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YIPEE!!!
On Saturday night... wait for it... I won the best Irish Food Blog gong at the Irish Blog Awards! They gave me a trophy! A REAL LIFE TROPHY! I have to admit I didn't expect to get so caught up in the whole thing, but when they were calling out the nominees, my heart was pounding. In all the excitement, being a blog awards newbie and not really knowing the crowd I kept the eh... speech (if you could call it that) short and sweet but realised that I forgot to mention all the folks I should have thanked!

So a massive thank you to everyone who nominated the blog, I really appreciate you taking the time to do so. To everyone who comments on the recipes and posts, you make my day! To all those on twitter and facebook who put up with my constant blog plugging and of course, best of all, the people who have tried recipes! Nothing makes me more happy than to hear what people have cooked from the blog and the book. To Damien and the lads who organised the ceremony, you guys did a fantastic job, I will be coming back! A big thanks also goes to the amazing sponsors of the Food/Drink category, Bord Bia, the lovely ladies gave me great support at the awards and have been so helpful over the last few months, sourcing fantastic Irish food suppliers and providing super advice!

A big shout out has to go out to my fellow food bloggers, a group which is growing quite steadily, hopefully we will have a big day out in the not too distant future! And of course to the rest of the nominees in the food/drink category, everyone who was long listed, short listed, and those who weren't.

Finally, I am going to take this opportunity to apologise to everyone who has sat starving waiting while I faff about with my camera trying to make food look beautiful for the blog, now hopefully you can see it was worthwhile! :)

It's been a pretty wild week, I have so many photos to edit that I just haven't got around to, but hopefully normal posting will resume tomorrow! Right, I'm off to tuck the trophy in to bed, it's still settling in, but I have a feeling were going to become great friends! :)

I am very excited to let you know, that this lil' old blog is a now a finalist in the years Irish Blog Awards and will be competing on Saturday night to become the best Irish Food and Drink Blog! It is my first year to make the list of finalists after 4 years blogging! There are some great food blogs in the mix, including two previous winners! You can check out the other finalists here:

• Ice Cream Ireland
• The Beer Nut
• The Daily Spud
• The Grapes of Sloth
• The Good Mood Food Blog

I'm planning a cook up of some of my favourite winter warming dishes this week and wanted to get your opinions! Cast your vote on the poll below and if you have any other suggestions leave a comment! :)

I have finally updated the recipe archive with 14 recipes which have been waiting to go up for so long! Click on the link above to check them out!

Got a really nice piece in the Sunday Independent magazine yesterday, about the blog, book and the band! Take a peak!

The Good Mood Food Blog got a great mention in Irish Tatler! I'm pretty excited about this because it is the blog's first glossy magazine mention! Not only that, I'm interviewed alongside food blog royalty, "The Pioneer Woman" and "Cannelle et Vanille", plus the book gets a great plug! The article written by the Ciara McDonnell, talks about the rise of food blogs and the many different routes and causes each one takes. She also goes on to talk about the increased impact blogging has on modern journalism. It's a great read and features in the July edition of Irish Tatler which is out now! If you want to read the whole article, click on the picture above and I have added it to the press in the about me section.

With it's very 1st birthday coming up on the 23rd of July, I thought it was high time I gave "The Good Mood Food Blog" a bit of a fresher look. I've moved it too it's own domain name here at "www.thegoodmoodfoodblog.com" and finally all the links are available and ready to click on- I'd love to hear what you think of the changes, if there is anything you would like to see here or would like to make any suggestions, please email me or comment below.

I also have some pretty big news! Way back in January, I got an email from Eoin Purcell who had read some of my posts, and was interested in discussing the possibility of creating a book based around the blog. I jumped at the idea and Eoin gave me his thoughts about what sort of direction the book should take and now after months of throwing idea's back and forth, I signed contracts with Mercier Press last week!

I've haven't mentioned anything here because I didn't want to jinx it, but I have been busy putting together the bones of the book and have come up with some really tasty, healthy dishes.

With a looming submission date, I've been making lists upon lists, and it's starting to take shape. I'm hoping to preview a few of the recipe's here, and would really appreciate it if you could try them and give me some feedback. I'll let you know- But until then stay tuned!