Late April, I was having wine with Melinda at this really nice Italian wine bar near Aoyama. Wine? Not sake? You might ask. I had my night off as a sake geek and Melinda put her wine writer hat on. As we were sipping red wine at this comfortably lit up sort of tony dark bar that made me sit up straight, she said “…so, I tagged you.” “Tagged me?” I asked. She answered with a question, “Why did you start your blog?”

That question brought me back to those days when I had just finished listening to three Ruth Reichl’s books–admiring every one of them. Finally having time just for myself after my last job, I immersed myself in food, restaurants, and cookbooks–things I always loved. One day, walking back from a relatively new pizza restaurant we just found with great pizza from a nice stone oven and very comfortable service, I said to Te-chan, “Wouldn’t it be nice to do restaurant reviews with honest opinions, not paid advertisements? I want to be like Ruth Reichl in Tokyo.”

So, that was the conception of this site, tokyofoodcast. We had so many plans and dreams about what to do on the blog, the phase which I am sure most bloggers go through. Soon, though, I realized I have not written anything other than boring business type documents for a long long time. And, come to think of it, I never enjoyed writing anyway. What was I thinking! Somehow, I will miraculously be able to overcome the fear of writing just because I have a passion for food and sake? I am sure some people can, but that was not the case for me.

What kept me going with the blog, though, was meeting wonderful people. Meeting sake brewers and learning the philosophies behind their sake still makes me want to share the story with other people. Getting to know other bloggers, like Melinda, and finally meeting them in person, going to tasting events, and organizing cyber tasting have been a great joy. With that note and with a hope over one month lag is not too late in today’s Internet speed, I would like to continue what was started by other people by tagging my sake blog friend from Shizuoka, Robert-Gilles of Shizuoka Sake, whom I met through Melinda. Robert-Gilles, why do you blog?

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