BBQ Junkie began when blogging was emerging as a new way to publish, build an audience, and participate directly in a subject you cared about. Barbecue was already a serious interest of mine, so starting a site gave me a reason to explore both at the same time.
The best way I’ve found to understand a new medium is to make something with it. You learn more by participating than by watching from the sidelines. With BBQ Junkie, that meant cooking, writing, photographing, publishing, and figuring out how people found and used the information.
The technology has changed repeatedly since then, and the site has changed with it. What began as a blog has become an ongoing publishing project built with Next.js, a headless CMS, structured data, and the current tools of the web.
But the technology has never been the subject. Barbecue is. I cook the food, test the recipes, write the articles, and keep learning from the process. The site has lasted because the interest behind it was real.
See it live at bbqjunkie.com.