About Marie Porter
If there was an award for the lifestyle writer who had taken *the* most meandering path to her ideal career.. Marie would be a shoe-in.
Marie began her path of varied careers in the fashion industry, first as a spandex costumer, and later as a designer in the bridal, formal, and ready-to-wear swimwear markets. As a recognized spandex costumer, Marie released her first two books in 2000 - both instruction manuals on creating figure skating dresses.
Marie's "career ADD" started manifesting during her 15 year fashion career, including graphic design (10 of those years) .. and floral design (8 of those years). She was certified as a bridal consultant at the age of 16, received has comprehensive training as a bartender from a leading bartending institute, and became an award winning cake artist.
Awards she has earned include a gold medal at the Upper Midwest Bakery Association convention, the Twin City Bridal Association's ICON award in the "Excellence in Cake Design" category (Judged by Sylvia Weinstock!), and being named the 2012 "Czar of Cakes". Her cakes also landed her as a first round contestant on MasterChef season 4, where she presented Gordon Ramsay with her famous Mango Mojito Upside Down Cake.
These days, Marie Porter is Celebration Generation's publisher and primary author. In 2010, she released her first cookbook, "The Spirited Baker", followed by "Evil Cake Overlord", "Sweet Corn Spectacular", "Beyond Flour", "Hedonistic Hops", "Beyond Flour 2", "https://celebrationgeneration.com/more-than-poutine-favourite-foods-from-my-home-and-native-land/
More Than Poutine", and "Maize Craze".
Left without a kitchen after a tornado destroyed her house, Marie wrote and published "Twisted: A Minneapolis Tornado Memoir", and then moved on to writing a new series of spandex sewing manuals, including "Sewing for Skaters", "Synchro Swimwear", "Sewing for Gymnasts", "Custom Swimwear", "Sewing for Superheroes", "Fitness and Bodybuilding", with a Dancewear title in the works.
About Michael Porter
Michael Porter (Who goes by "Porter"!) is a food/commercial photographer - and, now, mechanical engineering student! - located in Hamilton, Ontario.
Porter's work has appeared in local, and international magazines, in catalogs, corporate websites, and as well as in many online media outlets. He is responsible for the vast majority of photos on the Celebration Generation blog, as well as all of the photography in Celebration Generation books.
In addition to being an awesome husband and photographer to Marie, Porter is Celebration Generation's "Chief Engineering Officer", responsible for all custom builds, equipment repairs, and warp engine emergencies.
His most recent large scale project is rebuilding the Porter house kitchen after the tornado... using lumber milled from the 100+ year old black walnut tree that landed on the house!
Totally badass.
Not only is this the place for us to flesh out ideas and techniques for upcoming books, this blog is the place for us to chronicle... well, everything and everything. A lifestyle blog with the odd rant about something completely unrelated (Bullying, for example!). As a general outline of our new format:
Recipes: Pretty self explanatory! Our recipe section features a wild variety of tasty goodness, from basic techniques, comfort food, and seasonal treats, to recipes featured in our cookbooks. Looking for something specific? To the right side of the screen, recipes are all categorized!
Spirited Living: Anything related to the enjoyment of alcohol: Cocktail recipes, bar techniques, boozy baking, cooking with beer, even recipes for making wine and beer at home!
Celebrations: This blog started out very wedding-oriented, and has morphed from there. Our new "Celebrations" section contains all of our posts related to special events - weddings, birthday parties, holidays, whatever. Learn about a cool wedding product, find our tips for celebrating "Pi Day" in style. It's all good!
Crafts: This section is very much in its infancy, but will be growing. Learn how to make stunning centerpieces, a unique and personal guest book, or a pi day pinata!
Rants: Fondant, Bullying, The Wedding Industry, Immigration, Eurodance ... whatever inspires us to let lose with our opinions!
Enjoy!
- Marie & Michael Porter
We like to rave about people & things that we find interesting, and like to go about doing that, unfettered. We don't do PR-sponsored posts for anything other than products that we love.
That said, we ARE open to having interesting stuff pointed out to us. We're only two people, and can't have our fingers on the pulse of random awesomeness 24/7, you know?
Whether you're a person completely unaffiliated with the "something awesome" you think I'd be interested in, work for the "something awesome" company, or are a PR rep hired by that company, feel free to contact us. If - and this is a big if - we think that what you're pitching would be something we would love, and that our readers would love, we'd be interested in discussing ideas.
Dear readers, we open the blog up to this to be exposed to more cool things, for you. Rest assured, unless we adore something, we will never promote it on this site. When we ARE mentioning something that was pitched to us, we will absolutely disclose the nature of it. Good? Good!