With the passing of February 2012, the Scholarly Kitchen can officially celebrate its fourth birthday — and it’s our first belated celebration. We actually launched four years ago last week, but I forgot to write a post about it. Shameful.

In 2008, when Sue Kesner and I dreamed up this little conversation zone, I had a grand total of 29 views in that first cold and lonely month. Granted, the blog had been active only a few days. In March 2008, we did better — 785 views. Now, four years later, we came within a whisker of 100,000 views in a month of 29 days, and continue to grow on a consistent basis. For a niche blog in a niche field, I’m amazed we haven’t plateaud yet.

It’s been an amazing four years. I’ve learned a ton from my fellow Chefs and from our audience. And the accomplishments are worth noting — we were nominated for a Webby, have been featured at meetings in the US and the UK, and are consistently cited in reference works, news reports, and elsewhere.

We haven’t lost our edge, I’m happy to say. We continue to delve into subjects with aplomb, which can leave us either exhilarated, or battered and bruised (or, for those long, difficult posts that inevitably result in less traffic than you imagined, bitter and hurt). But, as the saying goes, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the Kitchen.

The authors here make it happen, both on the blog and behind the scenes. Phil Davis deserves major credit for being active curating comments, cultivating the brand, and writing very incisive posts. And I can’t thank enough the other authors, as well — David Crotty, Joe Esposito, Ann Michael, Rick Anderson, David Wojick, Michael Clarke, Tim Vines, and David Smith. Stewart Wills runs our Side Dishes, and produces a Twitter feed that is unique and always interesting.

Of course, SSP deserves credit for letting us be ourselves, warts and all. It’s a grand organization committed to letting ideas and networks grow and flourish. I hope we represent those goals well.

So, four years on, and bigger than ever, perhaps a little brasher than ever, and happy to have such a great audience, we’re headed back into the Kitchen. We have a birthday cake to bake!