was his software developer Self that wanted to try if he can create an online recipe database from scratch with ingredient search functions etc, or whether he got tired of me emailing from Edinburgh to Tallinn asking him to find, copy and email me a recipe for a particular dish I fancied making at the moment, but in any case Nami-nami retseptikogu was born. It contains over 7000 recipes that I've found from numerous cookbooks, magazines (food/travel/women's), newspapers, websites, TV shows; recipes I've inherited or asked from my mum, relatives, friends. I'm quite proud of Nami-nami - the range of sources is rather wide, especially as I've added recipes from Estonian sources, as well as translated them from English, Finnish, Danish, Swedish and occasionally even from Russian. I've tried only to add recipes that I've tried, or plan to try recreating in the future. Of course, the task is rather daunting, and I will never cook all of them. But one is allowed to dream, isn't she?
However, the recipe database is rather limited in its uses, and until I find a new IT-specialist to redesign and develop the website, I cannot muse about cooking the way I want. Therefore this blog here.
Although I had a rather good overview of various internet sites dedicated to food and cooking, having been scanning and reading them regularly since late 1990s, I've only very recently discovered foodblogging. I have to thank my dear Norwegian friend Guro for inadvertedly introducing me to them. Couple of weeks ago Guro mentioned that her American friend Melissa, to whom I occasionally bump into in Edinburgh, has recently set up a foodblog - Traveler's Lunchbox. I checked it out and was hooked from moment go. The texts were fun and interesting to read and pictures gorgeous (it also explained why I recently spotted Melissa taking pictures at Edinburgh's Farmers Market:). Rather unfortunate actually, as Nami-nami was already eating up quite a big chunk of my time (I guess if it hadn't been for my recipe website addiction, I would have finished my sociology PhD in three years after all:). I knew Melissa could cook well, Guro had often mentioned it, but this was rather impressive. Being a non-native English speaker, and quite crap in photography, my foodblog will never be as impressive as Melissa's. I'm also far less advanced - or adventurous - in cooking (lack of time/kitchen equipment explain some of it), although my friends are always happy to come for dinner parties, so I cannot be too bad. I am also an avid reader of cookbooks and magazines, and keen to learn more and more, so I will try to improve myself. Through The Traveler's Lunchbox I've also discovered other delicious foodblogs (I'll be adding links to them as soon as I master the linking skill) that have kept me staring at the computer screen far more than is healthy or necessary. And I'm also afraid that I should start sleeping less than 10 hours a day from now on - so I would time to do my daily job - AND update my foodblog..