One Thousand

It’s been just about four years since we staked our claim on this little piece of the Internet to share our recipes, ideas, struggles, joys, and serious love of food. In those four years we’ve produced one thousand posts, and we’re pretty proud of that. But I think we are even more proud that after one thousand posts, we can still say that we love each other…and mean it.

We’ve fought (sometimes bitterly) and we’ve made up (sometimes begrudgingly). We’ve explored new things and fallen into ruts. We’ve moved to different apartments, different cities, and different countries. We’ve gained weight and lost it. We’ve started new jobs and left them.

Somehow we just keep coming back here to Three Many Cooks. Now that we’re spread across three states and three different kitchens, this blog has been instrumental in keeping us in touch. Our deep commitment to good food—and, perhaps more importantly, the profound desire to share it—has bound us together and to this website in ways we never expected.

This morning I went back and reviewed our first posts. I was struck by how they felt simultaneously so familiar and yet so strange. Each post was written by a woman slightly different than the one who exists today, but each post points to a kernel of familiarity.

Mom’s first post was a somewhat timid foray into the world of cocktails. A seasoned wine drinker and intrepid cook, Mom was beginning to try her hand at liquor concoctions. The results were hit or miss, and our palates needed some maturing. Four years later, she and Dad have built a gorgeous bar in their home in order to stock beer and wine at the perfect temperatures, to hold all their specialty booze and glassware, and to give them a designated place to shake and stir up new creations. These days, Mom is just as fearless behind the bar as she is in front of the stove, and our family gatherings keep getting more fun.

Maggy’s first post extolled the myriad virtues of quinoa—a grain she was only just beginning to discover then. It reflects her fledgling fascination with “superfoods” and nutrition, but also with the health of people in poverty and developing countries. Perhaps no one should be surprised that four years later Maggy is mostly vegetarian (and sometimes vegan), and that she has worked with and for people in Malawi, Haiti, New York City, and anywhere people are in need of love and care.

My first post was about my last supper: what I would eat, who would be there, and how the night would go. Though my final meal would be very different if I described it today, what stunned me about my piece was that it didn’t include my husband, Anthony—not because I don’t want him there, but because I didn’t even know him then. Aside from its slightly morbid subject matter, my first post echoes with a kind of loneliness that makes my heart ache for the twenty-four year-old girl who wrote it. After a series of confusing relationships, I had convinced myself that I wasn’t good at romance, that I was fine on my own. I didn’t know how full my life would become a few months later when I started an amazing graduate program and a cute boy with blue eyes and a big laugh walked into my theology class.

The last one thousand posts are snapshots of our lives together and separately. They are a record of our happiness and sadness, our growth and stagnation, our successes and failures. They are also a record of the little community that has formed here—online and offline. Looking back at the last four years, we wouldn’t change a thing (okay, maybe a couple).

Thanks for being a part of this journey with us. We hope you’ll stick around for the next one thousand posts.