HAPPY 1 YEAR BIRTHDAY MORTA DI FAME!

     My first post one year ago was appropriately titled "About this blog," so I figured I would post an excerpt from that post:
"As a child my father would proudly feed me pasta with sardines, broccoli rabe, mussels and any other food by which most kids would be horrified. Children are described as having their father's eyes, but my Dad still says that I have his stomach. Not in appearance, thank God!"
Working on this blog this past year has been amazing. I started this blog as a creative outlet. I really needed it! I watched a lame movie called Running With Scissors about a crazy middle aged horrible poet who was diagnosed by an even crazier psychiatrist as being creatively constipated. While the movie stunk, I liked that idea. Because of this blog, things are certainly flowing.
I wanted to use Morta Di Fame as a platform to explore my writing, my food photography and most importantly food. I wanted to figure out what kind of role food would play in my life and in my career. 
It has opened many doors for me; some very special and personal to me, as well as a lot of professional opportunities. All the while, I have been having a great and delicious time. Morta Di Fame worked! Something works! And people, only a few, actually read it!
Because of Morta Di Fame, I now am a "micro-investor" in a great pizza place in Greenpoint called Paulie Gee's. I have published food photography in Edible Queens, which I am very proud. I have also done food photography for Cello Wine Bar and was the official Press photographer of Fresh the Movie, attending awesome events like a Chocolate and Beer Tasting and a Joel Salatin lecture.
In the last year I cooked non-stop and ate non-stop. I went to Supper Clubs, Take-Downs, Meet-Ups, Festivals, Tastings. Wherever I could find food (and cocktails), I went. My palate has opened up more than I ever imagined. I used to say, "I wish I could eat everything, because then I could go out to eat for a living." I am not quite a restaurant reviewer and probably won't head in that direction, but I eat things I would never have imagined eating before I started this blog: oysters, bone marrow, whole sardines, calf brains, chicken hearts, snails. Bring it on!
What I really have enjoyed most about this experience is how close it has brought me to family and friends. Eating is an experience, best shared with those you love and Morta Di Fame always reminds me of how wonderful and insane my family is and how supportive and loyal my friends are.
Now going into my second year, I plan to really focus on local eating, as I really feel very strongly about and will be doing a Local Wednesdays post each week. I will also write a weekly Sicilian Sunday Dinners post as a way to bring family and friends together and learn now to make traditional Sicilian dishes. Please invited yourself over to these weekly meals. I need someone to help me eat them! And of course I won't forget to write about the crazy antics of Rocco and Nonna. Those stories are really what makes this blog what it is.
(I plan on making a professional push in the direction of food photography and using the photography from Morta Di Fame in my portfolio in order to do high end still life of food for cookbooks and magazines as well as editorial pieces with portraits of chefs and environmental shots of the overall food experience. (Food stylists and chefs let's shoot together!) Aside from lighting food, my strength is capturing the essence of the event of eating. I am moving in a good direction in terms of developing my own unique style as was recognized by my Fresh the Movie client who wanted me to shoot their events in my style. I have a style! I hope this transition will afford me some fun travel, too!) These are my professional goals and if I write them I will stick to them and will review this post in another year and hopefully will have accomplished these goals.
Thanks a lot to everyone who reads and comments and inspires me to cook, take photos and write about it all! Let's enjoy a meal together soon.
Happy Birthday Morta Di Fame!