This cooking community has been a dream of my heart for many months now. I want to thank every single one of you who has been here this week. (If you’re reading this and still haven’t yet, please sign up (it’s free!) and join us!) I am thrilled by how many of you have been here, commenting, posting recipes and requests, and just sharing in the community.

I also want to thank again my fantastic group of admins and moderators on Chickens in the Road who help me keep the forum and Farm Bell Recipes running smoothly. I couldn’t do it without them–especially BuckeyeGirl, CindyP, Dede, and Pete, as well as Natalie Cyphers, who heeded my desperate plea for more help on Tuesday. We had, as expected with a new site and so many new features, a few (but thank goodness only a few!) glitches, and my genius designer and tech, Emily from Swank Web Style was on standby all week to fix things up wonderfully as she always does. Thank you, too, for bearing with us!

I’m so excited that you’re here. My recipe box is full of goodies I can’t wait to try (many will have to wait till I get my oven back!), and I can’t wait to see more recipes! I love just reading recipes, not to mention the cooking and eating part. If you love recipes, too, I hope this will be a cooking home for you where, as an extension of Chickens in the Road, you know you are among friends.

I’ve been pointing out features all week, and today I want to highlight your profile area. You can access your profile by your member menu at the very tippy-top of the header on the site. You can write status notes, send private messages to your friends, find comments or questions on your recipes or requests in your activity, and set your notifications. If you don’t want to receive emails about messages or friend requests and would rather read them in your activity, you can set your notifications to no email. Also, please be sure to fill in your profile fields with your interests and feel free to upload a photo for your avatar if you like!

I’ll be writing on this blog several times a week. I plan to try out your recipes and post step-by-step photos. I’ll write kitchen stories here, too, and I’m planning regular giveaways, so stop in at the Farm Bell blog to see what’s new. (Don’t leave me here all a-lonely!)

If you’re interested in contributing a post to the Farm Bell blog (it is intended to be a community blog!), please check out the information page for Farm Bell blog contributors. I’d love to hear from you!

Please feel free to let me know what you think about Farm Bell Recipes on this post–ask questions, make suggestions. Thank you for being here our first week! We’re off and running!