Hi there! Thank you for visiting my blog. My name is April. In the past, I dined out A LOT, mostly out of convenience. In 2012, quit eating out so much and began brushing up on my cooking skills. I started this blog in late 2014 to document my recipes for friends and my family. Sometimes I write a lot and sometimes I don’t. It just depends. I know a lot of people do not care for stories and complain about scrolling for a couple of seconds to get to the recipe, but for Google purposes, the more I write, the better chance I have of showing up in google search results. That’s why a lot of bloggers write. I hope I cleared some things up for you.
I’m very grateful and happy if you like my stories. If you don’t care for my stories, you can easily scroll down for about a second or two to get to the recipe. On my newer posts, you’ll find a “jump to recipe” button. Click the button and it will take you straight to the recipe. I am working on updating all my blog posts with the jump to recipe button. For now, please scroll down to the recipe. Thank you so much for your understanding.
A little background about me: I grew up with my mom and southern grandmother. They cooked good simple food on a tight budget. I learned how to cook from watching and helping them in the kitchen. Every weekend my siblings and I looked forward to big meals. I learned from my mom and my grandmother that I don’t need a lot of money, or need to spend hours in the kitchen to make delicious homemade meals.
I’m from the melting pot of NJ/NY area. I was always surrounded by culturally diverse people and food. The food that I make is a reflection of all the food I grew up eating with family and friends like, Southern, African, Caribbean, Latin American, Asian, Italian and more. My flavorful, simple and quick prep meals using everyday ingredients will save you time and money.
Why are there so many ADS on my website:
Did you know that blogging is not free? There are many expenses that are needed to maintain a blog. That’s where ADS come into play. The ads you see on my website helps me to keep bringing you free recipes.
Blog maintenance. In order to maintain this blog, there are fees like important plugins that are needed to keep my blog up to date or for SEO purposes.
Website maintenance. There is a monthly fee I have to pay and it’s not cheap. If I don’t pay my monthly hosting company, I won’t have a website. If I don’t have a website I won’t be able to share my recipes with you. I don’t settle for cheap hosting either. Been there and it’s a mess. If there were too many people on my site, my website crashed. I can’t have that, so I pay good money monthly to my hosting company.
My domain name. I have to pay a yearly fee to keep my name.
Miscellaneous fees: These fees can vary. FOOD of course. Educational fees (think photography tools and learning, SEO books etc, ) monthly photo editing software fees (Adobe, Lightroom, Photoshop etc), Dishes and props to keep my photos inviting and fresh, I can go on and on about blog expenses. Photography gear etc.
Employees: Virtual assistant. Sometimes when I get really busy and overwhelmed, I hire a VA to help with social media stuff.
Personal bills: I have a family and this blog helps to support my family as well. I love being able to blog full time and provide for my family.
It seems like the longer I blog the more money I have to put out. I remember when I first started blogging. I didn’t have ads but I still had to pay for the things I mentioned above. I had to figure out how to share my recipes without going broke. Ads were the answer. I love blogging. I really do. I love sharing my recipes with you. I love my subscribers. I couldn’t do half the things I mentioned if I ran an ad-free website. For most bloggers, blogging ain’t cheap and it’s a Fulltime job. It’s definitely not a hobby for me. Fulltime all the way.
I hope you can continue visiting my little blog despite the ads. I hope you have a better understanding.
I currently reside in the Washington, D.C area with all boys, my 2 cute brainiac toddlers, teen, and husband.
Got questions? Do you have any recipe requests for me? Just want to say Hi? Feel free to message me anytime and I will get back to you as soon as time permits. Thank you for stopping by!
Well Hello April, i love food and cooking is my passion as well. Maybe one day i can share some of my african recipes with you. Thank you for sharing your recipes. Today i will be making the meatloaf. I will update you on how it went. Thanks!
Hi Khuja! You are very welcome! Sure you can message me your favorite recipes. If I like your recipe, I will definitely post the recipe to the blog. I hope you enjoy the meatloaf 🙂
I can’t find a way to comment or give a well deserved 5 stars! 😊 I’ve subscribed but it’s still not showing up. The meatloaf is to die for!! My son requested it last night for his 26th birthday and he brought his girlfriend. They both just raved. This is a HUGE compliment to you because neither she nor I even like meatloaf. At all. But I LOVED this. The meat I bought was Ground Kobe because it was a special occasion and it was THE BEST. Are you on Instagram??
That’s is so kind of you Kat! I appreciate the lovely comment. I love it. Yup, I was the same way. I hated meatloaf until I made my own version. So glad your son’s birthday dinner went great. Happy Birthday to him! Thanks so much for subscribing too. I took off a couple months from my blog and most social media because we moved halfway across the map. Had to get settled etc and now that my kids are in school I can get back to blogging. Yes, I am on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whiskitrealgud/. Look out for recipes very soon! Not sure why you couldn’t comment on my post. If you could try to comment on the meatloaf post that would be awesome. It will also help others decide if they want to make it or not. Scroll to the bottom there should be a comment field. I just approved another comment. If it doesn’t work for you don’t worry about it. Thanks so much again 🙂 Enjoy your week!
I have to take a trip to NJ/NY soon. I love the restaurants in the tri state area. So many ethnic restaurants to choose from. I miss living there. I’m going to look up Pio Pio and put it on my to do list when I get up there. I hope you enjoy the rice Diane! It’s a favorite of mine!
Hi, thanks for the chaufa recipe. we just got back from a trip to NJ and NYC to see family, and we happened to eat at Pio Pio on 10th Av.e. The chaufa was fabulous. We’re in the Bay Area and there is a dearth of Peruvian restaurants here, and their menus seem to be very different, so many thanks for the recipe.
Diane and Lisa