Welcome!
My love of sharing food and recipes started in my summer physics class back in 2015. I was a speech pathology major and still had to satisfy my science requirement. I sat in the back of the classroom, thinking about physics but also about how I wanted a creative outlet. I jumped on Instagram and noticed new profiles popping up left and right that were dedicated food pages to cities across the country. I saw profiles for Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, but not my city. With absolutely no credentials, I decided to make an Instagram profile dedicated to the restaurants in my town. For that entire summer, I started posting anonymously about my restaurant recommendations. I remember that one of my first posts was a viral ‘[pizza cone’ from a specialty restaurant that closed down not too long after. By the end of summer, I reached 1,000 subscribers and finally shared with my family and friends that I had started the account.
I returned to college that fall with a growing Instragram account, even though I had no money to buy food. I started to share submissions from followers and grew to 20,000 followers by the end of my college career. At first, I loved sharing my restaurant recommendations, but I was not made for the critical comments that I received on the account. I would post late-night bar food and would receive a comment saying that I ate too many unhealthy foods. What did they expect? I was a poor college student frequenting dive bars. So, I would then share a salad and an influx of comments would come in saying “I didn’t follow this account for healthy foods”. (It really wasn’t that healthy though, because it still had french fries and Ranch dressing on top.) In 2017, I went to graduate school in Virginia and lost many followers due to not being based in my hometown anymore. The same thing happened in 2019, when I moved to Chicago for my first job as a Speech-Language Pathologist. When I finally moved back to my hometown in 2020 (earlier than expected because of global events), I started up the account again and started to share my own recipes, but felt like I was letting my followers down since they originally followed me for restaurant recommendations. I felt lost with the account.
Since I’m turning thirty in two months, I made it a goal to reach 30,000 followers on the Instagram account, as a way to celebrate a new decade and ten years of running the page. However, earlier this year, despite being just 1,000 followers shy from my goal, I decided that I no longer found joy in running the account and wanted to take a break. I realized that I wanted to share things that I enjoyed, not just what I thought my followers would want. I wanted to eat healthy sometimes and have dive bar food most of the time. I wanted to share my recipes without losing subscribers. I wanted to share food from the dinner parties that my friends and I host. There’s a possibility that I might start up the page again, but as for now, I hope to focus my entrance into a new decade focusing on myself and what I enjoy.
That being said, welcome to Supper & Stories! Earlier this year, I joined a group based in my city where I have met a lot of great friends. I go to bi-monthly craft circles with them and have even joined a board game club. In recent months, I started a group for hosting and attending dinner parties. I’ve hosted a few at my apartment and one in the summer was at a small park for a picnic. We’ve all contributed our favorite recipes or items from the store (as the great Ina Garten says - “store-bought is fine!”) and enjoy conversation throughout the night. I started to collect recipes from everyone so that we could share them in our group chat after the party. I decided that starting a Substack would be a great place to share the recipes and photos of the food. It’s also a great creative outlet for me to fill the void from my food Instagram and to share what I want to share!
I can’t wait to share recipes and photos from our first documented dinner party - a Friendsgiving event that is being hosted tomorrow! I’m hoping that by sharing the recipes now, they can inspire you to make them for Thanksgiving in a few weeks. I’m making my mom’s famous stuffing balls!