September 2022, Carrie Carter Writes

The following is advice on how to be the most famous, best food blogger in the world.

Find a website to host your blog, preferably one that has a minimum of 12 ads per page. This will increase your odds of earning an income when people click on the link for erectile dysfunction or parasite medication for their guinea pig. (By the way, that would be ivermectin.)

Give your blog a cutesy name and be sure to include a photo of yourself from ten years ago. No one really wants to see what you currently look like. Be sure to state the obvious in your profile – that you love to cook and try new foods. Give your significant other a code name like Fish Spouse or Moody One.

cutsie blog title required: creating creative curries

Time for the real reason of this blog, recipes. However, you can’t dive straight into the recipe. You must wax on about your morning, the more mundane the better. You don’t want anything too interesting like a car broke down in front of your house and out stepped Elton John. Right behind him a tipsy Martha Stewart stumbled out of the back seat. Not only did they break down, but they were also lost, in your humble neighborhood, without cell phones. You invited them in and served them your not yet world famous grilled cheese sandwich.

No, you want stories about how your husband forgot to take his cell phone to work, that you stubbed your toe on the dining room table chair, or the cat threw up on the carpet, again. Dedicate a minimum of six paragraphs to this.

Now on to the recipe! No, not the actual recipe, silly, but three paragraphs on how great and amazing this recipe is. Drive home how much the reader will love it and also how much you love it, in case the reader gets confused and thinks you posted a recipe you hate. In paragraph four, reiterate what was stated in the first three paragraphs. “Did I mention how much I loooooove this meal?” Yes, at least six times but it needs to be more than that!

Finally, you can get to main agenda, the recipe. Whatever you do, do not have testers try the recipe first and give feedback. After all, we all know that too many cooks, er opinions, ruin a meal.

Once you wrap up the instructions, include a dozen or more photos of the completed dish, all at a slightly different focal length and angles. This isn’t because you were indecisive. This shows you aren’t stuffy like an old school printed cookbook that has one professional photo of the final dish. This shows you are cutting edge cool. This shows you are skilled at photography. This shows you are on top of your game.

And you’ve done it. You are on your way to having a number one food blog and tens of thousands of dollars rolling into your bank account as a result. Add recipes three or four times a week and you are set. Happy cooking everyone.

It was one of those weeks. Without even going into details, you know exactly what I mean. A crappy Monday that progressively got crappier each day.

My cat would not respond to me nor eat her food, and this was a cat that would steal saltine crackers from your hand. She required an emergency visit to the vet.

I made a mistake in my data for work. No, a mistake implies one. I made 44 mistakes, and had to issue corrections to frantically make the 5:00 pm deadline, but I got it done.

The next day a technical glitch in the office informed me my numbers did not upload. The square on my computer monitor informed me I was in read only mode and can’t do anything.

I went back to the document, a bit befuddled on how I switched to read only mode when there it was, glaring at me from my computer screen, a typo. How did I miss that? Thank goodness the upload failed. With a clickety-clack of my keyboard, the number went from 10.52 to 10.25. Done. All I needed was to close out, reopen and click “stage.”

“Numbers failed to upload.”

Again.

Frustrated, I reached out to my boss to see if he had any insights on to what was happening.

“Your numbers are there.”

Oh good. They staged the second time.

Only they didn’t, they staged the first time, with the typo. I didn’t notice (I can’t look at the uploaded numbers), my boss didn’t notice, but the proof-reader noticed. You do not want to force your boss to work late in order to issue a correction to your mistake. It’s a bad feeling.

The next day my boss sent a meeting invite to the team about mistakes and corrections. Everyone knew this was directed at me.

I missed the meeting.

I saw the email invite to it, too late – after it happened.

We’ve all hit that point at work where the urge to grab your favorite coffee mug, your keys, and walk out without saying a word, and not come back on Monday, or Tuesday, or, well, ever. That Friday afternoon, I had hit that point.

With a few deep breaths, I finished my work, and used logic to talk myself in to returning next week.

Next week would be better.

I hoped.

But there was something at home that would make all the work tension fade away, forgotten until the day after Labor Day.

The Advanced Reader Copy of Whiskers Abroad: Ashi and Audrey’s Adventures in Japan was delivered! Years of work would suddenly materialize in my hand as a real physical book.

I burst into the house, immediately in a better mood than when I left the office.

“Any packages delivered?” I asked my husband.

“No.”

My shoulders sagged. I didn’t know if I had it in me to wait one more day.

I texted my publisher, “no book delivery today.”

“But Amazon said it was. They sent me a picture.”

She showed me the photo, a photo of a cardboard box in front of a white door, white siding, and a sign to the left that stated “beware of dog.”

I didn’t have a dog.

Or a white door.

Or white siding.

My heart sank. My package had been misdelivered and who knew where. I didn’t recognize the door.

My husband sprang into action, declaring he’d go door to door to find it if he had to.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to. The publisher texted the address the delivery driver left the package.

We walked across the street (across the street I said, which means I didn’t even remember what my neighbor’s door looked like! What is wrong with me?) and fetched the book.

Unable to wait until I got home, I tore into the package and showed her the book.

I glanced at the dog sign.

“Do you have cats?”

“Two,” she said and waved at the sign, “I’m more of a cat person. The sign is there to, you know.”

I did know.

I thanked her for keeping the package save and returned home. She promised to buy a copy.

I sprinted home.

In my hands was the book.

A bit surreal.

And all the week’s worries forgotten.

P.S. My cat was fine by evening time, and her blood work came back showing she’s a healthy feline. We suspect she ate something she should not have.