Friday afternoon – time for another Behind the Blog!
I hope your Friday is going well and that your weekend is kicking off in a fun way. I’ve got family coming to visit tonight and couldn’t be happier – it should be a great weekend, full of laughter and lots of good food 🙂
Sit back and let’s welcome Courtney!
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1. What’s your name and blog address?
My name is Courtney and my blog is Pancakes & Postcards
(http://www.pancakesandpostcards.com).
2. How long have you been blogging?
From September 2008 until this spring, I was blogging sporadically
about my Peace Corps experience. But for a while I was dreaming of
starting a new food/travel/Africa blog and I finally did in March of
2010, after about six months of reading healthy living blogs 🙂
3. What do you love / hate about blogging?
I love feeling a connection with the world around me! Living in
Mozambique can get lonely, and reading blogs makes me feel more
connected to the "normal" world that I left. Every time someone leaves
a comment it makes me really happy! Blogging feels like a reminder
that I am not alone.
What I hate–well, here it is that my technical abilities prevent me
from being a "real" blogger. I don’t have electricity all of the time,
much less internet! I don’t have the space or the internet
capabilities to download new programs to use, and it can take four
hours to upload pictures for a post. Which normally doesn’t work,
since not only is that an amazing waste of time, but also because my
battery life is down to about an hour and a half! (It was five when I
got here.) So my capacity to blog is limited, but I think that is
better for now—I cannot get really caught up in the “blog world” and
miss out on my experience here.
4. What’s your favorite color?
Blue! It used to be red, but then I went to college at UCLA and I
pretty much bleed blue and gold now. Plus, it’s calming!
5. Favorite movie?
The Shawshank Redemption. I just saw Pirate Radio recently, which was great.
6. Favorite book?
The Poisonwood Bible. I read it here (while living in Africa–it is
set in the Belgian Congo) and it is the most amazing book I have ever
read. I also really love Eat, Pray, Love, probably more because I want
someone to pay ME to go travel around the world for a year to eat good
food and "find myself"! 🙂
7. Favorite food?
Raw chocolate chip cookie dough. And ice cream. And frosting straight
from the jar. My sweet tooth is uncontrollable. My favorite real food
is sushi–spicy tuna rolls all the way! And of course, pancakes. Love
them.
8. Chocolate or vanilla?
DEFINITELY vanilla. But I love a chocolate brownie! But only with
vanilla ice cream… so…
9. Favorite tv show NOW and when you were growing up?
As a kid, I never watched any of those TGIF shows that were SO
popular… I loved Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon! I dreamed of being
on Legends of the Hidden Temple or Global GUTS… anyone with me…
anyone?
10. Do you like playing sports? Watching sports?
BOTH! As a kid I did soccer for a long time, basketball and track for
a little, competed in equestrian events for several years, and
eventually ended up on the dance team (I swear it is a sport). Now, I
love playing any sport when the opportunity arises and love watching
college basketball (March Madness is the best couple of weeks of the
year!) and football. Still consider myself a dancer, a runner, and a
rock climber.
11. Are you a coffee or tea person? Or neither?
Both! Hot chocolate is my favorite, but I am trying to get into
drinking plain tea here (I LOVE hot beverages when it’s cold and can
go through a day’s worth of calories at Starbucks easy). I am drinking
plain tea a lot more now, but I still don’t really LIKE it. The
concept of tainted hot water still needs to grow on me. Where’s the
white chocolate peppermint mocha??
12. Do you have tattoos or piercings?
Six piercings—two on the bottom of each ear, one cartilage and then my
nose has been pierced for about six years. Want a tattoo, but am not
passionate enough about any design yet to have it permanently inked
onto my body.
13. Do you have any special talents?
Yes. I have an uncanny ability to know more or less what time it is
after not seeing a watch or a clock all day. And I can beat almost
every song on Expert on Rock Band (I’m a drummer. Super legit).
14. If you could go anywhere in the world TOMORROW, where would you go?
Honestly? I have been in Mozambique for over 20 months now, so if I
could take a sporadic trip tomorrow, I would go home to California to
hug my parents and pet the dogs and cat! I would sit on the couch with
my family and eat pigs in a blanket and microwave popcorn, watch
movies, and fall asleep with the cat on my lap. Then I would fly back
to Mozambique and finish my Peace Corps service. 🙂 The rest of the
world can wait!
15. Last thing you ate?
A soggy French fry pilfered from a colleague’s lunch. Ew. Regrettable.
16. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A fighter pilot. No joke. Some girls played with dolls, I had model
airplanes and rockets and played computer air simulation games every
day with my daddy. I even sent Chuck Yeager (a really famous combat
pilot) a valentine when I was 5 years old. I included conversation
hearts that said "my guy" in the envelope, too. He sent me back an
8"x10" signed photo of him and his fighter jet that said "To
Courtney–good luck!" I still have it. Dork…
17. What was your favorite subject in school?
Math at first–up until high school, I was obsessed with it. Then
Calculus was just WAY over my head… then I fell in love with the
social sciences and studied International Development and Political
Science.
18. What games did you play when you were younger?
Everything. Battleship, Connect Four, Sorry!, all of those. But I was
so competitive that I would cry or be angry for about a week if I ever
lost, so I actually stopped playing games until I got mature enough to
get through them… I was a weird kid.
19. Favorite restaurant?
I honestly don’t have one. I am a foodie, but I am also really easy to
please. I love a dinner at Chili’s or Cheesecake Factory as much as
one at somewhere fancier. There’s this place called Ami Sushi in
Westwood Village right by UCLA (where I went to school) that has
barely decent food and the worst customer service in the world, but
their “crunch roll” is probably my favorite thing on the planet.
20. Favorite store?
Whole Foods! And REI–I was a big rock climber in college and would
always go there for new gear. Now, my favorite place to buy things is
from the ladies who sit along the street, in the shade of the mango
trees, and sell bananas.
21. Favorite animal?
Horses, I grew up on them. But I also love cats and dogs, and here in
Africa, Guinea hens are making a run for the top. They are just so
cute… in a weird way…
22. Favorite thing to cook/make?
PANCAKES! Because they are easy and let’s face it, even if they don’t
come out THAT great, they are still pancakes and therefore pretty
good. That’s what I like in my baking choices!
23. Most embarrassing guilty pleasure?
Bad pop and rap music. I “only listen to it while I am working out…”
and hanging out… and singing loudly along to it when I am in my car
and other people can hear me…
24. Do you have any nicknames?
NO ONE in Africa can pronounce my name (two consonants in a row and
you’re pushing it, but THREE?!?!) so instead of Courtney I have been
called “Coni” and “Mana Cornía.” For better or worse, these names have
stuck.
25. List one thing the “blog world” doesn’t know about you but should!
I have a gmail folder with about 300 recipes in it that I save from
other bloggers because I can´t get the ingredients or don’t have the
necessary equipment here to make them. I call this my “back in
civilization” folder and it guarantees that I will be cooking for
approximately nine months, ten hours a day, once I return to America.
Thanks for reading! Hope you check out Pancakes & Postcards sometime,
and I would love to see your blogs!
Thanks Courtney!
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And…just for kicks (and because I’ve had requests lately), here’s some pictures of Maggie.
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