Bibliocook: best blog of a journalist

2013 award winner

Saturday night was supposed to be quiet. It was a work weekend for me, the day spent talking at and attending Jim Carroll’s Banter in Kinsale, with a side trip to check out an Ummera smoked chicken sandwich at the book-lined Poet’s Corner. I came home to two post-bath, pj-clad little girls sitting up at the table to have their favourite “Daddy’s dinner” – baked beans (not homemade!) on toast.

Car packed with beer for Sunday tastings at Cloughtoberfest and our smallies in bed, it was time to curl up on the couch in front of the fire and get stuck into the Saturday papers.

That didn’t last long.

My phone whistled. I ignored it. It whistled again. And again. There were tweets and messages streaming from Blog Awards Ireland at the Osprey Hotel in Naas: Bibliocook had just been named Best Blog of a Journalist.

There was no more ignoring the phone.

The cassis was dug out of the pantry, a bottle of sparkling wine popped and we toasted my fellow finalists, including friends Aoife (Daily Spud), Imen (Farmette) and Nessa (Nessa’s Family Kitchen). There were also more toasts to the hard-working organisers of Blog Awards Ireland, category sponsors Mediabox and, clear head for Sunday beer tasting be damned, to the ever-brilliant Susan of Súil Design who, when I was recovering from a serious accident in New Zealand in 2005, decided that it was the perfect time to help me set up my long-talked about food blog.

Eight-and-a-half years and 892 posts later, I’m still learning and writing and loving it.

Thanks Sue.