Celebrating 10,000+ HITS!!!!

Yippeee, Yippee, Yipeeee. I looked at the blog stats today, saw 10,263 hits and I screamed. Once every week I check the blog stats and I am truly amazed by the numbers. As the site administrator, there is a feature that enables me to view the number of readers by location, and each time I look at it I am truly wowed. To honour you my readers I will list each and every country where you my readers are located. If you notice your location, please feel proud that you are a part of this amazing journey and you have contributed as far away as you are to making me happy and making all the time and effort worth it. Here is the list of countries where people have visited this blog.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Nigeria, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uganda, India, Ghana, Malaysia, Ireland, Australia, France, Tunisia, Germany, South Africa, Turkey, Italy, Zimbabwe, United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Ukraine, Benin Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Morrocco, Spain, Qatar, United Republic of Tanzania, Denmark, New Zealand, Egypt, Sudan, Barbados, Malawi, Sweden, Russia, Ireland, Cameroun, Saudi Arabia, Saint Lucia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Singapore, Czech Republic, Netherlands, France, Indonesia, Portugal, Kenya, Japan, Hungary, Vietnam, Palestine, Switzerland, Poland, Zambia, Slovenia, Sudan, Greece, Sweden, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Belgium, Norway, Finland, Senegal, Bahamas, Syria, and Luxembourg.

Everyone, everywhere is special to me and I am very honoured to see readers from countries that made my eyes pop in my head, because I just couldn’t believe I would get readers from such places. I hope you are keeping the flag of Nigerian food flying in your own way. I know it must be very hard for you in such places to locate some of the ingredients I post, so for you guys I am now going to change tactics and go in search of alternatives. I would like for you to be able to prepare the dishes I write about.

So, to celebrate 10,000+ hits with me, I would like to do something special for you guys. Email me, or drop a comment listing the dishes you will like me to prepare and write about. Whatever you can think of, please list and I will go searching for the ingredients. I will put up a poll and you the readers can vote. Whichever dish gets the highest number of votes wins and it will be announced and posted first. Subsequently I will be going through the list and posting the other dishes that were listed so everyone’s needs are met. To also celebrate 10,000+ hits as together we have now built a Dooney’s Kitchen Global community, I would like you the readers to send me your own recipes. You guys are responsible for today’s celebration, so if it is okay by you, I want to welcome you into the world of dooneyskitchen.com as a contributor. After all this blog was created for foodies all over the world to unite.

A little background about the blog – I started this blog to talk about food in an unusual way i.e away from the norm. Food to me is personal and it has an experience attached to it, so I always like to tell a story about the dishes I post. I kinda talk a lot, you will have noticed by how much I type Lol, but I feel that it helps you connect to me and my cooking. Too many food blogs and food sites or recipe books just list instructions and pictures and that is it. It just makes it feel cold and impersonal, like an instruction manual for an electronic device. I have always felt something was missing, and from watching Food Network for years now, I could finally put my finger on it. With the chefs telling stories, slipping in a few jokes, taking about the food and with the additional details you don’t get to see in print, I felt I should translate that experience into a blog, especially to provide those extra details. After all everyone can’t be watching videos on youtube or something. You as a reader should be able to laugh about the stories, follow the process properly with the details, thereby creating your own memories. I believe that my method of food blogging helps the recipe stay with you, even if you don’t have your phone or computer nearby. I hope you the readers truly notice the difference and appreciate the effort. My instructions are not clinical like Step 1, 2, 3……… so it sometimes takes me hours to put up one post. I was told I may have been a writer in my past life, if you believe such things or I may have missed my calling switching careers from Physiotherapy to IT. Lol. Cooking is a great hobby of mine, and talking about cooking is the next best thing for me.

Before I started this blog, I usually pestered my BBM and Facebook contacts with loads of display pictures of food that I had prepared. People use pictures of themselves or family, I use pictures of food, with many of my contacts telling me to stop making them hungry. Lol. One day my display message was “I think I should start blogging about food” and a friend of mine (shout out to Funke Owolabi) said Dunni, go for it. Seriously, you need to get your cooking out there and that is exactly how Dooneyskitchen.com was born. Today, it comes up on Google searches at the top of the list, I see search engine terms that brings readers to the site, the post about making pounded yam in a food processor has been truly successful. I am happy to have people in my life that motivate me, and you guys are one of my motivation boosters. With the comments and emails I have received from you guys trying my recipes out, I am also happy to be able to bring joy into your homes. So, I am extending a very very very very big Dooney’s Kitchen hug from my own little corner of the world, and I am saying a very big Thank You to all of you. Truly, I appreciate all the support and the kind words. It can only get better from here onwards by His Grace. Who knows where He will take this to, but I am confident in the knowledge that this is just the beginning of many noteworthy celebrations. Thank you again and please stay with me on this incredible journey. XoXo………