About Me

1.  Brief introduction of Who you are;

My name is Joyce, the owner of blogsite www.eatwhattonight.com. So you might ask, why Eat What Tonight ? I ever heard from a radio show that one of the top three questions that Singaporeans ask during messaging, would be exactly these 3 words, eat what tonight ? Hence, that prompted me to start this blog with easy reconciliation of the question that I believe one or many of us would have asked on a very frequent note. And it’s no doubt that Singapore is a paradise of good foods, so much so that we are often too spoilt for choices. So it becomes a habitual nature of us to seek opinions of the others when we need to settle ourselves for a meal. Indeed, it has been a blessing to have the spread of food choices we have in Singapore compared to many other places and well, we should count ourselves fortunate, don’t we ?

2.  When and How you started blogging;

I started blogging since 2010, fuelled from a passion for baking. The initial posts were short, with a few lines and pictures of what I have baked from home. The blog slowly expanded to include some cooking postings as well, more of everyday rumblings, and of course, some lifestyle explorations. That slowly progressed into getting a DSLR to capture better quality pictures and I revamped the blog design from scratch. With minimal web design knowledge, Google became a faithful companion. I wanted a clean and refreshed design for the blog, thereby started to fill myself in with simple HTML knowledge and web design tools. Slowly and surely, though it might not be the most perfect blog design you have seen, but to me, the enormous effort and time spent in building it up from near-zero knowledge is indeed rewarding. My expectations of the blog started to change, I wanted to keep it as a recollection of memories which perhaps could keep me rejuvenated when I grow old and senile in the distance future. Hence, jotting down notes on where I have been to, what I have done, stuffs that I enjoy doing while I am still young, became the focus.

3.  What’s the motivation behind blogging;

The greatest motivation for me now would be knowing the fact that I have been nominated for the Best Food Blog and the Panasonic Best Cooking Blog in the Singapore Blog Awards 2013. Seriously, never in my wildest dream that I could ever imagine myself making to the Top 10 Finalists’ list. I never keep track of my blog’s statistics though I know most bloggers would. I see blogging as an avenue to pen down my everyday musings, as a journal to share good food, and a collection of cooking and baking ideas. Little that I expect that something I deem as a hobby and passion would have gotten me some prestigious awards nominations. And seriously, the nominations have been so encouraging and motivational that enabled me to brave through this period of time when I started to feel that my blog contents are getting drier and less inspirational. I feel the urge and need to blog more, so as not to disappoint my virtual supporters.

4.  What’s the one thing in life that you have encountered personally that has inspired you and that you would like to share with others to inspire them too.

Hard work does pays off. Never give up on your dreams. Though far-fetched your dream might seems, but as long as you work hard (real hard), nothing is impossible. Though you may not need to be earning big bucks to deem yourself as successful, but little rewards that you gotten along the way is good enough to earn the recognition and self-satisfaction that perhaps may stretch beyond monetary gains. I work a full time job that essentially used up more than 1/3 of my day. I find that every bit of time I could, to bake, to cook, to share and to blog. It’s not easy, I guess, especially when we can be so bothersome at work that we find it tough to keep up with the blog posts. At times, editing pictures to late nights with deprived sleep is common. After all, you might think, why do I need to work so hard at something which doesn’t earn me a living ? But the support and recognition given by the blog supporters is something that lives way beyond any monetary value. The awards nominations are good evidence of the hard work paying off, and in time to come, I believe and truly hope that more people will get to know Eat What Tonight, through the virtual hemisphere and from there, spreading the joy of a foodie’s happiness to everyone reading it.

In addition to that, I received good feedback from some of my bakes that really motivates me in starting up an online cookies business at chunkycooky.com earlier this year. Though I won’t exactly say that I have been completely successful in whatever I was doing, but the good responses, especially during a weekend market which I ventured into recently to market chunkycooky.com was so overwhelming, and that pretty much exceeded mine expectations. It has been a tough time, stretching myself to beyond the limit to embark on a journey of much responsibilities, to work, to fulfill cookies orders and to blog. But I will preserve on and I will not give up.