I’ve been rather taken aback and honored to be nominated for the Liebster and One Lovely Blog Awards. The Liebster Award is actually an online award that is presented to bloggers by fellow bloggers in order to discover new blogs and to recognize bloggers for their efforts. ‘Liebster’ just means ‘dearest’ or ‘favorite’ in German.

I would like to thank Spring Tomorrow for nominating me for both awards. Check out her blog here for all sorts of lovely food posts, recipes, tips, and more!

The rules of a Liebster Award are as follows:

Put up the Liebster Award logo on a blog post
Thank your nominator and provide a link back to his/her blog
Write 10 random facts about yourself
Answer 10 questions posted by the nominator
Nominate 10 other bloggers for the award and inform them about it
Come up with 10 new questions for your nominees

10 Random Facts About Myself
1. I am currently attending The Ohio State University.
2. I like sewing – I made most of my aprons and several of my skirts and dresses.
3. I can play three instruments – piano, violin, & penny whistle.
4. I love swimming and have been an assistant swim instructor for 3 years.
5. I have naturally wavy hair, which makes growing out a pixie hair cut a pain.
6. I’ve only had one boyfriend and we’ve been dating for about 8 months – he helps inspire my cooking.
7. I learned to cook from my Mammaw.
8. I build computers for fun.
9. I love learning new things – like Ubuntu Linux and Vector Imaging (at the moment).
10. I’m Majoring in International Studies with a Minor in Korean.

My Response To 10 Selected Questions From The Nominators
1. What was the first dish you had cooked and how did it turn out? One of my first memories is actually making chocolate chip cookies with my dad when I was 2 or 3 – they were delicious.
2. Who has inspired you in your life and why? Lt. General David S. Fadok has had a big impact on my life. He’s one of the best leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. A motto often heard in the USAF is “Mission First. People Always.” Lt. Gen. Fadok challenged that phrase and turned it around to “People First. Mission Always.”
3. What was your worst kitchen disaster? I’ve had too many while I was growing up to count. A more recent disaster was when I tried to make Hollandaise  Sauce and forgot to add the butter to the eggs and instead added the eggs to the butter. I was still half asleep.
4. What’s the best piece of advice anyone has given you? “Take about an hour out of each day to relax. It will help with stress levels, which in turn makes it easier to sleep and stay healthy.”
5. If you have to describe yourself as a flavour, what would it be? …Tangy? – like a lemon, full of flavor and most people like it
6. What do you usually have for breakfast? If I eat breakfast at home it usually consists of a piece of toast, 1 egg over medium, and some green tea. If I’m out, I’ll probably be eating an egg and kale sandwich.
7. If you could only have one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? My Mammaw’s chicken noodle soup – I can eat that stuff for days.
8. If you could open a cafe or restaurant, what would you name it and what type of food would you be serving? I would open a tea shop called “The Jasmine Dragon” where I would serve somewhat mythical foods from Nickelodeon’s Avatar series along with your typical tea shop foods.
9. What was it that you miss the most from your childhood? Not having to pay bills/do taxes.
10.What dish would you create with chocolate and chili? I would make Cincinnati style Chili Spaghetti.

My Nominations
1. Eat Your Kimchi – a hilarious expat Canadian couple in Korea
2. Crop Notes And Crafts – a paper craft designer who tinkers with all sorts of other crafts
3. Elentori – a lovely artist
4. NyobeeArts – another lovely artist and friend
5. Mark Crilley – more art!
6. Food Fellowship & Wine – a magazine editor with a passion for food
7. Maangchi – how to Korean food
8. Some Good Eats – another food blog
9. Memoirs of Taste – “A diary of gastronomical experiences and globetrotting adventures”
10. The Usual Suspects – vegetarian and vegan cooking

My Questions For The Nominees
1. What is your favorite food and why?
2. Why did you start blogging?
3. What do you do when life gets you down?
4. What is the weirdest song you know?
5. If you were a color, what color would that be and why?
6. What is the most difficult dish you’ve ever made, and how did it turn out?
7. What is the one thing you can’t live without?
8. If you had the chance to be invisible for 1 day what would you do?
9. Who is your favorite super hero?
10. What is your most favorite thing that you’ve ever done?

As you can see, a Liebster Award shares the same nature as a chain letter. I don’t want my fellow bloggers to feel obliged to participate in this; so for my nominees, please know this is just done for fun and there’s absolutely no obligation to act on this. But if you decide to go with it, do give me a shout as I will be interested to read your responses to my questions 🙂

One Lovely Blog Award

Again, this award works in a similar fashion as the Liebster Award but the rules are somewhat simpler:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to his/her award post.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Nominate 15 other bloggers and let them know about this.

To make things easier, I would like to give an option to my Liebster Award nominees to consider participating in the Liebster Award, the One Lovely Blog Award or both so I shall not nominate any more new blogs for this.