It began as an elaborate joke.
In 2010, my friend Christy and I, both editors in different cities for the same nationwide website, had been on the phone discussing search engine optimization and the queries people use to find information on the Internet. We were fascinated by websites that captured readers through common search term misspellings, like 'lisense plates" instead of "license plates."
"You know what would be really funny?" Christy giggled, sending yet another work-related conversation off the rails. "If you had a blog called Kate Just Ate. You'd get all kinds of traffic from people trying to Google Kate Plus 8!"
The idea of building blog readership from careless typists searching for a reality TV show about Kate Gosselin and her brood of eight kids was ridiculous, but because Christy and I shared the same weird sense of humor, I felt compelled to take the joke a step further. As soon as we got off the phone, I sat down at my computer, opened up BlogSpot, and created Kate Just Ate: A log of things I’ve eaten, created solely to entertain my friend, Christy. I wrote my first--and what I assumed would be my only--post, sent Christy a link, and waited. Within minutes, she had upped the ante, responding to my absurd blog with an equally absurd list of topics for future posts.
"You know what would be really funny?" Christy giggled, sending yet another work-related conversation off the rails. "If you had a blog called Kate Just Ate. You'd get all kinds of traffic from people trying to Google Kate Plus 8!"
The idea of building blog readership from careless typists searching for a reality TV show about Kate Gosselin and her brood of eight kids was ridiculous, but because Christy and I shared the same weird sense of humor, I felt compelled to take the joke a step further. As soon as we got off the phone, I sat down at my computer, opened up BlogSpot, and created Kate Just Ate: A log of things I’ve eaten, created solely to entertain my friend, Christy. I wrote my first--and what I assumed would be my only--post, sent Christy a link, and waited. Within minutes, she had upped the ante, responding to my absurd blog with an equally absurd list of topics for future posts.
A week later, Christy was on a quest to find food--the more bizarre, the better--for me to eat and write about on Kate Just Ate. She recommended restaurants, forwarded recipes, and even sent me a 20-pound box packed with all kinds of unusual items she’d found near her home in Orlando. Care packages from Christy were nothing new. She had been sending trinkets and food to my family outside Philadelphia for years. We received Key limes from a tree in her backyard to make a pie, candy for Halloween, homemade treats at Christmas and Hanukkah, alligator jerky…I actually have no idea why she sent the alligator jerky.
For two months, I wrote posts about things I ingested for Kate Just Ate. Many friends seemed to like the blog, but none more than Christy. Though it was a fun project--our project, a bridge over the miles that separated our respective cities--Kate Just Ate never developed much of a following, and as life marched forward, I ran out of time to post. Our jokes about the blog, however, as well as Christy's threats to send me more strange food, continued right up until her sudden, devastating death in the summer of 2013.
The blog remained dormant for years. Though I occasionally considered resurrecting it or firing off one last, goofy post in honor of Christy, Kate Just Ate didn’t feel worth writing if she wasn't around to read it. I knew Christy would have understood my reluctance to revive the blog, but I also knew that my friend, one of my most enthusiastic supporters, had always encouraged me put my writing out there to amuse and, possibly, inspire others.
In early 2018, as I considered ideas for new posts after deciding to relaunch Kate Just Ate, I could hear Christy giggling, "You know what would be really funny?"
In early 2018, as I considered ideas for new posts after deciding to relaunch Kate Just Ate, I could hear Christy giggling, "You know what would be really funny?"
