Recipes Go First
When I’m looking for recipes, I don’t want or need a life story. I just want the recipe.
Google is supposed to show helpful content. I don’t find it very helpful when I have to scroll down a giant webpage to find the actual recipe. I think the fact that you have to use a “jump to recipe” button is an admission that you aren’t giving people what they are looking for up front.
I also don’t see a lot of recipe books that make recipes that are 2-3 pages long and include 15 different pictures. People don’t want that. In fact, most recipes in recipe books don’t even have pictures. This is because people just want the recipes.
For that reason, I’m putting the actual recipe at the top of each page. I’m including useful or interesting information afterwards. And if I don’t have anything to add beyond the recipe, I will keep it at that. Hopefully search engines don’t flag my recipe pages as thin content. If they do, oh well.
The Story of Go Sweet Fox
It started as a Covid Dream
Go Sweet Fox started during Covid when I had a dream about cheesecake. I was walking around downtown Idaho Falls (where I lived at the time) and everyone was like, “Hey! There’s the cheesecake guy!” And I would wave or point back to them. It was a very vivid and strangely therapeutic dream. It was nice to be bringing something into the world that people were excited and happy about. In contrast, in my real life I sued people for stuff as a litigation attorney.
When I woke up, I thought, “I bet I could make a good cheesecake.”
That’s how Go Sweet Fox was born.
Becoming the Cheesecake Guy
I started testing out different cheesecake recipes and ingredients. My goal was to make the objectively best cheesecake in the world. I wrote a little bit about the start of my cheesecake tests.
I tested over 40 different cheesecake iterations (New York Style only). I tested out different ingredient combinations, cream cheeses, oven temperatures, baking methods (ie: whether or not to use a water bath), and down to different types and brands of vanilla. For example, when I tested for vanilla, I made three cheesecakes that were the exact same except for the type of vanilla.
While I did, in fact, discover The Ultimate World’s Best Cheesecake Recipe, I also learned two important lessons along the way.
First, I learned that taste is extremely subjective. I will never create a universally loved cheesecake recipe because everyone’s taste is different. Some people don’t even like cheesecake at all.
Second, I learned that, in general, people experience food as a whole and can’t distinguish individual ingredients. People can’t tell if a cheesecake has pure (and expensive) vanilla or if it has less-expensive imitation vanilla flavoring. Instead, people identify broad issues such as “Do I like the texture, taste, and smell?” They can also easily rank foods they prefer based on these broad issues.
In some ways, these findings were a huge relief.
I went from having to try to create something that will please everyone to only having to please the people who have a similar taste in cheesecake that I do. I went from feeling that I had to scour the ends of the earth for the best ingredients to realizing that people really aren’t that picky.
I’m not offended if you don’t like my cheesecake. Each person can like what they like and not like what they don’t like. To me, it’s more about having a great experience with food.
From Retail Sales to Blogging
I initially set out to just make a blog about cheesecakes and desserts. I did not necessarily want to sell cheesecakes. But as I tried out recipes and talked with people, it seemed like there was a demand for a cheesecake or dessert place in town.
In particular, we found that people like to try a variety of cheesecake flavors. To meet this preference, we decided to make smaller, 4-inch cheesecakes. We found that one cheesecake batch can create five flavors of 4-inch cheesecakes.
My wife and I decided to take a stab at selling these smaller cheesecakes.
We did this through cottage-food-style cheesecake sales. I wrote about my experience selling cheesecake. We sold cheesecakes over Thanksgiving and Christmas. We also did some one-off sales and we even made cheesecake for a wedding (but did not take a picture–oops!).
But, for a variety of reasons, I ultimately decided that I did not want to get into a retail food business. At least not right now.
Instead, I decided to go back to my original intent, which was to create a blog focused on cheesecake.
The Go Sweet Fox Mission
My goal is to make life a little sweeter through sharing.
I’m too fickle to want to run a project that is only recipes. I want to share other things I’m interested in.
I will certainly be sharing food-related posts:
Recipes. The recipes I share will always have the recipe at the beginning of the post and the blabbering at the end. Of course, I will be including my cheesecake recipes.
Taste Tastings. As I mentioned, I ran a number of taste tests when I was creating my Ultimate World’s Best Cheesecake Recipe. In doing so, I created a proprietary Go Sweet Fox Food Rating System. I will be applying this system with treats I try from near and far–starting with the Philippines).
However, I will also share lessons I’ve learned, things that I’m thinking about, and projects I’m working on. This will include topics like raising a large family (we have 6 kids), meal planning, my Filipino heritage, my American heritage, and whatever else I think is interesting.
The Vibe
I’m allowing Go Sweet Fox to be a place where I do not have to be perfect. I don’t know a lot right now about producing videos, running a blog, taking photographs, or any of those things. I’m taking this from an approach of what-you-see-is-what-you-get. My life is not perfect and this Go Sweet Fox project will not be either.
Note to the Reader
This is the vision. It’s not there yet. Hopefully, you will follow along and help it get there! Subscribe below: