Josh & Katy

As many of you know, this blog has parents and you’re looking at them right now. That’s right: Josh & Katy, my friends from Atlanta, were the ones–five years ago–who told me, no URGED me, to start a food blog. I had no idea what they were talking about but I acquiesced and that’s why you’re reading this RIGHT NOW. I decided to do a little Q&A with them to see what this whole experience has been like from their perspective. Here they are, in their own words.

Do you remember the first time you suggested I start a blog?

Katy: No.

Josh: Yes! It was back in college in the 90s. You had the most popular LearnLink conference at school, which you updated all the time.

[Note: Learnlink was our online college community where professors would post assignments, R.A.s would warn us not to drink in our dorm rooms and dorks like me would pose questions to other dorks about serious issues like life-after-death and the deeper meaning of “Magnolia.”]

Josh: AHEM. (pause) Later, I said: “Adam, you should take that old Learn Link conference and change it. Make it about food and turn it into a blog.” And you said: “what’s a blog?” And I said: “I don’t know, let’s invent it.” It took a few years but look at the internet now. You can’t throw a mouse without hitting a blog.

Katy: Oh, that’s true. Back in college Adam used to have this LearnLink conference — a kind of message board where he posted goofy stuff on any subject, mostly read by his many friends — and I really identify that as the ancestor to the Amateur Gourmet. (Actually, a lot of similar guest stars show up on both. Not Rachel Ray though.) Josh and I always thought it was funny. When Adam was unhappy in law school, Josh remembered the LearnLink site and suggested he take up blogging, which is similar.

What did you both think when I first started?

Katy: Oh, I always thought it was funny. I did worry that it wasn’t going to do well at first. I remember that I made lots and lots of comments in those early days — and even adopted a few personas for comment-making so that you would look better read. Eventually I started getting lots of different IP addresses and lots of different personas, and eventually you thought your blog was read by thousands of people! Crazy.

Josh: It’s a full-time job now.

Can you believe it’s lasted this long?

Katy: Wait, it’s still going now? Seriously?

Josh: I thought it ended in that rough patch we had at the end of 2008. Are people still eating?

What’s your biggest regret?

Josh: Never getting to go out to dinner with your parents. Or even meeting them.

Katy: We would very much like to swap stories about raising you.

What was your favorite blog moment?

Katy: Obviously when Josh and I blogsat when you took the bar exam. For those brief weeks it was a much, much better blog.

Josh: Katy, that’s so selfish. Clearly the best moments were when Adam posted videos of our daughter, Lucy. And those videos of Pancetta … who is the reason Lucy isn’t allowed to play with dolls.

Katy: Actually, blogsitting for the Amateur Gourmet completely dominated our lives for about a month. Every food-related decision we made had to do with a blog entry. I used your blog as a venue in which to vent my fury about a change in my favorite breakfast cereal, and to publicly admit that I watched Days of Our Lives, and to educate the blogosphere about southern barbecue. The amount of energy we put into the blogsitting for ONLY A FEW WEEKS completely floored me — plus, it was a much smaller-scale, Atlanta-based blog in those days. I am in awe at what a prolific and endlessly creative blogger you have been, and how open and responsive you have been to a wide audience.

How much longer do you think it’ll go on? As the ones who told me to start it, do you think I should end it anytime soon?

Katy: Even before you were a blogger, you were a blogger. That’s why Josh suggested it to you. Even if this blog ends, you will still be a blogger. I think you will have some kind of blog when you are in the Boca Raton Convalescent Home for Ancient Hebrew Gay Men.

Josh: I remember cautioning you in your first few months: Adam don’t post SO much, you’ll run out of material or energy. No blogger really posts all week long with a song on Thursday night, a video on Saturday and then three long pieces on Sunday afternoon. Relax. Let it sit idle for a few months. If people really like they’ll come back. That was when I was trying to balance every good piece of advice with a really crappy piece. Sorry www.AmateurGourmetInWaiting.com, but I strongly suspect Adam will just not run out of things to write about.

* * * * *

Well thanks Josh & Katy for your reflective, thoughtful and self-promoting answers! But seriously, thanks again for being the catalyst for my blog-life. And, just for kicks, here are two vintage videos from the early days of the blog: one, that isn’t at all embarrassing, of Katy teaching how to make a pie (she’s an awesome pie-maker) and the other TOTALLY embarrassing, especially for parents of young, impressionable child, called “Food Porn.” I’m still shocked you guys MADE me make that video. Disgusting. [Warning: video 2 may not be safe for work! Or safe anywhere, really.]