An invitation to start a group baking blog

This idea was actually spawned by my brother-in-law. For those of you who know George and are scratching your heads, hang onto your hats for this story:

Over Christmas, I bought my brother-in-law, George, a book called All Cakes Considered. It is a book written by Melissa Gray, who is a producer at NPR's show All Things Considered, hence the title of the book. She is known around her office as the cake lady because she bakes a cake once a week and brings it into the office to share with her coworkers. Her book is a series of her cake recipes (one for every week in the year) that get progressively more complicated as the book goes on. If you were a cake novice, by making each recipe in her book, you could become a cake expert by the time you finished. Sounds like a fun idea, huh?

George heard about the book on NPR and thought about getting a copy for his wife. They checked the book out of the public library to try the recipes out, first. Then, a really amazing thing happened: (amazing if you know George, whose cooking talents include--according to him and Melanee--scrambled eggs and grilled cheese sandwiches) George decided to bake a cake himself.

What was even more amazing was that he LIKED it. George is a very meticulous person, and he followed the instructions in the book exactly, and the cake turned out wonderful, so I'm told. So, he went on and made another cake, and it was great, too.

While I was visiting, George made a sweet-potato cake, which I was slightly skeptical about, given that I am not a sweet potato fan, but it was GREAT. It was incredibly moist, and it combined sweet potatoes with apples for a really great fall/winter flavor. It didn't even have frosting, and it was still a great cake.

After tasting his cake, I tried to convince George to start a baking blog with me, where we would both chronicle our respective baking projects. I also invited Melanee to come up with a baking project of her own and join our blog. She's thinking pie.

The more that I thought about it, though, the more I thought it might be fun to invite everyone who reads my blog, whether you are friends, family members, or slightly sheepish blogstalkers, to be involved in this hypothetical baking blog and chronicle your baking projects. Just consider the prospect for a minute: a blog where multiple contributors chronicle a baking/cooking goal, sharing experiences, pictures, recipes (if you feel so inclined. I don't want anyone to feel weird about copyright issues). I think it could blow Julie Powell and TastyKitchen out of the water (just kidding. I love Julie Powell and TastyKitchen). Pretty soon, we'll have a book deal. Maybe they'll even make a movie about it.

In all seriousness, though, this would be a great time to start a project like this, given that it is a new year and we are all striving to be better people and such, by working out more, finishing our unfinished projects, and baking high calorie desserts. It wouldn't even have to be baking, per se. If you want to spend your year cooking pork or making Jell-O salads, that is okay, too. In fact, if you have no culinary aspirations but want to participate by blogging about a goal you have set or a New Year's resolution you want to be accountable for, come join us.

In all reality, I don't know if this will work. This could be like inviting a bunch of people to a party and no one showing up. Of course, your best course of action if you are anticipating such a party is to make sure that a couple of cool people are going to be there, and that everyone else knows that. That said, Melanee and George have given me permission to say that they will participate in this blog. This means that a) if you decide to participate, you know you won't be the only one at the party with only the lame-o host b) you know that this party is going to be super-cool, because that is the only way to describe my sister and brother-in-law.

If you would like to be involved, please leave a comment and let me know. After a few days/weeks, we'll start the blog. In the meantime, if you are working on a project, make sure to take some pictures. Also, think about who's going to play you when this blog becomes a movie.