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Hello and welcome to my foodblog! I am back home into the loving,cosy- sometimes suffocating- arms of Malaysia. I only had about 30 hours between actually buying the ticket and leaving The Netherlands (it was a bit of an emergency which is over now) so apologies to Kim Shook and Lindsay Ann for not sending the stroopwaffles (in exchange for Girl Scout Cookies) yet! Short update: Farmboy and I DID go for the relationship visa in the end which I received approval for shortly after (to the jealousy of other foreign spouses who have been waiting for nearly a year). He's coming at the end of June for nearly 2 weeks to meet my family and to get to know Malaysia. It should be fun This was my foodblog's teaser: No, it is NOT a potato! It's a very old-fashioned fruit. That was my first time trying it. This fruit is called buah nanam and I believe it is a relative of the guava family. It's a little sour,slightly bitter (because of the skin which you eat as well) but quite addictive. It is small (about the size of a very large strawberry) and rather flat. I guess it's time for fridge photos. I have a very messy fridge. Freezer Middle compartment Fridge Next: Pictures of breakfast (I woke up late and will have brunch soon) and Ma's Kuih Talam (Malay dessert/snack)

Hello and good Monday morning. Welcome to my Foodblog. First off, let me congratulate Little Ms. Foodie-a fellow Northwesterner and former resident of my home, Spokane, Washington. She correctly answered the location of the 'teaser' photo, and correctly answered the variety of the little berries in the second 'teaser' photo: You are looking East from Spokane through the pine forests to Mount Spokane, the little dark bump in the background. We are in the far Eastern corner of the state, about a 5 hour drive from Seattle to the West. Seattle is a one hour flight from Spokane, which I do every day. Yes, I commute to work on an airplane, every day. I live in Spokane but work in Seattle. The flying bit comes in because I am in management for an airline. That's the day job. Food and writing is really my passion. More on the work schedule later. Now on to photo #2, a personal favorite of mine: Sorry to the folks who guessed these little blue nuggets were wild Maine blueberries. No, they are wild huckleberries. I am so excited that a fellow Washingtonian, (is that a word?), correctly identified the secret ingredient photo. I am making an offer right now to Little Ms. Foodie that I will bring you a bag of wild huckleberries to Seattle later this Summer in recognition of being the first to spot the huckleberry photo. We will arrange delivery details later. Huckleberries are simply the most flavorful little beauties you will ever taste. In fact, I actually have goose bumps right now as I write to you about huckleberries-they are that precious to me. They are about half the size of a blueberry and range in color from red to purple to black. I can't really describe the flavor of a huckleberry other than to say it is sweet yet tart, much more tart than a blueberry. What sets the huckleberry apart in my opinion is it's fragrant aroma-a cross between rose, orchid and just about any other tropical flower you can name. The scent is unmistakeable, and wonderful. If you smell a huckleberry, the aroma will be forever stored away in your senses and then, even 10 or 20 years later, if you smell another huckleberry it will transport you back to that original huckleberry sensation. The subtitle to my blog-Black Pearls of Gold-is in honor of how highly I prize the huckleberry. We pick them wild just a mere 20 miles out of downtown Spokane, our main competition being black bears and grizzly bears. We'll visit more about huckleberries later this week-how my Grandmother used to buy them from an American Indian woman who sold them door to door out of a hand-woven basket, how to cook them and where to buy them. For now, welcome and I hope I've whetted your appetite for what I promise will be an insightful, fun and funny, informative and personal look into my world of food and cooking and how it really defines who I am. I hope we'll form some new friendships along the way and that I'll learn about you and the food and cooking in your life. Now back to the pesky day job for a bit and I'll be back to you soon.

Good Morning from Exeter, ON( Pop: 4,400). Exeter is about 30 miles N. Of London. We're also 2.5 hrs from Toronto and Detroit. When Susan( Snowangel) asked me to blog again, I thought about it for a short while. I said Yes, because this foodblog is going to be a lot different than my last two . I blogged last year with eG member Pookie and the year before by myself. ( you can find the links to my other 2 foodblogs under my signature) A lot has changed since I last blogged. I have 3 part-time jobs and they are all in the food industry. My main job is a Sous/Pastry Chef for a caterer in Grand Bend. I work the second job on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month. I am the Chef for a Senior Dining program also held in Grand Bend. I work the 3rd job once a week although it didnt start out the way it has ended up. When I moved here from California, I couldnt work until I became a permanent resident. My Spouse Robin is a Director for a social service agency and through her I met Shelley. Shelley runs a program that helps young adults with a developmental disability to make a successful transition from school to a range of community participation/activities/work. She matched me up with Marley. Marley is now 19 and has Down's Syndrome. Last year Marley worked at a day care center and she did not enjoy it. I suggested we cook together and that has been very succesful. We cook dinner together at her house once a week. I wanted to start this blog today, rather than Saturday because this weekend is going to be crazy. I'm working for the caterer on Saturday and Sunday. We're catering a BBQ for 60ppl in London( the big city). My boss won't be attending the job so it will just be myself and a server. I'm really not sure what to expect yet. I believe the menu is chicken, salmon and ribs. I'm not sure what the sides are. Here is how the week will go. Today- I'm very excited. I'm going to a food show( sysco) in Goderich. Robin is joining me because before the show, we're going to West Coast Kitchens. We're going to pick out counters, cabinets, etc and then tomorrow West Coast is coming here to give us an estimate on a kitchen remodel. We're going out for dinner too ( buffet Chinese, please don't get me started). Friday- The kitchen people come!! Sat/ Sun- work Monday- Baking for a catering job on Tuesday morning, Marley in the afternoon. Tuesday- breakfast catering, prep for Wednesday Wednesday- I'm filling in at another dining program. Thurs-Sat - work for caterer. Prepare for 3 weddings!! Here is my breakfast. I went to Port Huron, MI yesterday and brought back my favorite cottage cheese. I had that with some fresh berries and a glass of non-fat milk. I'm not a coffee drinker!!

Greetings and welcome to another foodblog from a Pacific Northwesterner. Although I live in Seattle now, you won't be seeing any food from that region for I am on my summer holidays in not-so-sunny Sydney. I have to run off real soon so I'll leave some of the introductory stuff for a bit later. I was asking for advice from some former foodbloggers once I knew I was going to be doing one, and one of them told me that many foodblogs start off a bit slow so I'm going to start this one off with a dinner I just cooked in Melbourne for some of my friends: Melbourne and Sydney are the two largest towns in Australia (although neither are the capital). I did my High School in a small town quite close to Melbourne and so many of my High School friends are still living there. I hadn't been back since I left High School 6 years ago so this was the perfect time to return and catch up with a lot of old friends who I hadn't seen for a long time. As part of my last day in Melbourne, I was going to cook a big going away meal. The main problem I was facing was trying to find someone who could donate their kitchen and house to me hosting a party. It was a bit touch and go for a while with a few people saying they might be able to do it, and then not being able to and I was structuring my menu around being adaptable to any kitchen I would have to walk into but, fortunately, on the noon of that day, someone finally came through and things were very quickly organised. So in the end, I had 2 hours to shop and then 3.5 hours to cook 7 courses for 19 people. Here's what I managed to pull off: The Inaugural Fitzroy Garden Salad - Milkweed, Radish, Apple & Lemon Thyme with a Raspberry Vinagrette. I love using the combination of Radish and Apple and it's appeared a bunch of times in different salads. I'll tell a story of how the milkweed got into the salad in a later post. Someone at the table suggested this salad needed a name and we were dining near the Fitzroy Gardens so that's how the salad got it's name. Irish Lamb Stew with Onions, Potatoes, Parsnips, Turnips, Carrots & Roasted Garlic. This was a great dish for a cold, winter's day and it was deep and hearty with all the different root vegetables. Dead easy to make as well Mushroom Risotto. At this stage of the night, I was pretty drunk so I pressganged people into stirring the risotto for me. The great thing about cooking for friends is, if you're clever, you can push them into the kitchen while you're quaffing red wine at the table and being belligerent. Roast Leg of Lamb with Minted White Bean Mash and Sauteed Silverbeet. The Lamb was rubbed with garlic, rosemary, lemon thyme, anchovies, & olive oil and roasted in a low oven until perfectly medium rare. The beans were pretty magical. I simmered them until almost tender with some trimmed off lamb fat and the silverbeet stems and then I placed the entire thing underneath the lamb when it was roasting so all the fat and drippings dripped down onto it. A bit of mint at the end really brightened it up. The silverbeet was just sauteed lightly with some garlic and chilli flakes and they were great too. Apple & Rhubarb Crumble with a Feijoa Sabayon. Anytime I'm drunk and get to play with fire is a good night in my opinion so once I found out the kitchen had a blowtorch in it, sabayon was put on the menu. Rhubarb was looking great at the market and a crumble is always a good way of doing a dessert without needing much equipment. Feijoa is an interesting and rather unusual fruit. I had never had it before that day and I bought a bunch not knowing what I could do with it. It tastes sort of a cross between sour apple and kiwifruit and, according to wikipedia, it grows in South America and now New Zealand/Australia. It went really well in this dish as it played off both the apple and the rhubarb quite well. Passionfruit Truffles. I always love ending a meal with Truffles now since they're so easy to make but give such an elegant finish to a meal. I hadn't eaten passionfruit for almost a year as they're either impossible to get or absurdly expensive in the US. So when I saw them, 7 for $2 at the market, I snagged as many as I could and just went on a binge. Anyway, I'm going to go be nerdy with my friends now at Dorkbot but I'll post something later tonight (It's 6pm here in Sydney so later tonight means in a few hours).

Now how do I start this? Funny, for a writer I am suddenly tongued-tied (or should I say writer's/blogger's block?). I have never written a blog before and never had an inclination to start one. When I became a member of the eGullet community, I would spend hours reading about food blogs by Ann, Ah Leung, Mooshmouse, Alinka, Torakris, etc. I would marvel at their writing, drool over the food pics, dream about visiting their country. Then snowangel wrote to me and asked if I wanted to do one. I said "Heck, why not?" So now here is my very own blog. To introduce myself, I'm a Filipina who's married to an American, living in South Korea for the past 4 years now. My husband is an English teacher for one of the many language institutes in this country while I stay at home and reign supreme in the kitchen. We have two sons, Jai who is 12 years old and Billy, 6 years old. We live about an hour and a half away from Seoul in a tiny sleepy town of Janghowon. Janghowon has a population of about 7,000 and is mainly an agricultural town. It is famous for its peaches, rice and chili peppers. We actually have numerous statues of peaches and peppers, I'll post pictures of them later. I have always loved cooking. I grew up in a long line of family cooks. My mother is from Cavite City in the Philippines. Cavite is famous for its fiesta food, namely the seafood & Spanish dishes. As a littler girl, I would remember being handed a sharp knife and asked to cut up veggies and meat on my very own chopping board. I never complained because I would be so intrigued in the marvelous preparation of the different viands and sauces. It was in high school when I finally was given a chance to cook for the family and have never stopped since. Now I am married, with kids. Fortunately I have not only married a wonderful guy but a great cook as well. He has cooked for several restaurants and hotels and it is neat to have someone cook fluffy hotel-scrambled eggs for you for breakfast. My hubby taught me how to cook Fried Chicken (he's a Southern boy, from Henderson, Ky), burritos, Ky BBQ Ribs and a lot of mouth-watering Southern dishes. So now, our boys are growing up with vast taste for both western and asian food. It is my pleasure to show you how our typical meals would be during the week and I will also include several Korean dishes (mostly from the local restaurants here). So sit back, relax and let me share my world with you.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- Hunter S. Thompson Greetings, fellow food freaks! Wow, has it only been nine months since my last food blog? Feels like I've crammed a couple of lifetime's worth of changes into that short span of time. And two of the more noteworthy ones are definitely on-topic for eGullet and this blog: --On the weight management front: when last I blogged, I was 20 weeks into my weight-loss project, with about 47 pounds lost to show for my efforts. I am now 60 weeks in, have lost a total of 114 pounds, and am still going strong. All of that progress, along with corresponding improvements in my mobility and overall general health, has been accomplished the good-old fashioned way: no fad diets, no drugs, no fasting, just basic day-in and day-out healthy cooking and dining, plus whatever physical activity my bod feels up to. I have managed to make this healthy eating thing into a way of life that is pleasant and maintainable even for a foodgeek like me; I will be showing you a little of how I work it in the course of this blog. --And regarding the quote from The Good Doctor with which I started this post: since last I blogged, I've finally done it--I have at last managed to slip over the line from crazed amateur food blogger to paid professional food writer. I am now the editor of and a contributing writer for a brand-new restaurant-recommendation website known as SanDiego.Eats.It. As you will see if you follow that link, we are still in beta test mode, so there are still little bits and pieces needing to be filled in. But already it's looking pretty darned spiffy, if I do say so myself. I've been having a helluva lotta fun with my part of this project--if nothing else, I now have a professional justification for my obsession--erm, I mean hobby, of casing every little hole-in-the-wall eatery I spot on my rambles about town. In fact, the teaser photos for my blog were both taken on restaurant rambles that resulted in write-ups: This is the so-called "Goat" salad (goat cheese, dried cranberries, and candied walnuts on mesclun) served by Influx, a lovely modern little coffeehouse in the Golden Hill neighborhood. And this is the beautiful verandah (it seems inadequate to just call it a deck) of Krakatoa, a rather funkier coffeehouse in that same neighborhood. All of which hints at how I manage to stay on a weight loss regimen even while doing my food-writer beat: I put in for the "healthy/light dining" beat. As the blog progresses, I plan to take you all along as I check out a couple of restaurants I might write up in future. Other dining extravaganzas on my schedule for the week include a dinner at The Linkery, an innovative little restaurant that makes some fabulous sausages and other "handmade cuisine," as well as a Saturday dim sum brunch. Ethnic cookery, especially Asian cuisines, remains one of my passions, so there will be visits to various ethnic markets and a cooking experiment or three. And it wouldn't be one of my blogs if I didn't work a food-and-music connection in there somewhere, now would it? For now, I will leave you with this foretaste of things to come: This was my dinner just prior to coming home and getting this post ready: a big bowl of Nagasaki style champon from Dao Son, a very good (and very spicy--"Dao Son" literally translates to "Hot Chef) Japanese/Vietnamese restaurant in San Diego's North Park neighborhood. Onward and outward ...

I have to start cooking tomorrow. I haven't cooked dinner since the beginning of the year. I don't even know where my pots are, but somehow I have to find them. Hi, I'm Jennifer, and this is my foodblog. I have been posting about my kitchen remodel here. for the past few months. With all my heart, I wished my remodel would have been complete on Friday, but there are a few details left to handle (like dusting out my cabinets) before I can begin moving back into my kitchen. With luck, I'll be able to actually start putting things away and getting to know my new kitchen this week. I definitely have to start cooking again, as the homecooked frozen dinners I squirreled away last fall finally ran out at the end of last week. My husband and I live in San Francisco. He's a technical writer; I'm a pastry cook/production manager at a French bakery. We're both "near" 40. Join me as I try to settle in to my new kitchen, adjust to the taller counters and expansive storage, fine tune where everything goes, and adapt to having to cook again. I have a new professional-style range. I'm not entirely sure that I won't just burn everything with the intense heat it produces. Right now it's quite late for me. Typically I go to work about 5. As in a.m. Today, being Easter, I went in at 3, which meant getting up at 2:15 a.m. I did get a nap, but a good amount of wine at my brother's Easter fest and plenty of good food means that by now I'm just about wiped. I apologize in advance for the typos I know are lurking in this, but I wanted to introduce myself and get this foodblog rolling. Answers to snowangel's post of my teaser photo tomorrow. At least one of you had one ingredient right. See you tomorrow morning!

There is nothing as comforting on a cold winter night as a big bowl of soup; walking into a home with the aromas wafting through the air and heat radiating from the stove top is most inviting. This is heart and body warming stuff. It helps thaw out your toes and restore your spirit. Now, of course, there are some places in this world where a pot of simmering soup in early February is more welcome than others. Were we sitting on a beach on the coast of a Caribbean Island, we might prefer a frozen beverage more than a bowl of chicken noodle soup. But from the shores of Lake Michigan to the upper reaches of the Mighty Miss to the wind-swept Canadian Prairie - where the snow reaches your waist or higher - there's nothing better. We bloggers are proud Northerners. We are diverse and yet the same. We are cold, but know how to overcome that. Pull out your soup pots and get your bones simmering. Share a week of warm and hearty meals! We're cooking soup this week - and looking forward to cooking with you.

Good morning, y’all, and welcome to the party chez Therese. As per the teaser, this week’s foodblog does indeed come to you from Atlanta, where I live with my two children (hereafter known as Girl and Boy) and husband (hereafter known as The Man). Girl is 11, Boy is 14, and The Man is old enough to know better. Atlanta’s huge: the total metro population is about 4 million, and there are no physical boundaries to growth like rivers or mountain ranges, so people just keep moving (and commuting) farther and farther out of town. Atlantans can be divided into ITP (inside the perimeter) and OTP (outside the perimeter), the perimeter referring to the interstate freeway that encircles the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods, separating it from outlying suburbs. The politically minded may note that these areas could be designated red and blue. I’ll let you figure out which is which. We’re about as ITP as it gets, with home, work, school, and restaurants all in walking distance. The neighborhood’s called Druid Hills, the setting for the play/movie “Driving Miss Daisy”. The houses date from the 1920s, and because Atlanta has so little in the way of “old” buildings the neighborhood’s on the National Register as a Historic District. Charming, sure, buts lots of the houses need some updating, and ours (purchased in 1996) was no exception. So we remodeled last year, including an addition with a new kitchen, and this week’s blog will look at the finished product. So, some encouragement for those of you presently involved in kitchen renovation, some ideas for those who are considering it. But never mind all that for the moment: What’s for breakfast? Dutch babies, that’s what. And even better, these Dutch babies are produced by my children, the aforementioned Girl and Boy. The first picture is right from the oven, the second is after the somewhat messy job of sifting powdered sugar on top. They are delicious (the Dutch babies, I mean, not the children) and a great weekend treat. The Man drinks coffee in the morning whereas I prefer tea. He's not up yet, having played poker last night. I'm hoping he makes it out of bed in time for dinner. I also eat fruit whereas he prefers, well, anything but fruit. This is not such a bad thing, as it means that I don’t have to share the fruit. Pomegranates are a pain to eat, but not so bad if you’re reading the newspaper at the same time. This one’s from California, but you can also grow them here if you’ve got enough sunshine (which I don’t).

Good morning, everyone. Let me begin by saying I am freakishly excited and quiveringly nervous. Let's begin, then? I often eat a multi-stage breakfast, as you'll see shortly. This morning I slunk out of bed at 4:40 to make it to a 5:15 Pilates class (I only do this once per week!), drinking a small coffee adulterated with General Foods International Coffee (vanilla flavor - an on again, off again addiction) on the drive over. After class, and partially awakened, I head over to work and eat a greens bar on *that* drive. Calories of any sort after being at the gym is always a good idea. Finally, at work, I have my customary cafe au lait with crappy work brew and nuked 2% milk, and a small bowl of plain yogurt with handful of granola and a little bit of leftover "breakfast" quinoa from lunch yesterday. My camera phone takes an awful picture, I know, but some visuals are better than none, I hope: Bad photo #1: Bad photo of freaky yogurt quinoa mush #2: More to come, and better pictures - I promise. Andrea http://tenacity.net [edited to change photo links]

So, it’s the morning of the 19th, and it’s my turn on stage. Oh, no! I think I’ve forgotten my lines, even worse, it appears there isn’t a script! How do I keep up the high standards therese set in her blog? Help! Deep breath, I’m sure I’m not the only one that gets food blog stage fright… Ok, OK…Start with the basics… Well, I grew up in Montana USA, moved to Alaska USA after uni/with husband (husband is from Alaska). After 4 years in Anchorage we moved to Melbourne Australia. We had a 2 year temporary visa but ended up staying 11 years. (Don't worry, we did actually renew our visas! ) Then just a few months ago we decided to take an opportunity that has brought us to Dubai UAE. And that’s a looooong way from Montana in more than just distance! To prepare for this week I did what I usually do to plan food. I grabbed some of my food mags and some of my cookbooks and paged through to find somthing I felt like cookin'. There's often not a rhyme or reason to what I pick, it just sounds fun to make! The thing I’ve done the most this past year is make bread and I’m very proud of some of my efforts. This week I want to give Ciabatta a try and I, of course am open to hints in making it! Of course I'll just HAVE to go out for a meal or two this week. Sometimes that's hard to fit in with all the stuff I organise to cook but I'll just have to make the time, now won't I? therese asked loads of questions of us last week and I’ll be asking some too. Difference is I don’t know the answers! I’m still trying to identify things at the supermarkets! Before I forget, I need to say thanks to my friend Amanda who sent me the quote in my signature just in time for my blog and without even knowing I was gonna be doing this! (doing dance of joy now since I made it over the initial posting!)

My name's Rochelle. I think I had the original foodblog here on eGullet--I blogged twice a week for six months while I was a student at L'academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, MD. (Lookie here if you're interested.) I go back and read that blog sometimes and I'm amazed at how many stories are within--my journey from amateur to professional started there, yes, but I was also journeying from vegetarian to omnivore. Culinary school isn't the end of the story--not by a long shot! I've been busy working on all the things I wanted to do in the culinary field since graduating. I have a steady cooking job, I teach little kids cooking skills at a day camp in the summertime, and I started writing for a new local magazine on area food recently. Cooking, writing, teaching--these are the reasons why I wanted to go to culinary school, and I'm fortunate to be able to do them all. So what do I do for my regular job? I am the chef for the sorority Zeta Tau Alpha at the University of Maryland. I embody the cliche chief-cook-bottle-washer. I control the food budget, I set the menus, I order the food, I put the food away when it arrives, I cook the food, I wash the dishes afterwards. I can't blame anybody but myself when things go wrong. My boss, the "house mom," is not a cook--the few times I've been unable to make it because of illness or weather, I've ordered food from a place near campus and arranged to have it delivered. (Big food budget bite--that's a last resort.) I love the level of responsibility this job requires, and I enjoy getting to play around with food for the 34 girls who live in the house. They're good eaters--many do watch their weight, but others tuck enthusiastically into beef burgers or linguine alfredo. I cook lunch and dinner, Monday-Friday for them. There's no dinner on Friday, so Friday's a short day (thank God, my feet are starting to kill me by then!). I rarely work into the night or on weekends, but I plan to go in for a few hours tomorrow to start getting ready for Tuesday, when I run two special events in one day (a record for me!). But more on that later. When I'm not at work, I don't cook all that much. I used to, but I'm a little more tired of it than I was when I started this job. I cook mostly simple American food at home. It's easy and satisfying. I still haven't decided what to make for dinner tonight though, so we'll see what happens. My parents are visiting next weekend so I expect to cook something a little more interesting for them. I have two ducks in the freezer, so they're sure to figure prominently. Suggestions welcome. So far today, I've consumed a bowl of oatmeal (the rolled kind, from the bulk bins of the natural foods coop we belong to)--with a touch of butter, a little milk, Trader Joe's Golden Berry Blend, Penzey's cinnamon, and a tiny bit of brown sugar. Big mug of coffee alongside, which I am nursing as I write this post. I was working my way through some coffee with chicory from Community Coffee but I ran out. So today's is the dregs from Costco's in-house coffee roaster. I have a big sack of beans from the local Mayorga Coffee Roasters which I am eager to break into. Hopefully tomorrow. I am a big fan of coffee though I am no coffee connoissuer. I drink decaf almost exclusively. I have enough energy without the drug. I will try to get photos into this blog when possible, but I make no promises. There's only one computer in my house with photo-editing capability, and my spouse is on it most of the time since it's his desktop. (He's a doctoral candidate in the school of music at UMD, which makes my job super-convenient. When he's on spring break, so am I. We shared a langorous winter break together recently--five delicious weeks, two of them in Paris.)

Good Morning everybody. It's just before 6 am here and I thought I'd start this off before I get ready for work. As I’m still relatively new around here, let me start off with a little intro. My name is Pam and I’m single and living in Winnipeg, Canada. When I was young my parents started a catering company called Desserts Plus. I grew up in the business – as most children of small business owners do. Our building was close to my school – so I would often walk over after classes and peel potatoes or wash dishes or do whatever else needed doing. I went off to university in the big-ole US of A. Got my degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management and returned home. After a BRIEF stint with a large-chain restaurant, I thought “this sucks” and quit to go back to the family business. Over the years the business has been different things. It started with the baking of high-end tortes … then it became a full-line kosher catering company… occasionally we’ve had a restaurant and run the food services in other locations (one summer at a golf course, one year at the Asper Jewish Community Campus and one school year at St. Boniface Collage – a French language University in Winnipeg). The largest part of our company now is actually retail sales. We bring in kosher products from other cities and wholesale/retail them. Somewhere along the way, I discovered the thing I enjoyed the most was creating new recipes. After a good time procrastinating, I put knife to cutting board and pen to paper and wrote my first cookbook. Since it was published, I’ve started writing a bi-weekly food/recipe column for the local Jewish newspaper (Jewish Post and News) and have been working on getting things into other publications (which finally happened last week/this week with some of my stuff appearing in a paper in LA, Vancouver and the Jerusalem Post). Yay! A typical week for me usually has me testing recipes. I luck out and often only have to try something a couple of times. There have been other occasions when I’ve had to try something at least 15 times before it worked the way I wanted it to. This is not a typical week. This week my mother, father, one other staff person and I will be preparing food for about 150 families. We’ll be feeding more than 1000 people over two days. The kicker is that EVERYTHING has to be prepared for pickup this Friday afternoon. So, I’m going to show you what I eat this week (don’t be expecting too much) and I’m going to show you what it’s like to prepare this food. I’ll go into what “kosher” is – and I will explain what I can along the way. I’m not sure how detailed this should be. I don’t want to bore you! If I’m going on too much, somebody nudge me and let me know. If I’m not explaining enough for you, PLEASE PLEASE ask. I’m happy to answer what I can. I know that there are some very knowledgeable people on eGullet who I would be happy to have helping out answering any questions. This blog is starting in one of the busiest weeks of the year for us… so I will try to post whenever I force myself to take a break. Towards the end of my week I’ll actually be enjoying a couple of days off – so if I miss anything I promise to try to catch up then. **Disclaimer #1 - I am not at all orthodox (religious). I’m hoping to get some photos at my family Seders this week and will be posting on the Sabbath. ** Whew! Let’s get started.

Hi! I guess I should begin by introducing myself. Call me kew ('kyü), short for Qistina. I live in Malaysia's model intelligent township about 50km from the capital city Kuala Lumpur, and adjacent to the new administrative capital city Putrajaya. I am a SAHM, with 4 kids ages 4 to 12. I quit working about 8 years ago to concentrate on being a full-time Mommy. 6 years ago, I began baking goodies at home for sale, mostly to friends, family, and acquaintances. Back in the 80's I had the opportunity to live in Canada, where I studied Computer Math at one of the universities in Ontario. I loved it there, and still miss it very much. Given a choice I would have stayed there and work, but I had to come back. After about 2 years of being back and working in the field of my training, I realized that I didn't want to be holed up with machines and data all day long and eventually found myself in Personnel/Human Resources. I enjoyed what I did very much. I was first assigned to the Recuitment Section, then on to Compensations and Benefit and later to Employee Relations where I was also in charge of the cafeteria. We had about 4000 employees working round the clock on 8 hour shifts then. The cafeteria services was leased out to Gardner Merchant of the UK and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them. During that time, our cafeteria was known to be the cleanest and the best within Penang. I really loved my job, but when I was pregant with my third child, I decided that being a Mommy is more important to me. So, when my oldest child entered kindergarten, I quit my job. It was then that I had time to dabble with my other passion which is baking. My Grandma was a baker and my Mom, although she didn’t really pursue that as a career, loved baking and always did so for friends. Apart from the baking, I also now have a small home-based web services business. I should warn you that we don't eat any designer or elegant food at home everyday. And I hardly plan out in great detail as to what we'd eat. Gone are those days. Now, I much prefer to take it easy, so to speak, and work things out according to the changing demands. Some days I cook, other days I just want to be lazy. Weekends are rest days, we eat out. Breakfast is usually a hurried affair of bread or cereal and juice or milk for the kids before they leave for school. DH, he just wants a cup of coffee. And as for me, I eat whatever I want. Today, I had a Butterfinger Wafer for breakfast followed by some ice-cream. Butterfinger Wafers are not available here - we received a box of goodies from a friend in the US - hence the excitement And I needed to be real quick about it. I had a cake to deliver this morning, some 40km away and then come back in time to pick up my little girl from kindy. I seldom eat lunch because the kids have lunch at school and DH works too far away to come home for lunch. So, mostly I will talk about what we have for dinner. But I will try to eat a proper lunch the next 3 days. And you've been warned, it will be nothing like those you've seen before .... where you see them prepare/eat elaborate and elegant food. Everyday meals are a simple affair. And as I am currently over my head with things (but I've been asked to blog for several times that I feel guilty of saying no ) , I don't foresee preparing any time-consuming dishes. I will blog for the first 4 days and then TeePee will take over the next 3 days. Perhaps, we can see the similarities or differences between what a typical Malay family (mine) eat for everyday and what a Chinese family (TeePee's) normally eat. Feel free though to ask questions and I will try my best to answer them. I will talk about today's dinner in a bit. It's only 5:30pm here now and we don't eat dinner till about 7:30pm or so.

If I wasn't a chef I'd definitely be into cooking. Well I used to be into cooking......and I'm actually not a bad cook but it just doesn't fit into my life style anymore. I suppose that sounds weird so I better explain myself. I spend all day everyday preparing food for other people that when it comes to thinking about what I'm going to eat and preparing my meals, I'm totally spent. So I've fallen into the habit of eating whatever requires the least effort to aquire. So I'm guessing most of you would think, "o.k. so she eats alot of easy meals, like sliced fruits and vegetables, quality cheeses and breads, simple pasta dishes etc...." but you would be wrong! That type of eating requires effort, typically more effort then I attempt on working days. I'm a Pastry Chef and well what's effortless around me to eat, is: pastries. I feel like I need to post this. Warning: I apologize to all of you in advance, because this blog will probably scare you. The following eating has been done by a professional and shouldn't be attempted by non-professionals. I'm not writing that as a cute ploy (cause it's not cute, it seems pretty stupid right now) but it's true. I have a feeling I might been seen as the poster person for horrible eating habits. My eating habits are extreme and so I'm highly embarrassed to expose this to you all. But my love for all things pastry and desire to share override my embarrassment. My days off of work are Sunday and Monday. That's when I do eat more normal/healthy meals. Although, I've been panicking and thinking I better actually prepare "meals" during this week......so I won't be embarrassed.........well, we'll see.... that depends upon what's happening at work and how much time I have after work. I do sort of start my day off like everyone else, so I'll start my blog off like others too. Bear witness to this, my daily breakfast: Technically the container it comes from says it's "Gourmet Cappuccino, French Vanilla".........but I don't know of any real cappuccino drinkers that would let this mixture pass thru their lips. O.k. soooooo it's sort of like a hot chocolate/coffee mix and nothing like a real cappuccino. I used to drink real coffee, but my system can't take it anymore and it definitely can not be consumed by me when my stomach is empty. I tried to very hard to switch to becoming a tea drinker, but it just didn't take. I never prepare breakfast at home. If I'm starving I might grab a couple cookies or whatever is fully prepared laying around and instantly ready to eat. When my husband is home we do always eat breakfast, he can't live with-out it (that means he gets really cranky with-out it). But then it's rarely prepared in our kitchen but sometimes he likes to cook. We normally go out for breakfast every weekend. This weekend we were busy gardening so we ate what was available 'instantly' at home.......because I actually had something at home to eat. Here's what our breakfast this past Sunday consisted of: (I hope it's o.k. to talk about past meals too?) I took the photo of the rolls that were left and then I proceeded to finish them off while typing. I had made too many of these at work for a brunch party we had. They didn't all fit on the serving platter so I snook the extras home for my hubby. He really likes these! As we ate, he talked about how we should open a store selling only pecan sticky buns, blah, blah, blah. Of course he's thought up the easy to imagine name of the company and what our sales literature would look like. "Let's call it, Sticky Bunns and have a photo of two buns looking like a "back" shot." That's cleaver..........I teased him. Knowing full well we'd never actually start another business.....but we had a little chuckle over the whole concept. I have to leave for work and I'm not certain when I will return online. So I'm going to pack in as much info. as possible so you can barely get thru these opening posts before I return. This is me, exactly like how I work, when I'm at work (I'm preparing these posts in advance, on Monday and I've got my photos all loaded and ready to go in advance). I hate getting caught short so I ALWAYS work as much in advance as humanly possible..........and I always seem to go over board!! I'm shaking my legs as I type unconsciously (until now)......that's me too, always got to be in motion, ready, ready, ready. Wait, I suppose I should get this out of the way. I wouldn't want to break tradition and not post a animal member of my family right off the bat (I think thats the 'hook' to these blogs. We're are more then mear foodies, we are also a bunch of animal lovers.). It's very rare that I sit at the computer by myself. Just like everyone else I too have a cat that is certain he must accompany me at all times when I'm on the computer. That's his job and he does it to excess just like me...well he is just like me, too much. He's certain I'm his sole mate (cause he treats me like another cat not a human) and he's always at my side when I'm home. When I sleep he checks me all night to make sure I'm still alive (he drives me crazy! and sometimes he bites me). This is Hawkeye: He isn't a cute cat, his legs are far too short for his long body with his front two legs being shorter then his back two. Nor is he sweet, we often refer to him as "the devil cat" and our other cats definitely agree. He was the last kitten of his litter sold at the animal shelter....well the last kitten from all of their adoptive cat litters. We're certain there was a reason for that (but, I love him dearly anyway). I believe what our whole family eats is fair game for blogs so I thought I'd mention Hawkie only eats to survive. Sometimes when he's laying in front of me at my computer I hear his stomach growling. He forgets there is always food out to eat or he just hasn't linked the feeling of an empty stomach can be solved by eating. I have two other cats who live to eat and if I can't think of anything else to write about I'll drag them into this blog too. Hum.........what else. Oh I remember, I was going to show you where I work, the kitchen, my ingredients etc... in my intro. to welcome you into my work life. I took photos already (just to be prepared) so I'll post a whole bunch of them so you can get the lay out. If things go slow at work I'd be happy to make anything pastry wise anyone wants to watch me eat. Most of my eating takes place at work, heck I eat all day long at work so I believe that makes most of my work fair topic to post about according to the blogging rules. I was sort of hoping to focus on my work as a pastry chef throughout this blog. I'm open for requests. Any requests, like: do you want to see my actual work/pastries (which I do eat, all day everyday) and what items: petite fours, breakfast pastries, cookies, cakes, wedding cakes, novelty cakes sweet tables, candys, anything about the savory side at my work (I eat their food too), photos of what I've made previously (I certainly tasted all of that), photos of what my day consists of as a pc (I eat constantly thru that), requests for recipes or techniques I can show (before I eat it)????? ...............Oh, maybe I should mention that I live about 1 1/2 hours drive from Chicago in the Northwest suburbs. I could take you on a tour eating my way across Chicago-land bakeries on my day off, if that interests anyone (besides me)? Wait, while I was typing the other two cats desided they needed to be included. I promise no more photos of pets........maybe a cutie kid photo thrown in later....... if you all begin to fall asleep.

I'm Tammy. This is Liam: Some of you may remember my foodblog from October of 2003, when I was pregnant with Liam and eating every 2 hours to stave off morning sickness. Well, the little guy's not only been born (April 26, 2004), but is eating food of his own now, so it seemed like it would be a good time to blog again. I know my teaser said "babyfood blog" but that will just be a small part of the week's activity. I will be blogging his meals as well as my own, but I'm taking advantage of my week of foodblogging to do some other fun stuff too. I don't do much cooking these days because I live in a cohousing community where we eat meals with our neighbors several nights a week. (I'll be posting more about that in just a little bit.) But I do make most of Liam's baby food myself, since it's cheaper and better tasting than the jarred stuff and I try to cook organic for him as much as possible. I'll share a recipe for baby food that - mixed with a little salt and lots of lemon juice - would make a lovely dip for pita chips. :-) Later in the week I'll be attending a cheese tasting at Zingerman's, a pretty famous deli/specialty foods store here in Ann Arbor, MI. And we'll seek answers to my weekly challenge of finding a restaurant that can accomodate 8 to 10 adults and an equal number of babies, most of whom need high chairs. Liam started his day off with his favorite beverage - mama's milk, straight from the tap. I work 3 days a week and on those days (Monday-Wednesday) it can be a challenge to get out the door and to daycare and work on time. So Liam goes in his high chair and I give him some finger foods to snack on while I get his bottles and lunch food ready. We're pretty much creatures of habit at breakfast time, so today's breakfast was mostly the same as yesterday's - half a banana, half a piece of wheat toast, and 2 ounces of plain organic whole milk yogurt. He starts with the banana and toast, and then when I sit down to eat my breakfast I feed him the yogurt - he's not so good with spoons yet! But he ate really quickly today and I needed time to finish this post, so added a special bonus to his breakfast - Cheerios! (Well, Purely O's, the organic equivalent). Breakfast for me today is a bowl of frosted mini wheats with skim milk, which I'm eating while I'm posting this. Now it's off to work - I'll be back in a little while, looking for your advice on what I should cook for 30 or 40 of my neighbors on Sunday night.

Now you are probably wondering about the title.... My past two blogs covered big events here in Japan New Year's blog Undokai (sports day festivities) blog Currently there is no major event going on in Japan so I have decided to focus this blog on modern and traditional Japan and how they are combined in daily life. There are a couple things going on this week. Today (April 5) is the first day of school, the Japanese school year runs April- March) so in about 15 minutes I will go outside with my daughters to send them off to school. (yeah ) Mia is going into the 4th grade and Julia the 2nd. My son Hide will go back to preschool on Thursday. This time of year is one of the most beautiful in Japan, it is cherry blossom (sakura) season and the trees will all be in bloom by the time my blog is over. I will take tons of pictures of these trees as the area I live in has them lining all of the streets. it is just gorgeous. oh yeah and we will talk about food too!

Hi everybody! Breakfast on this sunny Saturday morning is a small bowl of milk & granola: When I am not Chufi, I am Klary, and I live with my husband and 2 rats in Amsterdam. I work parttime and when people ask what I do on the days I don't work, my answer is: I'm always busy with food I'll be taking you on a tour around my favorite shops and foodplaces this week. Ofcourse I'll get some cooking and eating done as well! I hope my english will hold up. If you don't understand me, please say so and I'll try to explain! off to the shops now, see you later

So here we are in an internet cafe in Siem Reap Cambodia, sharing a dial-up connection with a handful of locals. We've been traveling for two weeks, we're blogging the last week of our vacation here. In the past two weeks we've been wandering around Thailand, we were fortunate in our inability to extend our diving trip in Phuket last week so we were safely up north in Chiang Rai for the earthquake and Tsunami that trashed the beach we were staying on a few days earlier. We spent the past two days in Phnom Penh which was surprisingly enjoyable. Good food, nice people, and traffic that makes my driving look calm by comparison. This morning our first meal was on a converted cargo plane flying from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. We'll add pictures once we find reasonable speed net access. On a 45 minute flight on President Airlines we were fed a bag of peanuts and what looked like a croissant but was egg bread with some sort of coconut jam inside. When we checked into our hotel this morning we had a proper breakfast (for the country we just left) of rice porridge with chicken, scallions, and celery tops - the usual condiment tray of chili powder, sliced chilis in vinegar, fish sauce, and sugar was provided. Some pineapple, papaya, orange juice that tasted more like flat orange soda, lipton tea, and a doxycycline pill rounded out the meal. We're off to Angkor Wat for the day, we'll check in again tonight - hopefully with pictures. MsMelkor & Melkor

my name is mongo jones and i once selected "revolution #9" three times back-to-back on a jukebox in a los angeles bar. the jukebox was shut off 3 minutes into the second playing. i'm just saying. see you all tomorrow. and if it all ends in tears, recriminations and mass-excommunications blame adoxograph.

Hello and Good Morning, foodbloggers! For some reasons I was tagged/untagged/tagged again. All within the last 48 hours. Just to give you an idea of the drama. I had no idea about the nature of the foodblog before. Now I'm the one who has to continue after Mongo's blog. Do I need to say more? Oh Gods, what is my sin? Is this a Hiob test? Please note, eGullet is about the only place where I have to deal with writing English language. I'm working part-time as a translator for English/German technical documentations. But writing in an foreign language is a different animal. Forgive in advance. And if anyone is tempted to answer, please translate the coolest, latest slang expression for me. Ok? It's now 7 in the morning here on a gray, rainy summer day in Erlenbach, a village near Zurich, in the German speaking part of Switzerland. That's the place where the blog is going to stop for a week. (Geographically, tiny Switzerland is the watershed of a continent. Within a circle of 50 kilometers, there are the springs of 4 rivers, each one reaching a different sea around Europe. ) I've grown up in this country where I was born about 50 years ago. My mother was of mixed Italian/Swiss origin, my father is a Bulgarian immigrant. For 19 years, I'm together with my beloved Beatrix. We built a home 4 years ago and now, we are living together here. I'm a bit tired today, because yesterday I visited a wine producer working at the majestic lake of Geneva. This producer devoted all his energy to variety called "Chasselas", a variety known to the Aegyptians already. It's cultivated at the border of the Lac Léman (the lake's real name) for some 900 years. This wine is generally not in high estem with the elitistic wine community (and Switzerland doesn't export almost any), but what Pierre-Luc Leyvraz achieved with his tiny production is a truly oustanding apéritif wine. Until now, it's a almost a grassroot evolvement. I have to unload 120 bottles this afternoon. On the way home, I stopped in Gruyére (the town) of course and bought some Gruyère d' Alpage (the deleicious summer, mountian variety of Gruyère, produced on spot by hand. Etivaz as a reperesentant of that Gruyère variety), a piece of Gruyère Surchoix (more mature than regular Gruyère) and some Extra-Vieux (Gruyère matured for 18 months). Now I'going to prepare some coffee and to walk over to my bakery to pick some fresh croissants. Afterwards, I've got some work to do. So again, foodblog community: Hello! We are going to spend an easy, less exciting week (we all need that after Hurricane Mongo, no?) and I try to give you an impression of our food and how we live here.

Boris kindly told me on Sunday that he was tagging me. Gave me a day or two to panic. Boris showed us a lifestyle and an approach to food that's a hard act to follow. Living and eating gets the big Tokyo squeeeze some days, and Tuesdays are a prime example! Later I want to show you some summer pickles (which involves some time-travel, since I started pickles on Monday so that they would be ready before blog week was ovr), some other preserved foods we make, and also talk about family cooking in those years when the house has more hungry mouths than bulging purses, and family schedules are fuller than the fridge! Meanwhile, this is how my blog really started... I got home around 4pm, to find my office at blood heat, and son1 using a mood-altering substance - an ice cube on a saucer, which he hoping would make him feel cooler while he studied for a test tomorrow. He and son2 consumed a cob of sweetcorn each (from a bag bought off the back of a farm truck which often comes round selling veges at weekends). Son2 grabbed a bottle of cold barley tea and a stick of string cheese, and headed off for 2 hours at cram school. Son1 and I dismembered some of the green soybeans and whorled mallow I had bought at a vege stand on the way home, in the interests of his science test tomorrow. By that time, son1 was HUNGRY again, but we didn't eat till 7:30, when son2 came back from cram school. Husband ate when he returned home after 10pm...pretty normal hours for a Tokyo worker. The rice includes an umeboshi cooked in with it to keep it fresh in lunchboxes tomorrow (bad wife! bad mother! should be up at 5am to cook rice...). The soup bowl (before miso soup was added) contains a fish sausage with a stick of burdock in the middle, and HALF A GREEN BEAN harvested by son2 from "his" plant at school. Shallow dish is squash and green beans simmered in dashi stock with soy sauce and sweet sake (mirin). Actually cooked that yesterday and forgot to serve it! Normally I would add the green beans at the last minute to preserve the color, but the family are getting sick of beans (very cheap from the infamous vege shack over the road at the moment), so I simmered them till they had absorbed more flavor. This is not so much a rough construction as a loose collocation... On the small plate, pork slice panfried with ginger, deepfried eggplant with a dab of yuzu-koshou, and some boiled whorled mallow leaves. Whorled or "Chinese" mallow is slightly mucilaginous, like okra or melokhia. Naganasu photo at bottom of page (Japanese text) Shouga-yaki (pork slices with ginger) usually has the ginger mixed into it, but I often make it with the ginger and a tiny sprinkle of cornflour and soy sauce "sandwiched" in the middle. The eggplant was 50cms long, a "naga-nasu" from Kyushu. The whorled mallow leaves (oka-nori or "upland laverbread") After dessert, the boys heard the breadtruck which comes every Tuesday evening, and insisted that we had a moral duty to introduce it to you! The driver was quite shy at the thought of making her worldwide debut. Not so my son2... In the end, they had to admit that the chocolate-filled cornet and the melon-pan had better be saved until tomorrow. I will also save talk of pickles till tomorrow, because I have a video to transcribe for class tomorrow, a sample translation to do, a shirt to iron, and a dish of chicken simmered in soy sauce and vinegar to make ready for tomorrow's dinner...not to mention dishes and bath, and it's already 10:30pm Tuesday night Japan time.

For the next week, I invite you to join me for meals at my house...nothing quite so exotic as eating in SE Asia (not by a long shot!) but, based on some of the threads popping up lately (e.g., January Detox and New Years Resolution - Lose Weight), it might be of some interest. As a quick introduction, I am Jen Jensen and I live in Sacramento. This is my second turn at blogging; the first blog is here. I won't go into too much personal detail, since it's all there and I'd just be repeating myself. Back then, I wrote "In the coming week, I'll be eating at home, eating out, and (most exciting of all) eating at Tigh-na-Mara, a spa/resort on Vancouver Island in BC." Well, I definitely ate a lot! A few months later, I stepped on the bathroom scale and realised that, if I didn't do something, I was just going to keep putting on weight until I popped like that fellow in the Monty Python skit. And so I joined Weight Watchers. My primary goal was to relearn my better eating habits. I reckoned if I did that, then I would also lose weight. So far, it's worked quite well. As of yesterday, I've lost exactly 27 pounds. And, thanks to eGullet for inspiration (and the Weight Watchers thread in particular), I've been able to eat some pretty damn good food while losing that weight! And now...I'm off to make my breakfast!

Hello, it's been a while. Since we've been promised snow in this week's forecast, I've traded in my food bus for a sleigh. This blog doesn't actually get started until tomorrow, but I wanted to get y'all thinking some. See here's the deal. In my first foodblog, many of you came and visited with me as guests in my home. Well, now you're all more like family. So this time, you have to help me. Welcome to the interactive foodblog. I decided that if I was going to do another blog, I had to branch out. I couldn't just do the same thing I did last time and more importantly, I didn't want to replicate any of the dishes I did last time around. This I realized was going to require me to step outside my foodbox somewhat though. So I'm going to do some experimenting. I'm going to make some things I've never made before. Now I know, from reading the various threads on these forums that there's a wealth of information and advice to be had, and that's exactly what I need from y'all. I'll be doing stuff that you're going to think "how can she not know how to do that?!". Well I haven't and I don't. But, I'm willing to put my ingnorance on the line in the interests of higher learning. I'm putting myself out there folks. Don't let me fall. Not only that, but other than our big Christmas dinner, which will actually be Boxing Day (the day after Christmas for all you non Canadian and English people), I don't think there's a speck of beef on the menu. Oh the withdrawal! Note the Southern drawl? A lot of what I'll be doing are Southern dishes. I figure by the time I'm done, not only will my drawl have improved, but I'll be a card carrying Southern Mama. So sit back and relax. But don't get too comfortable. Y'all need to work with me on this one.

Is it bad form to start Foodblog admitting to be lightly intimidated? I mean, seriously, having to follow Kew & Tepee's blog is like a comic having to follow Robin Williams! I hope I am worthy. My name is Arne Salvesen, I'm 39 (40 in August - egads!) and live in Burnaby, BC, Canada which is the next municipality east of Vancouver - home of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games Bottom line, I'm no more than 30 minutes from downtown Vancouver. My family consists of my two sons (who gave me the Daddy-A handle) who live with their mother in Pitt Meadows (we'll be making a trip there this week), my wife "J", and our two Jack Russel Terriers, Ringo & Gromit, who graciously allow us to share our home with them. I'll be posting dog pictures later, but in the meantime my avatar will have to suffice. My connection to the "food" scene is completely amateur in nature. Never worked in a restaurant and have only really thought about it as a "hobby" over the last couple years. Professionaly some of you already know I am a Certified Kitchen Designer (CKD), so that is probably my closet "professional" connection. My web site is in my sig line, or you can PM if you'd like more information. Still, one of the greatest joys I have in life is cooking for my family & friends, or enjoying a meal out in one of the most vibrant food scenes anywhere. That is what I hope to share with you this week: a small sampling on how Daddy-A cooks & eats his way through a week in Vancouver. We'll visit some of the better known places, but I hope to also introduce you to something new. Along the way we'll also meet a few of the local eGulleters, and see what I can do with my brand new Weber Smokey Mountain! Heaven help my waistline! A.