One year since I started this blog. Well that’s what’s blogland HQ told me today (now a week or so ago but I’ve been on holidays. Give a kid a break here) and, after doing a few quick sums in my head, I tend to agree.

Which makes me think it would be a good time to tell our viewing public how this all got started. How this crazy journey on a clapped out old bus, loaded with carnies, climbing up a steep mountain, on just barely a one lane rocky goat track began. Because as my friend Amy pointed out on her recent visit; I haven’t done that yet.

IN THE BEGINNING…

It was the summer of 2012. I remember that as being a particularly harsh year. Carnies were lined up at the local watering hole, their tender skin bright red and blistered from the intense heat. Wildlife would come to drink from that same watering hole to quench their summer thirst, and then crawl off into the shade to die, ignorant of the fact that you can never drink from a basin that a carnie has bathed in…

It was also the summer that Grazza McFilthy Mouth went down like a five dollar hooker at a buck’s night…

The story? Well I was in my backyard feeding the chickens (not code for anything you dirty little child) when suddenly a pain not dissimilar to someone lodging a pick-axe into my spinal cord shot through my back. Needless to say I fell face first into the dew laden grass, and there I lay, unable to move, waiting for some dirty playground predator to come and have his evil way with me… thank god the ambos got to me first. After many hits of morphine and a quick call to the local volunteer fire brigade to get some help lifting me onto the stretcher, it was a quick trip to the local hospital… and many more hits of morphine.

The diagnosis? To this day I cannot clearly remember what it was that actually happened. Some kind of back malfunction clearly, but the details are scarce. I thing I do remember is I was sent home with a prescription for “endone” and three weeks off work.

Endone. Now that’s a story in itself. I would wake up, have my endone and a few other painkillers and get comfy on the couch, ready for the day ahead. Jennee would leave for work and I would lay there staring at the roof, very happy with my surroundings. Eight hours later Jennee would return from work and I would be lying there on the couch, staring at the roof, very happy with my surroundings. I can see how people would get addicted to this stuff…

But the roof did eventually get quite boring.

So I started watching just about every DVD (not downloaded movies of course) that we had in the house, and one that I took particular notice of was “Julie & Julia”, the story of a chick named Julie who started a blog devoted to cooking every dish from Julia Child’s book in a year… or something like that. What a great idea I though to myself in my stoned haze. Start a blog!

Now… what’s a blog?

Was I that disjointed from society that I’d missed a seemingly obvious point? I think so. So anyway, I got on the super-web-inter-highway and found a surrogate mother for the embryo I decided to call foodisthebestshitever.

And that, my friends, was that. Hundreds of recipes later I’m still going strong. But I feel I couldn’t have done it without the help (well let’s face it, I would have kept going but a few people made the ride a bit less like having sex with a beat up old hooker and a bit more like a ménage au trois with a couple of hot euro back packers) of the following people:

Paul from “Paul’s Caul”. A great friend and mentor as I have told you way too many times by now, but I know he’ll never get sick of hearing it. Our blog challenges have been some of the funnest (and funniest) times in blogland for me.

Sammy from “What’s Sammy Having For Dinner Tonight?” Another great friend who provided me with plenty of challenges in the early days. She has a boyfriend now so I think she is to busy having lots of crazy sex to cook dinner.

The Cootes family. My wife Jennee, her sister Liz from “Liz McGuiness… Roving Reviewer” and her brother Queenie. All regular contributors and a jolly good laugh.

Not much of a story I know. Thanks and whatever…