Meet our member of the month, Amanda Formaro, the blogger behind Amanda’s Cookin’
What was your original motivation for your blog? What keeps you motivated?
“I actually owned a website for ten years before starting my blog (from 1997-2007), so unlike many people, my motivation was business related. I loved building my website in the early days of the Internet, so to be able to leave hand coding behind and start on a blog platform was so refreshing to me! Not many people were earning ad revenue back in 2007 because they didn’t really know that they could. I dove in head first knowing I could build another business. I stay motivated because I LOVE what I do, but I also want to retire one day. So keeping the business growing so that it will support me in my golden years is really good motivation. ;)”
If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
“Oh wow that’s a super hard question! Even food that I love would get monotonous day after day. I mean really, I love Filet Mignon and order it whenever I go out, but I can’t imagine eating it every single day.”
What has been your biggest cooking disaster?
“When I was a young mom I was really winging it. My mother had passed away when I was 23, I had my first child when I was 25. So I didn’t have her around to ask all those questions of. I remember cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving one year in my mid to late twenties. I forgot to take out the giblet bag. So half of the turkey didn’t cook properly and we were forced to cut chunks of cooked meat off the top of the bird. It was awful. Ha ha.”
What are your culinary and blogging goals for the new year?
“I actually took off most of 2016 and brought on contributors. I had a lot of things going on in my personal life and wasn’t able to cook as much as I did before. But now that things have calmed down I’m very much looking forward to baking bread again and developing new videos for my blog.”
Imagine your ideal New Year’s Eve party. What sorts of hor d’oeuvres and drinks are there?
“I love coffee and chocolate flavored mixed drinks. Anything with vanilla or whipped cream vodka is amazing too. And wow, I just had bacon wrapped water chestnuts for the first time and I am in love!”