Here I am at the end of my 365 Days of Food blog challenge. Reflecting on the year, I am pleased–and a little surprised–I’ve managed to blog every day. Yes, some days were…um…half-hearted at best, and some posts were written in advance, to be posted automatically on days when I had no internet access. So there was a little fudging, but only a little.

And what did I learn from this exercise?

I gained a heightened appreciation for how much of my daily life revolves around food—planting, caring for, harvesting, preserving, preparing, eating…and cleaning up from all of the above. There were times during the year when I felt that dealing with food was the only thing I was doing, and I wondered if I needed to get a life.

But what is more basic to life than food? What is more fundamental to human cultures than sharing food with friends and family? On the last day of the year, I come full-circle—back to my first blog post of the year:

“[Food] feeds us physically and emotionally. It is an integral part of our celebrations, and is the scaffold on which our days are built.”

After a year of blogging about food, I would add that it underpins our economy, is woven into the fabric of human history, impacts the health of the planet, reflects our personal values, and is an inseparable part of our identity.

Thank you for reading and commenting all through the past year. Though it is the end of my 365 Days of Food challenge, it is not the end of my blogging. There will be more…maybe even a new challenge for next year.

Stay tuned!