Last November I did a post for the approximate 10th anniversary of the blog, here. But perhaps a bigger milestone, at least for me, was crossing the 4,000th post, which I missed literally a couple of weeks ago. I realize quality is definitely more important than quantity, but let’s face it, writing 4,000 posts over a 10.25 year period amazes even me. So many posts were brainless, but many required some thought and as much as 8 hours to write, a little or a lot of research, some time in markets or various purveyors, quite a bit of travel, and several times some expense to boot. So the 4,000th post is MAJOR for Marketman and marketmanila, as it represents an average of 32 posts per month or just over a post per day EVERY DAY FOR THE LAST 10+ years.
I recently ran across an article that claimed that human attention spans are shortening significantly and that humans clocked in with attention spans (or ability to focus on something before getting distracted) of just 8 seconds on average in 2013 (down 40% from 13 seconds in 2000), or 1 second less than a goldfish’s ability to concentrate on a task!!! Sure, it could be apocryphal, but it demonstrates a point I have been harping on for years, that the kids today flit from one thing to another, without gaining sufficient depth. And I shouldn’t just target kids, adults are like epileptic wasps on crack as well. When this blog was new, the average visit to the blog lasted 4+ minutes. Today, it is closer to just 1 minute, even for older posts, and it just tells me that people don’t even read most of the post, since I haven’t really shortened my posts that much and I blather on as before. That’s why I often get comments at the end of a lengthy post describing a recipe and the question is “Do you have a recipe for this?” or “Where did you buy this?” (when it is all imbedded in the post) to which I often bite my lip and twitch my fingers to avoid wishing the heavens strike down the Attention Deficit Disorder afflicted reader with a bolt of lightning!
This blog never needed vast readership, it didn’t thrive on visitor statistics, it didn’t have a commercial bent and therefor all the standard metrics didn’t really matter, or did they? They simply kept reminding me that there were folks out there who were still interested, that there were cyber friends I had never met who kept coming back year after year after year. And who knows how many people have eaten meals from experiments and recipes I have posted over the years…you don’t know how much of a high that gives me, I only hope I didn’t poison many of them. So to marketmanila.com and to all of you, a sound round of applause. Thanks for sticking around. Thanks for chiming in with intelligent and knowledgeable input, with empathy and caring in times of disaster, and with a common bond that boils down to food. I never thought I would make it this far, and I have occasionally felt my creative well had run dry, but you have all helped to keep me pumped up. And while I don’t post as often as I used to, I will continue to do it (sometimes, sporadically) and keep the blog up until that point that it just doesn’t make sense anymore. Or until the day that folks no longer drop by.
And as a THANK YOU to readers, in the next few days or so, I will be raffling off a few of my cookbooks and the ultimate prize, a custom-made, denim-lined, leather-trimmed rattan market basket with wheels made by S.C. Vizcarra which probably retails for a couple of hundred U.S. dollars abroad. And you can’t buy it retail here either, it must be custom ordered. Stick around and let the games begin…
P.S., those of you who won bottles of sister’s jam a few weeks back would be pleased to know that several of her entries to this year’s competition in England won medals, so you were eating from batches of gold medalist jams… I meant to do a post on that but I can’t seem to open the photo she sent me a while back.
50 Responses
Me, me, me!
I want to win a “sosyal” picnic basket, MM! *wink* *wink*
I’ve been checking and reading this blog since June 2005. That makes me a loyalist!
My first comment was in a post about Gardenia under my original nom de porn in Oct 2005 so the blog was a year old when I discovered it through another Filipino food blog that had gone off and on since, along with countless others. You do not need a hoard of followers who do not read or read but do not comprehend. All you need are a few impassioned enthusiasts.
And speaking of passion, who would have thought (slaps forehead) that the low hanging fruits in my previous post’s comment are passion fruit. The Chinese caption translation says Brazilian passion fruit and breast gourd.
Congratulations MM! I am learning so much from this blog and I am enjoying the little community of readers here.
Molto cool, MM. Congratulations!
Keep visiting your site everyday.
Congratulatios,MM! Am very fortunate to have stumbled upon your blog back then, MM, for I have found many, many, cyber friends who have cried with me, shared words of wisdom, laughed with me!
Am also looking forward to your roller basket raffle! Will definitely go back home this year once I get my doctor’s approval!
Congratulations Marketman!
For more than 6 years Marketman has been my go to guide if i want something tasty to eat. Your cooking recommendations are spot on delicious. Your blogs have definitely influenced my cooking in a yummy way. You definitely replaced my aging cooking reference the “Cooking it up with Nora Daza” book. Come to think of it you are the internet version of Nora Daza. You have become a legend in your own right. More power and more delicious cooking. Cheers!
I am a regular visitor for quite a while now..I was googling for a Childhood fruit when it directs me to your blog,never been a reader of a blog before and was hooked and learned alot..I love flower arrangements,food, & have done countless recipe,even made bud bud kabog? which unheard off being a kapampangan,tried and open my eyes how good a lot of regional cooking,love your blog..for there are always New things to try.Thanks!! Congratulations .
Found your blog October 24, 2005 (#37 comment). I went back to the first post and red every post and have been reading until now. I am one of the most ever grateful to all your posts – – truly, truly appreciate it very much. Congratulations!
Been reading your blog around 3+ years, thank you for the funny, enlightening, informative posts! And for your efforts post-Haiyan. Will keep trying to win stuff from your raffles, eventually will hopefully catch one!
I have always thought of you as ‘Renaissance man’. Thank you, thank you, hijo – because you are certainly that – (I am in my dotage). Serendipity to have stumbled on this blog – many years now. So when the energy level occasionally peters out, remember us, the faithful. Maraming salamat guid.
Kudos and thanks to you Marketmanila, I’ve been reading your blog at least 4 times a week and I’ve really learned a lot about cooking, food, ingredients, travel, markets and my rights as a citizen.
I really admire the thought and effort being given to all the post. My favorite so far was the Africa posts.
I’m excited for the basket, searched around the web and here’s what I assume they look like:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4SDLPLNu1tg/S_pjOE9MAKI/AAAAAAAAA0M/eybe62DaXBQ/s400/market+basket+3.jpg
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4SDLPLNu1tg/S_pkFChxuGI/AAAAAAAAA0c/fiKfxuqQbts/s400/market+basket+1.jpg
Outstanding achievement MM. You are a legend in the food and blogging world, just to name a few. Congrats!
Count me among the “impassioned enthusiasts” and those who comprehend albeit with memory lapses that are getting worse and worse by the day:( and so I failed to recall that you did remember your blogging 10th anniversary in the November 26 2014 post. I even commented on your Bond pea jacket:)
BettyQ, will be awaiting your visit notice. Or shall we hush it lest we have a riot?
forgetfulness
Billy Collins
the name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
long ago you kissed the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of paraguay.
whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
it has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an l as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
no wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
no wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
I’d like to think I’ve been through all 4,000 posts as I’ve scoured the archives twice (going on 3, actually). Congratulations MM, and to all the readers – thank you!
The poem gently takes us to different stages of forgetfulness, a somewhat soothing reminder of what naturally happens ( in varying degrees) to all of us, however terribly frightening it is to be robbed of one’s memory .
Our complex brain has its own system of remembering even when one is so unfortunate to be stricken with the memory loss of dementia. In dementia care facilities they use music therapy ( period or music type as it applies to the patient population) to wake up the brain. Curiously, only memories from the distant past are awakened, but many respond by being more engaged from a somnolent state.
For some of us who are not quite there yet, a favorite recipe, a topic from MM’s blog is enough to bring back happy memories, distant or of late. Sometimes a topic gives me a sense of a delightful smell wafting out of my own kitchen! Let us enjoy it while we still can.
Footloose, thanks for sharing Billy Collin’s poetry.
Thank you so much MM for all of the 4,000 posts that have thrilled, educated and informed me for the past years. I have been reading your blog since 2005. When I spent 2 years in a different country, your blog helped assuage my loneliness. Congratulations and wishing that your creative writing juices keep on flowing for the next 40,000 posts. :-)
the other day i saw some takway at the market and thought they should be good for something else besides our usual ginataan. so off to this site i went, entered “takway” in the search bar, and that’s how we ended up with delicious adobong takway. the readers’ comment were equally helpful, and that’s why i call this a community, not just a blog, it’s a living community) .
thank you MM and family and Crew, and keep it up, please. congratulations, Sister for the awesome achievement. major-major deliciousness! (and i will be gearing up for that vizcarra bag)
I now have a bunch of Maida Heatter cook books all because I really enjoyed the date and nut bars that I made from you post. =)
Congratulations MM. I am one of those that tried a lot of your recipes and is happy with all of it :-D (not poisoned). I tried your banana pecan cake, mango pecan cake, oatmeal cookies, homemade bacon, etc..even kamote tops salad! Thanks for sharing….I learned a lot.
I accidentally bumped your post ways back 2005/2006 when I was stationed at a US Marine base in North Carolina; Gunny allowed me to surf the net as long as the site is “ok”.
I was shy at first to comment, so I just continued lurkng for a long time till I felt comfortable among other frequent commenters. Your blog was a daily routine for me, and even when I was hospitalized after my colon cancer operation, I read your blog at my bed. Same while I was having a 4-hour chemo treatments.
Congratulation ! And Thank you.
This is the first food blog I bookmarked, the one i always come back to for recipes, restaurants, rants, & revelations.
Congratulations and thank you so much.
* I live vicariously through your meals and vacations.
And I look forward to your first Zubuchon/Zubudagat in Manila.
After weeks of no post from you, MM, I am so joyful for a post or two. .and overjoyed I’d isee3or more!. It’s like hearing from a good friend. .
Footloose, thanks for sharing Billy Collin’s poetry.
I think I started reading this blog around 2008 when the Lechon Chronicles was ongoing but only started leaving comments in 2010.
MM, we truly appreciate the time and effort you take writing down all 4,000 posts. It should be us thanking you. This blog has been informative, entertaining and inspirational. Keep it up MM!
Congratulations, MM! I’m a loyalist and i try to visit your site almost everyday to check if there is a new post. From food to travel, your posts have been used as reference for recipes, ideas for parties, and planning trips for places to see and eat in! Keep ’em coming!
i chanced upon your blog when i was googling something in the net, though i can’t remember what…and it’s been3 years that i’ve been following your blog and always anticipating your posts…i’ve read and re-read your Christmas Story post numerous times and i still literally cry a bucket of tears…i laughed when i read a comment a few months back about someone asking if you want to have tie-ups with a particular brand/company…and i told my sister when she was in cebu to not board the plane back to manila if she didn’t bring me back some zubuchon…i’m awed and amazed about the lengths you and your family and your crew took during the aftermath of yolanda and all the disasters that happened…thank you MM for these posts…
Congratulations and thank you Marketmanila. Let the games begin :)
@millet. I made adobong takway last week. I made it a little bit less saucy. Namit gud.
Although I mostly stalk your blog, I am beyond happy to have found your blog! I have read through most of your posts and look forward to new ones. I have cooked some of the recipes that have appeared but mostly, I have expanded my cookbook selections. I must thank you for now I read cookbooks instead of just recipes. So, thank you so much for your blogging and for the comments from the community, it is always interesting, including the fish pans! Keep on blogging MM ! ( Hmmmmmmm, think I shall start at the beginning again!) Congratulations.
stumbled upon your blog when a friend of mine mentioned a crab dish we had while we were in Toronto, we googled the recipe and your site came up. Thank you for this putting up this “venue” for us to learn from each other and enrich one another’s lives.
Congratulations on yr achievements! It’s amazing how you managed to present and entertain (besides yr busy lifestyle) us with yr always interesting posts.
The recipe that made the most impact amongst friends and my Aussie DH was yr simplest of recipes “fresh mustard greens with bagoong and calamansi”. A friend asked me to bring a salad for her bday party and I made this dish…..this was all the bday celebrant devoured :)
congrats on 10000 plus posts MM, I started reading this blog in the south china sea on an aircraft carrier, roughly 2009, always made me smile with your wit and sometimes a fishpan rant, I know it has to be alot of hard work to keep this site up, but I for one appreciate it!
Congratulations MM and please accept my gratitude for all the hard you’ve done and continue to do for this blog!
Here’s to your 100,000th post in the future! Cheers!
I discovered your blog when I came back from working in Singapore in late 2005 – I have since bookmarked your site and perused your posts as I kept moving from one organization to another, from Manila to Melbourne and back to Manila again. It is always good company – thank you for never letting up! :)
congrats on the 4,000th, mm! i’m sure there are many of us who spend way more than 8 seconds on the site, reading and re-reading the main post and then reading again, and coming back every couple of hours for the comments. that’s what i do anyway.
ps. i’ve always had a hunch about footloose. tama nga. heehee. i wonder where maria clara, etc. are.
Nice nom de guerre there, General. Reminds me of Carlos P. Romulo who questioned Claro M. Recto’s patriotism for having served with the Japanese (well, not as much as Laurel and Aquino (dad) for which both stayed at the Sugamo prison after the war). Recto countered that the only heroism Romulo showed was to keep his head manfully above water in the backwash of McArthur and challenged him to a debate in Plaza Moriones which Romulo disgracefully dodged earning him the nickname General Retreat for a long time thereafter.
I’ve been a reader for years now, but I hardly post any comments. I just wanted to say thank you very much for continuously updating your blog. Congratulations and I hope to read more of your posts about food, life and your family!
Congrats, MM! I’m a fan, and really enjoyed and learned a lot from your posts. More posts please…
You’re definitely part of my life (your blog, at least >”<) for years now! More power, MM! :-)
Congratulations, MM. Your blog has been my daily fix along with K-drama online. Aja!
4,000 posts is most definitely something to celebrate! This may be mostly a food blog but I truly enjoy your rants/raves as well ;p Been reading your blog since college, and I even attended one of the first EBs in Gourdos BGC. Thank you, Marketman!
Congratulations on your 4000th post! People keep coming back because your posts are insightful and entertaining. I personally visit your blog whenever I have a question about local food products and ingredients that doesn’t seem to be sufficiently answered by a simple Google search. Sometimes I find the answers in your posts; other times I find the answers in the comment sections. :)
Wow! Congratulations! And trust me, I love reading your posts, til the very end! :)
Joining the chorus of congratulations and thank-yous. You’ve definitely inspired me, for one, on so many counts, not just in being an eater and a cook-er (tho probably more the former) but also the passion and integrity that goes into all those other aspects of a full life: being a philanthropist, an employer, a businessperson, a parent, a citizen. Always looking forward to more from you! :)
Congratulations to Sister!
Speaking of Sister’s jams, I used the Spicy Smokey Seville to glaze my Easter ham. I had previously only used it to augment my morning (and sometimes evening) toast (and it’s delicious that way, too), but inspiration hit and I’m glad it did! Delicious!
I’m thinking of swirling some into brownie batter next. Smokey chipotle peppers and seville oranges–they sound like perfect matches for chocolate!
I realized that I have been following and reading your blog I think since 2005-2006. I based it on where I was working when I discovered your blog :) Cheers to all!
10 years, MM! I’ve been reading your blog for the past 10 years. No wonder I was starstruck when I finally saw you in person at the Cebu airport last February 27. :) I just had to approach you and introduce myself as one of your readers. If you will recall, I kept on glancing at you the whole time we were waiting for our flight (which was delayed) and your Chief-of-Stuff (I assume that was him?) always seemed to catch my eye. He probably thought I was stalking you or something. Haha.
Thank you for the 4,000 posts that have fueled my love for food and travel, inspired me and had me in stitches. I have probably read all of them.
Oh, by the way, your frozen lechon saved the breastmilk I was bringing home from that brief Cebu trip. My ice packs had already melted and I was afraid that the flight would be further delayed. I switched the ice packs with the frozen lechon and the milk made it home safe. :)
Thanks for so many years (since 2004 in my case) of reading pleasure!