Stacked Veggie Sandwiches on Focaccia with Sun-Dried Tomato Aioli

To quit.

verb: quit or quitted, quitting.

1. to stop, cease, or discontinue
2. to be released from obligation
3. to stop trying, struggling, or the like; accept or acknowledge defeat.

Ooof. Number one sounded fair, number two sounded downright relieving, and then… number three.

To stop trying. To accept or acknowledge defeat. That one stings.

A flip through my trusty internet thesaurus isn’t much better: drop out, give up, leave hanging. Leave hanging? Is that a synonym for ‘quit’? Now I just think thesaurus.com is trolling me.

I have to (begrudgingly reference) an interview Gwyneth Paltrow once gave where she asked her father what the secret was to his 33-year-long marriage. His answer? ‘We never wanted to get divorced at the same time.’

I’ve heard this from other couples, grandparents and great-grandparents who are delightfully refreshing about romance in their age and wisdom. If you both want to leave at the same time, then you break up- but if one of you is still saying “Come on, we can do this” you carry on. It doesn’t, of course, always work this way, but it’s a good story to start with today.

No, Colin and I aren’t splitting up- this is strictly blog matters.

Chelsea and I first started this blog for a number of reasons: we loved to cook, we loved to share recipes, we felt like our background in marketing and design gave us a good jumping-off point. Mostly, I think, we wanted to make sure we kept in touch. Chels and I had forged a solid friendship at work but when she left the firm to work elsewhere, we had to face the fact that we probably wouldn’t see each other very often. Would we remain close if we didn’t share a cubicle partition?

We’ll never know, because we started Port and Fin and it did keep us close. Even if we don’t hang out in person all that often, we’re in constant contact. 90% of the time we’re not actually discussing Port and Fin business but in teaming up for the blog, we solidified what would become a very enduring friendship.

So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, as in marriage, this blog is a partnership. Sometimes I get frustrated, tired, my pictures haven’t turned out, my recipe flopped- I want to quit. We joke about registering the domain JustPortNow.com or PortWithoutFin.com

Other times, Chelsea wants to quit. Blogging is hard work, no matter what anyone might think. It can make cooking, once a source of reliable stress-relief, a chore. All of a sudden, it’s not just about making a good meal, it’s about making something ‘blog worthy’ (a whole new echelon of must-be-excellent, we don’t want to disappoint our readers!). It’s not enough to make something that tastes blog-worthy either, it must look amazing. It must taste like heaven and look just as good. JustFinNow.com… FinWithoutPort.com…

Over the last year or so, Chelsea and I cycle through these. Happy, happy, blogging, happy, Finn’s bad week, happy, Chelsea’s bad week, happy. Mostly happy, still. And we were never frustrated at the same time.

Until this week.

To take a quote from tumblr, I want to do things with my life but I also want to bury myself in a forest and let the moss grow over me, so where does that leave us.

So, what happens when both Port and Fin feel like throwing in the towel?

Ah yes, the X-Factor. We hear all the time of people staying together ‘for the kids,’ well- that’s what pulled us through. Except you’re not our kids, you’re our readers. We stuck it out for the friends and family who check the blog more frequently than we realize, the email subscribers and facebook fans, the instagramers and commenters, the fellow bloggers who have reached out- every one of you make this blog rewarding for us.

It’s hard work, but we’re just not ready to let go of all that we’ve built over these last 13 months. We’re not ready to make an internet ghost town of Port and Fin.

We’re tired. These pictures are, admittedly, not my best work. But the recipe is so tasty and worth sharing and dammit- this blog is worth fighting for! (this is where the coach in our collective Port and Fin mind-palace says a really inspiring speech and then we go out and win the game… or at least lose with spirit? I dunno, sports movies aren’t really my jam.)

And now, at long last, we can talk about this killer sammy! Chelsea will remember this sandwich fondly as our favourite from the deli downstairs from our former office. We always sort of dismissed the Veggie Sandwich in lieu of grilled turkey or ham but one particular lunch meeting, the veg was all that was left. It was the start of a beautiful friendship. Me and Chelsea, that is. Um, also us and the Veggie Sandwich.

Herbed focaccia (recipe here), lots of fresh veggies, sundried tomato aioli… stack it high with veg and eat it over a plate, things might get a little messy but I guarantee it’s alllllll worth it.