Sheryl Kirby

Food, Life and the World at Large

Category : administrative

Loose Ends

January 4th 2012 - Posted in administrative, Life, writing
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I seem to be starting my new year at somewhat loose ends. While 2011 was a very good and productive year in terms of work, and certainly beat 2010 in terms of emotional issues (yay for nobody close to us dying), I was left feeling that I didn’t accomplish very much.

This whole food writing thing, you see, well it was/is somewhat of a diversion. My original goal in “becoming a writer” was to write novels, or lovely descriptive essays. Since 2005 I’ve had a 90,000 word novel sitting in a drawer, waiting for me to get up the nerve to send it off to an agent or publisher. I also have about half a book’s worth of food-related memoirs and essays and a list of other pieces to write…

The food writing thing happened a bit by accident. A friend who had once worked as Margaret Atwood’s assistant told me that to help get publishers interested in my fiction, it would help to have “a name”. A series of events led to job offers at a couple of publications and then Greg and I started TasteTO, and suddenly I had “a name”. (At least it seems so, based on the number of people who Google my name and hit this website.)

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Happy Crimbo!

December 24th 2011 - Posted in administrative, holidays, The World at Large
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Whatever you celebrate this season, maybe it be full of happiness, joy and good food.

I’m taking a break until the new year, see you all in January.

Book Review Week

September 4th 2011 - Posted in administrative, books, Food
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Writers sometimes joke that being a writer is like doing homework all the time. The essays and book reviews we are relieved to be rid of when we leave school are a constant in our daily work lives. If someone had told me 30 years ago that I’d willingly write “book reports” for a living when I grew up, I’d have been one very unhappy girl. And choosing to write book reports doesn’t mean that writers don’t procrastinate, especially if there’s no deadline or pay cheque to act as an incentive. Which explains why I have enough books stacked up here by my desk to fill a week with reviews of books on food history. Perhaps a self-imposed deadline and announcing it to the world will do the trick.

Four of the five books I’ll be writing about this week are by Canadian writers, covering Canadian food. The last, while focused around the tenements of New York, shares enough parallels with the changes in Canadian foodways over the years that I’ve included it, as it also reflects the experience of Canadian immigrants and their contribution to Canadian food culture just as US immigrants changed the way people in that country eat.

Check back each morning this week as I review a new book, and get into the back to school spirit by doing homework without the incentive of pay OR a gold star.

Feeling Lucky?

May 29th 2011 - Posted in administrative, Food, lucky dip
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As promised last week on TasteTO, the Lucky Dip column will be migrating to this site as of tomorrow.

There will be some changes, however, and it will morph into a combination of the local Toronto news links we were running on TasteTO and some international food stories and issues that I featured daily in the Food For Thought column on Save Your Fork. Part of what caused me to burn out over at TasteTO was the idea that we had to link to everything, which meant that I had to at least read everything, which got frustrating when the posts were bad, not to mention that it also ate up many hours of my day, every day.

This version will be a curated selection of food-related stories that I personally like and/or find interesting; either because they are well written or because the topic is important or unique. This may not be to everyone’s satisfaction, but it will keep me from getting cranky, which, in my world, is my top priority.

In those other columns, I also tried to always have at least 10 articles each day; even if some of them were not so great. In this version you’ll get what I like; that may be 10 or 15 or 5 different things, it will depend on the day. Plus, I reserve the right to say “to hell with it” occasionally and go to the beach. Well, probably not the beach, but you get my jist. One of the things that I grew to loathe was the required commitment to churn out those posts every day, even if I didn’t feel like it, even if there was no good content to include. On days when I’m busy or would rather read a book, y’all are outta luck. (Get it?… heh.)

Digging My New Digs

May 15th 2011 - Posted in administrative, Food, Life, The World at Large
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Welcome to the new home of SherylKirby.com, Saveyourfork.com and LeavesandPetals.com

Actually, while the place is new and snazzy and hopefully pretty like a pastry shop, I’m not quite done moving older content from my other two blogs. Once I do, they’ll be shut down, and the domain for Save Your Fork will point here while Leaves and Petals will disappear (there’s actually a garden shop in Georgia called Leaves and Petals who I’m betting would love to have the domain name).

I decided to pull everything together because, while I like things nice and compartmentalized, keeping track of, and updating 3 blogs (besides TasteTO and my gig at Toronto.com) was a bit overwhelming. Instead, I found a nifty template where I can divide my posts into 3 main categories that loosely align with the theme of each of my 3 blogs. So people just here for the food stuff can just read the food stuff. Friends and family can just look at the Life stuff. And probably nobody will read the ranty World At Large section, but I’ll sneak some nice pictures in there occasionally just for fun.

I think we’ve got all the bugs and issues cleaned up (and big thanks to my hubby Greg Clow for all his work) but I’m still sorting through all of the old content to see what’s worth saving – I’m considering starting up the newsy Food For Thought posts again, but the old ones are mostly dead links now so I’m not dragging a year’s worth of them over here – it really is like moving and packing up an actual house.

In any case, there’s still a few small things to do, but please have a look around, read, enjoy, and stay for a visit, I’ll put the kettle on…

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