Food Blog Round-Up

I want to join in on more food blogging events; the few I've done I've really enjoyed, and found got me motivated to do things I had long intended to do by just kept forgetting about. This 'keep forgetting' thing is a recurring theme, though, since I also keep forgetting to actually join in on even more events. I have at least joined the Daring Bakers (which still has me very excited) and succeeded in baking my little heart out for them; blog post about that is imminent. Since I've missed the boat on these other challenges, I'll simply post about some of the entries I wish I had made/eaten.

• Running with Tweezers hosted a Super Soup Challenge. I'm a soup sucker, especially now that the weather is turning cold again. There were many tempting soups, but my favorite sounding entry was Red Wine and Garlic Lentil Soup over at What Kim Ate - very cold-weather friendly.
• Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice hosted the last Sugar High Fridays, with the central ingredient being figs. I love my figs however they come, and there were a huge number of figgy things to tempt me. The cake that most made me taste fig and feel sugary goo on my fingers was a Fig Preserve Cake made by Lis at La Mis Cucina.
• I've just missed the deadline for the latest Hay Hay It's Donna Day event, held by the Trini Gourmet (ok, the deadline is today. But I ain't gonna make it). The theme is tarts, and I've seen some lovely ones cropping up around the place. The one that has most caught my eye is this Chocolate Ganache Tart with little polka-dots of white chocolate from Linda Kovacevic. It's so pretty, though, I'd feel bad eating it. Maybe.

Enjoy your weekends!

Food Blog Round-Up

I've some how made it through my first week of work back from holidays, and it since it's student induction time it's usually the busiest week there is for my department. A great way to battle the jet lag, I tell you.

So this week's round-up is simply covering things that make me want to eat them. The recipes and the stories I'm currently coveting, and are helping me to escape mentally back to simpler times, back to the time (just a week ago!) when I was on vacation...

• Wendy at A Wee Bit of Cooking reminds me of the pleasures of having an apple tree (sob!) and of making apple-based treats to eat. I do have one jar of apple sauce left which might come into service for this recipe...
• Chubby Hubby has re-created some restaurant-grade macaroni and cheese. There is never a wrong time to covet macaroni and cheese and this one is simply drool-inducing.
  
• Cook and Eat has made some lovely little almond plum cakes in ramekins, which look both simple and fantastic.
• Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice has dredged up childhood memories of my Italian neighbors and their pantry dedicated to home made tomato sauce by announcing that it's her family's weekend to make their sauce. It's this time of year that I wish I were Italian.
  

I'll be spending my weekend baking, rummaging through cook books, and buying tiles for my new kitchen. Not quite holiday, but it's the best I can think of to perk up the spirits.

Enjoy your weekends!

Food Blog Round-Up

I am a woman of passions (naturally) - if 'passion' is a nice way of saying 'obsession'. I have a passion for food, which I believe I have been demonstrating. I hold passionate opinions about things that matter to me, and I love to exhaustively search for things that my mind, some times, tells me I need to search for. I refer to these as my quests; my quest for a good potato masher, for instance, took a good 9 months when I was in my early twenties. When I moved continents, the masher came with me.

The food blogs that caught my attention this week had to do with people talking about things they've been searching for and things they've found that have brought them food-happiness. Both feelings I can empathize with, and I hold I my potato masher to salute them.

• Tamarind and Thyme goes looking for good bibimbop, a great korean dishes with a brilliant name. With crispy rice and a warm yolky egg on top, it has wonderful, comforting flavors and textures to it. The story has a sad ending in that the bibimbop wasn't the end all and be all.
  
• La Tartine Gourmand confesses to an obsession with a eight ball zucchini. More hapily than the last story, La Tartine finds the object of her desire, cooks with it, and shares the recipe.
  
• Habeas Brulee, on the other hand, doesn't so much go looking for the summer squash, but lets the summer squash come to her.
  
• Nordljus lets us in on the secret of one of the favorite garden spots she's found in London, which incorporates peace and quiet with some lovely food at the same time. As ever, the pictures are like something from a photo gallery.

Enjoy your weekends!

Food Blog Round-Up

I was prepared to write about something different in my round-up this week (since I know I concentrate a bit on sustainable food methods and the like) - there was even a smattering of cocktail and drink posts in the blogosphere this week (the Accidental Hedonist's reporting of a mayonnaise margarita being the most..eye catching). But it's also still growing season, and spurred on by a resurgence of food from my vegetable garden, the stories I'm picking up on this week all have to do with growing your own and visiting farms. Celebrate what the summer gives us while we can, me thinks.

• Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini visits a farm near Le Mans, France, and posts a batch of photos from the visit to her Flickr account. It's all very pastoral ideal.
• Cream Puffs in Venice reminisces about the food gardens of her parents and grandparents, and pays homage to her own patch of edible goods. She also calls attention to My Italian Garden by Viana La Place, which is full of trips to Italy and tips for growing your own garden, and accompanying recipes. My order for the book is duly placed.
• Foodgoat has a modest first crop that he displays, but also includes a short video showing the deterrent put in place to assure his garden may grow.
  
• And appropriately to cap things off, Food Musings has a brief...well, musing...from her grandmother expounding the wisdom of eating freshly picked, local foods. Ah, the wisdom of grandmothers.

Enjoy your weekends!

Food Blog Round-Up

I'm still a few weeks away from my summer holiday, and I feel that I need positive holiday thoughts to see me through until then. Mr A&N and I are going to visit my family in New York, stopping in Sweden on the way (bet you didn't think Sweden was on the way to New York from London, did you?). We'll be in Stockholm for a couple of days, and are then renting a house by Sweden's largest lake, where we plan on swimming, fishing, berry picking, and doing a whole lotta nothing. And I am *really* looking forward to it.

So with these languid vacationing thoughts in mind, here's this week's round-up.

• Wendy at A Wee Bit of Cooking has just returned from Sweden and Finland, and not only posts about the experiences, but has left restaurant recommendations for me in there. Both countries look wonderful, and her further post about chantarelle mushrooms can come in handy for the trip too. Thank you Wendy, and hope the start of the new term goes well.
• Italy has been a frequent vacation spot for me, so the slightest whiff of something Italian elicits a bit of a knee-jerk holiday relaxation in me. Just the name of Cream Puffs in Venice's La Festa al Fresco (and event centered around using fresh, seasonal ingredients) has me hooked and wanting to join in the fun.
• The Foodite is traveling in Spain, and during his stint in Barcelona his visits a place that sounds a dream to me: a store devoted to jamon iberico and different types of meats and cheese in general. The pictures are wonderful, and remind me that I haven't been to my favorite tapas place in a while.

Enjoy your weekends!

Blog Updates

I've had a few blog-related updates this week that I thought I'd mention. I've been trying to get more involved in the Food Blogger/UK Food Blogger community, and have been slowly figuring out just how to do that. I'm reading and posting on the blogs I like already, but still crave more involvement.

And so, I have joined the UK Food Blogger Association, and dutifully posted my Getting To Know you introductory post. I have also been added to the Leftover Queen's Foodie BlogRoll , and have been added to the delightful The Foodie List's UK food blogs. Any other tips on how to be more a part of the community will be received with thanks.

Annemarie

Food Blog Round-Up

I started a new book a couple of weeks ago: The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. I read another book by him (The Botany of Desire, also about food-related matters) and vowed to buy any further books he wrote. The Omnivore's Dilemma explores the fundamentals of where modern food comes from; not modern food as in fast food, but as in beef, chicken, lamb. It's not a scare book intended to make you go vegetarian, but by exploring modern farming methods and how they are bad for both the environment and the animal (and ultimately, for us the consumers) it is opening my eyes and making me want to buy local, organic meats.

With those thoughts in mind, a few food things have caught my attention this week:

• Over at Chez Pim, Pim follows Michael Pollan's lead and adopts a cow. Or at least part of one. The return is two gallons of fresh milk a week. If drinking milk didn't make me physically ill, I'd be following hot on Pim's heals.
• One of Pim's readers, the blogger Fresh Ginger, comments that she has a share of a pig. Named Pancetta, it's obvious this little piggie will be pork one day. Ginger promises to blog about Pancetta imminently.
• The New York Times featured two related articles on this theme in the past few months: one by Michael Pollan himself about the forthcoming farm bill, and one about the sustainable methods of raising meat in New Zealand and how their farmers don't live of subsidies. Sadly, the article about sustainability concludes those methods won't float in the US (who ever heard something as crazy as letting a cow eat grass?!)
• Finally, all this thinking leads me to check what foods are at their peak seasonality ths week, courtesy of Eat the Season. I also figure this bit of virtue can help balance out the meaty meal I had at Bodean's earlier in the week.

Enjoy your weekends!

Gourmet Oils and Vinegars

The excellent blog, The Foodie List, today featured a gourmet food site called Oil and More. Based in Wrexham, Oil and More sells - wait for it - olive oils, nut oils, vinegars, and other such goodies. I have my eye on some peppery Tuscan olive oil and a sherry vinegar (which I often find hard to find). There is a 40 year old balsamic vinegar for £82 that I would love to sample but I fear my palette isn't nearly refined enough to warrant that kind of expense. For my more basic oils and vinegars, though, I shall be placing an order very, very soon. In the meantime, if anyone has had any specialty oils or such, let me know your recommendations.

Food Blog Round-Up

Friday finds me feeling fantastic. I have the day off work, for once the sun is shining, and I'm shortly heading out with a friend to go fruit and veg picking. I've never been to pick my own foods (other than the ones I grow myself) so I'm excited about gathering and gorging myself. I'll be targeting strawberries, raspberries, and any vegetables on offer. Hopefully, jams, pies, and chutnies will come of it later today.

This week there have been a few blog posts around about picking your own foods, both the sort you get from a farm and the kind you find in the wild.

• Habeas Brulee has staged an exhibition in Brooklyn's wonderful Prospect Park to gather wild burdock root. She gives both a link to a guide to finding your own burdock as well a recipe for something to do with it once found.
• Brownie points has gone on a soft fruits search and came up with handfuls of raspberries. She also gives a guide for Portland, Oregon residents who want to go on their own searches.
  
• For those of you in the UK, the BBC food site gives a history of the rise pick your own farms, and the pick your own website (which is what I used) lets you find the farm nearest you. It searches farms in several countries - UK, US, Japan, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
  

Food Blog Round-Up

This weekend I will mostly be...baking. Well, that's not even remotely true. This weekend I will be reading Harry Potter, and attending various birthday celebrations, which leaves little time for baking. The Show Us Your Apron event at Lucullian delights, and blogging about my own beloved apron, put me in the mood to be domestic so even if I can't act on it I'll let that ideal stay in my mind.

I have managed to at least get a loaf of bread going, thanks to a post from Greedy Goose in which she makes a kneadless loaf as adapted from Jeffrey Steingarten. The best part of the recipe is that after you combine the flour, salt, yeast and water, you walk away and leave it for a day before you bake it. Perfect. If it turns out well, there will be pictures.

Both Dessert First and Cupcake Bakeshop have some tantalizing, domestic-goddess style desserts featured. In Dessert First, there's an array of berry-based desserts especially for the summer, and my imagination is kicking in knowing that I'll be berry picking next week. At Cupcake Bakeshop, there's a beautiful fig and almond cupcake bombe to drool over. The commitment to making these beauties is humbling at any time, but knowing that the baker also has a 1-month old to look after is even more impressive. Meanwhile, my excuse for not baking is that I want to read a kid's book.

Enjoy your weekends!

Food Blog Round-Up

This week has been a build-up to an event that has been 7 months in the making. For Christmas, Mr A&N and I gave his brother the gift of a suckling pig to roast. It hasn't been sitting and festering in a back room for 7 months, rest assured; it was delivered this morning, and the only condition of the gift was that we be invited to the cooking. I shall be making special piggie cookies for the event (not tasting like pork, simply shaped like said animal) and Mr. A&N might finally be taking the axe to our long-ago-felled apple tree so that we might have smokey (wet) applewood with which to cook the pig. Might, I say.

This is the state of my mind as I go into the weekend, and Food Musings reflects my meaty thoughts, sandwiched as they are between the upcoming pig and the just-gone side of beef. Her trip to a Brazilian meat palace sounds amazing (if meat is your thing).

To balance all that meatiness, a recipe on Chocolate and Zucchini for quinoa salad has caught my attention. I've never cooked with quinoa although I know I ought to, it being a super-food and all. It even involves tofu, so it could be a good karmic balance to all the meat.

And thinking of the karmic balance of eating meat vs. not, local vs. organic vs. none of the above, the Accidental Hedonist has several quick stories musing over such topics this week.

Finally, Brownie Points carriers a story about a miracle fruit from Africa as reported about on NPR. The fruit manages to make sour, bitter things taste sweet, with the obvious bonus that the bitter item doesn't have to be loaded full of sugars to taste good. I'd love to try it, and if I manage to work my way through as much pig and piggie cookies as I expect to this weekend, this fruit might be needed to bring my weight back down.

Enjoy your weekends!

Food Blog Roundup

On my blog radar this week...

• At The Girl Who Ate Everything, she dines on some very tantalizing American BBQ food. There's no 4th of July BBQ for me this year, so I'm living the vicarious dream. What am I doing on the 4th? I'm going swimming with my pregnant friend. How, like, in the spirit of the Founding Fathers is that?
• As ever at riceandnoodles, there are some beautiful photos to tempt you into making the recipes. This Strawberry and Pistachio Meringue has been entered on to the list of things to cook (sooner rather than later).
• Despite my brownie obsession (me obsessed? where's the evidence?) Chubby Hubby might just convince me it's time to branch out...to BLONDIES.
• The Daring Bakers chose as their mass-bake this month to bake my favorite bagel recipe: Real Honest Jewish Purists bagels. Making them has been the only way I've been able to get New York style bagels in London (though I do have to use boiled water in the boiler and prep). Hmm, might be time for me to make bagels now too...