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Here I am back again for my third food blog. I hope everybody will enjoy this one even though it going to be somewhat narcissistic. Please bear with me; I'll try not to be too boring. This blog is going to give my food/cooking history over the years. Because I'm older than dirt that makes for a lot of history. Monday will have me born & my food history up to 1980. Then a decade a day up to Friday and a close off on Saturday. As this is my personal food history elements of my life outside food will have to be included. I'll keep these to a minimum, but they will be necessary to provide context to the food history. What I'll do in answer to questions or comment is the following: (pretty standard, but I like things to be clear.) - I'll answer if I can. - If the subject is too personal or somewhat off topic I'll answer, but either deflect or steer back on topic in my answer. - If really out of line I'll just ignore the question/comment. Equally, I'll do my best to stay on topic. I really don't think that PM's are appropriate when discussing a food blog so I'd like everything to be out in the open. If you have questions that are off topic in regard to food or my food history, but pertinent to France, living or visiting here then by all means PM me. Enough about that. In this blog I'm going to not only take you on a culinary journey, but a physical one as well. The USA to Spain then Spain back to the USA then the USA to Belgium then Belgium to England then England to the USA then back to England then back to the USA and finally to France. There's Japan and Asia squeezed in somewhere as well. I've travelled a bit. At a class reunion a few years ago somebody asked me why I'd travelled so much? My answer then and now is: "I needed to keep one step ahead of the sheriff" Until tomorrow. I'm going to have fun with this. My autofoodography? My cusineography? You name it. PS: Having looked at what I've written I've decided that its too literary. Thus I'm going to post topical ( i.e. what's happening this week) inputs which will be far more pictorial. PPS: Yes, I do have a mystery object. Wait for it.

At the end of our last stay on Manitoulin, Tri2cook mentioned how much he had enjoyed the latest instalment of 'Kerry and Anna's Excellent Adventures' so it seemed an appropriate title for this trip. We travelled in a car rather than a phone booth to get here. I picked up Anna a few minutes after 7 yesterday morning - we enjoyed our breakfast en route. Our "carcuterie" plate. We stopped in Owen Sound at the farmer's market and grabbed a few things - but also at a surplus store where I managed to obtain a bunch of great little bottles - the better to bottle bitters to share. We made it in time for our ferry reservation - given the very small numbers on the ferry this time if year - it wasn't really necessary to have a reservation. For lunch - because the ferry doesn't serve calamari - we both had the chicken wings. Can't beat wings with a view. It was a bit rough initially on the crossing - Anna looked a touch green for a few minutes. We had plans for a particular cocktail last night - however the booze is still packed away in the cupboard so we had to make do with the ingredients we had brought to replenish our stock - we had Dillon's white rye - which tastes like a spicy version of genever, aperol and candy cap mushroom bitters. We adapted the intro to aperol recipe using these - first sip was intensely raisiny - but it smoothed out to quite a nice little drink. We had to shake it in the first capped container we could find in the cupboard - thank god there was ice in the freezer. Which reminds me - I'd better get some more cubes going. Think we'll call it the Mother Hubbard or the Mother of Invention. Dinner was cooked on the gas BBQ (or at least started on the gas BBQ and moved to the broiler because the wind was interfering) - some lovely little asparagus spears and a rather thin rib eye. The view from my plate - Ended up with this picture because I'd accidentally switched off the noise that my phone makes when snapping a picture - by the time I figured out what I'd done I had quite a number of picture of my feet and fingers.

I'm up working in Little Current again for the next 5 weeks. Thought I'd take the opportunity to share what I'm making with you while I'm here. I had asked them to put a couple of things in the fridge for me before I arrived as I'd have the rug rat with me and she's not very portable. I wanted to be sure I'd be able to feed her a little something after we got off the ferry. A couple of nice fresh eggs fried up with some old cheddar and a bit of kimchi (brought that along with me). She managed to hang on to a bottle while I made her dinner for her. Took Andie's advice and found a Senseo coffee maker at a thrift store for a couple of dollars. With the addition of a Coffee Duck to hold the grounds it was the perfect way to make a quick cup. I was on call the day after I got here - so needed to bake a little something to take. Discovered that I had no flour in the cupboard (5 bins of stuff in the cupboard - no all purpose), but I did have some whole wheat atta flour (semolina flour) that I had brought along - so used that. So butterscotch squares with atta flour - quite satisfactory! So Saturday I finally got a chance to head out and procure some necessities. I hit the farmer's market in town where I got rye flour, red fife flour, rolled oats and whole spelt as well as some garlic scapes. A trip out to Max Burt's farm yielded a nice little strip loin and a couple of packages of pork chops. I also grabbed some maple syrup from him. At the market the vendor who grows strawberries had run out - so I went out to their farm later in the day and picked up a basket. Some pumpkin seeds for bread and picked up the thyme that one of the nurses had brought from her garden for me to add to mine. I brought a few things like thai basil and mojito mint that I knew I'd have trouble finding here - got them all planted up. Realize that I need to get someone to bring me some parsley as well! Looks like all the herbs worth buying have been bought up already. Gotta love wild iris. Anyway - off to take a fish hook out of someones finger - when I return I'll put up the pictures of the strawberry balsamic breakfast cake from Food 52.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, you might say I've been looking forward to this Foodblog for a long time. The focus of this Foodblog is a little different from all the other ones. Back in 2012, I decided that I wanted to change the way I ate, cooked and shopped, from buying specific things for a specific recipe, to buying what looked good at the market, then making something using what I came home with. In doing so, I wanted to see if I could cook, shop and eat seasonally for an entire year. My cooking had become stale; I was limited to the same handful of concepts. I sought to break out of the box I had become entrapped within. By limiting myself to a specific set of ingredients for days or weeks at a time, I was forced to experiment and broaden my horizons. That experiment, which I called The Year of Cooking Seasonally, was so successful that I've decided that's what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. When you are faced with weeks of POTATOES or CARROTS or ZUCCHINI or CORN, cooking in this way makes me want to dig deep within myself and really get into what it means to make something that's mundane seem interesting, exciting, delicious and enticing. It's not for everyone, but it works for me. This Foodblog is also different from the others I've had the honor of participating in, because I wanted readers to be able to partly influence the ingredients for this week's menu and in the process challenge myself. I'm always looking to improve, to learn, to discover, to explore, to teach and be taught, and to share with others. In addition, most recipes will be sized for one or two people, and are mostly meatless. These days, I consider myself a 'flexitarian' -- that is, someone who eats less meat than he used to. I would say I am 60% lacto-ovo vegetarian/20% vegan/20% meat. My hobby is cooking. My life revolves around food. Amongst my friends, I am known for cooking multi-course meals from scratch when I come home from work, at least three or four days a week. Perhaps this is a luxury to some, but THIS is how I relax. When Im in the kitchen, I am able to indulge my creativity in ways that prove to be nearly as satisfying as sex. This Foodblog is dedicated to anyone who's marveled at the beauty of life, as reflected in the passage of time and in the procession of the seasons, and in the love we share with each other in community and at the table.

Hi there, fellow eGulleteers, and welcome to my second foodblog! As Kerry says, we're on the road this time, which means I get to show you some of the best food Ecuador has to offer. Why, you ask? Well, because we're going on a road trip to the beaches of the coastal province of Manabí, which is recognized across the country as well as in South America for its seafood dishes. We'll be based out of the little fishing village of Puerto López, about two hours south of the province's capital, Manta. Fishing in this area is all done by men in small, oar-propelled boats with handlines and small cast nets - I'll try to get up super early one morning to find out what the catch of the day is (and possibly buy something for breakfast, if they've got Pargo Lunar in the catch....) The area is also known for its Langostinos and Langostos (giant estuarial crawdads and spiny blue lobsters, respectively) and those are often sold by their fishermen from buckets. What Heidi had to say about "buy something fresh from a guy walking down the beach with a bucket" is very true of most beaches in Manabí. At the tail end of the road trip, I'll be visiting the world's largest indigenous food and craft market and will be eating a tilapia caught from a glacially-fed crater lake - round trip in fish! I will be attempting to not eat anything twice in order to show you the immense variety available on the coast. (Meaning, if I have the encebollado you won't see me eat it again on this trip). First off, though, a bit about the teasers. The first one was indeed Roselle / Sorrel / Flor de Jamaica, the bracts of Hibiscus sabdariffia - something that I have only recently started drinking but of which I am completely enamored. A friend in the Amazon has a plantation and sends me fresh bracts (which is what's shown). I base most of my summertime iced teas and whatnot on Jamaica. Peter the Eater was quite right - it's two happy guys and a perciform fish, with a large body of water and some volcanic rocks. This photo was taken on the beach at Canoa in Manabí, and was a location teaser. Those two happy guys? They're casting simple baited handlines into the Pacific off the rocks, looking for their lunch. They called the fish they caught a "bonito" but I'm pretty sure they weren't referring to the type, but merely that it's big and beautiful (a Bonito down here is a type of mackerel and resembles a small tuna). The waters down here have an amazing variety of fish, and I'm willing to bet that what's on the line is actually a Bocachico (smallmouth striper). They were holding out for another, and didn't share, so I can't confirm that. For the curious, the volcanic rocks are a 500+ year old remnant of the last eruption of Volcan Cotopaxi, which is more than 250 km away in the Sierra - the lava hit the ocean here and gave Canoa its signature black sand beach. This is Encebollado de Mariscos (mixed seafood and onion soup) - and although it's a staple of Manabita cuisine, I ate this one in a restaurant in Ambato! Shown in the bowl are a small Langosto, a larger Cangrejo (crab), and some Concha (inky mangrove clams, something I have only eaten in Ecuador); for the curious, it's popcorn and lime in the background, and those are patacones floating in the bowl with the seafood. Encebollado de Mariscos has a strongly red-onion flavoured broth with hints of red curry and peanut; done well, it's spectacular. These are Limeño bananas that I grew myself, something that was thought to be impossible at my 3,000 meter altitude in the Sierra. And this is the starting veg for any respectable Lazy Bastard Beef Stroganstuff or similar stovetop casserole. I thought it would give me away, since nobody else here has cobalt blue tile countertops! I'll be back in a moment with photos of my current kitchen - I've moved since I last blogged, and I'm making quinua-herb and cheese minibagels in there today.

Well, here I am again. It’s been just over 5 years since I last did a food blog. I’m excited and looking forward to doing this one just as I was in 2007! First, an update in general: We’re all well; Linda, Rupert and I. I’ve had a couple of minor strokes, but the magnificent French medical system saw me through those with no permanent damage. We’re still living in France and still loving it. We have moved though; all of about 6 miles. Our farmhouse was just too big and too expensive to run so we sold it. Linda & I now dance a little jig when the energy bills come in. It makes up for the lousy exchange rates! Our ‘new’ house is modern and somewhat smaller than the farmhouse. We still have 1 ½ acres, a pool and plenty of room. We are extremely happy with the move. Our ‘new’ village is just great very friendly. It’s unusual in that it’s actually laid out on a square grid. 400 year old town planning in action. We have a good village shop/ bakery. They made a really nice whole grain loaf in addition to all the normal sizes & shapes of French loaves. We also have small restaurant. Not likely to get any Michelin stars, but one can get a nice meal. They make a wonderful bread pudding. Our newest addition is a small food boutique, only open two days a week. They sell only local produce, fruits, vegetables, sun flower oil, pates, fois gras, a bit of wine and a few herbs. Local enterprise at its most local. I make a point of going in every week. More later, but let’s talk about food. I’ll start by going to the Sunday market in Saint Antonin Noble Val. St Antonin is a very old, very beautiful town right on the Aveyron river about 15 minutes away. Their Sunday market is great, but to be avoided during the summer months due to the crowds and lack of parking. Once we get to October the crowds thin out and the locals return to shop & to gossip. Gossiping being the great French pastime as it is in most countries. I’ll post about the market visit with pictures separately.

It feels a bit strange to say 'Welcome to Denmark!', since I'm not Danish, did not grow up here, and find Danish food culture (my boyfriend, who is Danish, began laughing when I told him about wanting to reconsider traditional Danish food this week) kind of elusive. However, this is where I'm blogging from, so... welcome to Denmark! I'm afraid that first teaser image threw people off track, although Kerry was right, it's a rape-seed field in bloom, the dominant note in the Danish landscape in late spring. I took the picture while sitting on the pillion; just leaned a bit to the side, so I could see around my boyfriend's helmet, and took the shot (that's his hand you see). The second image is the Roosevelt Island Tramway station on the Roosevelt Island side: I was born in New York City (making me a third generation American/New Yorker), although my parents moved to Italy when I was a baby. I grew up in Florence, and the Tempio Maggiore is one of my favourite buildings; we often walked around its garden, on the way to a nearby park. Growing up in Florence had a major effect on my food preferences, the way I shop and prepare food, and the way I feel about food (having American parents who became vegetarian and inclined to health foods affected the way I think about food). Next image: My boyfriend gave me Modernist Cuisine for my birthday! I've only had it for a month, and I'm still in the 'Oooooh, look...' phase (although the 'Holy crap, how do I afford even the smallest pieces of necessary equipment?!' phase has begun). That's essentially my entire collection of cook books, there. I also have a stack of Cook's Illustrated, and some small books on Tuscan and Florentine cooking, but that's pretty much it. I have a really strong aversion to things that just take up space, so I don't get a cook book unless I'm quite certain I'll really use it. The globule on the plate is one of the more successful 'spheres' from my first effort at spherification. Mostly I got a lot of weird looking slime, but it was fun, anyway, and I learned a something. I'm thinking of giving this another go, this week. The last image is from Grenen, up in Skagen, which it is the northernmost point of Denmark. Virtually every one of the people standing in the water got someone to photograph them standing approximately where the guy nearest the horizon is, then went home to show their friends and family, and explain that they were standing in two bodies of water at the same time: the Skagerrak to the north, and the Kattegat to the south (the turbulent area is where the two bodies of water meet). The two seasons in Skagen are 'inhospitable', and 'packed to the rafters with tourists'. Where I am is a good way south of here, on the east coast. My cooking tends to have Tuscan roots (simple, lean) overlaid by a thick slab of experimental geekery (currently curtailed because the kitchen I'm using is not my own), and adapted to accommodate local ingredients/conditions, sudden whims, and a complex array of food sensitivities and preferences (mine and my boyfriend's). So that's the background. To fill in a bit more about where I am, Denmark runs to cool, wet summers, which means that things like home grown tomatoes are still off in the future. Our plants haven't even set flowers, yet (we did start them a bit late): We also have a couple of chili plants. One seems to be going all out with blossoms and is setting fruit, the other has not a one, which may be entirely normal. The kitchen situation here is a little unusual. We're temporarily staying with my boyfriend's parents, since we sold our flat, but are still hunting for a suitable replacement. Here's their kitchen: I try not to take over the kitchen, so I plan around what and when my boyfriend's parents use it. Also, I mostly use my boyfriend's parents pots, pans, and utensils, since our own kitchen is mostly in boxes, apart from the little bit I've unpacked (there just isn't room to unpack much, and packing and repacking gets old really fast). I tried to take some shots of the inside of the cabinets where I store the things I did unpack, then realized that I wasn't able to get more than about a half metre back from them, and couldn't get a clear shot (there's the also thing with needing a flashlight to see things in there). This setup presents a few challenges, so most of what I cook these days is not particularly ambitious. To be honest, I've let myself fall into a rut, which I'm planning on hauling myself out of, this week. You can probably count on at least one spectacular culinary disaster (if that doesn't happen, I will happily share my images of the apple pie fiasco of this past New Year's Eve <<<shudder>>>). If you have questions or suggestions, fire away!

Morning all - it's a lovely temperate morning here in Little Current on lovely Manitoulin Island. Anna's in the kitchen making something - I'm sitting enjoying my first very large mug of tea of the day. This is my brown betty in it's dutch tea cosy - the better to keep my tea nice and warm for a number of hours. My tea - in the largest mug I could find at the Value Village in Sudbury a couple of years ago. I love my tea, but I'm lazy and don't like to go back and forth to the kitchen several times to get enough - so this is a ceramic beer mug and holds the equivalent of several cups. I can get about 2 1/2 of them out of my 6 cup brown betty. And don't let the 'fabulous father's hall of fame' fool you - I'm female. (I find on eG it's sometimes hard to figure out who's male and who's female based on their names and mine's a boy's name anyway) My view off the balcony while I post.

Welcome everybody to the Principality of Monaco! Monaco is a very small Country located halfway between Nice in France and the Italian border (they are about 15-16 km from here or 10 miles if you prefer). It feels like France but the Italian influence is very strong due to the proximity to the border and the large number of Italians residing in the Principality. In fact, although I’ve been living here for almost 3 years, speaking both Italian and English, I have not managed to learn French yet. My name is Francesca but my husband and my family often call me Franci. I was born and grew up in the South of Italy, which I left for studying at age 19. Since then I lived in Milan, then moved to the States (San Francisco, Hanover NH, NYC), then back to Europe in London and for almost 3 years on the French Riviera. As some of you might have read on the dinner thread, we are an American/Chinese/Italian family. My husband was born in Shanghai and moved to the States with his family at age 10. Our origins and our travelling greatly influenced my cooking over the years. I studied business in school but I’ve always enjoyed cooking a lot. While living in NY, I enrolled in the French Culinary Institute, going to school at night and working in banking at the same time. That has been one of the best years of my life and I truly enjoyed the experience. After that I went for an internship in a good restaurant in NYC and shortly after I moved to London where I completely gave up working in banking and became a commis in a luxury hotel. The experience was short lasted and because of relatives health issues and later on my pregnancy I gave up the idea of cooking professionally, at least in a restaurant kitchen. Now I have two small children, a boy almost 5 years old and a girl, the little one you have seen in the picture, who is almost 15 months old. This equals that I had to reconsider a lot of my cooking, keep it really simple both in the preparation and in the presentation.

Good morning! My name is Christa, and I'll be your blogger this week. I'll be back in a little while with further introduction and information, but for now I have to finish off this:

Hi everyone! Or, to play into an often frustrating - but almost always endearing - stereotype: Howdy, y’all!* My name is Rich, aka Rico, and I’ll be taking you through a bit of my culinary life in Dallas this week. Incidentally, my eGullet handle refers to the name by which I went in my high school Spanish classes many years ago - and I’m still awful at Spanish. Anyway, on to the teaser photos: Only two things that money can’t buy, and that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes (hat tip to Lyle Lovett). We didn’t really have much of a winter this year, so I was brave and planted my tomato seeds at the beginning of February. So far, I’ve had some pretty good luck. Trying out five different varieties this year; we’ll see how that goes. I’ve also got a few different kinds of cucumbers, beans, peppers and herbs going. Unfortunately, this blog will likely be finished before any of them come to fruition - or should I say vegetableition? And Zeemanb, I noted your comment about being six weeks ahead in being able to get a garden going, and I'll just say this - come mid July, when you're harvesting buckets of tomatoes off of your plants, I'm going to be spending my days doing rain dances just so my plants will stay alive in the 110-degree Dallas heat. Take solace in that, at least! My box smoker (wet smoker). This is not the typical sort of smoker I am accustomed to seeing down here. Most of my friends and people I know tend to use the oil drum-style smoker with a side box for the fuel. I do not begrudge that style in the least, but have gotten to know the operation of this smoker so well that I’m not going to change anytime soon. But we will most certainly get into that later this week. A few cookbooks and such. The Neil Sperry Texas Gardening book – the green binding – is ubiquitous in this state but I’m not sure it came through very well. Anyway, those are some of my books. The Wodehouse collections were not left in there intentionally; however, my affinity for the Jeeves and Wooster stories is undeniable. To address the MC volumes briefly – unlike one of the more recent food bloggers, Chris Hennes, my knowledge of Modernist Cuisine is laughably limited. That doesn’t prevent me from trying all sorts of things from it, but I’m probably not going to do anything from it this week; to try my inexperienced hand at it in a public forum might be a major step back in the development of the movement as a whole (kidding (kind of)). All right, then. A few other tidbits, I suppose: Having been born and raised here, I call myself a Dallasite, but for the past three years I have lived in the suburb of Richardson, about 200 yards from the Dallas line. I am fortunate to be in a fine location for a lover of things culinary, as I find myself within a few miles of a Central Market, Whole Foods, Saigon Market, Hong Kong Market, Fiesta, and few standard grocery stores. We can get into what all those are as the time comes, though I would suppose that a most are pretty self-explanatory. My wife will tell you that my approach to food is like a six-year-old with ADD who just had too many Coco Puffs**. I prefer to call it inspiration-driven. Meaning, I’ll tell her that I’m making dinner, and then I’ll happen to see a technique I want to try, spend a while at it, and then she’ll ask me what’s for dinner. “Ummm. Well, in about four hours, we’ll have some really nice dehydrated lime curd! That’s a good dinner, right?” (Note: dehydrated lime curd is never a good dinner). She is of infinite patience. As it is, I’ve got a several places that I can’t wait to show you, and a pretty good outline of what I’ve got lined up for the week . I’m looking forward to it all (and to getting to know some of you better) and hope you all enjoy reading it half as much as I am sure I will enjoy documenting it! *I feel I should explain my understanding of y’all. In Texas, we use it only in the plural sense – as a conjunction of you all – so that in its written form, we substitute the apostrophe for the o and the u in you. It is clear and its use saves a valuable syllable. However, in some southern states I have heard that its homonym can be used to refer to a singular person. It is my understanding that in this sense, it would be spelled ya’ll. I do not understand the reasoning behind this punctuation, and frankly, I do not understand the reason for the word’s use in the singular. All that to say, in this week’s blog you will likely see y’all spelled and used only in the plural sense, if indeed you see it at all. **This also applies to my writing style. My lack of focus and/or patience means I cannot proofread my own writing. I just can't do it; my eyes glaze over and ... well, all I can ask is that you bear with any typos, run-ons, tense disagreements and things of that nature.

Hi, keefkun, ça va? Or, for the more hip: Bonjour habibi, how's it going? Yes, with such phrasing, it can only be Lebanon! First off, let me give you some background to the trip and myself. I go by Chris and Hassaan - whence Hassouni, the Arabic diminutive of Hassaan (note, not Hasan/Hassan, this is a different name. For those that can read Arabic, it's: حسّان). Arabs/Persians/Turks generally call me Hassaan, others generally call me Chris. Hassouni is fine by me too I am, despite the bilingual name, NOT Lebanese. My father is American of mostly German extraction, and my mother is 100% Iraqi. Her family is Iraqi through and though (except for her one Turkish great-grandmother, as well as other genetic traces of the myriad peoples who have crossed Iraq since history began 5000 years ago there). They had done quite well under the Mandate period and later the Monarchy, but as soon as the republican revolutions happened (and there were several in the late 50s and 60s), my mom and her immediate family fled to Beirut, which was THE cosmopolitan city of the region in those years. They stayed there until 1975 when the civil war broke out, and really Beirut is and was much more of a home, to my mother and her brothers at least, than Baghdad was. To this day, she can switch between Iraqi and Lebanese Arabic mid sentence, which I always find hilarious (they're about as different in vocabulary and accent as, say, Cajun English and Australian English) In the mid 1990s, after the war, her parents, living in the DC area and London, moved back to Beirut, and since then it's become their permanent home, with my mother spending more and more time there as well. This is my 9th trip there, and the 6th since Summer 2009, so Beirut is quickly tying London as my own second home. In any case, I love it to bits, despite all the aggravation of being there (like the most horrific traffic and insane drivers anywhere), and my own skills in the Lebanese dialect are growing. I guess they're getting pretty good, as a few of my Lebanese friends have dubbed me "honorary Lebanese." I arrived here yesterday and will return to DC March 7. Secondly, let me explain the teaser pics The first, of course, is an Iraqi/Turkish style tea setup, as I mentioned on my very first post here. Mimicking the the effects of a samovar without the expense. My favorite style of tea, though somewhat of a hassle to prepare. This was basically just to identify me, and sadly there probably won't be much of that, as Beirut is not a good city for tea drinkers A Beirut taxi and a symbol of the city as much as Black Cabs are of London. 10 years or so ago they were all ancient Mercedes that had survived the 15-year civil war. Now there are a lot of other cars, some new Mercedes, most small, crummy, micro-compacts, which makes very little sense for a taxi. The old, stick shift, diesel powered Mercs are where it's at for me, and I'll wait longer to snag one. Next is the beautiful Turkish coffee presentation at Café Hamra, in the Hamra neighborhood of Beirut. I think Nikkib made a passing reference to it once - I really like the place. Decent if not fantastic food, really good deserts, great coffee, and good argile (hookah/shisha). Hopefully will spend some time there this trip When Kerry Beal said lahmacun, she was basically right. This is the Arabic version, lahme b'ajin, from which the name lahmacun derives. This is a late night shot from the legendary Barbar in Hamra, a 24/7 bastion of Lebanese street food that spans a whole block - shawarma, kababs, falafel, mana'ish, lahme b'ajin, fresh juices plus western snack bar type food, and pretty good gelato. After a night out in Beirut, this is unequivocally the place to go. Finally, Raouché, the Pigeon Rocks, or as my Mom swears they were called in the "Lebanese Good Old Days," Suicide Rocks. One of two sea stacks just off the cliffs along the Beirut Corniche. If there is one symbol of Beirut, this is it. As for this blog, I have no agenda. Although I'll be spending plenty of time there, I'm not staying in my family's place, because its jam-packed with people, so I'll be sleeping in a hotel nearby. This means I won't be cooking anything, but even if I was staying at home that would be the case, what with my aunt and the housekeeper running the kitchen on lockdown. However, I will definitely be showing plenty of home-cooked Lebano-Iraqi dishes. Furthermore, Beirut is Cafe City and one of the best places to eat out, so expect plenty of delicious coffees, teas, and meals out, as well as shots of street food like Barbar and my favorite, manaa'ish 'al saaj. I have a hunch that I'll be going north up the coast as well as into the mountains at some point, so I'll be sure to document any tasty treats from there. If you have any requests, I'll do my best to fulfill them!

Good morning from Norman, Oklahoma, home of the University of Oklahoma and suburb of Oklahoma City. For reference, Oklahoma is the state just north of Texas (no, it is not a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein… that's Oklahoma! with an exclamation point. No one puts an exclamation point when they are talking about the state). Hopefully you've all heard of Texas, anyway, even if Oklahoma and Idaho and Iowa are all a blur. It is, alas, somewhat less idyllic than what Sheepish treated us to last week. Nevertheless, I eat well here. Not a whole lot of lamb, though! It's been a few years since my last foodblog, and life has changed more than a little. Some things, however, have not changed: OK, so that's a tiny change. Same mug, but now I brew pour-over rather than French press. Different coffee brand as well: Storyville Coffee sends me bi-weekly shipments of fresh-roasted beans. In my opinion, using fresh-roasted beans trumps any other factor when it comes to coffee quality. About some of the teaser photos Heidi posted: as someone who posts a ton of photos here at the eG forums, I had to work hard to find things to post that weren't dead giveaways! It's probably not well known that I love yogurt. The Fage is for eating plain, the Yoplait is for smoothies. Yes, the crocus was just meant to be a sign that it's spring here (I have dozens in various colors in my backyard blooming now, and the daffodils are just beginning to bloom as well). So, no saffron from them. Not that I don't love saffron. I just don't grow it. I think it's also not well-known that about a year ago I decided to try to learn to appreciate white wine, having been a red-drinker my whole life. So, a wine fridge. What you can't see in the photo is the identical wine fridge next to it that I use for curing salume. The wok? Well, I have a Big Kahuna wok burner, which you'll see a bit of this week. And the cookbooks are mostly what I'm cooking this week. I seldom actually plan out a week's meals when I'm not doing a "cooking through X" project, but just for you guys, this week, I have a plan. Let's see if I stick to it now…

I thought I'd use blog-eve as chance for a brief introduction. I'm Rob. I live just outside a village, around 35 miles North West of Cardiff, in Wales. For those of your not familiar with the principality, it’s the blob of land attached to the left of England. Mostly hills and mountains that tends to flatten out towards the coast. I have an 80 acre farm on which I keep an ever growing flock of Welsh-Mountain sheep, plus occasional Tamworth pigs and Welsh Black cattle. I'm not a farmer though, as any of my farming neighbours will attest to. I pay the bills “doing computer stuff” for a big telecommunications company, although mostly I can work from home which is great for me. I grew up in London, England, but have been living in Wales for nearly 20 years. I share the house with my wife and two small children. Food wise, I’ll eat and drink pretty much anything. I particularly like to investigate offal, although Mrs Sheepish isn’t so keen. So this week I’m going to try and show you the sort of things we usually eat, with a bit of bias to Welsh ingredients and recipes where possible. I’m very keen on Sichuan food too though, so there’ll be some of that. Plus Mrs Sheepish has a birthday next Saturday and as has become traditional I shall be attempting to knock up a relatively fancy meal for 2, so there’ll be a fair bit of prep for that. Oh, and Mrs Sheepish is Irish so there’ll be a bit of influence from even further to the left. Here's a couple of library pictures to give you an idea of where we are. Track from the farm towards the village Looking down from fields to the village Last year's Tamworths I’ll leave it at that for now. Tomorrow, food! And hope you don’t get bored until at least Tuesday.

Welcome to the 2012 season of eGullet Foodblogs and welcome, too, I guess, to my corner of Melbourne. Now, it's not Sunday. Not yet. Not even here. It will be soon--it's Saturday night--but I figured I'd post my prep for Sunday's dinner now, given early on Sunday I'll be spending most of the day at the Australian Open. I must apologise in advance, too, for the quality of some of the photographs. When I'm in a store somewhere I tend to prefer using my iPhone to my hulking SLR, a decision that often results in shitty photo. Some context. I live and have always lived in Melbourne's south eastern suburbs. I've spent most of my life in suburbs with a very high population of migrants from all over the world. Australia's culinary scene is shaped by migrants. The Italians and Greeks and others from that part of the world, back in the second half of the 20th century, they brought pizza and pasta and capsicums and salami. In the later part of the 20th century, the Vietnamese, Chinese and Cambodians brought over a wide array of condiments, fruits and vegetables. Every batch of refugees and immigrants has brought their food with them--from boiled bagels to biltong, chorizo to bok choy. Entire suburbs became, and to some extent remain, 'enclaves' for various ethnic groups--Springvale, which I'll show you some time during the week, is home to a great many Vietnamese and Cambodian-Chinese. Clayton, where I am now, was once home to many Greeks and Italians--they're still here--but now has a very large population of Koreans and Indians. Dandenong, which you'll also see, has a lot of Sudanese, Sri Lankans, Indians, people from what used to be Yugoslavia and many others. The nation's collective palate has matured, too. At some point, not too long ago, supermarkets started selling frozen packages of 'stir fry' vegetables and a selection of dried pastas that went beyond spaghetti and 'macaroni'. Products I once had to look for in specialist stores--one of the many local Indian grocers, for instance--I can now find in most supermarkets. Much of this change has been in my lifetime. In my family home the menu evolved from variations on bangers and mash to include an increasing selection of heavily Australianised Asian and Italian dishes. The South East Asian influence is very obvious in the menus of our fine dining scene. I could show you many different parts of my city. If you visit here as a tourist, you're likely to visit Queen Victoria Market and maybe a couple of the big name restaurants in the CBD. I'll show you a little bit of that, but my focus will instead be on where I live and the surrounding suburbs. The preview pictures Canned grubs from South Korea, as avaliable at the 'Hong Kong Supermarket' just down the road. Not a mango or orange tree. It's a lemon tree in my backyard. Many Australians own lemon trees and we tend to get a bit weird about paying for lemons in the supermarket, even tho' they're typically only $3-4 per kilogram. Harry's Deli, a large Greek grocery store located at the end of my street. Reasonable selection of spices and dried goods, as well as olives, Greek cheeses and 'homemade' dips. A selection of umami boosters that, as a couple people pointed out, includes vegemite. I very much prefer savoury flavours to anything else. One of the local butcher shops. Australians might recognise these titles as coming from local chefs/authors. We also have reasonable-sized Indonesian population in Clayton. This is one of two Indonesian restaurants--very cheap and not bad, either. The food is very much like what you'd imagine getting in an Indonesian home in terms of presentation and menu options. A small part of the spice section in India at Home, one of the two larger Indian grocers (there are two big 'supermarkets' and a lot of smaller places, most of which also sell hot food items such as samosas) in Clayton. Also sells products from elsewhere in southern Asia, Fiji and South Africa. Some of the cheeses sold in one of the local Italian delis. Also sells a small selection of non-Italian products, including Spanish paprika and canned fish from Portugal. Harry's Outlet -- Greek deli I ducked into Harry's in search of juniper (not Greek, sure, but their spice selection is decent)--no luck--but ended up stocking up on some of their 'homemade' dips. Oasis Bakery -- Middle Eastern bakery, grocery store, etc My search for juniper led me to Oasis, a Middle Eastern grocer five minutes from home. It's 'Middle Eastern' in its focus but also sells a lot of interesting foodstuffs--some modernist cuisine-type additives, canned snails imported from France, a variety of canned fish eggs, a decent selection of Mexican chillies, etc. The spice selection is easily the most extensive there is so close to home. It's a nice shop. Vine leaves, obviously. A selection of dips, including all of the usual suspects--hommus, ful, tzatziki, roasted capsicum, etc. A selection of duck and goose products including fat, confit and rillettes. Salmon roe, lumpfish caviar and a few other varieties of 'fish egg' priced between these two points. Actual caviar is not sold here, of course. We're not in the right area for that. A selection of olives, ranging from hulking kalamatas marinated in a variety of ways to pricey little ones from Italy. Part of the section dedicated to oils and vinegars. Avaliable are products such as raspberry finishing vinegar, organic sesame oil and a truly baffling variety of infused extra virgin olive oils and fruity/spiced vinegars. Opposing this shelf is a shelf dedicated to sauces, including a selection of peri peris from Portugal and southern Africa and some 'gourmet' chutney. A section of the (long) wall dedicated to nuts and dried fruit, running from macadamias to slices of pear. A section dedicated to pre-packaged Turkish delight, running from cheap bulk packs to expensive organic stuff. A line of tajines they're pushing. Part of the spice, herb and powders section--you can pre-made blends, a variety of different chillies (in powder or whole form) and chilli blends, vegetable and fruit powders, natural food colourings and essences, whole and powdered spices and additives. A selection of salts, ranging from the usual--table salt, rock salt, etc--to some flavoured salts (wild garlic, etc), expensive Maldon sea salt and a few interesting ones, such as black salt and hickory smoked salt. Selection is actually superior to that of the ultra expensive gourmet shops such as Simon Johnson and Jones the Grocer. Part of the pickles section--runs, again, from industrial-sized cans of pickled onions to little jars of chillies. Freeze dried fruits and vegetables, sitting atop a freezer that holds icecreams, pastry, savoury and sweet-filled pastires, dough, ready meals such as their housemade Lebanese pizzas (avaliable hot in the restaurant), desserts of various kinds and a huge selection of frozen fruits and berries (want 3 different kinds of cherry, by any chance?) Just near here, too, is a whole wall of cheeses and a counter that sells a variety of pastries, ranging from baklava to macarons (insanely popular in Australia at the moment, thanks to Masterchef). Some honey--again, the range includes expensive local stuff (Manuka, organic, etc) and some imported ones from Greece and other places. Still cheaper than Simon Johnson, Essential Ingredient and other places aimed at wealthy inner suburbanites. If I find the time I'll show you one of those stores as a nice bit of contrast. A section dedicated to dried beans and grains, ranging from farro and organic quinoa to chickpeas and navy beans. Some dessert-type products, including Persian fairy floss, orange blossom water and rose water. Around the corner is a selection of chocolates, mostly imported or good quality local ones. Some beverages. There is also a large selection of teas and coffees for sale at Oasis. Oasis also has a restaurant, which sells--both for takeaway and sit-in customers--Middle Eastern dishes such as Lebanese pizza, doner kebabs, salads, desserts and a wide selection of stuffed bread/pastry-type products. The food is reasonably priced and, in my experience, very good. I don't eat there often--my shopping tends not to coincide with lunchtime, as Oasis is insanely popular and it's difficult to get in/out of the carpark, as it's on a busy main road--but I've never struck a dud dish. The haul. I went in looking for juniper--I need it for Sunday night's dinner--and came out with smoked sea salt (I'd been on the look out for this stuff since buying the Hawksmoor at Home book, so it was hardly an impulse purchase), goose rillettes and some wild Australian olives. The olives, which I ate with some of the imported brie I bought the other day. Very nice olives. Dan Murphy's I'm cooking kangaroo on Sunday night so I figured I'd want some beer to go with it. Luckily, Dan Murphy's is just down the road from Oasis. Dan's is a chain of booze outlets owned by one of the two big supermarket chains. It has very good prices and a very good selection of some of the finer things in life--craft beer from Australia, wine from Australia and elsewhere, spirits and, of course, single malt whiskies. I have enough wine, whisky and spirits at home, so I was only in search of beer. Part of the liqueur/spirit section. Looking out over the wine section. This store, by the way, seems smaller than the other near near my house. Cider has become popular in Australia in the past couple of years. In addition to the shitty overly sweet 'apple, strawberry and bullshit'-type stuff, there's also some good quality imported French and British (as well as a few local) ciders. At some point this week I'll try and track down some of the better Australian ones--they're not sold at Dan Murphy's yet. Part of the beer section. The selection runs from the mass produced locals and imports (VB, Carlton, etc, as well as Stella, Corona, etc) to locally made craft beers, a few that straddle the line between mass produced and crafty (James Squire, the Matilda Bay range) and some nice imports (Duvel, Chimay, Leffe, Sapporo) from Belgium, mostly, but also France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam, South Africa and other places. A wider selection of, say, Indian beers (Kingfisher, Haywards 5000, etc) can be had at some of the smaller bottle-os in Clayton, which service a large Indian clientelle. The haul. Note the Sierra Nevadas--I've heard very good things. All of the others (aside from the minis) are local beers. Spiced and smoked kangroo -- prep Why did I head out in search of juniper and ale? On Sunday night I'm cooking kangaroo, working from a recipe in 32 Inspiration Chefs -- South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia [and some other places] for springbok. In the original recipe, some springbok loin is marinated in a spice mix, tea-smoked and then seared in a pan. It's accompanied by, among other things, a verjuice reduction, an apple chutney, parsnip puree and braised radicchio. It's a little more involved than what I'd normally make for dinner, but it's the weekend, school holidays (I'm a teacher) and the moment I saw some of the springbok/kudu/etc recipes in that book I was really keen to try all of them with 'roo fillets. Kangaroo, incidentally, is the most widely avaliable game in Australia--most supermarkets will sell the 'Macro Meats' brand fillets, steaks, 'kanga bangers', hamburgers, mince, mini-roasts and a variety of pre-marinted products, including sis kebabs and spiced steaks. Through a decent butcher, you can also order in--or sometimes even find, if you're lucky--kangaroo meat from other companies and in other cuts, including tail. In Queen ViC Market you'll maybe find 'roo biltong or salami. It's very lean and a bit like venison in terms of flavour--a bit sweet, a bit of iron, a meat for people who like meat. It's disgusting if over- or under-cooked, too. A lot of people don't like it because their one experience was negative--it's so easy to ruin. An increasing number of fine dining restaurants, including Vue de Monde, The Point and Jacques Reymond, are starting to include 'roo on their menus. The 'roo fillets, sitting in a marinade comprised of cumin, coriander seeds, chilli, mustard seeds, juniper, salt (I used some of the smoked salt), black pepper, soy sauce, treacle, olive oil and Worcester sauce. Verjuice reduction (water, sugar, verjuice). The apple chutney (Granny Smiths, red onion, sultanas, tomato paste, garlic, ginger, celery, brown sugar, red wine vinegar, water, cinnamon, nutmeg, bay, cardmom and cloves). When I return home from the Open I'll set to work on the last minute elements of the dish--the parsnip puree, the radicchio and some polenta (corn meal seemed like a nod to the African origins of the dish, while ticking off the starch requirements nicely). Instead of smoking the fillets in the oven with rooibos tea, orange zest, star anise and cinnamon as in the original springbok recipe, I'll load up my smoker with some hickory chips. The dish shall be served with much beer.

Hello egulleters! I so appreciate the confidence building comments to my teasers! I felt quite hesitant doing another blog as I didn't want to bore anyone... It will soon be Chanukah, so yes, this will be in the blog during the week. I am beginning with a new interest of mine (one among too many), the Bedouin culture. This morning while the kids were in various processes of waking up (ages 14-28, my husband and I left them to make their own Shabbat breakfasts, for a change, and took a drive of about an hour and a 10 minutes to a Bedouin village called Givot Goral, to the hostpitality tent, called Salaamat. I cannot do a blog with involving culture so I hope this will be acceptable... The host was a lovely and very hospitable man aged 38, husband to a beautiful and young looking wife, and father to no less than 8 boys ranging in age from 4 to 13. This is the Abu Nadi family, which belongs to the Al Gidiraat tribe, which consists of 10,000 people. This tribe belongs to the Shamar tribe of over one million people. This tribe originated in Saudi Arabia and has tribes in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait,Syria, Jordan and Iraq. They do get together occassionally,in Jordan. The tribe is very interested in opening its gates to other populations in Israel and has had many groups stay with them overnight, including my daughter's 9th grade class. This village is completely authentic and very friendly. From afar: A bit closer:

Welcome to my Singapore food blog for e gullet! The blogs are one of my favourite things about egullet and the standard of writing/photography not to mention eating and drinking has been incredibly high so i hope i don’t let the side down! I suppose I should start with a bit about me really, My name is, as you had probably guessed Nikki and after spending the first 10 years of my working life in London managing restaurants i realised somewhat belatedly that the hospitality industry is the same the world over and if i was going to continue working anything up to 16 hours a day i might as well do it somewhere interesting. My first port of call was Lebanon, and i fell head over heels in love with the country, its food, its wine (and arak) and of course its people (especially my boyfriend who i am enjoying early morning skyping with as we try to settle into this long distance/6 hour time difference phase of our relationship) I wish I’d got round to blogging more when I was there – i am kicking myself for not doing a food blog then. To sum up, if you haven’t been, add it to your list – it truly is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been, am hopefully heading back to see the boy in January so maybe i’ll do another one then if i’m allowed.... Kuwait followed (very briefly for many many reasons i won’t go into here lets just say i HATED every second of it and flew back to Beirut almost every other weekend so i didn’t lose my mind) and now i find myself on the other side of the world in Singapore. I live in an area called Little India so a lot of what i typically consume is Indian – I’ll try to mix it up this week though- besides, Percyn covered India beautifully and i am hoping we will see Jenni blogging sooner rather than later as well.....I love living in this area, Singapore can feel very sanitized & organised but there is a “realness” about Little India that i warmed to immediately. The smells of Jothi flowers for prayer offerings mix beautifully with incense and spices not to mention all the street food and there is a great sense of energy surrounding the place. I also love hanging out in Arab Street where i can go to smoke arguileh/drink coffee at any time of day or night – I’m struggling to find good Arabic food so far but i am having so much fun with everything else it doesn’t really matter. Apart from the strong Indian influences here in Singapore, there are also Malay, Chinese, Indonesian and Peranaken ( descended from the early Chinese settlers in Penang, Malacca, Indonesia and Singapore who intermarried with Malays and thus created a whole new culture and foods with it) not to mention Thailand, the Middle East, The Philippines and Sri Lanka. You also see “Chindian” food too where local chefs will take Indian ingredients and use them in their recipes as well which is interesting. Having seen a shot of my fridge in my teaser photos, you will not be at all surprised to learn that this week my intention is to show you what Singapore is possibly most famous for – Hawker Centres and its rich multi cultural culinary influences from the myriad of different nationalities who now call Singapore home. PLease feek free to ask any questions, request any food and enjoy the ride!!

Hi Everyone! This blog is going to be a very mixed bag! I’ll be eating out more than in a usual week (not because I’m blogging, it just worked out that way) and I also want to detail a fabulous meal/experience we had at the Napa Rose in Disneyland. First, a little about me: I’m 58 and live in San Ramon, CA (East Bay of San Francisco) with my wife, Ellen, my 21-year-old daughter Rebecca and our dog Max. In my previous marriage, my ex did all the cooking and I did all the cleaning. I always had a good palate and was good at telling you what was in a dish and/or how to fix a dish that was lacking, but never really learned anything beyond very basic kitchen skills. My kids always dreaded the days when Dad had to cook! From 1992 to 2003 I owned a beer and wine brewing shop and also a commercial microbrewery. I designed all of the recipes for the beer kits and most of the recipes for the microbrewery and they were very successful. Our IPA won Best of Show at the California State Fair, besting beers from all over the state including the big guys, and the smaller like Sierra Nevada. The next year we won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival for the IPA and a Silver for our Red. In 1994 I wrote and published what is still the definitive (but now very dated) guide to using hops in craft brewing. (Bottom line: I always was good at creating recipes.) I got divorced in early 2007 and during the break-up I was working at Best Buy as the appliance manager. Along with washers and dryers I was selling ranges, microwaves, ovens, dishwashers, refrigerators and counter-top appliances - helping people to outfit entire kitchens. When I bought and moved into my own (and current) place, finding one with a decent kitchen was paramount because I intended to learn how to cook! There were several motivations for that: I wanted my daughter (who was staying with me half time) to look forward to meals, not dread them. It would also allow me to better sell kitchen appliances. And it would save me a lot of money compared to eating out! I now do 99% of the cooking for the family, and my daughter lives with us full time - learning to cook had something to do with that! So I enrolled in a 12 week cooking class at the now defunct Viking Cooking School in Walnut Creek and learned my way around the kitchen. I like the cooking part, but for me the joy is in creating recipes and tweaking someone else’s to my liking and/or methods. I started to upgrade my cookware and counter-top appliances - but that will be the subject of another post! The food I cook tends to be somewhat simple, comfort food. Normal stuff a family of picky eaters will eat! My plating skills are minimal, especially compared to some of you here. Now I work as a graphic designer/marketing person/data analyst at a large financial firm. I also read palms as a sideline. My current hobbies besides cooking are playing bluegrass guitar and sewing/embroidery. Off to work - will post more this evening.

Howdy all! I'm Panaderia Canadiense, aka Elizabeth, and welcome to my blog coming straight over the airwaves from Ambato, Ecuador, South America. A bit of background about me: I'm originally from northern Alberta, Canada; when my folks retired I got the opportunity to tag along on the vacation (our first in something like 20 years), and we all fell so much in love with Ecuador that we decided to change countries. Mom was her family's dessert-maker from the time that she could work an oven without burning herself, and Dad has his cordon bleu; we're all culinarily adventurous folks and what comes out of the kitchen tends to be fusion. Apart from baked goods, we rarely use recipes, so what you'll see in terms of home cooking will most likely be one-offs and riffs on various themes. There is very little that you won't see on our table; the exceptions are eggs (I'm violently allergic), tripes (can't stand the texture), and most pork (Mom can't handle the fats - no gallbladder). We have wholeheartedly embraced Ecuadorian cuisine, and various dishes that we now eat are influenced by the regional dishes of places we've lived or visited. A bit of background on where I am: Ambato is located almost exactly in the geographical center of Ecuador, and it's a reasonably true statement to say that most roads in the country will eventually end up here. It's certainly the transport hub for all goods coming from the south of the country to Quito, anything coming from the central-south Amazon into the Sierra, everything from the north going south or to the coast or central Amazon, and almost everything from the central-south coastal provinces into the Sierra. It's a market town, and the rhythm of life here is very much marked by the cycle of market days. Mondays are Gran Feria (big market day), and during Gran Feria the city very much resembles an anthill that's been violently poked. I'll be taking you into the fray on Monday - Ambato boasts what is quite possibly Ecuador's largest free-for-all farmer's market, and that's where I get my produce for the week, as well as specialty flours, spices, nuts, and dried fruits. I'll be trying my best to do a lot of "eat on the street" during the blog - Ambato has an astounding variety of foods available from street vendors and pushcarts. Along with all of that, you'll get to see whatever is ordered from my catering bakery in the upcoming week. I can tell you for sure there's an afternoon trip to the hotsprings town of Baños, which is famous for its pulled-panela taffies and other sugarcane confections. I may also go as far as Rio Negro in search of a good, fresh trout. Oh, and I almost forgot! The week of 30 October in Ecuador is an extended public holiday for the celebration of Dia de los Difuntos (the day of the dead) - and it's a food festival as well. I'll explain more about the traditions and the associated tasties as we approach November 2. As a baker, this week is one of the busiest of the year for me. Of course, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, and if there's anything specific you'd like to see foodwise please let me know. Also, I tend to lapse into partial Spanish in food descriptions, and if I forget to translate anything or you want something explained, tell me! I'll be back with breakfast in a bit!

Alcuin set a high bar indeed via posts of succulent braised dishes so perfectly executed that I found myself craving them in 95F weather . And now for something a little different ... The plan is for this to be a travelblog of my visit to India, where I am visiting friends and family and conducting some business. I hope to provide a "behind the scenes" look at a typical Parsi household (if there is such a thing) and the various culinary delights that can be found in and around Bombay / Mumbai. We will visit street vendors as well as fine dining establishments. We will also get to visit a "hill station" (Panchgani) which is where Bombayites escape the 90+F year-around temperatures. The tranquility is also a much needed relief from the hustle and bustle of the city. This time of the year, Diwali or the festival of lights is celebrated, so I hope to be able to capture of few images of that as well. Above all, I would like the blog to be interactive but ask for your patience as my response times will be subject to timezone and internet connectivity as I hop between 3 locations.

Hi everyone! I'm Alcuin (aka Josh) and welcome to my foodblog, brought to you directly from the isthmus of Madison, WI. First a little about me. I grew up in Philadelphia and its suburbs. My mom lived in Delaware County (it was suburban enough for me to have a pony, grow up picking wild berries, fetching eggs from my great grandmothers chickens, and all the rest). My dad lived in the city. These two places are where I learned to eat. My mom was a cook who specialized in French food; she later became a personal chef and still is. Not only is she especially skilled, she was always an adventurous cook trying to learn new things. This, even more than the knife skills and focus on execution that I learned from her, is the main motivation of my cooking. I'm always seeking out new lines of flight when it comes to food, but over the years I've developed a stable of personal dishes and ways of making them that I really like. We'll be seeing some of them through the course of the week. From my dad I learned where to get the best pizza and cheese steaks. It was from him that I learned about the glories of Pork Italiano, which is an elemental combination for me: rich moist pork, braised bitter greens, salty sharp provelone, and some hot peppers liberally applied if you got 'em. Everything you could ask for, a harmony greater than the sum of its parts. Seeking that supernatural harmony is the motivation of my cooking. My dad's side of the family was also Italian-American. Vivid memories still guide me: Aunt Anna (pronounced AnnDanna) working dough through the chitarra, eating meatballs flecked with little lumps of potatoes (she used mashed potatoes, lumpy, to tenderize the balls), garlicky greens and beans for lunch. She worked in a Port Richmond kitchen that was tiny and outmoded to be sure, but that was enlarged by the sureness of her kitchen work and the tradition that worked its way out of her knowing hands. That's an image that sticks with me, and keeps me rooted in the simplicity that my vertical piston sausage stuffer, standmixer, food processor, and the internet with all its glorious excess of information can work to distract me from. I moved to the midwest for graduate school in medieval literature (my field is Old English literature: Bede, Beowulf, King Alfred, et al). I had never been anywhere near any midwestern state, and probably would have had to think a little to sort out the region on a map. So I had a lot of expectations ready to be squared with the actual reality of the place: I knew of cheese, beer, and walleye and that was about it. When I got here, I asked somebody where to get some cheese and they pointed me to a small market nearby. I had been working at a deli in northern Delaware (closed now) that specialized in European cheese and meats (the cheese selection was amazing, you could get smoked eel cut to order, foie gras and corned veal tongue was always on offer). To say the least, I was disappointed by the store: there was hardly any Wisconsin cheese! I thought for a while that Wisconsin's fame for cheese rested only on old worn-out tradition and newer mega-producers like Sargento and I felt myself bereft of the sophisticated offerings I was used to. Also, I couldn't get a hoagie or a steak to save my life. Luckily I was completely wrong about what I thought was a foodless place. It turned out thought that my eyes were just looking somewhere else, something I first discovered when I started going to farmer's markets, which are a fixture here (11 of them happen throughout the week in Madison alone) whereas I never knew of one in northern Delaware where I lived from the ages of 18-23 while going to undergrad. In really digging beneath the surface of the place, which the farmer's markets first taught me to do, all manner of expectations were bound to be and were overturned. I lived in north Wilmington, Delaware before coming to Madison. The place was and is a wasteland of sorts for non-corporate food. It is far too hard to find a place there that's not a franchise or chain of some sort. Madison is completely the opposite: on the isthmus, where I live, there are hardly any fast food places. If you want fast food, you have to drive to the far west or east side of the town. Or you can go down State St, the boulevard that is the homebase of college students, but even there chains are few and far between. So I began to eat locally, even before it was cool (!?). I got into local farms, local food, and local beer all of which are in such abundant supply, it seems sometimes that you have to work not to eat locally around here. Madison is also the place where I really started to cook. After I moved here for grad school, I was all alone when it came to food in a strange place where I no longer had my daily bread or even my sandwich shops. My mom is force in the kitchen (that's a euphemism); she runs it with a vision, no matter what she's cooking, and with a strict, keen eye. Getting out from under her wing too, I had to do it myself: and it turned out I loved to cook even more than I'd thought. I started perfecting recipes, learning to bake bread, dabbling in charcuterie to replace what I moved away from. That effort to replace and recover what I'd moved away from became something different. It became less an exercise of replacement and more of an exercise in emplacement. As I started looking for the best ingredients, my own philosophy towards food shaped itself: first, do no harm. I cook all manner of things, and there's very little I don't like (I can't think of anything at the moment!). So this week we'll have beer, we'll have cheese, we'll have bread, we'll have cocktails, and we'll have whatever food it occurs to me to make. I'm leaning toward Ma Po Tofu tonight; my girlfriend just brought me home last night some fresh Sichuan peppercorns from San Francisco (what you can get around here is a little on the stale side). And after all beer is great with spicy tofu and Fish Fragrant eggplants eked out from the sunset of my garden's life (I hope!). So here ends the rambling story of myself. Onwards to food and drink!

Hi, I'm Randi. I'm coming to you from bright and sunny Socal, more specifically, Santa Clarita. Santa Clarita is infamous for chain restaurants and Six Flags Magic Mountain. Santa Clarita was incorporated in 1987 and is comprised of the cities of Valencia, Stevensen Ranch, Newhall, Saugus, Castaic and Canyon Country. I usually tell people I live in Santa Clarita, even though I really live in Canyon Country. Santa Clarita is the 4th largest city in LA county. We're about 35 miles from Downtown LA, Hollywood and Santa Monica. Much to my dismay, I'm 60 miles from Long Beach. I go to Long Beach a lot and traffic on the 405 is a bitch. The last 4 times that I blogged, I was living in Exeter, Ontario, Canada, Pop. 4,000. .When I lived in Canada, I was in a same sex marriage, for almost 7yrs. Unfortunately, as we all know things happen, people grow apart and change and marriages dont always work out. However, there is usually a silver lining to every sad story. In our case, we are both in new relationships. My partner Julie is amazingly fabulous and I thank the universe and facebook(where I found her again) every single day. We were together 18yrs ago and 11 yrs ago, but the timing wasnt right. You know what they say, the 3rd time is the charm : ). Prior to moving to Ontario, I attended law school. For mumerous reasons, I didnt practice in Canada, instead falling back on former culinary training. I cooked for some very ungrateful seniors in a senior dining program for 3yrs. I wasnt happy with the job nor with where I lived. I'm a city girl and Exeter is very much the country. I discovered egullet while I was living there and I'm grateful because I've met some wonderful people. I miss my Heartland folks very much!! Now that I'm back in California, I'm planning to take the California Bar Exam in February. I was supposed to take it in July, but I had to have surgery so I had to pull out of my prep class and the exam. My prep class starts again in December so I'm using my time before to study, cook some food for the freezer and do house projects. We're currently in the process of gathering quotes for a full kitchen remodel. I have a quote from Costco, an independent cabinet maker and my next stop is Home Depot. Julie and I discussed Ikea, but she wasnt crazy about those cabinets. I brought my two standard dachshunds with me to Canada when I moved there, and of course they came back with me( they are 12 and 13). Julie had 2 dogs as well, both females, a cairn and a westie. Now we have 4, we're like the lesbian version of the Brady Bunch, except with dogs, not kids. As far as this week goes, I have a few things brewing. Tomorrow I'm going to Long Beach to break the fast with my aunt and uncle. I lived in Long Beach before I moved to Canada and I honestly wish I still was living there. My uncle discovered a new Thai restaurant in Cerritos where he wants to go. Sunday is our towns Farmer's Market and I usually go. I also have a meet and greet for a foodie meetup group I'm a member of. Monday, I'm going to Santa Monica and will go out for lunch and to my favorite fish market. I have a cake to bake this week, a friend asked me to donate a cake for a "cakewalk" fundraiser. I also told Julie I'd bake something for her to take to work. Friday we're going to Pasadena for a DineLA meal with another foodie meetup group. We're spending the weekend in Long Beach too( we're dog sitting for my aunt/uncle). They have 3 dachshunds so we'll have 7 dogs to take care of. Not sure what else is on the agenda, anything you want to see?

Hello everyone! So I'll be taking the reigns after a great week of Philly food from nolnacs! A very quick little background, I was born and raised here in Oakland, CA. I have to admit that food wasn't the biggest part of my life growing up. It wasn't until about 2001 when I was out of high school that I started watching the original japanese Iron Chef. I hadn't realized just how creative you could be with food, I was still microwaving cheddar cheese on bagels... Working 2 dead end jobs I enrolled in the California Culinary Academy in 2002. I had found a perfect fit. I love to make things with my hands and I love to take care of people. But as it is with a lot of culinary schools it wasn't a fit for most and I am only 3 out of 32 in my class still cooking. I jumped around restaurants in the Bay Area never really staying at one place for more than a year, I wanted to get a very broad knowledge base. Wood oven at "B", raw bar at Pearl, deserts at Scharffen Berger and 6 years later I had landed at Boulevard in San Francisco when a friend approached me. He asked if I wanted a little article written up in his email news letter about my small catering thing I did on the side. I told him "Sure, just write up that I will come over and cook a meal like a do for my friends and family". I got 63 emails the day it came out. I started the business, built the website and was off the races within 2 weeks. It has really been a perfect fit for me. I have moved back home to utilize my parent's beautiful kitchen and to save money/buy equipment. I ride my bicycle here in the East Bay and to San Francisco to pick up my product. Then I get to make everything myself (I'm a little controlling when it comes to my food...). So here we go, it's about 8:30 and my day starts, I have a dinner tonight so I'm about to jump on the bike and do my rounds. I have a lot on my schedule this week and it all has to do with food so I think it will be entertaining for you all. Enjoy!

Hello everyone and welcome to my foodblog. I'm a relatively new member of eGullet so I will follow in EatNopales footsteps by providing a short introduction. I grew up in rural Indiana on my parents' farm which my dad is still operating to this day. When I was younger we raised hogs (commercially) and chickens (our own use) as well growing corn and soybeans (~900 acres), but now he only does the corn and soybeans due to the plunge in the hog market in the mid to late 90s. Growing up in that place and time (80s/90s), my exposure to food was rather narrow. My mom taught me and the rest of my siblings how to cook and bake, but in mostly typical midwestern ways - cookies, cakes, pie, meat & potatoes. I had and still have a great deal of fondness for the desserts of my youth and I will certainly be sharing my pie making with you this week, but as for the savory side of things.... well... it's a bit different. I cook and eat more ethnic food than I had ever imagine existed as a child. For instance, I never had Indian food (what a revelation) until I was in college. Speaking of college, I spent my junior year studying abroad in the island nation of Malta. For those of you who are not familiar with Malta, it is a small island south of Sicily with strong Italian/British/Arabic influences in the cuisine and culture. One of my fondest memories of my time in Malta was walking to the local bakery and devouring the still warm bread. As a side note, I like warm bread and I don't care what the experts say. It is so much more enjoyable that way. Cuisinewise though, Malta is rather forgettable. My apologies to any of you who are passionate devotees of Kinnie or pastizzi. After college, I moved to Chicago which was where my interest in food truly blossomed. Living truly on my own for the first time, I began cooking to save money and to eat somewhat healthier. As time went on, I became more and more interested in cooking and attempted every more ambitious projects and dishes. I also began exploring the restaurant scene of Chicago - from fine dinning to the multitude of ethnic restaurants scattered throughout the city. Two years ago, I moved to Philadelphia to be with my (now) wife who is in medical school here. While I was disappointed to leave Chicago in some ways, I was excited to be able to do a great deal of my shopping at the Reading Terminal Market. For all of its size and grocery options, Chicago lacks a great public market. Enough history - on to the food. I don't really have a cooking philosophy or theme other than I like to do things myself so I tend to buy very little that has been prepared or processed already. In terms of cuisine, I tend to make whatever strikes my whim while doing my menu planning but most of what I make is Italian or Italian influenced to the dismay of my wife who sometimes longs for the Chinese food that she grew up eating and I have little notion how to make. Charcuterie has also been an interest of mine for the past 4 years or so hence the antique meat slicer. I've made, with varying degrees of success, guanciale, pancetta, salami, chorizo and a number of fresh sausages. I have noticed that many of the people who are interested in charcuterie are also interested in molecular gastronomy/modernist cuisine and I am no exception. I'm not sure if I will be doing anything in that vein this week, but it is something that I enjoy dabbling in. One of my roommates in Chicago referred to me as the cookie monster due to my proclivity for vacuuming up any homemade cookies that were around. I must admit, I have an incredible sweet tooth and I enjoy making desserts. I have already mentioned my love of pie but I do like making other desserts as well. I have been making a tremendous amount of ice cream this summer ever since we were given an ice cream maker as a wedding gift. It's interesting how much I crave ice cream now since before I had the machine, I ate ice cream perhaps once a month and only during the summer. This will be a mostly typical week from me. I tend to attempt more ambitious and time consuming projects on the weekends and cook simpler meals on weeknights. Since I cook nearly every meal my wife and I eat we usually only go out to eat a couple of times a month. That being said, we're going to be going out a couple of times this week to give everyone a taste of the Philadelphia restaurant scene.

SobaAddict.... tough act to follow. Since I am not a particularly prolific Egullet poster, although I think the length of my posts might have some notoriety, I am going to start with an intro that should give you some perspective on my food background & style. My parents were born & raised in the municipality Union de San Antonio which lies in Los Altos de Jalisco (the Highland region of Jalisco state which is one of Mexico's foremost dairy capitals)... where they grew, raised, hunted, caught & prepared from scratch almost everything they ate from Corn Tortillas to Cheese, Jocoque (similar to Greek or Lebanese Yogurt), and freshly butchered proteins. Read more about the culinary traditions of my parents' hometowns at: As most probably know, Mexico was site of the first national scale adoption of "The Green Revolution" where subsidized petrochemical based farming created massive gluts of food & encouraged one of the world's great mass migrations from farms to big cities. In 1960 my dad's family became part of that exodus landing in Naucalpan, a sparsely populated rural farming area 15 miles north west of Mexico City's historic center. For 10 years, my dad (as the oldest male sibling in the family) built a dairy business that grew to 200 head of cattle & 2 trucks to distribute the milk that my dad, three brothers & Abuelo milked by hand everyday. By 1970 Naucalpan was a densely populated, caotic industrial suburb with running water, paved streets & electricity; my dad's family sold the dairy business and got into grocery retail. That same year my mom moved to Mexico City for allergy treatments where she lived near the Centro Historic with her grand uncle Jose & his wife Lola - a native of the Mexico City area who grew up speaking Nahautl (the language of the Aztecs) as her primary language... remember her she was instrumental in my growing culinary interest. A few years later my parents met in one of many get togethers of people from Union de San Antonio [most migrants to Mexico City formed very strong bonds with people from their hometowns with the same degree of "nationalism" & ethnic pride you might see among Russian, Sicilian or Polish immigrants in New York City etc., ]. A few years later they married, had me & opened up a Puesto de Licuados a market stall selling Licuados [Mex style Smoothies], Aguad Frescas, Fresh Cut Fruit, Eskimales (Milk Shakes) and in the cold months the Mexico City tradition of raw eggs with a Xerez shooter (Mexican Sherry Wine). Success in the Licuados business enabled them to purchase outright a unit in a high rise in the Azcapotzalco district where they shared the fourth floor with families from Monterrey, Sinaloa & Puebla. The houswives apparently got along well and would take turns cooking dinners at each others apartments.. this was the first time my mom was really exposed to gastronomic traditions of other States... she picked up a few dishes but largely stuck to the cuisine she learned growing up.. however, her stories of these "exotic" dishes are something I would treasure & learn from later on. After losing their lease to a redevelopment effort, and a few other investment missteps they decided to come to the United States where [other relatives claimed] money grows on trees. I was months from turning five when the BIG move from Mexico City to East L.A. occurred. My earliest memories of living in L.A were a bit troubling... I started all-English kindergarden knowing only a few words, my parents were perpetually anxious about INS raids and money was not quite abundant. But the worst of my earliest memories was they day we went to forage Cactus paddles in the hills around Dodger Stadium... I was pouting, bratty and wanted the earth to grumble & swallow me up. Life is funny that way... now I think there is nothing cooler than going around town foraging for "undesirable" foods. From a culinary perspective, the move to L.A. really didn't impact my parents all that much. I remember going with dad to shop at Grand Central Market, although small in scale, really could be any mercado in Mexico City. My parents, like most Mexicans (particularly those from rural areas) never cook from recipes.. they have a couple dozen main dishes they rotate amongst; every trip to a market resulted in an instant calculus, balancing price against freshness & quality.... they would buy the least expensive among the quality ingredients available (which was often whatever was in its peak season).. and adjusted their cooking techniques to the ingredients. Growing up in East L.A. it was very easy to develop a sort of ethnocentrism about food.. the best regarded Mexican eateries were within a 5 mile radius of our home.. Carnitas Uruapan which butchered their own pigs & cooked every part of the swine in copper kettles the right way, El Tepeyac (not the famous burrito place) served Jalisco style dishes that attracted people from all over the city, La Chapalita had the best carne asada tacos & tortas in the city, La Parrilla was THE place in town for parrilladas (assorted meats & vegetables served on tabletop grills with real mezquite charcoal, hand patted tortillas & all the fixings).. we also had fantastic Cochinita Pibil as well. In addition, my parents worked their rural connections to score ingredients unattainable to most Angelenos. We had a number of relatives working on dairy farms in Tulare... they would sometimes visit on Sundays arriving in the mid morning with aluminum canisters filled with freshly squeezed, unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk. My parents would drink it straight whilie moaning & groaning (I HATE warm milk), then they would make Queso Fresco, Panela (much more to my liking). One of my dad's cousins was a goat dealer.. able to deliver young kid for roasting over mezquite, or pastured mature goat for Birria. Another relative would score suckling pigs... there was a quail hunter etc., etc., Understandably I thought I knew everything about Mexican cuisine. Fast forward almost decade.. we got our green cards (thanks to the Reagan-Simpson-Rodino amnesty) and I made my first trip back to Mexico City as a curious, very hungy 13 year old. It took me exactly 3 meals to realize I didn't know jack about Mexican cusine... every single day of every trip back I learn something new. I estimate that I have consumed well over 1,000 homecooked or restaurant meals in Mexico City, Puebla, Veracruz, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Michoacan etc.. I have rarely eaten the same thing twice, and I feel like I am just starting to hit my stride understanding the cuisine. After two decades of living in the Mexican centric cocoon that is East L.A. and traveling back to Mexico every chance I had; I graduated college... moved to West L.A. experienced a bit of culture shock & integrated to mainstream American society. Shortly there after I discovered Sushi, Indian, Dim Sum, Thai, Italian, Provencal, German, Brazilian and other cuisines.. went through that period of exhileration & amazement. But the more I learn about other cusines, the more it helps appreciate some new facet of Mexican cuisine and with every year I fall more in love with it. My cooking approach is deeply rooted in the 8,000 year culinary history of Mexico yet at the same time modern & pragmatic. As is the whimsical nature of a life... we spend so many years wanting to be different than our parents but in the end we begrudgingly become them. Like them I forage for ingredients, grow some stuff and shop around for great deals flexibily adjusting my dishes to whatever is available... the only difference is that they stuck to 20 - 30 dishes they grew up with... no matter how in love I might be with Mexican cuisine.. I am not from Union de San Antonio.. I haven't plowed & seeded its land... I am something a bit different than my parents... I have cookbooks, cooking shows & recipes as a guide. I am a bit put off by food that is overly architected... I like food that is earthy and looks like food not modern sculpture. I stick to organic, local & seasonal food as much as possible.... I like meals that have a deep story.. but I also love to make crap up from leftovers, odds & ends. Enough meaningless drivel.. my throat is dry... it is time for some mezcal.