Eighteen Years, One Blog, and a Year of Quiet: A Reintroduction

Dear friend,

On August 19, 2008, I hit publish for the first time.

I was living in New York City, navigating a long-distance relationship, and looking for a way to share my love of food and cooking with anyone who might want to read about it. I called the blog Taste As You Go—a name that felt right for someone always moving, always tasting, always figuring out the next thing.

Eighteen years later, I'm still here. And so is the blog.

I want to be upfront about something right from the start: I'm not going anywhere. I'm not shutting down Taste As You Go or stepping away from Instagram. What I am doing is showing up more intentionally, on my own terms and in my own time.

But first, let's talk about the quiet.

On the gap.

I last posted here in July 2025. More than a full year ago. And while I could offer a tidy explanation, the honest answer is a little more complicated than that.

It actually started earlier, in February 2025, when I received an unsubscribe notification from a reader that said this:

"The quality of your blog has gone downhill. Does anyone really need to know you're serving leftovers for dinner? If that's all you can come up with, you might as well stop writing altogether."

Ouch.

I get it.

Despite having a list of blog posts I'd love to write and share, I was already in a holding pattern. The narrow windows of time that were purely mine were getting narrower. And for a while, I let that comment -- and that feeling -- stop me. 

After some reflection, here's what I've decided: someone else doesn't get to write the ending to a story I started eighteen years ago.

So yes, life was full, and the blog was the thing that gave way.

A job I love. A forever home with a garden that I'm finally starting to feel comfortable in. Two kids who are growing up faster than I'd like. A crochet hook I picked up somewhere in the middle of all of it. An Instagram account that became the place where most of my new stories landed because it was easier and more immediate than sitting down to write a proper blog post.

I don't regret any of it. But I've missed this.

There's something about a blog that Instagram can't replicate. The space to tell a longer story. The ability to sit with an idea for more than a caption's worth of words. The archive of a life lived and documented over time -- eighteen years of it, right here on these pages.

I'm not ready to let that go.

On what this space has always been.

I'm not the same person who launched this blog in 2008. That version of me was a twenty-something single girl who went out to eat multiple times a week and had plenty of restaurants to write about. At 46, living in Connecticut with a family, my life looks completely different — and so will this blog.

That's not a bad thing. It's just the truth. (Which is why I've said it before...)

Taste As You Go has seen me through more chapters than I ever imagined when I chose that name. Job loss and dream jobs. Long distance and marriage. Life in New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Freelancing and full-time work. Life before kids and life with two of them (and a dog).

The blog has shifted as my life has shifted — fewer restaurant reviews, more recipes, and moving forward, more of everything else. The cooking is still here. But so are the home we're slowly making our own and the adventures we have as a family.

I've been toying with the idea of rebranding this space for a while now. Here's where I've landed: I haven't figured it out yet. And I'm done waiting until I do to show up.

Taste As You Go still fits. 

I'm still tasting as I go — still figuring things out one step at a time, still moving through life with curiosity and a willingness to try new things. The name found me in 2008, and it still feels right in 2026.

On what comes next.

I'm coming back to this space with intention but without a rigid plan. You'll find recipes when I make something worth sharing. (Or when I finally get around to updating older recipes.) You'll find stories about the life I'm living now. You'll find the kind of writing that needs more room than an Instagram caption can hold.

That's exactly why this blog still matters to me.

What you won't find is perfection.

No flawlessly written posts that are published on a strict schedule. No pretending that everything is tidier than it actually is.

Just real life, honestly documented. The same thing I set out to do eighteen years ago, when my digital camera required four AA batteries.

I don't have all the answers, and I can hardly call myself an expert at anything. But I know my heart is in this blog, in every word I write and every story I share.

And I'm grateful, genuinely grateful, for those of you who have stumbled across this space over the years and chosen to stay.

If you're new here, welcome. Pull up a chair. ☕

I'm glad to be back.

xo

Michelle

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