Happy end of 2009! For those of us at Civil Eats we’re proud to have made it through our very first full year of delivering you, our dear readers (thanks for joining us!), some of the good food communities’ top stories and posts from the front lines of the food revolution.

We’ve published over 640 stories to date with over 420,000 pageviews since January. And, we’ve had the honor of working with so many wonderful contributors from so many different branches of the food community. Managing editor, Paula Crossfield, who’s on a much needed holiday, had this to say, “I have been continually surprised and inspired by the enthusiasm people have had for Civil Eats this year. Looking forward to 2010, we hope to bring more thinkers and eaters into the fold. With all of our heads together we can improve our food system.”

As a bookend to this incredible year, we’d like to share with you a round-up of some of the most viewed, most commented on, and most impactful stories of the year.

We’ve had a number of highlights in our “Young Farmers Unite” series which we hope inspires a new generation of farmers to join this vital profession and stick with it. One of the most popular pieces in the series, titled, “Drive-Through: A Truck Farm Grows in Brooklyn: by Curt Ellis, details the creativity of a group of young urban farmers.

As the “Local Eats” editor, I’ve featured some excellent reporting on inspiring local projects, initiatives, chefs and community leaders in Richmond, Baltimore, New Orleans, Lakeview, VT, Kansas City, Spokane, Auburn, Alabama, Boulder, Columbus, OH, Madison, WI, Atlanta, and other spots across the country committed to a more sustainable future. The story with the most comments and community response was the very first piece in the series, one I wrote on the growing food movement in Indianapolis, “Hoosier Food: Watching the Food Movement Grow in Indianapolis“.

I hope to see more stories, from more cities, burbs, hamlets and towns in 2010. Keep sending them in! My personal goal is to cover at least one project in every municipality in America!

Paula, our tireless managing editor, reported regularly in her “Roof Garden Rookies” series on the growth and development of the garden she started on top of her lower Manhatten apartment building. The most viewed piece was “Building Raised Beds”. Her garden was also featured in the New York Times.

Out of our involvement with Civil Eats, some of us initiated Kitchen Table Talks, a monthly food forum in San Francisco, which has become a wonderful way to take the conversation off-line and into the community. We held six conversations in 2009 with topics ranging from local school food issues to our most recent conversation on the ever debatable topic of genetically modified foods. That conversation brought together over 60 people in a performance space in the Mission District. You can read about it here.

Look for more from Kitchen Table Talks in 2010. We are thriving and have just secured a permanent home on Valencia Street. We hope to engage more people, from more parts of the city and are grateful for the help of the following, without whom it would not be possible to keep KTT alive: Sam Mogannam and Bi-Rite Market for all their catering donations and support, the folks at SUB-Mission Gallery, Sagan-Piechota and Paul Arenstam and his staff at the Hotel Vitale each for graciously hosting us through the year. And, many thanks to all of our wonderful community speakers.