The A2Z Challenge 2022 Reflections Post…

If you have seen my Theme Reveal for the A2Z Challenge 2022, then you will know that I am writing about becoming Vegetarian gradually as a response to the crisis in food supply chains sparked by the pandemic and made worse by the WAR in Ukraine. As well, I am keeping to the theme I originally planned of food which can be eaten in its own right as well as becoming an ingredient in other dishes…

That is the paragraph I introduced each post with as I set out to share knowledge, ideas and recipes and to find a receptive readership – have I succeeded?

I had about ten days’ worth of posts pre-written but I soon ended up pantsing it – consequently, the first couple of posts Apples and especially Bread, were longer and the posts got shorter as time went on. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because if readers, and that means almost exclusively, other A2Zers, are trying to write their own posts, reply to comments and visit and comment on other people’s sites, then they will not all be up for War and Peace. Certainly I struggle to keep on top of all those things and I intend to revisit a number of sites as well as prospect the big list for new treasures on the Roadtrip! So I do put a lot of links in my posts, partly because there is no point simply repeating what someone else has said better, and in greater length and breadth elsewhere; and secondly, whilst I included some of my own recipes, where I needed to use someone else’s recipe, I would rather send people there directly rather than copy or paraphrase.

As always on the AtoZ, I have made some new friends and had visits from old ones, each day, some comments would come from a group of Indian ladies who had a Whatsapp group going to support and encourage each other on the challenge but which meant that they also visited some same sites – like mine and shared some great comments revealing the ways in which their world is both different and similar. Later in the day, the American commenters would appear whilst Europeans – more or less in the same time zone, could appear at any time. Having switched to WordPress last year, my stats tell me that I had 1,264 page views in April – up 660% on the previous month although this just reflects that A2Z is the highlight of my blogging, and once the Roadtrip is done for me, I am a right blogging slacker! The US came top of the league of visitors, followed by India, and then the UK – where I live. Looking at the comments on some other blogs, I would say that my numbers are quite modest – I guess those people blog all year round, but I have been happy with the people who came and came again and seemed to enjoy…

The most popular post was Jerusalem Artichokes, Juicing and Hide the Vegetables and it caused a huge spike in hits to the site for reasons I am not sure of, the number of comments though was average although to ever say that comments were ever average sounds all wrong – I have loved the comments and many of them have been appreciative and I shared some of my favourites in my V post – Vegetarians to Carnivores – the Whole Spectrum…

Reflecting more personally, I have realised that I have been encouraging something in others that I really want for myself! I am diabetic Type 2 and really need to lose some weight plus I am increasingly drawn to vegetarianism on ethical and economic grounds ( no good reason to eat other animals and meat is too great a cost on the planet compared to vegetables) but this poses a dilemma… I just received an invitation to talk with a dietician about going on a low-carb diet to try and bring my consistently, slightly too high blood sugar levels down. What they are suggesting is the Keto diet or if too faint-hearted for that, then what sounds like the stage four Atkins diet. I have been trying to move myself in this direction over the last few months anyway, but writing the A2Z Challenge has focused me on practising more of what I preach! But like many complex issues, nothing is black and white, if I do the low-carb thing, I am going to eat more meat than I usually do, because although I am already sourcing as many plant-based proteins as possible, it is easier to achieve using meat. It takes more energy to consume bacon and eggs than you get from it! Hopefully, if I lose the weight and the blood-sugar levels come down, then I can move into a more permanent vegetarian regime.

What else have I revealed about myself in the last month, well I had my own restaurant briefly, followed by a frozen yoghurt shop. I like writing ( I finished the book I was writing in last year’s A2Z), I like photography and used some of my own pictures in the odd post. If I could have dinner with any one person alive or from the past, I think you can guess that it would be Elizabeth David – as long as I could appear at the same age as her and look my best – swoon… I have managed to get a few more literary references in (because Elizabeth David is cooking literature, not merely cookbooks!) there is a verse from Andrew Marvell and a quote from Don Marquis’ wonderful cockroach who is the reincarnation of a free-verse poet.

As to the A2Z team, they have been great as ever and I loved the graphics – Yayyy Angela.

! I would like to do a guest post on my daily posting process because most people know what they are doing, but two years ago when I was a newbie, I learned a lot from certain people – it’s easy to forget and assume they know their way around. It would cover getting and sizing pictures and the importance of pictures, promoting your post each day and the various means of doing that, and general words of encouragement to share whatever it is you’re into – just saying…

Have I missed anything out? Well, I am sure I will remember some other favourite recipes so I will do the odd food post, and if you would like to be notified about those in particular, then let me know in the comments. I did mean to say in the post that included microwaves, that the Welsh language, an ancient and venerable language as it is, contained no word for the new-fangled microwave contraption – so they christened it the Popdy-Ping!

Will I be back next year – you betcha! I am thinking that since I enjoyed posing about one of my passions, I should perhaps write about music, or the origin of certain phrases, or art or…

And on that note…

Hope to see you on the Roadtrip!