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Today Lottie + Doof turns one year old. It seems both longer and shorter than that to me. I have a hard time remembering life before this site- a time when I didn’t have to put dinner on pause to take photographs of the food (imagine, we once ate food when it was still warm!). It is perhaps most strange that a year ago I did not know any of you. I feel so fortunate to have made connections with so many of you over the past 12 months. Some of those connections have lead to friendships and exciting opportunities and for that I will always be grateful. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I started the site but I have found that the food blogging community is a really great place to hang out.  I am always happy to know that there are others out there who care about eating and making good food. read more+++

Things don’t always work out for me. Sure, it seems like everything I make turns out perfectly and tastes delicious, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes things fall apart— literally. read more+++

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You’ve undoubtedly heard of Miracle Fruit before. I first read about these magical little berries in the New York Times last summer and have been curious about them ever since. We used Bryan’s birthday as an excuse to have a couple of friends over for dinner and flavor trip. read more+++

I’m back from Montreal (more on that soon!) and ready to start cooking again but first:  We’ve been together for a while now and there is so much I don’t know about you. In an effort to deepen Lottie + Doof’s relationship with our readers, I present to you: The Lottie + Doof Food Questionnaire. This was inspired by those crazy quizzes that were all the rage on social networking sites a few years ago, which were themselves inspired by the Proust questionnaire that Vanity Fair made famous. My friend Ashley and I became obsessed with those quizzes a while back and completed so many of them. We still have all of those quizzes and they remain a really lovely artifact of that time in our life. Anyway, I wanted a food-centered survey and so I put this together! I hope you’ll all leave your answers to this quiz in the comments. All of you! Even those of you sitting quietly at the back with big smiles on your faces. And yes, even you Ashley.

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By now you’re probably wondering if I weigh 400 pounds. There is a lot of sugar and butter and cheese on this site. First of all, I don’t eat all of it myself. I share. And whenever I eat something like a grilled cheese, or lasagna, I balance it out with a big salad. I am more worried about chemicals and preservatives entering my body than I am sugars or fats. I have almost eliminated industrial food from my diet (there are some things I am unwilling to give up, like: cheerios, dried pasta, and the occasional coke (preferably bottled in Mexico)). I am lucky, I live in a city with great bakeries where I can buy freshly baked organic bread and I have access to lots of stores and markets. It isn’t so difficult for me to avoid prepackaged foods. I know not everyone is so lucky. read more+++

I’ve been a regular at Milk & Honey since it opened back in 2002. The cafe is located on Division Street in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. I have the good fortune of living less than a block from the restaurant and so it is our go-to spot whenever we want something delicious for breakfast or lunch. read more+++

Thanks to many of you sweet, sweet readers and friends Lottie + Doof has been nominated for a Homie! (You might be wondering what a Homie is, I certainly was, it is an award that The Kitchn is giving to the favorite food blog of 2008) It is an honor to be nominated, but wouldn’t it be even better if we won?

That can only happen if you go HERE and vote.

xoxo