'Online Cookbook' a Must-Read the World Over

Andrea Meyers, originally from southwest Virginia, moved to Loudoun County with her husband Michael and their three sons in March 2007. Her passion for food and creating recipes led her to start a blog, Andrea's Recipes, that receives more than 40,000 page views a month.

In an e-mail interview with loudounextra.com staff writer Charity Corkey, Meyers, 42, discussed her blog, the influences on her cooking and her worst kitchen disaster.

Q When did you start blogging about food, and why?

A My cooking blog started as a hobby six years ago, a way for me to keep track of our favorite recipes online. I never intended to start a blog. I decided to use WordPress as a content management system and never thought anyone would visit the site. In fact I was so new to the blogging software that I didn't realize the site had visitors until someone left a comment on one of my early posts.

I felt mortified because the site was very bare, with no photos or anything to make it look inviting. So I started working on the design and began shooting photos of the dishes I cooked. My husband had encouraged me to write a cookbook for our children, and in a way the site became our family's online cookbook.

How often do you blog and what kind of response from readers do you get?

I try to write two recipes and one edible-gardening post per week, though I would like to post more often. My readers seem very supportive of the site and reach out via their comments and e-mails. The site has readers from all over the world, some as far away as Singapore and Australia, but about 60 percent are from the United States.

What is the worst kitchen disaster you've had?

I've had my share, and I actually wrote about my top 10 culinary flops during my first year blogging. I think dropping my husband's birthday cake a few years ago qualifies as the worst thing that has ever happened in our kitchen.

On your blog, you write that you are from the South. What Southern meals inspired you to pursue cooking?

Even though I grew up in the Midwest, my parents brought the South with them, and their Southern upbringing was consistently reflected in our home. There are farmers on both sides of our family tree, so that had an impact as well.

My mother and grandmothers made many things that I wanted to learn, but Southern country-style breakfasts were a big inspiration. For them, it was the big meal of the day, and my paternal grandmother filled the breakfast table with two or three kinds of meat, biscuits, gravy, sliced tomatoes and homemade jellies and jams, and apple butter. I still can't quite imitate my grandmother's fried chicken, but I can come pretty close to her biscuits and gravy. I wish I had spent more time in the kitchen with my mother and grandmothers when I was young.