There is nothing quite like a little forced introspection to make you sit down and realize that you’ve had one of the most jam-packed years of your life. (Literally, lots of jam.) In this case, a competition — Foodbuzz’s Project Food Blog is the name of the game. Their first challenge requires me to define why I should be the Next Food Blog Star. Perhaps I should start be re-introducing myself to them, and to you.

I’m Samantha. And I love food.

Two years ago I needed a change of scenery and decided to move three thousand miles from the comfort of New Hampshire to bustling San Francisco. To be honest, this decision was probably made years  earlier when I first watched the film Mrs. Doubtfire. Few things live up to the wide eyed optimism of a seven year old, but San Francisco held up its end of the bargain. I love it here.

Continuing with the spirit of reinventing myself, I started a food blog upon my arrival.

Little did I know where it would lead me. Shortly after joining Foodbuzz, I participated in Foodbuzz 24,24,24 and got an amazing dream meal at chef Chris Cosentino’s Incanto. This connected me to an internship at a Food P.R. firm. I started working with chefs and restaurants on recipe organization, development and testing, and fell in love with all the hard work behind creating a dining experience. Okay, truthfully this love started when I became a stagiere in a local restaurant at the age of 12.

Somewhere along the line I also became the research assistant and recipe tester on a cookbook by “Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it” author Karen Solomon (see, lots of jam). I became involved (re: obsessed) with Omnivore Books on Food, and eventually ended up pretty much moving in, thanks to Celia Sack offering me a mercy job. All the while, I took control of my own health, got back into shape, and I went back to school at Integrative Nutrition to become a Health Coach and help others do the same.

And for the sake of full disclosure, I should confess the number of cookbooks I own now well exceeds the bookshelves I own to store them.

Why do I blog you may ask?

Ultimately, it comes down to the people I get to meet and be truly inspired by. For me, food blogging is not just about the chow, but integrally about those who are a part of it. I realized early on I wanted to share their stories with you. And in many ways, that’s what The Second Lunch has become.

In the past year, I’ve met so many wonderful chefs and insiders of the industry — I truly feel blessed for where my passion for food has led me. For this post, I decided to make a list of some of the folks I’d met, thinking that I’d get a good paragraph out of it. I did not expect this brick wall of superstars. This shocks me every time I glance down at it.

The short list includes: the wonderful folks from Big Sur Bakery, Polly Adema, Arthur Allen, Nate Appleman, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Ed Behr, Amy Besa, John Besh, Carole Bloom, Mark Bittman, Kim Boyce, Bruce & Eric Bromberg, Frank Bruni, Novella Carpenter, Mark Stewart Cassidy, David Chang, Nan Chase, Anita Chu, Andrew Coe, Langdon Cook, Chris Cosentino, Temra Costa, Elizabeth Crawford, Dave Cruz, Tod Davies, Penny De Los Santos,Tracy Des Jardins, Elan Drucker and Brett Emerson, Tara Duggan, Gordon Edgar, Elizabeth Falkner,  Sarah Max Feldner, Jeremy Fox, Zoe Francois & Dr. Jeff Hertzberg, Fran Gage, Marcia Gagliardi, Anna Getty, Barbara Ghazarian, Darra Goldstein, Evan Goldstein, Joyce Goldstein, William Grimes, Giuliano Hazan,  Dierdre Heeken and Caleb Barber, Jaden Hair, Pauli Halstead, Gerald Hirigoyen, Fergus Henderson, Lauren Hoover, Dianne Jacob, Madhur Jaffrey, Michael Kalanty, Niloufer Ichaporia King, Thomas Keller, Shelly Lindgren, David Lebovitz, Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito of Baked, Barbara Lynch, Kermit Lynch, Deborah Madison, Jacqueline Mallorca, Harold McGee, Nancy Mehagian, Dr. Daphne Miller, Kate Moses, Marion Nestle, Cynthia Nims, Andrea Nguyen, Barbara Passino, Greg Patent,  Cindy Pawlcyn, Georgia Pellegrini, James Peterson, Gayle Pirie, Michael Pollan, Michael Recchiuti, Peter Reinhart, John Relihan, Sara Remington, Tori Ritchie, Chad Robertson & Liz Pruitt, Lorna Sass, Rachel Saunders, Jennie Schacht, Lisa Schwartz, Kim Severson, Andrew Smith, Karen Solomon, Andrew Swallow, Heidi Swanson, Michael Symon, David Tanis, Pim Techamuanvivit, Corinne Trang, Patricia Unterman, Alice Waters, Max Watman, Tara Austen Weaver, Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, Ari Weinzweig, Joanne Weir, Laura Werlin, Kathy Wiley, Victoria Wise, Molly Wizenberg, Paula Wolfert, Scott Youkilis, Grace Young, and Jane Ziegelman – Not to mention the hundreds of other food lovers that I’ve had the pleasure to meet over the past two years. (They would fill another post in itself). And I already know I’m forgetting some wonderful people on this list.

And that’s only in the past year. In the next month I’m going to add Rene Redzepi, Tyler Florence, Michael Chiarello, Dorie Greenspan, Jordan McKay, and Diana Kennedy to that list. And who knows who else?

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Just incase you need another reason to push me onto the next round, here are several awkward and embarrassing photos from my childhood revolving around food. From top left: The taste tester, baking cookies with Sarah and Sara, hugging the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut, and picking apples from a tree.

Mostly though, I blog because I love it here. I love being part of a greater community who cares just as much as I do, and doesn’t bat an eye when I whip out a camera at dinner and debate the origin of our meal with my dining companions, purchase another cookbook I don’t have space for because I don’t want to deprive myself of knowledge, wait an hour in line for crispy pork skin because well, it’s crispy pork skin, or wade through thousands of hungry hippies at the farmers market for the perfect summer peach.

Yes, my name is Samantha and I love food.

But equally, I love everything that surrounds it.