The 900 Posts of Dr. F

I could wait another four months and get all misty-eyed at the milestone of reaching 1,000 posts. Or I could wait just a few weeks to do the same at the third birthday of the FLB. But for some reason, 900 still feels significant enough to take a pause and reflect. And in this case I quite literally mean taking a pause, as I pushed publishing today’s post from Sunday to Monday, lest the story get lost over the St. Patrick’s Day holiday weekend.

The blog has come a long, long way from where it started off almost three years ago. Part of me is tempted to go back to some of the short pithy posts on food and wine from the early days. Occasionally I look back on those first posts, including the original Fussy Manifesto, and smile.

Today, it’s much different. Today the blog is as much a community as it is bunch of words on the screen. Today I’m keenly aware of that fact, especially coming off of this weekend’s super-top-secret cupcake tasting. The results of that tasting will be coming soon. However, I want to take this opportunity to thank just a few of the people who have helped to grow and transform the FLB.

All Over Albany
They were fans from the beginning. Greg and Mary noticed my prolific Yelp reviews and suggested that I might be the king of Yelp. They were ahead of their time, because Yelp had yet to institute their duke/dutchess king/queen scheme. I suggested that perhaps I might be an archduke, but certainly not the king. Anyway, when I started the blog, they featured it on their site, and have ever since helped me to spread the word. I continue to be thrilled to judge their Tournament of Pizza, serve as their supermarket correspondent, and write the always-positive Eat This. Greg was also a cupcake-serving and photographing machine yesterday. His efforts allowed me to nibble down a few bites of each sample while making sure everything continued to run smoothly.

Table Hopping
When it comes to food communities in the Capital Region, Steve Barnes reigns over the largest of them all. When I first started writing, I was convinced that the local newspaper was partially responsible for the sorry state of food in the area (now I realize the problem is a lot more complex). And I was especially critical of Mr. Barnes in his role as a senior editor of the Times Union’s food section. Despite this adversarial but respectful relationship, Steve has carried a link to the FLB on his blog for a long time now. A lot of traffic flows in here from his pages, and I thank him for both his support and his class. He and I may not always agree, but I never tire of talking with him about food and drink.

Mrs. Fussy
Almost every day, Mrs. Fussy reads these posts with blurry eyes and plenty of disinterest. A long time ago, when we were dating, she broke up with me because all I did was talk about food. She thought it was boring. She still thinks it’s boring, but reads the posts anyway. As a result of her tireless support, my writing is assuredly a lot more pleasant to read; the most obnoxious opinions, grammatical errors and egotistical statements are removed before they can offend you. I consider her input to be invaluable, and I hope you do too. 

Albany Jane
Hopefully Albany John doesn’t mind me calling his real wife my “work wife.” AJ and I don’t always agree either, but we have a lot of fun disagreeing about and eating food—together. The process of writing can be a bit solitary. It is something you do by yourself. But eating is actually social, and AJ is always up for an adventure (although this new job that she has is really cutting into our fun time). She is also single-handedly responsible for Little Miss Fussy’s love of red bean buns and all things Hello Kitty.

Stanford Steph
Steph feels like an old friend, because in many ways she reminds me a lot of ADS. Really, that’s mostly a combination of being smart and having a deep abiding love of Disney. Had it not been for her pushing, the FLB would never have extended beyond the screen into real-world events. It was her idea to do a Tour de Donut, so that people could have an excuse to compare a bunch of the region’s best apple cider donuts. People actually came. And everyone had a good time. So despite my resistance to planning events, the Fussy Little Tour has become a quarterly phenomenon. That spawned the Ala Shanghai dinners. And now it looks like we have a successful model for conducting blind tastings. Steph went above and beyond the call of duty for the cupcake tasting, doing some investigative journalism, and even running out to the store for additional paper plates (when I had an eleventh-hour panic resulting from my inability to do simple math).

Readers & Commenters
Honestly, I don’t think I would have been blogging this long or this frequently without the support of this active community of readers and commenters. Yes, I’ve got a lot of strong feelings about food. And yes, I’m glad to have an outlet for them. However, there is only so long that one can shout into the ether. I feel incredibly fortunate to have found a significant group of people to engage in these conversations about food, taste and quality.

Recently Darren Shupe left a comment where he said:

Let’s face it: you have around 20-30 dedicated commenters on your blog, from what I’ve observed, and we’re probably the same people who frequent the few gems in this community and keep them open – Rolf’s, the Asian market on Central, et al.

And it made me curious, so I decided to take a quick count. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had not 20-30 but over 60 different people leave comments on posts. And if we were to go back further I have no doubt that number would double and maybe even double again (if we were to back to the very start). Yes, some are more active than others. And that list changes depending on the month.

Right now the most active of the bunch are:

1)    irisira
2)    KB @ Home-Baked Happiness
3)    WrigsMac
4)    Mr. Sunshine
5)    derryX
6)    jenh718
7)    Burnt My Fingers

The funny thing is that I knew none of these people when I moved here to Albany. But thanks to the tours, tastings, dinners and other food events I’ve actually met them all. I haven’t spent as much time with irisira and WrigsMac, but I’m sure we’ll get to know each other better as the months and years march forward. Because with the support of all the above I’m good for at least another 100 (and really probably another 1,000 after that).

Thank you all.