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I'm not going to start my "official" blogging until tomorrow but, while I've got a few free minutes, I thought I'd at least introduce myself. My name is Jen Jensen and I live in Sacramento with my husband and 14 year-old daughter, Kathleen (AKA the Spawn). We are imports from BC (Canada) and have lived here for 5 years now. I "retired" when we moved here, as I only have a "live" visa, not a "work" visa. Before moving here, I worked as a technical writer on various IT and business process projects. My hobby is dog racing (whippets, not greyhounds) so we also live with four of the five dogs I own. Living here in CA with us are Streaka (AKA Über--as in Streaka über alles.); Tighe (AKA Goober, because it rhymes with Über and matches his personality); Dayton (Dids); and Rogie (meiner Deutscher Junge), whom I co-own with a friend back home. My fifth dog, Derby, is Tighe's daughter and lives with my friend in BC. 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. The trip to Tigh-na-Mara is why I won't be starting until tomorrow ... I want to be able to include my meals there in the blog. Until tomorrow ...

It appears that it's my turn.... I was coaxed into this but had already begun thinking about volunteering. As a single guy I tend to cook only on occasion and thought this might serve as the impetus to have some extra fun in the kitchen and also get out to a few more restaurants. Alacarte had to wrap up early due to personal obligations - I might just as well get a head start on this. My story: Growing up in an Irish household in Syracuse NY afforded me exposure to little other than a meat 'n potatoes menu but a two year stint as busboy and waiter opened a new world of food and drink. Syracuse restaurants have begun catching up to larger metro markets in recent years with more progressive menu items and a wider array of ethnic offerings. Extensive personal and business travel and a recent four year stint living in the NYC metro area allowed me to explore even more options. My currently favored cuisine when dining out is Vietnamese but I remain fond of Polish, Thai, Ethiopian and Afghani food, among others. Syracuse is a city of 150,000 with suburbs perhaps twice that size. Traditionally a blue collar town and now struggling with a failing economy, our options remain limited but recent years have seen a real French restaurant open in the area, two additional Vietnamese restaurants and a contemporary Mexican influenced bistro. I remain hopeful that we'll see continued improvement. We still lack an upscale high end steakhouse, all the Italian restaurants are red sauce joints and there is not one single seafood restaurant in town. Presently working as a sales engineer in the world of network analysis and troubleshooting tools, I've walked a rather circuitous career path. The food related aspects of my carer started off with a flourish - at age 14 I was employed part time by my uncle, a Standard Brands food salesman, to serve as "Mr. Peanut" at grocery store openeings and similar events. The costume was hot and heavy and the pay was low but an unlimited supply of dry roasted peanuts had great appeal at the time. At age 20 I spent a summer working on a tomato ranch - yes Virginia - tomato ranches really do exist! We grew 5,000 acres of tomatoes and as the only gringo among the large force of laborers, I was treated to some incredible homemade food on occasion during the morning "taco break". More recently, I spent a number of years tending bar on weekends for a catering service, primarily serving at weddings and barmitzvah's for the more affluent portion of Syracuse's Jewish community. My interest in quality coffee, something that dates back 25 years or more, was elevated to the status of current obsession a few years ago. At this point I roast my own beans (when time permits), make my own espresso blends and serve up killer lattes on a daily basis at my home espresso bar. I hope to mix it up during the coming week: a farmer's market visit, dinners at a few of our more interesting local restaurants (including a new place in which one of the partners worked front of house at Nobu a few short years ago), an artisan bakery visit and maybe.... just maybe.... some real cooking in my own kitchen. Speaking of my kitchen - after four years of cramped apartment living, I'm more than a bit thrilled to have a REAL kitchen again. The previous owner of the home which I acquired a few months ago was at one time co-owner of a local restaurant. He did extensive renovations - the kitchen has a few very minor quirks but overall it's a great place to work and entertain in. I'll get some better and more realistic photos up later but here are the ones the realtor used to lure me in (the perspective is exaggerated - the rooms are not nearly as large as they appear). View into the new kitchen View from the dining area towards the peninsula

Oooooh, Lucy, you little devil.

Well today I'm going to start this blog very slowly as I had a very bad night with the youngsters of my family (read too many beers and way too many shots). I'll start with an introduction and then later today I'll post about the mayhem and madness making and devouring Easter lunch My wife is a NYer born and bred - Me, I'm Australian through and through. We met just after 9-11, when I was across here on an exchange with the fire department. AFter spending 3 weeks in NJ and NY together, then my wife (I'll call her V) visiting me for 2 weeks in Australia, we got married last April in NJ - tomorrow's the big one year anniversary. For those of you wine conniseurs, we currently live in the Clare Valley in Australia which is the home of such great wineries as Taylors, Wolf Blass, Penfolds, Barrys and MANY other smaller boutique wineries - god I could spend a day here just writing about the wineries in our area. I believe grand total it's about 120 wineries both big and small, good and bad The unfortunate part of living where we do is that restaurants and supermarkets are few and far between, and sometimes it's just basically a pain in the ass trying to get the supplies I want for a meal. Our family over here actually moved to NJ from the Bronx back in the 80's. They're Italian-American, so food is definitely a thing of importance which is great for me because good food is damn important to me too. I'm the youngest of the "kids" so I get ALOT of perks until it comes to cooking and then they basically shut the kitchen door and leave me locked in there until the food is ready They're slowly realizing that I'm a better cook than the MIL, so every time we come back for vacation I get an email from my FIL requesting various things. One day I'm going to have the nerve to tell him that grilling when it's like 32F outside is just not fun!!!!! Food wise, V and I will basically eat anything - Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, Greek - you name it, we'll eat it. OK I'm lieing, the only offal I'll eat are kidneys and V will eat nothing of the sort. Call me a wuss if you like but that's just me, other than that everything's fair game.... those deer and groundhogs in Dad's backyard are looking pretty damn good. Anyone know what groundhog tastes like?? Anyway that's all for now, I have Easter lunch to hook into and make (read create ) and then later today I'll post about dinner last night and lunch today. Cheers Tom PS I hope everyone has a great Easter and just keep on smiling NOTE: sorry guys I'm yet to move into the 21st century so there won't be any pics just verbal descriptions of what we're eating

When StInGeR infomed me that the flame was passed by PM, I was at the office, and my heart was beating, hard. After several minutes of hyperventilating, I came back to reality. I thought I wan't going to start till Sunday! Time note: I am located at GMT +1. I am in Lyon, France. 6 hours ahead of the eastern seaboard, 9 hours ahead of the west coast. 1 hour ahead of London. 6 hours behind Hk Dave. Sorry if my posts seemed to be times wierdly. I am at home in Lyon, I am not traveling. It is my home. We are at the moment doing our best to save money. Therefore just about all of my meals are prepared at home. I think my blog will carry two predominant themes: sourcing and cooking. Blogging makes you want to take pictures of everything. I wanted to take a picture of people on the metro because they looked tired and hungry. I have no idea what this blog will produce but I hope it entertains some of you. I want to do justice to the people that make things possible for me. So, here we go. My first stop after work was to Marechal Center, in the 1eme, where I live. It's a store that also has a caviste, by the name of Nicolas LANGLET. This guy is recognized in the neighborhood. He knows everything about wine. When I arrived tonight he was excited and had a wine to give me a taste of. My butcher, M. THERMOZ, was kind of mad at me when I arrived because he was in a hurry to close. "You're late!" he said. " have no time to talk, I'm closing this place as soon as possible" he said. He gave me my bacon and said - "a demain!" When I got home, I realized my house is a mess. That's normal. I usually leave projects halfway done wherever they have begun. This is my closet. It's all mine. I have built a small bar in it. It's where I try and corral up my cookbooks. They usually are scattered all over the house, and they all don't fit in my closet. It's a good thing I never put everything away at the same time. (my husband's closet is rather orderly and scientific, and contains lots of technologically advanced equipment. It makes for a good balance.) Dinner tonight: Started witha small glass of Clairette de Die tradition, which we got at last Octobers foire des vignerons independants: We ate like pigs yesterday so we're eating very simply tonight. A little paté, polish dills for me and little corichons for the hubby: Salad, and cheese. I will cook over the weekend. Can anyone tell me: What's this fruit??? It's bedtime here, and I'm off, but tomorrow morning it's the market - quai St. Antoine as usual. Things should be really pretty because Spring is really in full swing here now. -Lucy

Good morning!! So I'm pretty nervous to be blogging this week, it seems others have an effortless way of writing and I'm just not so sure that is the case with me. But I'm excited so I hope you enjoy!! I've just been on eGullet since March and am learning so much around the forums. The foodblogs have been so interesting to read that I hope there is something others will learn from mine. My husband and I live in Seattle, WA and we love to cook. We especially like to try to cook with what is locally available and in season. Obviously it's a bit more of a challlenge this time of year but we are still plugging along. We are still considered newly weds. Just celebrated our 1st year anniversary. I was lucky in that the first year of our marriage I didn't have to work. I had a whole year to really work on my cooking. I loved starting dinner at 2pm and cooking multiple couses for dinner. So 1950's maybe but such a great feeling to have your love come home and be so excited for dinner! So now we both are working full time and the all day cooking is reserved for weekends. We still have great dinners every night we are at home though. This week will be a mix of me cooking at home, menu planning, shopping our local markets and a bit of dining out! Wendy

Note: Now that it's Thanksgiving week, this Diary has upped the ante by turning into the weekly foodblog as well. Click here to go down to the beginning of the foodblog. In consultation with our blog Czar over in the General forum, I am going to be writing about the preparations leading up to our big Thanksgiving Dinner which, as most of you know, is just around the corner in a few weeks. I guess it's been around ten years now that I've been doing Thanksgiving dinner partys, and they have increased in sophistication and complexity every year. It was just the usual turkey, dressing, and vegetable sides the first year. Then that grew into Turducken with the usual sides jazzed up a bit. After a few years of Turducken, I started getting tired of that and began moving in the direction of multiple courses. The first time I think we made a lobster bisque followed by a buckwheat crepe filled with a leek and gruyere mixture alongside a bundle of three asparagus spears held together with a strip of bacon, and then a turkey ballotine stuffed with a chicken and foie gras mousse. From there, it just kind of took off, and this is where we found ourselves last year: So the question is, what are we going to have this year? Over the next few weeks I'll post here about the process from end-to-end, from settling on a guest list to picking the wines, to QAing new dishes to picking out wines to dinnertime logistics and execution to cleanup, and more.

Good morning! I think it's my turn and it's a scary thought to follow Kristen and Rachel. I know I can't compete with either of them for their generosity in sharing their experiences but I will do my best to make this as interesting as I can. I have called my blog "Thirteen Steps to Dinner" and will reveal the meaning behind this as we go along. For now, here's The Dane's lunch for today. He HATES taking lunch and would prefer to spend his 10 hours in the machine shop foodless! I worry that anyone operating dangerous machinery on empty is ripe for an accident and so he allows me to pack him half a sandwich. The other half will be my breakfast. This is store-bought white bread (busy week!) with liver paste and bacon. His "goodies" are 2 home made chocolate chip cookies, one home made gingersnap and in the plastic wrap his all-time favourite, a marzipan and dried cherry square. He does not object to the goodies - just the sandwich!

Hi All, It's hard to believe that it's been nearly a year since I last blogged. My! How time flies! Some very brief background about myself. I am 41 and I live in the northern suburbs of Chicago with my wife and my 7-year-old son. I work in the food industry selling bulk ingredients; primarily 100% natural, processed fruit products. I have a love/hate relationship with cooking. I love to do it and I love to learn how to cook new things but I also reserve the right to "not cook" any time it (or the thought of it) ceases to be fun. My wife is culinarily-challenged and, as such, I am the primary meal provider in our house. There are some nights when after getting home from work, spending time in the kitchen is the last thing I want to do. So I don't. There are other times when after getting home from work, nothing sounds better to me than relaxing by spending time in the kitchen (or out by the grill or smoker) making a meal for my family. I'm not exactly sure what specific factors influence these moods but they will no doubt manifest here, over the course of this blog. It'll be a mixed bag this week for sure...probably about 1/3 cooking, 1/3 going out and 1/3 scrounging for leftovers. I started out this morning (and pretty much every morning) with an Iced Venti Americano (no water, please) from Starbuck's. To this I add 1 packet of sweet and low and a splash of half and half. I really need the caffeine in the a.m. but I'm not a particularly passionate coffee person. When I occasionally come across the good stuff, I'm very happy to have it but I don't go out of my way for it either. A friend of mine roasts his own beans and he will hook me up from time to time. Yes, I can tell the difference and yes I can appreciate it. But honestly, I'd rather sleep an extra few minutes in the morning than spend the time making coffee for myself. When I get to my office, my IVA is waiting for me because one of the guys at the office hits Starbucks every morning. Good deal I spent most of this past Sunday cooking (was really in the mood ) and I brought some split pea soup to the office today to share with my cohorts. I'm sure it'll end up being part of our lunch in some manner but we'll no doubt augment it by ordering carryout from one of our local spots. There are 5 of us in the office and we recently went to a system where each one of is assigned a day to choose the lunch venue. Today, our resident vegetarian will be making the choice so the soup, which turned out quite well, is a solid insurance policy that lunch--or at least some portion of it--will be edible =R=

Good Morning, all. Thank you, Ronnie Suburban, for a great blog! It would be hard to deliver such an appealing display of foods! Hopefully we can provide continuing enjoyment to all, as eG food blogging travels south, especially to those of you who dream of a warmer climate, like we used to! I will start this, and acquaint you with my husband, and his own introduction will follow soon. We are pleased to be food blogging during this time of year, when many think that Florida is at its best (well, except for all the election controversies). Fall does hold some of the best weather in this sunshine state, and the weather affects our cooking and eating almost as much as anything else. We have been having days in the mid to high 80’s, and nights in the high 60’s recently, with mostly clear skies. We hope to show you that Florida is much more than strip malls, the hanging chads of 2000, hurricanes, and who knows what by the time this Election Day is over; and we hope to share some of the joys of being here and living our dream. We will both be leaving for work shortly, and so until we get home and continue posting, we welcome you to our home, our kitchen, and our eating places. Come on in: Here's an outside view of the porch: Our kitchen, as you enter from the dining area: From the other end: And, from the living room, looking across the bar: For those who know me from the eG topics I frequent, especially the Dinner thread, it is no secret that our eating place is usually our porch. What is more of a secret is that we have a TV on our porch and we often watch a lot of sports and some other programs while we eat dinner. Some of our most romantic dinners were with a baseball or soccer game, a NASCAR race, or other sports event on TV, and a beautiful place setting with candlelight and flowers on the table. It’s been a tradition for us for a long time. I often post on eG about the enjoyment my husband and I have in cooking together, or cooking for each other; but as you may have gathered, Russ reads a lot more than he posts. When he introduces himself in this blog, it will be his second post! I asked him to join me in this, since so much of our cooking involves him. (He might say that I threatened him in some way if he didn’t do it.) So after I have introduced myself to those who don’t know me, Prepcook will introduce himself. Then we will proceed to journal our eating! I work part time and he works full time, so most likely I will have more entries and most of his will probably be early morning or evenings. Unfortunately, neither of us can access eG while we are at work, but please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions, and we will respond as soon as we’re back home and online. I grew up in a food-loving home, and my parents were good cooks. They bought a restaurant when my brother and I were teenagers, and spent most of their waking hours there for several years. I first learned about meal planning and cooking from my mom, but she did not teach me about what she did. She was one of those people who, for reasons unknown to me, didn’t share her knowledge of home cooking and kept many of her recipes “secret.” After I was grown and on my own, my mom and I began sharing recipes, and I began developing my own tastes and my own cooking styles. I have loved cooking ever since. Up until our move to Florida, I always worked full time and more, except for the first five months of my son Michael’s life. With rare exception, Russ and/or I cooked a nice dinner from scratch every night, no matter how many practices or games or other activities were going on, and we always sat down to eat together. Some nights back in the days of Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, and all the school teams, we ate dinner at around 10 PM! We all loved it, and our home was where all our boys’ friends wanted to come for dinner, and often did. …All that was making a short story long, to say that I am a self-taught cook. After the boys grew up, and were going to college and all that, my love of cooking and food became a passion. As much as I have always enjoyed cooking, it is even more fun now to cook for just the two of us. We do love the empty nest syndrome. There were a couple of years after I retired and before moving to Florida that I did some food consulting/ recipe development/ food writing/ food and wine education -- mostly for a wine shop where Russ and I both moonlighted. I owned a small company and had a web site called Culinary Passions. However, since moving to Florida, I have only pursued these activities as play, rather than work. This morning I am having my usual black coffee, even as we speak (type). On work days, I rarely eat breakfast and usually not lunch. If I get hungry and take the time, I’ll eat just a little on the run at around brunch time. I’m not sure how today will be, but I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle... I have to admit to feeling a bit daunted following up slkinsey's feast of a Thanksgiving as well as our own little ms foodie's romp through the Emerald City. Still, I will do my mostest. I'm gonna start this up with a bit of an intriduction and some background and will then post on today's actual food and suchlike a bit later this evening, once I finish rooting through today's pics. So, a bit about me and where this foodblog is headed. For the last year or so I've been a cheese-maker here in Seattle. THis came kinda out of the blue for me, as up to that point I'd spent the previous ten years in computer systems and netowrk administration. Maybe two years ago I started to give real thought to leaving IT for some sort of wortk in food. I attribute this desire to a mix of my love of sharing good food with people. In college my best friend and I threw dinner parties for anywhere from eight to twenty-five people very nearly every friday night for over a year. My cooking at the time was rather rudimentary but still impressive enoug to my college peeps. In any case, as I started pondering the idea of food work in that sort of distant hypothetical way (i.e. "boy, it'd be neat to be doing XYZ for a living") one of my closest fgriends , who was also considering such amove, loaned me his copy of Bourdain's delightful Kitchen Confidential. I tore through the book and found that it really humanized the wholke prospect a lot. Showed me the real workaday side of it rather than the pipe-dream what-ifs I'd been podering up till then. So, I started poking around the net for more, stumbled upon this delightful site and was immediately sucked in. About six months later I finally bagged my lousy job at the Evil Empire across the lake in Redmond and decided to search in earnest for work in foodland. I came, naturally, to eGullet for advice and got it in spades. I mentioned that I'd made cheese from a kit and dig it as I've been a cheese-o-phile for many years. I was then told by a certain ms ramsey [ed. actually it was tsquare] who shall remain anonymous that down at Pike Place Market there was a sign up that said "looking for cheesemakers." A month and a half later I was hired and here I am a little over a year later making cheese for a living. Well, cheese, butter and sometimes ice cream. Needless to say, I love it. I see Kitchen Confidential (and as such Bourdain) as the catalyst that started the ball rolling. The rest was serendipity, luck and whatever else makes the world go round. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to thank him in person when he did a signing to push his Les Halles cookbook a few weeks ago in town. It pleased me to no end that night, upon starting to read the book itself, to see him use phrases like "renegade cheesemakers." I am heartened by this sort of encouragement. This sort as well: As such, this blog, along with being a peek into my daily cooking and eating, will also present a look at the day-to-day workings of a new little cheese company. The company is Beecher's Handmade Cheese and at this point my role is assistant cheesemaker and essentially second in command with regard to the day-to-day workings of the production side of the business. I'll post again shortly with today's meal goodness as well as a bit of cheese-production goodness. The title of this blog is a bit of an accidental tribute to Evan dorkin's classic Milk and Cheese comic series. [Edited to correct an attribution]

Thanks to gsquared I will be hosting this week's food blog. This week is more or less like any other week, except for Friday - which is my birthday. We live at the bottom of Napa Valley in California, in a reasonably small town. MsMelkor and I both work from home, so the only time we go out for breakfast/lunch during the week is for work. Almost every day starts with a cappuccino. We are working on perfecting our cappuccino making skills so we each drink 4 or so a day - I make them during the week, MsMelkor makes them on the weekends since her work day starts around 6:30am, while mine starts at 9am. Because it wouldn't be right to start this blog without pictures of the cats here ya go. Texas: Rosie:

I am, courtesy of Al Dente, to inflict my fooding upon you for the coming week. Not a bad week to do this, as there is not much planned that would require me to expose my shortcomings as a cook to your scrutiny. Wednesday we host a lunch for the partners of our GP. The wife is intent on selling their practice some paintings, so this will be a sort of business lunch, the idea being that I soften them with good food and wine, leading into the sales pitch. I will work on the menu tomorrow and give details later. My daughter wants me to prepare a lunch for her adventure club on Sunday (I do all the prep and she will go and cook it), and we will have an indaba (conference) on that on Wed., after the medics have departed. For the rest of the week it looks pretty much like "normal" family dinners, barring, of course, the unexpected. We generally eat fruit and cereals for breakfast, salads and so for lunch and focus on dinner as the big meal of the day. Most of our meals are al fresco. Johannesburg has wonderful wheather - mild in winter and generally mild in summer. We live in a small suburb that is the home of a large number of arty people, and has 32 restaurants within walking distance from our home. Our house has a veranda running around two sides. It is furnished and is where we spend most of our time. Here is a pic of part of it with the dining table and deck in the background. From the garden (the dogs on the couch are Tutu and Sissy) We also have a cat, Sipiwe: The deck has a large thorn tree protruding for it, providing great midday shade: The garden is small, but very lush with large, mature trees. So - dinner tonight. We had a 8 people around for dinner last night, and I am still coming down from the effort, so dinner was simple - pan fried salmon with stir fried noodles and coriander with a puree of basil. We accompanied it with a bottle of Villiera Gewurtztraminer 1999. The intense talc and fruit flavours went well with the salmon, which was, by the way, Norwegian farmed. My fishmonger gets a daily consignment flown in from Norway. We never get wild salmon down here, so to me, the Norwegian fish is as good as it gets.

Hello everyone! My turn again. In case you may have missed my first blog, I took everyone through the New Years festivities in Japan about a year ago: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=34074&hl= A short intro for those who might not know me...... My name is Kristin, I spent the first 18 years of life in Cleveland, Ohio in a large family of 8 kids, I then spent the next 6 in Athens, Ohio at Ohio University working on various degrees. The past 10 now I have been in Yokohama, Japan with my (Japanese husband) Tora (hence the name torakris) raising our 3 children Mia (soon to be 9), Julia (soon to be 7) and Hide (soon to be 4). The math should have been easy enough to figure out, I am currently 34 years old. I come from a family that loves food, even with 10 people to feed on a very strict budget my mother always put out great meals. Family get togethers are always filled with incredible food, my mother's parents came over from Italy between wars, but in the years since then our family has grown to include a number of nationalities. I have one uncle from Mexico and an aunt from the island of Martinque, this past June my sister married her French boyfriend who is from Strausburg and loves to cook. So now we all get proper Alsatian dishes. It is 7:00am (10/5) Japan time and it has has been raining straight for the past two and a half days and is forecast to rain all day today as well..... yuck! I am drinking an iced coffee (my drink of choice) made with the Toddy cold brew method, if I remember to I may eat something for breakfast a little later. My kids have eaten, the girls had maple and brown sugar instant oatmeal and my son had a peanut butter sandwich. My whole family wakes up around 5:30am and I make a lunch and pack an onigiri (rice ball) for my husband to eat at work for lunch and breakfast respectively, he leaves the house around 6:00.

Ok, so it’s on me to try and log my daily food habits. I am not sure how interesting how they will be. The problem is I really hardly ever plan my weekly meals, I more or less have a general idea of what we might have. Something along the lines of “hmm…I have not had any Indian at home in a while AND I have some yogurt, I need to do something with that” or “that basil is getting out of hand, I think some pesto might be in order” and so on. I honestly always envied the planners, you know those who have a set menu for everyday of the week. I tried that a couple of times, never works for us. The main hurdle is that I am pretty much the only cook in the house and both my wife and I work. We also have a one year old who needs to be dropped off and picked up from daycare. So by the time I get home which could be as late as 8PM dinner plans might have to be seriously re-vamped. This week, here’s what I am “planning” on: -I want to enter a recipe into the Food and Wine burger contest and I have a vision of a chicken burger with some type of Lebanese twist on it. Thought it might be fun. -I DO have a tree of basil so pesto might make an appearance in some form or shape. -I’ve been meaning to test a braised short ribs recipe with mushrooms. Hopefully it will happen this week. -A homebaked bread is a weekly must have. I also plan on having some pictures posted, mainly of dinner items. Since lunch is usually at my desk in the office and breakfast is usually nothing more than a cup of coffee except on some weekends. So, hopefully my log is half as enjoyable as the other ones have been so far and I look forward to some interesting discussions. Elie

Good morning everyone. Sorry things got off to a later start - my oldest had nightmares all night, making the morning a bit more blurry than normal, and I just got back from dropping him off at preschool. Yawn. I remember back in college staying up all night to write a paper and being perfectly fine in the morning, but at 35 it doesn't quite work that way any more. I live at the outskirts of Los Angeles county in Diamond Bar, a smaller city at the edge of the hills and desert. It's a nice mix - LA isn't far away, but we're still out away from the city enough to enjoy hills that haven't been covered in housing. We actually have cattle grazing right over the fence from my townhouse complex. Foodwise, there are Indian and Asian communities throughout the area so it's easy to get most of the ingredients I tend to want. Meals are planned around my husband and two boys, 5 and 3. I do meal plan each week, which I'll go into in more detail on Saturday since shopping is on Sunday. I just got tagged yesterday, so what you'll see will be what was on the menu this week. I originally learned to cook by watching my grandmother. She was an incredible cook, focused on detail and how to feed her family well (she is still alive, but a series of strokes has left her unable to cook). Recently I was given her recipe box and cookbooks, which I treasure. As the keeper of the family recipes, I feel an obligation to keep those recipes alive and well by making them often and hopefully well. I got the highest possible praise last Thanksgiving when she said my rolls (the ones she made for every holiday) were as good as hers. The turn around of feeding her some of the things that are my fondest childhood memories warms my heart So, on to the blog!

Ok, so right off the bat I have a confession to make. Today is my birthday. How cool is that? First-ever blog and 54th birthday, all in one. Trouble is, I'm so slammed today and tomorrow that I don't even have time to celebrate - that'll come later in the week. But I did do a little something special for myself that I wouldn't do on just any morning - picked my breakfast fresh from the back yard. I got 43 lbs of blueberries from my two bushes this summer. These are the last of them. Around here blackberries are considered a noxious and invasive weed, but I can't help myself - I love them. These little strawberries were never bigger than a thumbnail, but now we're down to the last few brave survivors of our recent heat wave. Still yummy, though. Inspired by Dejah's Red River Cereal photo, I'm having Wheatena with my berries. I put peanut butter and brown sugar into the Wheatena (more about that later), and then right after I took this photo, I dumped the berries into the porridge. I'll spare you the image of the combined breakfast - it looks much prettier in its separate state. Oh, there's also coffee in this breakfast, although I'm normally a tea person in the morning. I was up until the wee hours getting semi-ready for my day, so coffee seems called for. This is a double Americano my husband made for me on his La Marzocco. So, besides being the Birthday Girl, I'm a personal chef. You'll get a little taste of that today and tomorrow, as I cook for a regular client, and for a party for a new client. And then for the rest of the week I'll finally get to catch up with some food projects, recipe-testing, and just plain eating that I've been wanting to do for weeks now. By the way, I'm a Weight Watcher too. Each meal I'll have something to say about it in WW terms, but I'll keep it at the end of each post, so you don't have to think about WW points unless you want to. So why the peanut butter? I like to get some fat and protein into my whole grains, whenever possible. A tablespoon of peanut butter stirred into a serving of Wheatena, a spoon of brown sugar, whisk it all together for a creamy and delicious 5 points. Add berries, and it's one of the best uses of 6 points that I can think of. I'll be back this afternoon with pictures from today's cooking. Here's the menu, just as a preview: Curried Chicken Salad Acqua Pazza, served with Pasta with Zucchini, Anchovies and Mint Chicken Braised with White Poppy Seeds, Black Cardamom, and Coconut Milk, served with Saffron-Cardamom Rice Ribeye Steaks with a Port-Rosemary Reduction Sauce, served with Glazed Carrots with Balsamic Vinegar and Butter Persian Meatballs with Spinach, served with Israeli Couscous with Dates and Almonds. Yum - as you might guess, my lunch will be tasting these creations. See you all later - I'm off into the world for my first day as a 54 year old person!

Hello everybody! I hope you guys like bananas! 99.9% of my diet consists of bananas. For protein, I pick ticks from my fellow wild men. But seriously... I work as a computer programmer in Poughkeepsie, NY. So what's this crap about being a wild man of Borneo, I hear you ask. I am really from Borneo. I was born and raised in Sarawak, Malaysia, but my grandparents originally came from Fuzhou, China. From the age of 13 until 26, I lived in Melbourne, Australia. For the last four years, I've been going wild in the jungles of Poughkeepsie. "Wild man gone wild" is now available in VHS and DVD from your local quality video store. Why is the wild man rambling? I think it gives some background to the type of food you can expect to see in this food blog. That's right, it's gonna be a confusing and incoherent mish mash. Ok, there will be Chinese, there will be Malaysian, there will be Australian, and there will be Sarawakian. There will be steak because I love steak. I like cooking only when it's not a "chore", so sometimes we eat out. I bet all the New Yorkers are dying to read about the wonders of Poughkeepsie's restaurant scene. Here's an attempt at providing some structure to the ideas swirling in my head, in no particular order: Pork congee - what I'm going to have for lunch today. Pictures to come. Asian BBQ pork - inspired by the recent eG BBQ pork thread. Kari Ayam (Malaysian Chicken Curry) Umai - Sarawakian raw fish salad Sarawak Laksa (of course... and nothing like the one from Penang) Tuna casserole (Australian recipe) Aussie burger with the lot (that means fried egg and beetroot, I'm afraid) Steak I'm terrible at making desserts, but I'll have a go at making kueh salat, because I miss it so. I hope that list meets with your approval, fellow eGulleteers. There's only going to be two of us eating the food, and our main meal is dinner, so the list may be overly ambitious. Forgive me if I don't get around to every item or if I change things around mid-stream. I can't make any promises, but there is a plan to eat some stinky durian and to incorporate as much stinky shrimp paste in the recipes as possible. Be prepared to hold your noses! If any term or ingredient is unfamiliar to you, please feel free to ask. My googling skills are at your disposal!

FOOD! GLORIOUS FOOD! The word "BLOG" is a familiar one in our house. My hubby Bill, is a prof. in the Faculty of Education, and "blogging" is one of the requirements for his Communications and Computer technology courses. But, I have never been involved in blogs until this invitation...and this sounds much tastier! Thanks for the opportunity. Life is much more relaxed now that we have retired from the restaurant biz. http://home.westman.wave.ca/~hillmans/soosera.html Since 2002, I have been teaching half time at our university in the EAP program with international students. This leaves me the rest of the day to cook . . . what else? Brandon is a rural city of 44,000. Dining out does not include gourmet meals, tasting menus, etc. Until I found Egullet, a tasting menu was a 9 or 11 course Chinese banquet, complete with a 26 oz. bottle of Crown Royal ;-) My cooking these days involve learning traditional family recipes from my 95-year-old mother, pulling out old recipes from pre-Soo's Restaurant days, and trying out ideas from Egullet and my overflowing collection of cookbooks. This week will be a hectic one for blogging. My sister and family are visiting from Burnaby, B.C. so lots of food will be involved. On top of that, hubby, our kids and myself are performing Saturday and Sunday at the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Brandon Folk Music & Crafts Festival. We will have out of town musical guests . . . so more food! Good thing I am on summer vacation this month. DAY ONE I love my mornings. When university is in session, I am up at 5 a.m. so I could do my prep. while the house is quiet. These days, I can sleep in until 6 a.m. I take our daughter to work at her summer job at the hospital, then I get to relax with my breakfast and 2nd cup of coffee. Today, I sat out on the deck with a cup of Tim Horton's brew-at-home with Coffee Rich creamer, 2 slices of toast with my home made peach/apricot/pineapple conserve. I love this stuff on toast, ice cream or just by itself as a snack. The recipe is one handed down by hubby's Nana Campbell. She even used bits of apricot pits in her recipe! It added a touch of crunchy bitterness to the sweet and tang of the fruit, but not enough arsenic to topple us. For lunch, my daughter packed a roll-up made with whole wheat tortillia, poached chicken breast, a handful of spring greens with raspberry vinegrette, shredded carrot and juilenne cukes. At home, we had wonton soup with shrimp egg noodles, Shanghai bok choy, shrimp and lap cheung.

My fellow eGulleters... Hello there, my real name is Mike, I live just outside of Washington DC, and Uptown tagged me. We'll see how this makes my week a lot different food-wise. I have some bad dining habits mixed in with my own pretty-good-for-an-amateur cooking along with some meals from some excellent, or at least reliable, restaurants in the DC area. Can I start with last night? It's been so cooooold. And for whatever reason, braising seems to be the way to go when it's chilly. So, I went to visit my best friend, his wife, and my twin Godsons, armed with a bunch of short ribs, carrots, onions, celery, beef broth, red wine (lots of it), garlic, parsley, tomato paste, anchovy paste, and a can of fire roasted tomatoes. A delicious meal ensued. More details later as this PC at my friend's place is misbehaving, and the Indian carryout just arrived.

I will start off by saying there is no way we are going to be eating nearly as well as Jackal10! Secondly this next week is not going to be a typical week for me, most Japanese workers started their week long holiday yesterday (my husband starts his today) and the kids are home for a close to 3 week break. This means I need to cook "real" meals 3 times a day, so you are going to see a lot more prepared foods than I normally use. This is also a busy week in that we have a lot of plans to go out, where we normally only eat out once to twice a month. Today I am off to Tokyo (only a 25 minute train ride from my house in Yokohama) for shopping, eating and dancing with 4 fellow American friends (we are all by the way married to Japanese men.....) Just some quick information about me, I am 33 years old, I was born and raised in Cleveland,Ohio in a family of 8 kids to a mother of Italian descent and a father of German. I married my Japanese husband almost 9 years ago and have been in Japan ever since. We have three children. Mia is 7, Julia is 6, and Hide is 3. I have no background in food I just love to eat! Here is the most recent picture of the family (taken by fellow member Texan during our dinner together while she was visiting Japan) By the way I am drinking a large tumbler of iced coffee as I type this and I am off now to prepare breakfast (it is 7:00am here in Japan) because my family is screaming for food! This morning for breakfast we will enjoy toasted onion bagels (from Costco) topped with fried eggs and ketchup for everyone but me, eeewww!)

8am... Why did I volunteeer for this? I'm sure I will lose any reputation that I might have as a serious foodie...need more coffee. This is not going to be about elelegant restaurant food, but bourgeoise domestic cooking. For those that don't already know Jill and I live about 5 miles west of Cambridge, UK where it is currently dank and raining, but not too cold. Some forecasters predict the weather will turn cold and snow, but a white Christmas is unlikely. Our main meals tend to be in the evening, except for holidays and the odd Sunday. Unless otherwise noted, breakfast for me is a mug of coffee (mix of 1/3rd Old Brown Java, 1/3rd Kenya Pea Berry, 1/3rd Mocha Mysore, all medium roast and made in a press pot) with semi-skimmed milk. Probably made stronger than coffeee in the US, and when I'm in the US I find there is something strange about the milk usually served with US coffee. Powdered milk, or NDC is not acceptable at any time. I usually skip lunch, or graze. For the holidays this year we are expecting this year Jill's grown up sons plus their partners, one of whom is vegetarian, and various waifs and strays. We are not religious, so this is a secular celebration, encompassing as many traditions as possible, but rooted in English customs with a fair bit of Provence influence. Currently I plan. eG folk, please comment and advise. Circumstances may change, and it may not all happen. Today Saturday 20 Dec. First day of Chanukah Supermarket shopping at Tesco's, 100,000 sq ft of supermarket for most of the basics. Start making Pannetone. Has to be Latkes, and I guess Brisket for supper. Maybe kale or cabbage or sourkraut to go with. Sunday 21 Dec Winter Solstice, Yule Get in Yule log, holly, Mistletoe, Xmas tree, (which my brother, being frum, calls a Hannukah bush) Finish Pannetone Baked Ham, parsley sauce Monday 22 Dec Dunno. Leftovers or take-out Tuesday 23rd Dec Company (www.artimi.com) Xmas dinner at the University Arms Hotel. Rubber turkey I expect Wednesday 24th Dec Xmas Eve Bread baking: Pome a l'huile Making mince pies to the sound of King's College Carols Provence style Gros Souper, meat free maybe: l'aigo boulido, a garlic and herb soup, cauliflower (gratin), Salt cod balls or en raito, celery with anchoïade. Cheese. Trifl; the "trieze deserts". As we don't go to Midnight Mass, we wont follow with the Souper Gras Thursday 25th Dec Xmas, and Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday. Late Xmas lunch Amuse: Truffled Brandade and Tapenade crostini Caviars, blinis etc Truffled consomme dore (shot glasses) -o0o- Turkey, with all the trimmings - Fois gras truffe - Sausage meat and a vegetarian chestnut stuffing (for the veggie) - chipolatas, bacon rolls - cranberry and bread sauces, Jus - roast potatoes, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) - Sprouts, carrots Christmas pudding, hard sauce Cheese Mince pies, tangerines, walnuts etc Friday 26th Dec Boxing Day Brunch Invited to supper by our neighbors Saturday 27th Leftovers: Soup, maybe devilled turkey wings, a pie, or Risotto... Sunday 28th Standing rib roast Monday 29th Leftovers: Tuesday 30th: Stew? Wednesday 31st New Years Eve Cock-a-leekie Haggis Syllabub and shortbread Cheese

Torakris tagged me while I was taking a nap so I guess it is me this week. Since it is Monday in Japan I will start now. I just finished my last homemade ginger molassas cookies that my friend's mother made. I have never liked them before but this time they were increadible! Soft and chewy, it was like eating candy. If I wasn't following an amazing month of blogging (Thank you Ronnie, jackal and torakris) I suppose I would be less intimidated. On the other hand I will be eating a bit better than I normally do (which isn't saying much). I have had a stomache virus since the beginning of December and just started eating normal food New Year's Eve. Since it has been so long since I ate well, I am eating whatever my heart desires. One disclaimer: I am a terrible speller, so plees bear with mee! Here goes........ Edited because I think faster than I type.

This is not the blog of a gourmand. Or one by a witty American living abroad who has somehow managed to master the cuisine of her new. I don't come up with interesting foods with which to feed a classroom full of kids with short attention spans. Still, this week I will try to come up with some way of keeping you interested, entertained and coming back for more. If I must resort to discussing the old standards - sex, drugs, rock & roll - I will not hesitate to do so. I am shameless! My DC-area compadres know me a bit, so will some of the kind NYC folks. For the rest of you, feel free to check out my bio for some background. You are most welcome to post random questions, as well as comments related to my postings. In this blog, you'll find random musings on the role of food in my life as well as descriptions of meals in the restaurants of DC, my attempts at cooking and an ever-growing list of why I find it so difficult to cook well and with frequency. Lately I've been trying to add new dishes to my repertoire. Before Christmas, I mentioned this to a family member or two and as a result, I received several cooking-related gifts including a large set of Henckel knives, a food processor and some cookbooks. Pretty cool. I have only sliced myself once so far. My inspiration? I have a boyfriend who cooks. He, who shall be known from here forward as PLM (short for Privacy Loving Man; I also contemplated using PITA for Pain in the Ass, but I was feeling nice as I typed), is a fantastic, inventive cook and has marveled/teased/harassed me about my inability or unwillingness to cook. The message only took a year and a half or so to sink in, but recently I've had this weird desire to try to cook! I've always enjoyed baking, making desserts and sweets, however unless I'm working from a recipe, every non-dessert dish I make ends up tasting the same. I guess I tend to rely on the same spices w/o a recipe and as such, it doesn't matter if it's pork or chicken, same overall flavor...not very exciting. I'm not sure why I've steered clear of recipes (duh!), for the most part, until recently. People had always suggested that but I guess I embraced my status as a non-cook rather than making the effort and finding out that I was simply a bad cook. My other excuses (and these are just the tip of the iceberg): Reason #1 Ingredients spoil quickly when you're a single girl. Reason #2 I really enjoy eating in restaurants/ordering takout. Previously when people would ask me if I liked to cook, my stock response was "No, but I'm excellent at dialing the phone." Reason #3 I'm a creature of habit. I can (and have) eat the same dish every damn day without caring. For years, this has meant "pasta and peas." Every roommate I've had since college has known about pasta and peas. The recipe (it's not one I suggest you follow, but I'm sharing anyway): Boil pasta. Preferred shapes include cavatelli (frozen, if available) or tortellini. Next would be penne. Macaroni doesn't hold enough sauce. Defrost some of Mom's spaghetti sauce in the microwave. When she and my father visit from PA, I can always count on a fresh supply, delivered frozen in small tupperware containers carried in a refrigerated bag looking like an organ for transplant. Add peas. Toss cooked pasta with a bit of butter or olive oil, adding salt (seasoned, if available) and pepper (red pepper flakes work), some milk or cream (to create that imitation vodka sauce taste) and finally, the warmed up spaghetti sauce. When it's all mixed and hot, it's done. Add fresh parmesan or romano to taste. That dish got me through many weeks and years! But I know I can do better so it's time for change...

Hi All, Just realized that I'd been tagged for this week. For some reason I stopped receiving notifcations about last week's blog thread and forgot to check in. Frankly, if my head weren't screwed onto my body, I'd probably leave it somewhere. Once I count on not having to remember something, I generally don't. guajolote mentioned that I was having a crazy week and it's true. My wife and I are hosting a holiday open house for 150 this weekend and we've been cooking and prepping for it every night since last Friday. This is, I think, around the 22nd year that this holiday party has taken place, my wife used to host it before I came into the picture. But, before I get into that, I should probably review the more notable 'regular' food moments. As some sort of crazy self-punishment, I've been back on Atkins for the few weeks leading up to this party. Because of that, I've been eating a lot of salads, meats and frankenfood bars. When the party starts on Saturday, Atkins will be officially over through January 2 at least... I love Atkins and I hate Atkins...more on this later (hopefully). But, Tuesday was a good food day because for lunch we had some delicious carnitas from a place at 41st & Ashland (in Chicago) called Kiki D's Carnitas (don't go breakin' my heart). The carnitas were amazing and so were the huge pieces of home-made pork rinds they make on premises. From an Atkin's perspective, this is about as good as it gets. While a couple of my co-horts indulged in the corn tortillas, I and another guy in the office (who seems to be permanently on Atkins) indulged in a 2 pound order of carnitas...I solo'd a small portion of the pork rinds since no one else would go near them, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. At the end of lunchtime, there was probably still at least a pound of carnitas left but no one could eat another bite. I took them home but didn't get to them last night. My wife had made a small rib roast and some steamed broccoli with butter and fresh lemon. I wasn't really hungry because of my carnitas indulgence but I muddled through it and put most of the roast in the fridge. Going back to Monday, I have nothing spectacular to report. I had a Chef's Salad with caesar dressing from Seul's, the tavern across the street from our office. For dinner, we had Han's brand Chicken Sausages with spinach and feta. That was it...other than a caffeine-free diet coke. No bun, no side dishes, no nothing. Because of all the party work we have to do each night, the regular meal schedule is suffering a bit. BTW, I almost never eat breakfast during the week, so this blog will be comprised of lunches, dinners, snacks and party prep. Each morning starts with an iced, venti no water, Americano from Starbucks unless I happen to have scored some better beans or been given some by a friend who roasts his own. It's getting a little crazy here at the office, so I'll bow out for a bit and be back later with some more. =R=