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I guess it's officially Sunday now so it's time to start this topic! Kerry Beal guessed correctly that this week's foodblogger was from San Diego, however nobody guessed the right person. I am FrogPrincesse, also known as Elise. I was born and grew up in Paris, France. I moved to San Diego for work 13 years ago with my American husband. We have a 5-year old daughter and live in a house in Pacific Beach. I am a chemist and graduated from the same college as Herve This (ESPCI), although I did not study molecular gastronomy. I work for a pharmaceutical company. I've always been interested in food. When I was growing up, I was the self-designated pastry chef at home. I spent a lot of my free time baking pretty much every chocolate-based recipe that I could put my hands on. My mom cooks a lot of traditional French dishes (beef bourguignon, etc), so that definitely had an influence on me. My style of cooking is mostly French bistro and I try to incorporate fresh & local ingredients as much as I can. I belong to a CSA. I enjoy making things from scratch, so you may see homemade bread, fresh cheese, pasta, ice cream or charcuterie make an appearance sometime this week. I use cooking as a form of stress relief after work, so it’s not unusual for me starting a large cooking project late in the evening, and tonight was no exception. I am extremely excited to host the eG Foodblog this week. I’ve been reading these blogs for years and it’s a great way to get to know eG members better. So I hope that my blog will be an occasion for me to interact with all of you. Please feel free to ask any questions. I am glad that I can represent San Diego. It’s a pet peeve of mine – I feel that our area has a lot to offer but that it’s often overshadowed by its big neighbor, LA. Hopefully my blog can somewhat change that impression. We do have a lot going on in San Diego as you will see this week. edited to correct typos

Hello everyone! Welcome to my foodblog. I'm a bit nervous so I hope you'll bear with me. First to address a few things that might be helpful as start our journey. Toolprincess - a longstanding web moniker derived from my love of gadgets and tools (not just kitchen related) I don't have a sous vide so no sous vide stories or Modernist Cuisine this week. (unless it's unintentional) I am obsessed with local places whereever I go and I love to find the best local dive...hotdogs, hamburgers, tacos, BBQ, even cafeterias. I love to cook but eat out way too often I do not give as much attention to fresh, local, or natural as I probably should - i.e. I do use canned foods, boxed mixes and things with high fructose corn syrup at times but I'm no Sandra Lee either. So now we have the preliminaries out of the way. I'm Laurie. I just got engaged a month ago. My life is fun but full with an aging mom who needs care, a fiance, a busy job and a soon to be stepson who is 8. I hope you enjoy my blog!!!

Hello from Dallas! – and congratulations to Kerry on her impressive detective work. I figured I was too infrequent a poster to have any shot on getting guessed. I’ll start with a little background on myself and some overview on the general plan for the blog. There are three of us here in Dallas – myself, my wife Nicole, and our 8 month old (tomorrow) son Charles (who’s just getting started on solid foods – happy to include if anyone is interested). We’ve also got two pups, Delilah (the pug who snuck into the teaser pic) and Isabelle (an insane American Staffordshire Terrier). For 10 years I’ve been in various stages of coming to grips with the fact that for whatever cursed combination of genetics and willpower I’ve been dealt, it’s basically impossible for me to manage my weight whatsoever if I’m eating carbs. Moderation and carbs just do not go together for me. For someone as food focused as myself this is an especially difficult fact; it’s hard to read eGullet everyday while thinking in the back of your mind that you can never eat 80% of the great food that everyone is posting. After going through different phases on this (trying to be absolutely strict and ending up failing, trying to do it halfway and ending up failing, giving up altogether and really failing), over the past 2-3 years I’ve settled into a routine that works for me. Basically, I divide the year up into 2-3 month cycles; each cycle starts with 3-7 days of me eating whatever I want (usually tied into a special occasion or a vacation), then 2-3 weeks of strict low-carb induction (no booze, no dairy!) , then a month or two of manageable low carb (and then the process starts again). It’s definitely not the fastest way to weight loss, but it has been a much more manageable and long-term sustainable approach for me (now I can read eG and look forward to eating all those delicious things in a few weeks), and I’ve lost over 100 pounds so far essentially on this approach. All of that is kind of a long-winded way of saying that this blog will not be a typical week in the Daniel household – nope, this is a cheat week, starting by going for all the things I crave in Dallas and then going to Chicago for some serious eating starting on Thursday. A typical meal for us while I’m eating low-carb is something like this (apologies for the ugly picture – I’m working on it!): SV wagyu ribeye with mushroom cognac cream sauce, steamed broccoli with sriracha hollandaise, and a blue cheese salad – not bad for diet food! For the blog, however, I’m going to be branching out into carby cooking (a bit out of my comfort zone) while we are in Dallas (with hopefully interesting lunches and a couple of dinners out thrown in). I will definitely need help here! Chicago will be a good example of the type of trip I try to take advantage of for my “cheat weeks”, with mostly destination-type dining. Hopefully it will be interesting! One last thing I forgot to mention – one of the toughest casualties of the low carb lifestyle is my affection for well made classic cocktails (pretty much wine and spirits only during low-carb time), and so I will be taking advantage of this week in that respect as well; for sure there will be a punch, some tiki cocktails, and hopefully an interesting Dallas bar visit - we’ll see what else I can cram in. Apologies for the long-winded first post – I’ll get to the action now!

Hello eGulleteers, and welcome to my first ever food blog. First, a little bit about me and where my eating & cooking are inspired from: I grew up in the Southwest (AZ), and after marriage spent a few years in Vegas, then off to Bangalore, India for a couple years, and now live in the far southeast part of New Mexico, right on the Texas border. Here's a picture from about five minutes down the road: Now, growing up the way I did (with a Jewish/Italian father) in the land of great Mexican food (imagine those meal combos!), and living in Vegas and India, my family and I have developed a taste (addiction?) for flavors that reach out and grab you. I have a naturally small appetite, so I really don't want to put anything in my mouth that doesn't taste amazing. When we lived in India, I really began to enjoy cooking. Partly it was the amazingly cheap and incredibly fresh ingredients available, and partly it was the desire to be able to replicate the amazing food of Bangalore when we finally moved back home. That's also when I discovered eGullet. So - all that to say this: I'm depressed. Seriously. I live in a town that has more than a hundred 'Mexican' restaurants, but in which black pepper is considered spicy. I live in New Mexico, yet in a mysterious vortex that doesn't have a strong green chilly culture. Oi Vey! I live in the south (land of sweet tea) but in a city with not one single barbecue joint. Am I being punished? This is the part of the country in which if you order a 'latte' people look at you funny and assume you're a 'foreigner' or of dubious morality. Don't get me wrong, there's some good food here, but very little of it is at a restaurant. We've got some friends that are amazing cooks, and I've been learning some new techniques & tools, but other than that, it's a food desert here. See the picture of the farm above? We're surrounded by them, but there's not a single farmers market here. So - this week you're going to follow me around as I try (desperately) to tickle my palate with the limited supplies available, and as I search high and low for something new and interesting. Full Disclosure: Some of these meals (and shopping) are a week old, because we were traveling and my schedule is a bit hectic, so if you see me post two dinners in one day, it's not because I'm time-zone hopping, but compressing two weeks of eating into one. Hope you enjoy the ride!

Hi, I'm SobaAddict70 and this is my fourth eG Foodblog. Here are Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Memo to self: must try harder the next time I do a Foodblog since Kerry got it right, with a little help from Mitch. This Foodblog will be a little different from all the others. There'll be lots of the usual cooking, eating and picture-taking; however, I'm borrowing a page from Iron Chef, sort of. This week, you get to decide what Soba cooks for lunch and dinner. But I'm getting ahead of myself slightly. Back in 2008, I decided to embark on a year-long experiment -- to cook seasonally and within reason, locally. I shop almost exclusively at Union Square Greenmarket, as well as neighborhood food shops in the Upper East Side. Sometimes I'll pick something up at Citarella, especially if it's fish. Lately I've been -- against my better judgment -- becoming fond of Eataly. I usually don't use much canned or overly-processed food. I suppose that might be a little limiting but I view it as a challenge. It keeps me constantly thinking about food, what to cook, what to prepare for the next meal. And it helps sharpen my curiosity and appreciation for the beauty of food. And that's what this Foodblog is really about: that the beauty of the world around us is reflected in the food that we eat.

Hello from the Portland, Oregon 'burbs, my fellow eGulleteers! I'm super excited to share my week with you! First a little bio: I'm a mother of three little people, Aria (5), Mina (3), and Gio (10 months). My husband and I relocated to Portland from outside of Milwaukee, WI, in 2002 after the snow plows knocked over our mailbox one too many times ...I highly recommend a corporate relocation package if you can swing it. Anyways, we had a couple of options, but when we came out to see Portland, we fell in love. It's really a beautiful city, lots of green space, with an amazing food culture. I went to culinary school and got my certificate in Patisserie and Baking in 2004, although before and after culinary school I actually worked at a preschool. I bake quite a bit in my spare time, and I got into the habit of baking birthday treats for the other teachers and staff at the center I worked at. At the end of April, I decided to leave my job at the preschool (by then I was Center Director) to start a home-based baking business. I'm still working through the challenges that starting your own (legitimate) business entails, but in the meantime, I make custom cakes and cupcakes for birthdays and casual get-togethers. I'd love to hear any of your experiences with getting into the food business! It's a little challenging to bake with the offspring underfoot, but I love staying home with them. I've always loved to cook and bake, my parents were so-so cooks, and I started cooking the family meals at about age 10. I learned most of what I know from a combination of reading cookbooks, experimenting in the kitchen, and watching cooking shows on PBS, and later, Food Network (back when it wasn't all Next Food Network Stars wandering around the country, marveling at giant pizzas) so I'm still developing my "style." I basically started with a clean slate, no major food traditions to uphold, although my Grandma was an amazing baker. I do have some of her recipes as well. I've got quite a bit planned for this week, but I'm completely open to suggestions if you have things you'd like to see around the city. Let's get this food party started! -Heather (Genkinaonna)

Hello Everyone! I am starting this off a bit early since I am on the West Coast and by the time I finish running around tomorrow it may be a bit late for some. I live in the South Bay of Los Angeles, on the city versus the ocean side. This is a view from the peninsula looking out to the ocean. Catalina Island is 26 miles out there but obscured by haze. To the right is the newish Terranea Resort on the grounds of what long ago was Marineland - the original home I think of Shamu the killer whale. To the left is the Trump golf course. I, however, live on the city side in an old small formerly rural town called Lomita. This is a shot I took in January of the hay truck offloading at the old feed store. As an example of the diversity of the Los Angeles that I love, the Christmas decorations are still up on the light poles, and the building in the background is the Chabad Center. I used the book "An Embarrassment of Mangoes" in my teaser photo. Really Los Angeles is an embarrassment of food diversity and my little property is a citrus heaven. I hope to introduce you to a few of my local markets and restaurants and also give you a look at my cooking.

!חג פסח שמח or Happy Passover! This is not the first time I've done an eG Foodblog during Passover. It's hard to believe that the first one was in 2005 and the second one, just one year later in 2006. Since it's been 5 years since I last blogged, I thought it was time to do it again. For those of you who don't know me, I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. If you take a look at this map of North America you'll find Winnipeg right in the center - about 100 km north of the US border (we border North Dakota and Minnesota) and dead centre between the east and west coasts of Canada. I work in the family business - we call it Desserts Plus, but the emphasis is more on the Plus and less on the Desserts. We're kosher caterers and have a kosher food store in Winnipeg. Tomorrow (Monday, April 18th) marks the end of the 3 busiest weeks of the year for us -- we expect over 150 catering orders to go out over a 4 hour period, plus customers coming in for last-minute items before Passover starts tomorrow evening. You probably won't hear much from me tomorrow -- unless there are some lulls during the day. But if you have any questions, please ask them! I'll get to them as soon as possible. The plan for the week is a small seder dinner on Tuesday night and a lot of home-cooking over the holiday. It's 11 PM and I have to go finish packaging the chopped liver -- I've been here since 8 AM and have to be back by 8 AM tomorrow - and there's still stuff to do before I go. (This is about 1/3 of the 90 lbs. we made this year)

G'day! My name is Evan but you know me as haresfur. I'm an FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) transplant to Bendigo Australia. Bendigo is a Victorian era gold rush town in the State of Victoria, southeastern Australia. It is a "Rural City" - quite the oxymoron, about 150 km from Melbourne. The population is about 110,000, which is I think the 3rd largest city in Victoria. That gives you an idea of how sparsely populated it is once you get out of the Melbourne area. I'll keep the blog focused on food but context is important to me, particularly as I discover a new culture. First, I'd like to recognize and thank the traditional owners of the land, the Dja Dja Wurrung people. Bendigo is a "City in the Forest" but the box-ironbark and mallee Eucalyptus across the street from me were looking rather sad when I arrived after 13 years of drought. Record rainfall in the last year has seen an amazing renewal in the undergrowth. The wattle in the teaser picture was happy last spring. Anyone know if all wattle seeds are edible or just some species? The gold rush starting in 1851 saw an influx of people including a substantial number of Chinese, some of whom came by way of the California gold rush. Many never left and I was told the town helped look after the single aging miners and now the Bendigo Chinese Association is a major supporter of health services. Easter is the time when the only Imperial Dragon in the southern hemisphere Sun Loong wakes to take part in the parade. He's hard to wake up so the day before Easter, the Lion Dancers and drums make a lot of noise followed by 100,000 fire crackers. As Anna N noted the Chinese population is well integrated and the greater community takes part in the lion teams, Chinese pipe band, and dragon teams. It takes a lot of people to carry 100 m of dragon. I encourage you to visit the Golden Dragon Museum website to learn more. Well enough of that. Bendigo is 17 hours ahead of the west coast of N America so many of you will be seeing this a day early. I'm a bit intimidated by the level of culinary expertise and passion here but I'll try to show a bit of my food life and have you explore the area with me. So my day started with a wet nose shoved into my face at 4:00 AM. It was a legitimate demand for food from the young Dalmatian, Spock (a rescue that came with name Spot, but I couldn't deal with that). He and the old Dalmatian, Misty, missed supper after having chicken frames for tea because he was asleep and Misty could lose some weight. The cats got tuna and I had Anzac biscuits and orange juice. Wattle's feeding station: Pinot's feeding station (I could use the counter space but have to keep the cat food away from the pups). Better kitchen pictures later.

First of all, I am very excited to be blogging – a little nervous, but excited. I have a lot of things planned, but I am sure I won't get to all of them. Most of all, I hope to have a lot of fun blogging this week and introducing you to some of the food that is not the typical things people hear about – which is all about the Creole food from New Orleans and Cajun food from southwest Louisiana. There's more... there's good old country food that most of us grew up eating. How did I come up with the name of Honeysuckles and Huckleberries? It's the name of a cookbook I put together for our family. What the name means to me is country living and home. Growing up I remember Mama loved the sweet, sensational smell of honeysuckles. It was her favorite flower. They grew wild on the fences around our property. They were always pretty and fragrant, and I would pull the stem from them until it came out of the bottom of the flower all for one drop of juice, which tasted out of this world. One of my dreams then was to have one whole glass of honeysuckle juice! We also had a pond that had turtles, fish, snakes and everything else that intrigues children. There were also wild blackberry bushes. In the summertime, we would take our buckets and pick blackberries all afternoon. We were told not to eat the berries until they were washed, and our blackberry-stained tongues would tell Mom, “No, ma'am. We didn't eat any.” After a little lecture, and after the berries were washed, we would smash the berries in a bowl and add cream and sugar and eat them with a spoon. Then, she would make us a blackberry cobbler for dessert that night! So... blackberries aren't huckleberries, but they're close enough, and they remind me of Huckleberry Finn and little boys having adventures growing up on the Mississippi River. Brett, my brother, had his own adventures growing up in the country. He hunted, fished, skipped school to go horseback riding all day, etc. Whenever he would catch a fish, he would excitedly run into the house and say, "Cook this for me, Mama!" It was a wonderful place to grow up, and while we were a family of very modest means, we always ate well – just like most of the people around here. What I hope to do in this blog is introduce you to a little bit of Louisiana country living. There will be a few field trips to some interesting places. Food will be cooked, of course, but I am going to do my best to stay away from the standard fare that everyone hears so much about (except jambalaya – there will be jambalaya) and cook old time country favorites, and by the end of this week I would hope that you would feel like a welcome guest in our home.

Hi all. Time has sprung forward, so its time for My Spring Break Blog to begin. Today, DH and I will be going down to Galveston Island, but first let me welcome you to our home and show you around a bit. Please take a seat and I'll show you my kitchen. We are fortunate to have a good sized kitchen with lots of counter space and lots of cabinets and drawers. See my new rice cooker. Love it! The double ovens come in handy. The top one has a broiler and is self-cleaning. Time to make some breakfast. I'll be back soon.

*deep breath* *gulp* I'd like to thank the Academy. Oh wait....that was LAST weekend ! Yes, Heidi, Darienne and Nickrey got it. I did sort of know that the Dodger Dogs and the Polish cookbook would give it to y'all. Your guest host this week is little ol' moi. I am so thrilled to invite you into my kitchen, and very flattered that eG thought me worthy of a vaunted Foodblog. Or, if there were no other takers, I'd prefer not to know ! Let me live in my fool's paradise To address a couple of comments from the "coming attractions" thread, Prasantrin, the first Mexican angel is indeed an ornament, not jewelry. She hangs in my kitchen, as does the print of the angels baking. Robirdstx, hadn't thought about the connection to LA, but I LIKE it since Long Beach is, in fact, the largest "suburb" of LA. If we were anywhere else but 30 miles south of downtown LA, we'd be a big city on our own, but here in LaLaLand, we're but a suburb. Actually, the angels are because I collect angels, and those particular ones also were making or offering food. Which, or course, speaks to my soul. Chris Hennes, Heidi nailed it. Your "mountains" in the distance is, in fact Catalina Island....26 miles across the sea, as they say. And that's the Port of Long Beach, with downtown Long Beach in the far foreground. There's a hill in the middle of Long Beach, which is an independently incorporated city, called Signal Hill. It's where a lot of the old-time oil operations in the area was based. That picture was taken from the top of Signal Hill. You can also see downtown LA from there, but it was a bit too hazy to make it out clearly the day I was there. Anyways, back to food. Tomorrow we'll get into the throes of the week. As a last teaser, here's some of the resources we'll be using to cook our way through the next few days. And yes, there will be a few field trips, and probably (more than) a few gratutious cute, furry dog shots. Hey, THEY eat my cooking too !

[font="Trebuchet MS"]Hi everybody. Welcome to what we believe is the first eG foodblog from New Zealand. Due to time differences it’s a little late in the day now for me, but shall we start with some breakfast? Those are from Joanne Harris and Fran Warde’s book [amazon=0060893133]The French Market. The only change I make is to omit the egg wash – I find it gives a slightly ‘wrong’ taste; bitter, perhaps. And I have no trouble getting them brown enough (apologies for these ones – they’re slightly more brown than I’d like. That’s what happens when you put them in the oven just as you’re serving dinner, then forget …). I usually make a batch and freeze them; then they’re available at a moment’s notice when breakfast calls. I hope I can satisfy the anticipation you displayed in your reaction to the teaser photos. It’s going to be an interesting week for me, anyway. Shortly I’ll tell you about the City Market here in Wellington, where we’ll meet some very dedicated food people. Tomorrow we’re visiting a local gin distiller, and I’m taking you all to Valentine’s Day dinner (don’t read too much into that!) at my absolutely favourite Wellington restaurant - we’ll meet its chef at the market, just to get you in the mood. We have people coming to dinner on Wednesday (which is unusual, but I’ll manage it somehow), so you can sit in on that for a classic, if maybe predictable, dish (any guesses?). At some stage I’ll take you to a few of my favourite Wellington food shops, and next Saturday, weather permitting, we’re having a picnic with some of my work people – I have some very traditional New Zealand food planned for that. And there’ll be a few other bits and pieces thrown in as we go. Just as well I’m taking the next couple of days off work – I don’t think I could cope otherwise! Finished your croissants? How about some coffee before we go? Yes, Peter, I made one for you. While you’re enjoying that, let’s get some of the dry, factual stuff out of way, shall we? New Zealand is that funny-looking little group of islands way down at the bottom of the South Pacific (no, not that far down – that’s Antarctica). The two largest islands are imaginatively named the North and South Islands. Important note: if you’re ever talking about them, it’s always THE North Island or THE South Island – don’t forget the definite article. There’s also the West Island where Nick (nickrey) lives, but we won’t say too much about that. Wellington is the capital city and is at the bottom tip of the North Island, near enough to the geographical centre of the country. Greater Wellington has a population of 370,000 or so, of which Wellington City itself makes up around 180,000 (New Zealand’s total population is somewhere around 4.5 million – roughly the same as Sydney. Or Boston, apparently). The New Zealand dollar is worth around $US0.76 (or, to put it another way, $US10 buys $NZ13), and any measurements you see in the photos will be metric. Our time zone (we have an hour of daylight saving in effect at the moment) is 12 hours ahead of Europe, 18 ahead of California and 21 ahead of New York – that’s if my amateur time calculations are to be trusted. 10am here is 1pm yesterday in LA, anyway. This creates some difficulties doing a blog like this; I’ll try to make it sound like real-time, but in fact I’ll be well and truly shut down and in bed before many of you start thinking about reading it. Ethnically we’re quite a mixture. Most of us – it’s hard to say how many; the census figures are complicated by people claiming multiple origins – are of European ancestry – we have English, we have Greek, we have Irish, we have Italian – you name it, they’re here! The rest of us are of Maori, Pacific Island or Asian descent, with plenty of cultural mingling. That does make for an interesting food landscape, although I must confess up front: my palate leans very much towards Europe. I can’t help it; Asian tastes just doesn’t do it for me. Partly in recognition of this, our dinner tonight is going to be as traditionally New Zealand as it gets. I'll get that in the oven a little later and show you how it turned out - probably tomorrow (my time). A technical note, for those who are interested: the photos were taken using a Canon EOS 300D, most commonly with a 50mm f1.8 lens. I bought the lens, a fairly inexpensive one, specially for this blog and I can thoroughly recommend the joys of a fast lens for food photography. And yes, we must mention the teaser photos. I suspect there may be the odd smartypants out there who can use Google, so the quote in the second one probably wasn’t as hard as it might have been. But just so everybody knows: This one, I grant, could be anywhere. In the foreground are some nibbles I make for almost every dinner party we have. They're a very simple El Bulli recipe; peeled cherry tomatoes and balls of watermelon, separated by a basil leaf. The ones in the photo are shown not-quite-finished - there's a drizzle of basil oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper to come. In the background, a loaf of the bread I make from the subject of this thread, and very good it is too. This one is part of the Wellington Writers' Walk along the waterfront. The quote is from a poem by Bill Manhire, who among other things teaches creative writing at Wellington's Victoria University. This one is over the roof of our house, looking towards Evans Bay. The airport is in the middle distance towards the right. It's often said here that you can't beat Wellington on a good day. This was one. And this one gets the obligatory Lord of the Rings reference out of the way. Remember the part in the first film where the hobbits are hiding from the Black Rider? That was filmed on Mount Victoria, in these very trees, maybe half a kilometre from home. Enough already. Let’s go to the market.

恭喜发财! Greetings from Suzhou, and Happy New Year. I've been living here since August 2009, since moving from Japan. It's a pleasure to be bringing you the beginning of the rabbit year, as I'm 2/3 of the way through a full cycle in the Chinese zodiac, having moved to Asia in 2002 - a Horse year. Will I make it all the way through? I'm not sure yet. I'll be blogging to bring in the new year this week from Jiangsu, Suzhou as we say around here. To put that on a map for you, it's about 20 minutes on a high-speed train outside of Shanghai. Suzhou's famous for its gardens and canals - locals are fond of quoting the famous saying, "Just as there is paradise in heaven, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou on Earth." I'm not sure how close Suzhou is to paradise, but I've been pretty happy living here. This week, I'm not quite sure what we'll be seeing, as I haven't stayed in China through the holidays. Last year, to bring in the Tiger, my husband and I took some time off to tour around Malaysian Borneo, but since the Rabbit year is meant to be more quiet, I've decided to hang out at home, soak in the atmosphere, and blog for you. The New Year is a time when many shops close and most people journey back to their hometown. I say "journey" because it often takes several days to negotiate the traffic and crowds to make it home. Trains and buses are often sold out completely, and planes aren't much better. That's why I'll be staying close to home - no sights of Shanghai for us, I'm afraid. I've stocked the larder, so if every restaurant shuts down, and the market is deserted, there'll still be food to see. Through the miracle of the Earth tilting on its axis, I've actually already lived Sunday, and am now recapping my first day for you. I'm going to take you on a brief tour of my high street and my daily shops, brunch at my local Cantonese place, and a "Kitchen God" inspection of my kitchen. You all, of course, being my kitchen gods - although I'm warning you now, I have not set out any cakes. Since I'm not Chinese, there's a lot that I see and experience here that I don't have much or any understanding of - I hope that everyone who does can weigh in on things. Part of the joy of living in a foreign country is learning about the cultural traditions your host country has to offer, and living in China is one of the richest and most exciting experiences I've had overseas so far.

Well, it's time to get the party started since I'm already awake on this freezing Sunday morning in New York City. I know, I know; there are plenty of you who are undoubtedly in colder climes, but that doesn't mean it's not shivery here. This week you'll all get to join in with not one eGullet food blogger; not two eGullet food bloggers; but three eGullet food bloggers as johnder, slkinsey and I take you on a foodtastic tour of no less than two of New York City's five boroughs. (There might even be a trip to a third or fourth borough sometime during the week). Let me give a quick explanation of the 3 pictures of mine which were used over in the coming attractions topic: This rather small Pez collection resides on a shelf in the corner of our galley kitchen, using up room which would otherwise be taken up by more darn kitchen stuff, no doubt. But it's fun, and I've had the collection for at least 25 years, so for now, it stays. Then there was this: Indeed, Pierogi, that is Washington, D.C. My wife's (Significant Eater, btw) job is in D.C., and we have an apartment down there; that's the view of the monument from our rooftop. And finally: What could be more New York City than that universal street food, the pretzel (okay, Philadelphians, relax!)? This was taken at the Hester Street Fair, a flea market/food fair that takes place every weekend from spring to fall on a little piece of our co-op's property. So props to gfweb, lancastermike, Kent Wang and prasantrin for their outstanding guesses. As well as to all the eGullet food bloggers who have come before. Hang on to your hats - it should be a heck of a week!

Welcome everyone to my week of cooking. Talk about hard acts to follow: coming straight after the very successful blogs of Shelby and Chris Amirault. I hope I can provoke a fraction as much discussion and interest. For those people who tried to guess my identity, Pam asked for photos that would make it somewhat obscure. Seems I did too good a job. Let’s go through them. This first photo was not actually a sauce as some guessed. It was Crème Anglaise and it is sitting in an ice bath. The colour is not a photographic mistake. It was made using Joël Robuchon’s recipe, which uses twelve egg yolks. Along with the cream, sugar and two vanilla beans, this mixture went on to be a delicious ice cream that we enjoyed with Chistmas pudding. The second photo is the view from Balmoral Beach through Sydney's heads. Yes Erin, you got that one right. The tree that seemed to stump people is a Eucalyptus. Australia has over 700 varieties of Eucaplyptus and it is one of our most common trees. This beach is a five minute drive from my place, which in turn is only a few kilometers from the centre of Sydney. I try to go walking at Balmoral most days. The third and fourth photos are of a small part of my cooking bookshelf and my sous vide rig. Those of you who read the sous vide thread will know that I am a sometimes contributor. This brings me to the subtitle of my blog. I use many different types of cooking styles from classical to modernist. It’s really a matter of what gives the results that I want to achieve. The jazz part of the title comes from Charlie Trotter’s analogy of food with jazz and creative music in general. This concept took my fancy. Now on with the trip. As a note for those of you in North America, we are 19 hours ahead of the West Coast. That means it is 6.30pm here on Sunday and 11.30pm there on Saturday. If it seems like I’m posting at odd hours, that should explain it. Also, please bear with me if I don’t reply to your posts in what seems like a timely fashion: I may be sleeping.

Happy New Year!!!! Hello from almost smack-dab in the middle of Kansas! I was so excited to be asked to blog. I didn't think anyone would be able to guess it was me, but my last picture tipped at least a couple of you off. A little bit about me: I'm 36 and have been married to a wonderful man for 11 years. We got married New Year's Eve 1999....due to all the hype about the world ending in the year 2000, he figured he wouldn't have to be married long that way. We live way out in the country on a farm. No livestock, but plenty of crops such as sunflowers, wheat, soybeans and corn. Corn will be our primary crop in 2011 followed up by wheat. Here is what the outside of my house looks like during the summer months:

Five years ago, I had a foodblog. It was a terrific experience focusing on Providence food culture and on our family's daily cooking and eating during a pretty typical fall week. A lot has changed in five years. That little kitchen I used to cook in? Well, we moved into my dream kitchen. Though 1950s applicances, lighting, and so on present plenty of problems, and though the suburban commute is driving me nuts, the new kitchen is my Disneyland -- the happiest place, for me, on earth. A few more changes. Take liquids. Though I didn't know it was a bandwagon exactly, prasantrin is right: my tea selection has changed quite a bit. It's no longer quite so Tazo dominated: In addition, my drinks repertoire has expanded beyond this sort of thing: Not that there's anything wrong with a bit of Wray & Nephew neat, but several years of developing my cocktail chops, including BarSmarts Wired training and several months of work as a bartender and bar consultant, means that you'll see a broader array of libations. Much of that bartending experience has unfolded at Cook & Brown Public House, an award-winning new restaurant in Providence that we'll surely visit next week sometime. Meanwhile, these two? They grew. A lot. While they are on light KP and tasting duty regularly, it's vacation, so I'll need to pull out all of my skills of persuasion to get the two of them, now a kindergartener and teenager, to play sous chef. What else? I bought a lot of cooking equipment, spent a lot of time curing and smoking charcuterie, delved into Southeast Asian cooking, and indulged by food jones as much as I possibly can. Much more on that to follow. Finally, there's these here eG Forums. For years, I've been lucky to collaborate with a great team of volunteers to make eG Forums as vibrant and lively as possible. I've learned so much from Society members, and I hope to give some back over the course of the week. I'll also need some help: I've got some tricky stuff to negotiate, and will need you at the ready! As I said last time: At least for me, Andy Williams was right: this is the most wonderful time of the year. Starting later today, I'm off through January 2, and the vast majority of my waking time is consumed with cooking, shopping to cook, planning to cook. At the very least, I have Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas dinner, a Night Before New Years Eve party, and New Years Day cassoulet to prepare. In addition, I have a few surprises planned, including some time with some chef friends in town and a trip with at least one other Society member exploring our Biggest Little State in the Union. I'm really thrilled to be able to spend the week with you. So let's get started!

Hello everyone, eGullet was nice enough to invite me to write a food blog chronicling what I've made or eaten out for one week. I'm so excited about it! Thanks guys. About me: I dream about food, I wake thinking what's for dinner and I'm so excited to share it with you. I'm part of the food world in New York. By that, I just mean that I'm so fortunate enough to be invited to great events where I get to eat great food. I'm also a nerd and a part of the technology world. I produce, edit and sometimes host food related web videos and I'm also a part of the tech world. I'm launching a website called Please, Pass the Gravy. www.pleasepassthegravy.com We let you create a menu, invite friends and then collaborate on that menu. Never host another potluck with 8 pasta salads. You could use it now, but we're alpha launch, it works but it's ugly. It's my ugly baby. So, if you use it be kind and message me if you have improvement ideas. I thought it would be ok to write about it here because it is food related. I live in Brooklyn with a lovely guy who likes to eat and a small corgi mix dog. I cook pretty much every night and do a nice brunch on the weekend. I am not a crazy dog lady, but I do admit to cooking food for the dog. I have an excuse, beyond doting, he had seizures that have stopped since not feeding him dog food. Foods I cook: Spicy foods! If you look at my blog I have a simple papaya ketchup with habanero that is pretty darn good. I love great cheese. This may be the week for Beer Cheese Soup. I try to limit carbs, though I do cheat. In any given week C. and I probably eat cauliflower, broccoli and green beans as a side. Tonight's dinner will be Vietnamese inspired. We'll see how it goes. I'll post about it as soon as I can. Any requests? Questions? I'd love to hear from you. -Grace

Hi, I'm SobaAddict70 and this is my third eG Foodblog. This installment feels as if I've come full circle. I can't believe it's been nearly five years since A Week in the Life of Fat Guy's Household. Unlike the last time I did a Foodblog, I have a digital camera! So sit back and enjoy the ride because there'll be lots of pix, lots of cooking and more importantly, lots of eating in the days to come. I'm starting this installment an hour or two early because I'll be up late tonight, and also I'm setting things up for tomorrow's breakfast. First thing though are your questions from the teaser photo that Janet posted earlier: This is a picture taken at Otto Enoteca Pizzeria. A friend of mine had bought me a post-birthday lunch in early January and I thought I'd take this shot to remember the occasion by. I also take photos whenever I dine out but that's another story altogether. Clockwise from top left: prunes in port sauce, lavender honey, quartino of white wine, bread and cheese, orange sections in honey, breadsticks (in wrapper), cheese plate (two cow, two sheep and one goat's cheese). * * * What's new with this Foodblog, you ask? A number of things have changed in my life since the last installment. I was diagnosed with HIV in December 2003. The news struck me with the force of a sledgehammer. You cannot imagine what it's like living with a disease that has no cure. Although I am thankful that I have had relatively few side effects and afflictions in the past four and a half years, the psychological toll is immeasurable. It is beyond crushing. I do try to take care of myself. I eat right, maintain my weight as best as I can and workout (although that's fallen by the wayside recently). More importantly, I try to keep a positive attitude. I try to focus on things I can control instead of the unknown. My future is one of great uncertainty. I know that a long time down the road my immune system will cease to function. The medical cocktails I take on a daily basis are instrumental in improving my present quality of life. I can only hope that at some point in the future, perhaps one or two years from now, or more likely in the next twenty years, that a vaccine will become available to every individual afflicted with this terrible of diseases. And thus this Foodblog. As I said, I try to focus on a positive attitude. One of the things that continues to give me immense pleasure is food -- be it cooking and eating, or being with a community of like-minded people and friends. I want this Foodblog to be special...not just to me, but to everyone in the eGullet community. I want to take this opportunity to focus on the beauty in the world around us, beauty that many people take for granted or don't really think of beyond what's for dinner. * * * *Side note: I realize that many of you will have questions that will stray beyond the boundaries that are permissible for an eG Foodblog. I welcome all questions, but if it's not food-related, please PM or email me or ask your questions on my blog.

Hello, fair eG folk! Sorry for the late start. (Well, late for Europe; it's lunchtime.) Tracey was right. (However did you guess?!) Welcome to Prague. My name is Erin, and I live and work here, with my husband (who is Czech), in the city of a thousand spires (which also happen to look a lot like forks, when you're hungry...or so I think). The first teaser photo is on the far south side of Prague. It's of Cukrak mountain; "cukrak," roughly translated, means "little pastry chef." (Cukrak is about an hour from this Prague vista.) The second teaser photo, below, really is in Prague; it's of a fruit and vegetable market in the Ujezd neighborhood. They have the best fruit and veg in town (at least, in my opinion). I'm at work, today and tomorrow, and I'll tell you more about that later, because I spend the business day surrounded by cookbooks... After that, I have a few days off so I'm planning to roam around Prague and show you some hidden good stuff beyond roast pork, dumplings, and cabbage. Here's my plan for the week... Ask any questions you like about what you see. Unorganized bits of the plan... I'll post a bunch of photos later, but I have to warn you that my food photography skills are nowhere near the previous bloggers'.... Kim's blog and Chris's were truly mouthwatering. The good news is that I just discovered Picasa, this morning, so I may be able to spare you my blurry breakfast photos. Breakfast: turkey sandwich and coffee. It's about all I can do to assemble this. In fact, this is advanced, for me. I'm not a morning person at all. More anon.

Yes, it’s me – I’m amazed at how quickly I was ‘outed’; I’m awful at guessing! The title is a bit of a misnomer. I am not a housewife, but wish I was. I always say that I was born in the wrong decade. My ultimate dream is to stay home and cook and take care of my home and family. Circumstances haven't allowed that very much in my life, but I still love doing all that stuff! Mr. Kim promises that I can retire in 3 years (but he's been saying that for at least 5 years....hmmm). We live in Richmond, VA with our daughter, Jessica who is back home after graduating from college last spring. The first teaser picture was of our summer house. I kid, I kid - it's the state capitol. I cannot believe that I have to follow Chris. I feel especially grotty and slobby when I look at the pictures of his beautiful, bright, CLEAN kitchen. The things that normally show in my house aren't as clean and tidy as the stuff that normally doesn't in his! Please know that while I am messy and my floor might be questionable, I keep all surfaces and objects clean. I promise. I've decided that my 'angle' for this blog is going to be new stuff. I am an incorrigible recipe/cookbook collector (hence, my second teaser picture). I have them stashed all over my house. Here are some in the island that Ted Fairhead made: In the last picture is also our ‘bar’, some storage and ‘my’ drinks (more anon regarding that). I have a file drawer in the family room full of recipes that I’ve torn out from magazines and printed out from the internet: Here’s a shelf and a half in the living room: Upstairs in our bedroom, I have cookbooks under the TV: and beside the bed: Oh, crap, there’s some more: So for this week (at least for dinners) I will only cook new recipes that I have collected – some from my fellow eGulleteers. If we eat out, it will be at new restaurants I have wanted to try. In my files I have a 'Richmond restaurants to try' file stuffed full of newspaper/magazine articles and print outs of internet suggestions. I'll tell you right now that, except for the weekend, breakfast will be boring. I am not a breakfast fan, so you're going to see a banana and a Special K bar or yogurt most days. I love breakfast food anytime of the day and if I can have it an hour or so after getting up, I do. But that doesn't happen on work days. Lunch is more varied. Sometimes I have leftovers and since I work in a doctor's office, we have drug company reps that sometimes bring us lunch. This week we are supposed to have lunch brought on Monday, but that’s all so far. I only have 30 minutes, so eating out doesn't happen very often. One thing that you should know about me (some already know) is that I had a gastric bypass in 2003. I lost about 100 lbs. My before and afters: Before: After: In the before picture, I am the large flowered object on the left (amazing amounts of self delusion were going on that day), my daughter is in the middle (she also had a gastric bypass and lost even more than I did) and my momma (Ted Fairhead's wife) is on the right. Ideally, I would like to lose another 40 lbs. and I am trying to lose another 20 right now. I am told that if my insurance company would just approve the skin removal, that would be 20 lbs. right there (which just skeeves me right out to even think about - the idea of 20 lbs. of SKIN <shudder>). I would never, ever recommend the operation to anyone else - that is a completely personal decision, but I haven't ever regretted doing it for one minute. I weighed almost 270 lbs. and was getting fatter every day. I had tried every diet in the world and couldn't seem to get a handle on my food intake. I was on diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol meds. Except for cholesterol, all of that is gone now. Because I eat less now, there is a chance that I won’t get all the nutrients in my food, so I take a lot of supplements. Here is my daily dose: from left to right – flaxseed oil, multi-vitamin, calcium, vitamin E, vitamins A&D, low dose aspirin, Nexium and Lipitor. The Nexium is for acid – a common consequence of a little stomach and the Lipitor for cholesterol. My blood chemistry tests are always good now. I walk for exercise and feel good. I am 48 years old (49 in July), so I won’t ever be toned and buff, but I look good for my age and my former weight. Flab is ok - I just cover it up and Mr. Kim is a kind man! I eat so much less now that it is just unimaginable to think about the amounts of food that I used to consume. I can eat most any kind of food that I want - as long as I watch portions. There are only two things that really bother me - I can only eat a bite of steak or rice. Some days my tummy is fine. Other days, nothing seems to 'sit' well. Or something gets stuck in the little exit from my stomach. Bad days (which are not very frequent - once every few weeks) I live on cheese, pretzels and Tic Tacs (they settle my stomach without being overly sweet). I hate my kitchen. Square footage-wise it seems pretty good, but I have terrible cabinet and counter space. The pantry is one of those pantry/laundry room things. The top shelves are almost impossible for me to get stuff down from even with a ladder. Thank goodness Mr. Kim is 6' tall! Ted Fairhead made me the island when we moved into the house: It adds much welcome storage, counter space, an eating place, etc. He does nice work, huh? Since I have such crappy storage space, we have stuff all over the house: Living room closet, attic, even under table skirts. It's insane - I try to keep a list on the computer of what is where, but I still lose stuff. I’ll post those pictures later. Richmond has a pretty active food scene and some very good restaurants. We live out in the 'burbs - Glen Allen if anyone knows the area. My favorite area in Richmond is actually in town - the old neighborhoods known as the Fan, the Museum District and Carytown. You can read about them here. It is where VA Commonwealth University is located and where I lived while I was in college and right after we got married. It has a cool city feeling without being too raw-ly urban - very diverse as far as age, ethnicity and even economics. It was always our intent to move back there after Jessica graduated from high school, but they priced us right out of the market! So I live in suburbia and shop, eat and walk the city when I can. I'll probably get down there during the weekend and both the restaurants that we plan on going to this week are there, too. So here I am - I am so nervous and scared that I will disappoint/bore y'all! Everyone who has ever done a blog, will, I'm sure recognize those fears! If anyone has any questions, please ask! My favorite blogs are the ones that are like conversations! Mr. Kim’s two cents: So, if Mrs. Mike is nervous and scared just writing about her food this week, imagine MY trepidation as I look ahead to trying to keep up with her this week. You should just TRY being the only person in the house WITHOUT a gastric bypass when Kim starts working her kitchen magic. I mean, someone has to eat what she can’t. So I wage a constant battle not to eat myself into a fleshy imitation of a Macy’s balloon. Okay, battle may be too strong a word – I don’t resist Kim’s culinary wiles too vigorously. I am glad to be along for the ride this week, and based on the menu and Kim’s likely portion sizes, I look forward to a new wardrobe by the time she’s through blogging. Do they even MAKE grown up clothes in Size Husky?

Good morning from State College, PA (and congratulations to Kerry Beal for guessing my identity!) . I only wish that the first teaser photo was current---alas, it was taken last summer, things aren't quite that green yet at this latitude. Thanks, Susan, for inviting me to do a foodblog this week. First a little background: "Hennes" rhymes with "tennis," I'm 27, and I'm working on my Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State. My wife is currently finishing her Ph.D. in Accounting here, and you're catching us an an exciting/scary/stressful time in our lives: tomorrow we have to decide where my wife is going to accept a job that she will begin at the end of the summer. More on that later... In the grand tradition of foodblogs past, here is how I begin my mornings (at least, when I have time!): The eGullet mug is an unusual embellishment: I usually drink my morning coffee out of a stainless-steel thermos mug so I can nurse it for a couple hours. But the mug seemed appropriate for this blog, so here it is! Coffee is typically my only breakfast: I don't get hungry until around 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. I know, this is horrible and unhealthy, but there it is... you won't be seeing much breakfast food this week! What you will be seeing is a lot of pork, and a lot of chocolate: Sorry to disappoint those of you who are hoping to see chocolate-covered bacon, but this is as close as the two will get to each other this week . I've had bacon in a chocolate bar: it was good, but I can think of better uses for both ingredients . Other items on the menu this week include such thrilling entries as tacos, stir-fried green beans, and BLTs. Ah, the culinary adventures of a graduate student! I hope you'll drop by and say hello from time to time despite the mundane dinners! And I hope no one is too disappointed that I don't hail from anyplace exotic!

Firstly, apologies for the teaser photos that led so many astray! I was very hard pushed to find a location picture that wouldn't scream CHINA (cf. my atavar) so I ended up with a picture of Grace Vineyards in Shanxi province - we've also got lots of vineyards around Beijing (just beyond the Great Wall and to the south of the city) but the Grace pictures are the ones that came out best. As for the picture: It's classic Red Cooked Pork (红烧肉) with eggs cooked with the pork that I had last week in Shanghai. Delicious!!! I feel a bit of an imposter doing a blog here because I haven't posted a lot in my eGullet time, but my excuse is that moving countries and starting up my own business in China is a heavy load! But reading and enjoying eGullet posts has often been my lifeline for relaxation and enjoyment here in the Big Beige. A Synopsis: About a year ago, my husband and I packed up our entire house in Cambridge UK, put it into storage and moved to Beijing with two suitcases and a half-formed business plan.... A year later, the house is still mainly in storage, a few more bags have been moved over and I have just received a business license for our wine consultancy/school here in Beijing after many months of red-tape! If anyone out there is interested, the website is here (I hope that's not construed as advertising!!!) Over the next few days, I would love to give you an introduction to food and drink here in China's capital as it gets thoroughly over-excited about the Olympics, eats more dumplings than can be measured and roasts a few thousand more duck!

That’s real estate talk for an eat-in kitchen in a pre-war building, and it is from this cultural locus in Brooklyn that I am reporting on my Epicurean exploits. Which are influenced by: My parents, who loved to play with food. The changing face of New York City, my beloved melting pot. The vegetable box, which comes on Thursdays. Julia Child at 3:00 a.m., and food as succour. My name is Linda, and I am an Italian-American living in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn with my partner, Lynn, and our parrot, Ernie. The building I live in has a bakery on the ground floor, which was once a bakery of some renown in our neighborhood. My landlady’s father built it in 1930, and bread and pastry were sold at the front of the house. That’s bricked over now, and the coal oven is in the back where the landlady’s nephew still bakes bread for commercial bakeries and one food store on our block that has a sign reading “We sell Caruso bread on Tuesdays.” Now you wouldn’t know there’s a bakery here unless you witness the weekly coal or flour delivery. This is us, our only formal portrait. We have been together a long time. I am on your right. Every morning I am served espresso in bed. This is made in a Bialetti Moka Express pot. The reason why I am served is that I am incapable of movement before my daily injection. At any given point in my adult life, I am in some state of addiction/withdrawal from some form of caffeinated beverage. Right now, I am in withdrawal. This tidy espresso cup, rather large by European standards, and is likely a double, is half my usual dosage. I’m doing well and can sometimes actually get out of bed to make my own espresso if the pot has been prepared the night before and I have to pee really bad. I use Illy canned coffee in this pot, and I believe that learning how to make it is what got me started on eGullet. I wanted to be able to replicate the espresso I had in Italy, I did some research, and ended up with this. This espresso does not, by any means, taste as good as the espresso in Italy, but it’s low tech and I try to live a simple life, a philosophy often expressed through food.