Welcome to the Family
Dear Readers,
Unbeknownst to us, the Food Blog Mafia began its conception in December of 2008. In an effort to grade some papers (I am a high school English teacher) without the distractions of home (most times, I’d rather clean than grade), I took some work to a local restaurant. I planned to sit in the corner of the bar, eat a little dinner, drink a glass or two of wine, and concentrate on finishing reading my never-ending stack of essays. This was on a Wednesday night; when I arrived, I discovered that Wednesdays were half-priced bottles of wine night.
Thus began my Wednesday Night Ritual. Eventually, fellow food blogger Stephanie (aka Iron Stef), whom I’d only met a couple times, joined me for wine and dinner. Annie (aka The Cheesemonger’s Wife) was living in Arizona at the time but kept up with us through Twitter and expressed her desire to join our ritual when she returned, though we’d yet to meet at that point.
Early the next year, I got in contact with Kelli (aka KBO of South City Confedential)—another of my Twitter friends—about possibly carpooling to Chicago in July for the BlogHer conference after I’d read her tweets about planning to attend. Even though we’d never met, she offered to let me room with her at the conference hotel (despite her husband’s concern that I might cut or otherwise molest her while she slept). Steph joined our roadtrip, and the three of us strengthened our friendship over crack corn (truffled popcorn), cheese straws, homemade strawberry vodka, new tattooes, & dinner at Blackbird.
When Annie moved back to St. Louis, we changed our weekly eating & drinking ritual to Thursday, often meeting at different restaurants in the city for good food, good wine, even better conversation, and lots of laughs. I’m not sure when the term “Food Blog Mafia” was developed exactly, but it came about in an attempt to name our little group of serious foodies.
Why “mafia”? Mostly, I think, because we are bad-ass bitches (figuratively speaking, of course). We are intelligent, passionate, and fierce. We’ve got each other’s backs. We’re notorious, infamous even (in good and bad ways).
During one of our recent dinners, we agreed to start a mutual blog in which to chronicle our eating adventures. We have lots to share about where & what we eat, what’s going on in the St. Louis food scene, what we think about current food culture & trends, what food literature we’re reading, and other food-related things that we wouldn’t necessarily post on our own blogs.
So, we present to you….the Food Blog Mafia.
Sincerely,
Kelly (aka Barbaric Gulp)
Credits: Thanks to Stephanie for designing our kick-ass logo & to Kelli for getting the blog ball rolling.
Food Blog Mafia 
Hi Kelly, Kelli, Annie and Stephanie
Congrats on your recent recognition in the Riverfront Times!
Thought you’d like to know that Great Harvest Bread Company is opening a new bakery in downtown Kirkwood this May. If you’ve never tasted our bread, I’d love to send you a basket full of breads and baked goods to try. We grind out wheat fresh every day in our store on a hammer mill, made just for us and shipped from Canada. I’m sure you know this, but eating bread baked from fresh-milled wheat provides the same difference as grinding gourmet coffee beans every morning instead of opening a can of the pre-ground stuff. Nothing compares to the aroma, taste, texture and, in this case, nutritional value.
For food enthusiasts who would rather get their hands in their own dough, we will eventually be retailing our 100 percent whole wheat, fresh-milled flour.
All Great Harvest products are made with simple ingredients and no preservatives or additives. Yet, the bread tastes terrific after 7 to 10 days stored on the shelf. Our secret? Honey. It’s our main sweetener. While high fructose corn syrup and inverted sugar are less expensive, you won’t find them on our label.
You can find out more about Great Harvest by visiting our web site http://www.GreatHarvestKirkwood.com, or by searching http://www.KathEats.com. Kath Younger, a fellow food blogger, is a Great Harvest owner in Charlottesville, VA.
I look forward to hearing from you, and setting you all up with delicious basket of our fresh-milled, hand-made products!