Sarah’s Cucina Bella is celebrating 20 years as a resource for all things cooking for home cooks everywhere. Here’s a look back.
Twenty. Freaking. Years. How did that happen exactly? That’s the question I’ve been mulling this week as today, the official anniversary of the launch of SCB neared.
Unlike many bloggers, I started Sarah’s Cucina Bella with a professional purpose. Though the launch predated monetization, social media promotion and influencers, I intended this site to propel me from my career in journalism covering crime and politics into a new food writing career. I thought I might use this platform for three to six months, and then move on into whatever job it landed me.
Clearly, that didn’t happen. The moving on bit, I mean.
I started hitting milestones — one year of blogging, first viral post, new opportunities secured. Nine years later, it was both the reason I found myself back in a newsroom and writing my first cookbook. And still, I didn’t stop. What I realized was that this site wasn’t just a short term show of my writing capabilities. It was a long term project that was both marketing for me and an actual publication I could shape and control.
What an amazing 20 years it has been. As I thought about this post, and how I would mark this occasion, I started to think about all the highlights of the last two decades so that’s what I am focusing on.
Perhaps the most interesting one happened recently, when I mentioned the anniversary to my daughter. SCB was my work before she was even born, and still she was surprised how long it’s been alive — and how my initial intention gave way to this amazing career.
Highlights of 20 Years of Sarah’s Cucina Bella
I’ve had a front row seat to the birth of an industry
When I hit publish on that first post, I had no idea that I was part of a fledgling industry that would grow, change, expand, struggle, formalize and face so many challenges — on the open web, legally and with the readers themselves. As someone who teaches Professional Blogging at a university, I often refer to much of the last 20 years as the wild, wild west of the industry. But we’ve finally reached the inflection point where blogging has standards and best practices.
Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge how far we — and I — have come.
Over the last 20 years, I have developed with as the industry standard moved from Blogger to WordPress, advertising went from selling out to smart business, design standards changed and adapted, tools came and went, best practices developed and expectations ballooned. This past week, I was at a blogging conference — MVCon, which is put on by my ad management company Mediavine — learning about the next wave of challenges, and the current best practices for social promotion. As I told a few people there, this industry has weathered a lot of storms. AI and what it means for search is just the latest one.
While I remember the early days fondly when there were no analytics or social media marketing to contend with, I wouldn’t go back. The change and development we’ve seen has allowed bloggers to reach greater audiences and expand well beyond what felt possible.
I’ve met so many people and made so many friends
No, Bobby Flay isn’t a personal friend of mine. Yet. But I have met and chatted with him.
One of the great surprises of blogging is how it led to actual real life friendships. Cate from Sweetnicks and I formed an early bond, and ended up traveling together on multiple occasions. More than that, we got together for fun too, especially when we lived close to each other. In 2008, Maris from In Good Taste emailed me about freelancing and ended up becoming a close friend for many years (it took me forever to figure out when we met because our communications go back so far). Kalyn from Kalyn’s Kitchen began blogging about a year before me, and was among the first bloggers I looked up to. She had it figured out early and was so helpful in my journey. I could go on and on about all the people who I have bonded with, talked shop with and worked alongside because really, there are so many. Just this last week, I met bloggers I’ve known for years in person for the first time and it was like we were old friends.
Beyond that, I’ve had the pleasure to meet and talk to so many other industry professionals from TV chefs like Tyler Florence, Cat Cora and Chef Plum, who has done everything from national TV to amazing popup dinners in Connecticut. One of my favorite experiences was with Sam Talbot, who I first met at an event in New York in 2012. When our paths crossed again in 2015 while judging the Maine Chef Challenge together, it was awesome to find that he remembered the event and talking to me during it.
Connections like this need nurturing though, and I’ll be the first to admit that over the last several years, I have been way less connected. But that’s a problem that can be fixed, right?
I’ve had so many amazing experiences
Coffee college at Starbucks headquarters. Knife skills at the Culinary Institute of America. Hanging out in Betty Crocker Kitchens. Judging cooking competitions. Television appearances. Radio. That magazine feature … So many opportunities and experiences have arisen because of Sarah’s Cucina Bella and my work as a blogger.
If I had to choose just a few as the absolute highlights, I don’t know how I would choose so I have included a selection of photos of some of my favorites.
Travel has been among my favorite unexpected benefits of running Sarah’s Cucina Bella. Thanks to blogging, I have been to Seattle, behind the scenes at Walt Disney World and to Minneapolis. I’ve eaten amazing meals around the country, and discovered so much about good food. These days, blogging pays for my travel too, allowing me to take my kids to London, Copenhagen and Italy, among other places.
Food blogging opened so many doors
Early in my food writing career, it was amazing to establish brand partnerships with Mott’s, General Mills, Jones Dairy Farms, Hellmann’s and others. I developed recipes for brands, wrote content for websites, worked with products and even did some product testings. But that’s only one way that blogging opened doors for me.
Opportunities like cooking demonstrations, television appearances and cooking competition judging came because of my work on this site. I wrote for Glamour, SheKnows and other sites thanks to my work here. And when I decided I wanted to return to a newsroom, it was my work on this site and others that made me the perfect candidate for the digital-first future of the Bangor Daily News.
But there’s a reason the collage for this is a collection of book covers. In the last 20 years, I have written 11 books, 10 traditionally published. The manuscript for my 12th book is due in a month. This is total dream fulfillment. When I first considered food writing as my next avenue, the idea of maybe writing books one day seemed unobtainable — an impossibility. But it’s become a beloved part of my career.
Also, you’ll notice two new books in that lineup. The Pizza Planet Cookbook is scheduled for release in March 2026, and is one of the most fun projects I have ever undertaken. Not only did I get to play with pizza in so many forms, but I got to create lore for Pizza Planet to develop the book. And so new, it doesn’t even have a final cover yet: Disney Princess Cookie Party! This book is filled with fun cookie recipes from easy to whimsical. I spent much of the summer testing recipes for this cookbook, and sharing them with everyone I ran into. I can’t wait to share the book with the world in August 2026.
I cook because of it.
I am going to say the quiet part now: cooking wasn’t a passion of mine before I started Sarah’s Cucina Bella in 2005. Yes, I loved good food. But my expertise was more in the ordering takeout realm. But once I started SCB, I started cooking and slowly I realized I liked it. Moreover, I realized that I liked experimenting with recipes. It really came as a huge surprise to me.
These days, I love developing recipes that others will use in their own kitchens. And I love to cook and feed people. Risotto is my favorite dish to make — it’s meditative. There’s no greater joy than having people at my table, eating something I made just for them. And I’ve discovered what my food POV is. I prefer cooking from scratch, but don’t like fussy preparations. That’s where the quick and easy from scratch philosophy I follow came from. I also am a big fan of farmers markets and growing your own food. In fact, deep in the archives are posts about building and preparing raised bed gardens.
My recipes help so many people eat well.
Because the technology has changed so much, I can no longer pull up cumulative analytics for the last 15-ish years they’ve been available. But I can tell you this: Over the last 20 years, I have helped countless people cook dinner, make dishes to share and even learn a little more about cooking. The numbers don’t lie, and neither do the comments.
I’ve also helped people with my non-recipe content, like the frozen meatball showdown my daughter and I did a few years ago (read the comments! It’s a trip!).
It’s a pretty special thing to know that your work is impacting others in a positive way. And it’s also special to know how many people have been following for years, watching my kids grow up and me move through the seasons of life.
Sarah’s Cucina Bella became my unexpected constant
For a site that was supposed to be a transient part of my career, Sarah’s Cucina Bella has had a surprising and huge impact on my life and the lives of my children. My kids had a remarkable childhood because of the work I was doing here. They got to go places and see things I might never have been able to provide alone.
Moreover, it not only led to the food writing career I wanted, but it exceeded all expectations of what that could look like.
So here I am, Sarah Walker Caron, 20 years later, still a little nervous to hit publish because the massive impact Sarah’s Cucina Bella has had on my life, my career and my family is so big. This unexpected constant has been my buoy and my life’s work through marriage, pregnancy, motherhood, career changes, divorce, relationships, breakups, losses, trauma, tragedy, celebrations, and so much more.
If I could whisper in the ear of 25-year-old me with a three month old, who had just quit her job in a postpartum panic and realized she couldn’t possibly actually leave her career so she needed to reinvent, I would tell her that food was the absolute best choice for her pivot.
Food is love, and I am so grateful for everything that my life in food has given me so far. And I’m not done yet.
Thanks for reading.