Search the Community

Good morning and welcome to my foodblog! I'm Amy and I'm blogging from Tokyo, where spring is just getting underway after an unusually snowy winter (by "snowy winter" I mean it snowed a few times, even piling up as much as 10 cm in some places). I'm more of a lurker here on eGullet and mostly stay in the Japan forum-- I just checked and I have a grand total of 606 posts. I also just noticed that I joined in March 8th 2003, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate 5 years of eGullet membership than this foodblog. I actually have a regular blog, which is almost a foodblog, but I post just a few times a week so this will be a bit more intense than usual. I think it will be fun though, and I hope you enjoy it. I'll be happy to answer any questions, although among the frequent posters in the Japan forum I am probably the least knowledgeable about Japanese food. I'm also happy to take requests: if there is any particular food or dish you are interested in I'll see if I can make it. Let's get to it then. I just ate this: Fruit salad with strawberry, apple, banana and kiwi; homemade yogurt. Eaten in front of the computer, this was my pre-breakfast-- I'll have oatmeal later. I sometimes eat in stages like that because I don't have much of an appetite in the mornings. I'll post a bit more about myself later, but right now it's time for my morning coffee. See you in a bit!

Hello to everyone and sorry that I made you twiddle your thumbs!! First of all teaser 1 is pita bread in a bag on the shelf of my local minimarket. Israel has tons of mini markets all over, every house or apartment has one within about 5 minutes walking distance from home. We usually buy daily products like pita, rolls, breead and dairy goods, either daily or every couple of days. So every morning the bread delivery trucks deliver to all these little mini markets early in the morning. Nobody keeps bread for longer than two days or it dries out. The basic breads are called either white or black. It is actually hard to tell the difference between them! They are the same bread that has been sold for 50 years and is considered a basic here. Further down you can see the pictures of this. Either you slice at home or at the store you can put it through a slicer. Slightly more expensive are pitas and rolls. So my first set of pictures is to document this! Then I will write a bit about Ashkelon. So hereis one of my daily stops: everyone calls it Eli's who is the owner, but the sign translates as Mini Market- everything is good (sounds better in Hebrew!!) Here are the breads-white and "black" can you see the difference? Here are the rolls and what we call "long bread" The slicer: Now the teaser 2 is called a Cereus cactus. It blooms only at night and only for a few hours and only a few times a year. It is usually ugly but when it blooms it is truly a sight! Teaser3 is a picture of some goats by the Dead Sea. We went there about 2 weeks ago hoping to see some floods. When it rains a lot this area turns into violent rivers and floods as the earth does not absorb the water, it is very amazing to see it turn from desert to river. It can be dangerous also... Be back later! Gotta put my kid to bed!!

I am so transparent. Pierogi got it immediately! Yeppers, I'm going to be the blogger of the week, starting officially tomorrow. Some things are the same from my first foodblog in 2006: Same kids, same dog, still haven't seen a Clinton around town. Some things have changed: Firstborn is away at school (with my car, boo hoo), Secondborn has a host of new critters in his room, and they all need feeding (sigh). Of course, the kitchen is new. It doesn't look like this any more: I love my new kitchen -- I am eventually going to start teaching in it, but until that starts in March, I am cooking for everyone who'll let me. Which brings us to: Mr. Foodbabe is turning 50 this week, and as I lead you-all through my new appliances and kitchen, I'll be prepping for his party. Here's the invitation (well, it was on prettier paper): And some things are going to change dramatically, soon. Jean-luc is getting a new brother in a couple of weeks, and we need to name him: So, what would you like to see and know? Im going to try to accommodate special requests and not be too dull Oh -- we're also going out to dinner on Mr. Foodbabe's actual birth-day, Thursday, at a much-lauded new place in White Plains.

Good morning! What an auspicious day to begin my eGullet foodblog: If you've checked the news or are living in the northeast, you know that the Boston area was hit this a.m. by a nor'easter. (Actually, I haven't yet checked the news this a.m. -- they were saying nor'easter last night.) The subhead of this week's blog is "Where the garden is bare, and the pantry bursts." Indeed, I'll be showing you pictures of my poor garden later this week and maybe you can imagine the glory it is come July. I’m not a power-poster on eGullet, thus why it was probably next-to-impossible to puzzle out my clues (more on those below). When I do post, it’s mostly on the New England forum. I spend huge amounts of time reading the forums, though, especially the food blogs. So last summer, I gingerly approached Snowangel about blogging. I had visions of sharing the bounty of a New England summer with you all – the bounty from my garden, the hauls from our local CSA, the flats of berries we lug back to the kitchen from local u-pick farms. Ah, but no, Susan had other ideas: how about blogging in January? January?!? Was she insane? This is my garden in January. I haven’t even received a bill for the first installment of my 2008 CSA season, never mind a tender handful of spring greens. (Those won’t come till June.) Moreover, those beautiful flats of berries were all transformed into jam, of which we have exactly one jar left. The idea grew on me, though. I keep a huge pantry. I spend a lot of time during the summer preparing food that will get us through April of the following year. Why not show my readers how all that work pays off in the winter? So I hope you'll pull up a cup of tea (or coffee; I do not discriminate) and visit my little corner of the world this week. I do have a weird, wonderful pantry to show off, as well as a special treat for restaurant foodies tomorrow, a possible trip to King Arthur's Baking Center in Vermont on Saturday, plus day trips around greater Boston, where I live. Not to mention you'll get to see how my crazy little household eats in a given week.

Greetings, everyone, from quaint, charming and tranquil Yardley, Pa., where I have worked since this past December 4. I'm also posting from a low hill overlooking a semi-vast expanse known as the Two Hundred Pound Plateau. You saw the view from that hill in the teaser photos for this foodblog, and one of the things I hope to do in the course of this foodblog is climb back down off of it -- the plateau as well as the hill. Our co-blogger mizducky, who knows me from when we were both young whippersnappers at Harvard, was supposed to have started this blog in the wee small hours Pacific Standard Time from her perch on the Left Coast, but the Invision PowerBoard servers that host eGullet had other ideas. So, reckoning that she is resting to face the new day (or probably rising right about the time I post this), and with the blessing of our third participant, CaliPoutine, I'm kicking off yet another tag-team eG Foodblog. We chose this week to blog because it's the first full week of the month when roughly one in every two Americans makes a New Year's resolution to lose weight. Of those, roughly nine in ten (all figures pure conjecture) either abandon that resolution within a short period or succeed, only to put the weight they lost back on. All three of us are watching our weight: two out of medical necessity and a third out of a desire to get into better shape overall. We thought that a foodblog devoted to weight management would be an excellent way to examine the whole subject of diet, weight loss, overweight and obesity, and some of the tensions and compromises inherent in being at once a food lover and a person who must watch the food they eat. It strikes me that gourmandry and weight management are at heart at odds with each other: I notice that truly svelte people appear to be absent from the ranks of food lovers. Yet at the same time, I also note that truly obese people are not overrepresented among them either, though we may have a disporportionate share of overweight people like myself. Perhaps we will figure out why this is so in the course of this blog; perhaps not. We will take a look at the diet-industrial complex, though, an entity that (I believe) all three of us have managed to avoid getting overly entangled with. One of my unused teaser photos was designed to illustrate one of the things I try to do in balancing a love of food with a desire to get rid of a gut: And we will look at the role of exercise too. More about that from my perspective in my posts later today. BTW, Tracey: That salad was homemade. I picked up several packets of salad dressing from the Wawa just up Main Street from my office so I would never be without dressing on days when I forgot to bring in my own. With this introduction out of the way, we can now take (it) off.

The word “Christmas” in New Mexico can mean two entirely different things, one of which can be enjoyed every day of the year: Chile. Red and green. Side by side, just like it ought to be. Isn’t it gorgeous here? For those of you that don’t know: Santa Fe is cold! We’ve had lots of snow over the last week and the skiing is fantastic. Check out this 5 ft long icicle on my canale: And my pear tree: About me: -I grew up in Abu Dhabi, which is the capital of the U.A.E. (home of Dubai, which most people are familiar with), and am half-Emirati and half-Lebanese. I will gladly post photos of the Emirates if anyone is interested, since I still consider myself a part-time resident. -I am 26 but don't always act my age. -Like a lot of people on eG, I’ve been obsessed with food for as long as I can remember. -At the metabolically enviable age of 15, I began to cook family meals and fully embrace the insatiable appetite that has remained with me through good times and bad; I can always eat. That same year, I left the Emirates for Yale, where I experienced my first skinless boneless chicken breast, promptly swore off dining hall meats, and was elated to discover the godsend that is New Haven pizza. After graduating in 2001, I moved to Santa Fe to pursue blue skies, crisp air, and a M.S. in Oriental Medicine. -Until recently, my work (complementary medicine legislation and public health policy reform) allowed me to travel back and forth between the Emirates and Santa Fe, which was great, because I am very close to my family. Most importantly, my 6 year-old “son”, Emile, whom I brought with me when I moved back to the Emirates, is still there, and he’s my ultimate dreamboat: -A few weeks ago, I stashed my heels at the back of the closet, started practicing Chinese medicine clinically, and got myself a part-time job cooking for a wonderful couple a few evenings a week. -Finally: This is a years of firsts for me: I bought my first house here in Santa Fe, hosted my first Thanksgiving meal, and about to experience my first Christmas and my first blog. I'm an unapologetic glutton, and this is going to be an exciting week for me, so I'm thrilled to be blogging it out... Tonight: -Canyon Road Walk (with eG member wrenwillow) to chug hot cider and see the farolitos -Dinner at a friend's off-the-grid homestead about twenty miles north of town Tomorrow: -My dashing and heroic R and I are hosting a private dinner for ten at the Rio Chama, which he manages. It's the one day of the year that the restaurant is closed, and we'll have full reign of the kitchen. It'll be my first experience cooking in a restaurant kitchen...! Now I have to get to Whole Foods the moment it opens so that I don't get trampled! See you later, when I post breakfast.

eGulleters meet in the strangest of places. So how did it happen that Chufi from Amsterdam and Abra from Seattle find themselves in a charming little winebar in a charming little town in the South West of France, where the bill is scrawled in marker on the zinc counter top? Because, well, can you think of any better place to meet? Chufi to Abra: "So, here we are together in a wine bar in France, just you and me and a Spanish ham. " Abra to Chufi: "Hey, what about my husband? Are you calling him a ham? Ok, yeah, he is a ham, but he's an American ham." Chufi: "Well, I'm kind of nervous that just being in France and cooking with you and going to cool French towns and tasting all the wine in sight will be kind of, well, you know, boring." Abra: "Hey, I know, maybe we should do an eG food blog about your visit." Chufi: "But we've both already done lots of food blogs, would anyone even want to read another one?" Abra: "Hmmm, you might be right. Just to liven things up we could invite bleudauvergne down to cook with us, and by the way that would be a great excuse to make her bring us some of that gorgeous cheese she's always posting pictures of." Chufi: "Maybe we could cook something totally weird that I'd never make at home, like how about some......" Abra: "There's this recipe for a stew of pigs feet and tripe that I've been dying to make." Chufi: "Uh....." Abra "Come on, we'll stay up late drinking tons of wine and then have tripe and pigs feet at 2:00 a.m." Chufi:"Can we drink a lot of wine BEFORE we have to eat the pigs feet?" Abra:"Come on, you'll love it, it's gelatinous." Chufi: "My husband will never believe this!!" Abra: "And there's no way my husband will even eat a bite of it, we'll have to cook a whole separate meal for him. I have a freshly killed chicken in the fridge with its head still on, we could cook him that." Chufi:"Let's be nice to him. What would he really like?" Abra:"Cheese enchiladas and something chocolate!" So that's what we had tonight. For your first meal in France with us, we bring you, ta da, cheese enchiladas, which is actually quite an exotic dish, in France. And mini buchettes de Nöel, just to prove that we really are in France. And to further prove that we're in France, we're going to bed right now, even though most of you are barely waking up. Rest assured that as soon as we get up in the morning we're going to rub those pigs feet. At least one of us is. We'll let you guess which one will be doing the rubbing and which one will be hiding behind her camera. And a trip to a gigantic French supermarket will be necessary, and if they don't throw us out for taking pictures, we'll show you how many different kinds of yogurt will tempt Chufi into buying them. There's a LOT of yogurt in France.

Good Morning Egullet! I am so excited to have been asked to do a foodblog this week. I too, was sad to see Nina have to cut her's short, but am very excited to see it when it continues. So in the meantime, grab your cup of coffee or beverage of choice, sit down, relax and let me start the show. First, I will introduce myself, since most of you don't know me. My name is Stephanie and I live with my boyfriend Mark and our two dogs and two cats in Sacramento, CA. The city of Sacramento is divided up into different areas or neighborhoods. My neighborhood can either be considered East Sacramento or Midtown. Here's our house. This neighborhood is great! All of the houses are from the 20's and probably even older than that. My house was built in 1922 and I guess they call these highwater bungalows. Here is the view from my porch, which was one of the teaser photos: To keep this food related, the water tower there is called the Alhambra Reservoir and it apparently holds 3 million gallons of water that supplies the neighborhood with drinking water. There are several of these in the greater Sacramento area. Here's a sort of recent article about the Reservoir, since you can see from this picture the edge of the "artwork" that was applied to the front of it, that is viewable from the freeway, not too far away. The article has a fuzzy picture of the art, so I will see if I can get a better one for you before the end of the week. I am also going to try to get a picture of the camouflage the article mentions, since it is sort of historical. Also in this picture, to the left behind the trees, you'll see a brick building. When I bought this house a little over 3 years ago, that building was in the process of construction. Housed in it is an imaging/xray center. Come to find out from the previous owner of this house, that was slated to be a Trader Joes, and he was head of the neighborhood committee to fight against it, then he moves. I guess he was concerned about traffic, which is still a problem regardless. The best thing about this neighborhood though is that we are in walking distance to a Safeway, which is right behind that imaging center, several restaurants and several bars, which will be visited during this blog. How I got into cooking? Well, I have been cooking for as long as I can remember. When I was 10, my mom came down with ALS..to make a long story short, as it progressed, she was unable to cook for my younger brother and myself. My dad had to travel alot for business, and so it was up to me to learn how to cook to feed the family. I also learned at a younger age than most people, to grocery shop, which next to going to Williams Sonoma or Target is my favorite type of shopping. So mom taught me several easy type of recipes; tacos, spaghetti, chicken and mushrooms, basic stuff. In college, I tried to enhance my skills, on a college budget and then things just grew from there. Over the years, I have gone to different cooking classes or demonstrations, watched many hours of Food Network and just experimented on my own. Almost four years ago, I met Mark who loves to cook as well as being a hopeful chef one day. So we started cooking together a lot. Which leads us to why we are doing Atkins, which Insomniac, I think, guessed from the teaser photo: We generally cook more at home than go out to eat. Well, the pounds starting packing on and his sister suggested we try Atkins. I know in my life, I have tried every crazy diet, except Atkins, in fact, a few years ago, I thought Atkins sounded crazy. We even tried the cabbage soup diet last year to no avail. So we said, what the hell, lets give it a try. We started Atkins on July 2 of this year. To date, he has lost 40 pounds (damn men!) I have lost about 25. I will disclose this up front, we by no means are Atkins fanatics, because there are a lot of them out there. We also fudge a little here and there. I suppose if we followed the program to a T, I'd have lost more by this point. But overall, I am happy with the diet, I don't go hungry, I am seeing progress which is the most important part and I get to eat steak whenever I want! So what's in store for this week? Well luckily, I am only working today and tomorrow. I am in pharmaceutical sales, so my day consists of traveling around and discussing drugs with doctors. So basically my blogging for the next two days will be in the mornings and evenings. Since we are trying to be really good on this diet and with Thanksgiving on the horizon, we'll be eating strict today, tomorrow and Wednesday. We do plan on some "cheats" although Mark calls them "treats" on Thursday, since it is Thanksgiving. Friday, we are going to go out with some foodie friends to a lunch at a new upscale restaurant and we'll also be going to visit some local wineries in the foothills. We'll have lots of cooking in all of this, lots of pet pictures and of course, after the fridge is cleaned up a little, the mandatory fridge shots. I hope that you'll enjoy my blog, feel free to ask any questions about Low Carb food, food in general or anything else on your mind.

Good morning! I'm so excited to be your next food blogger, as I have long been an avid – though often lurking – reader. I'm Nina Callaway, a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Now, I know what you're thinking: We've had a lot of New York City food blogs. But, most of them have been very Manhattan focused, and while I like Manhattan, I'm in love with Brooklyn. This amazing borough is at once big city cool and small town heart. While most of the world's eyes are pointed at Manhattan, Brooklyn isn't some groveling parasite – it's the largest of all of the five boroughs. At approx. 2.5 million residents, if Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the 4th largest city in the US. It boasts the 3rd largest business district in the city (first 2 are midtown and lower Manhattan), a vibrant independent arts scene, awesome restaurants and, most importantly, some of the friendliest and most interesting people in the city. (A quick vocabulary/geography lesson: New York City is divided into 5 boroughs – similar to counties. Brooklyn was its own city until 1898, when its residents voted to become part of the new New York City, along with Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx.) I'm just finishing up an assignment for Fodor's, writing the chapters of "Brooklyn" and "The Bronx/Queens/Staten Island" for the general New York City guidebook. With limited space, it necessarily covers the neighborhoods closest to Manhattan, for easy jaunts, as well as Prospect Park and Coney Island – essentially places that readers have already heard of, and want to know more about. As it's organized into neighborhoods, its hard to include some of the really interesting sites farther afield. But the process of writing this chapter made me think about what I'd write if I were only writing for myself. And so the title of this food blog: Around the World in Just One Borough. My plan for the week is to visit just a few of Brooklyn's neighborhoods. I'm hoping to show you my nabe of Clinton Hill, as well as Polish Greenpoint, Middle Eastern Atlantic Avenue, Latin American and Chinese Sunset Park, and Russian/Asian Brighton Beach. (Hey I'm a freelance writer. It's all research!) But that's not all that's going on. I'm working on my Pieathon! – a fundraising project that had its start here on eG. And on Sunday, many of my friends are coming over for brunch. Today is going to be a baking day, rather than a show-you-around Brooklyn day. But, I've just returned from a short vacation through Massachusetts and Vermont, where we spent a day visiting small cheese farmers. So I thought I'd recap some of that for you to hold you over. (A little city mouse, country mouse action.) I'm off to the gym now. When I get back, breakfast.

Good morning, Fortunately for those of us on this side of the Atlantic there is the benefit of time: a failed attempt at an early morning first post to my first blog, will nevertheless arrive in time for breakfast for those farther west. Before the necessary introduction let's get breakfast out of the way. It is a tradition of mine since i started my professional lfe - i wake up, shower and run out of the house as quickly as i can, thus breakfast always takes place at my desk. In our rudimentary office we have one luxury, our nespresso machine...free as long as you buy sufficient coffee each month. Not a problem in a company with many Italians and Portuguese. This is my desk, with coffee and today Bizcocho Dulce Don Satur, an Argentine classic. A week ago an importer of Argentine food which I know moved in to the warehouse next to us; that's how the biscuits from my home country made it for breakfast. The Bloomberg mug dates back to my days in NYC. The place is London, where i've lived for the past six years. The office is just south of Battersea power station (that amazing building on the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals album) where some of my blog will inveitably take place. I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and moved around a lot as my stepfather was a diplomat. Ten years of my life were in the US, Philly for undergrad and New York for work. A few years ago I finally managed to leave the banking world behind, now I run the UK business of an online shopping service - we're like a supermaket with far better quality of product; and needless to say a far different view on the role of food in society. A little cheating will take place as I will include a trip I took last week to Italy to source some new products; aside from that everything will be chronologically in line...you'll be taken to the London fruit and vegetbale market as well as Rungis, the monster of a market with its own postcodes, hotels and banks outside of Paris. I'll leave you with the start of the trip, taking the express train as we head south through the city to Gatwick airport with a magnificent view of one of London's icons. Back to work now... Franco

Hello everyone and welcome to Montreal. It's a beautiful day here, looks to be a beautiful week, and I couldn't be happier to have this oppurtunity to share some of my life with all the lovely people on eGullet. I am a student here in montreal, but as you will come to see my life revolves more around my obession with food than my studies, although they are beginning to leak into each other (we'll get into that). My apologies for the late start. I had forgotten I had lost my compression software in a recent crash, and it took a while to get that up and running. Firstly, I should explain my somewhat enigmatic title and teaser photos. I have something of a unique philosophy/approach to learning about the different foods that I am interested in. My interests are pretty much all over the board, so what I do to manage this is select a particular style of cooking, and concentrate on that for an extended period of time. I begin by gathering my resources for a specific style of cooking. This means getting atleast one super solid cookbook, bookmarking blogs, recipes, and other websites of interest pertaining to the topic. Reading a little bit about the evolution and history of the cooking of interest, learning the regions; I think you get the picture. This might make some sense to those of you who follow the Thai thread, as I have posted a number of pictures of my Thai food in there. Thai cuisine was my last focus; I did it for 8 months, and loved every minute of it. But the time for a change had come, and although I hadn't initially planned to do Sichuan or Japanese cooking, it just sort of turned out that way. I purchased a few cookbooks recently, and among them were these two: Both of which I found out about through egullet. Browsing through both of them after they arrived I was taken aback at how different Sichuanese and Japanese cooking were from the foods I had cooked before. For a while I struggled with deciding on which one to do first, until I realized why not do both? I already had many of the staple sichuanese seasonings, and the overlap in terms of grocery shopping was enough to make it feasible. So that what's I decided to do. That's where the teaser photos come in. The first was intended to be a contrast between the two styles of cooking, with 3 staple of seasonings of each cuisine on the top/bottom. For Japanese it was shoyu (soy sauce), bonito flakes (for dashi), and mirin (I didn't haven't any sake at the time). For sichuan: sichuan peppercorns, "facing heaven" chiles, and sichuan chili bean paste. The second photo is of all the ingredients I picked up a few days ago at one of montreal's better asian grocers. I carried that all in a giant backpack about 10km on my bike, as that particular grocer is pretty far from home. I've had heavier trips before, but none quite so long. The bagels are seperate of course, from the infamous St-Viateur bagel shop. I was hoping they might be identifiable enough for someone to guess montreal, but I guess that wasn't very fair of me. Welcome to the madness.

Trading Places – A Tale of Two Cities…….would you believe one city and a village….would you believe one city and a kitchen?....... Welcome to my week. For some reason I’ve volunteered to do this. I’m sure it sounded like a good idea at the time. I’m starting this sitting in Suvarnabhumi Airport, wating for our 3:45 flight to start boarding. I’ve wrapped up in the lounge, having checked mail, had a Chilean Cono Sur ("connoisseur", Yoonhi points out to me) Chardonnay, and indulged in a ham sandwich smothered in butter. Is the modern Chardonnay the standard bearer of quality? If we consider quality to be defined as repeatability and standardization? This goes back to Signor Bellini’s discussion of Chardonnays back at the WGF (was that a week ago?). And how does that relate to food? Do we want everything standardized and repeatable? Ist that just an invitation to have all the joy taken out of our dining. Myself, I rebel against such strictures. Of course, that may have more to do with my inability to follow instructions the same way twice…… I’m getting ahead of myself. Or at least my stomach and nose are. This will be a somewhat schizophrenic blog. I’ll provide material on what we’re up to in the kitchen, especially as we’re just back from the Gourmet Fest in Bangkok. However, I get a distinct feeling that there’s more interest in the last week of eating in Bangkok with my spouse – Yoonhi - in tow. As I’m still in that state of bliss that Krungthep induces upon me, We’ll do both. By way of introduction (you expected structure from me?), I’m a 1960’s product of the Canadian government; the results of our country’s aid to St. Lucia, a small Caribbean island. My parents were there doing a project for Canada Agriculture, and I’m what the St. Lucians got out of it. They still won’t give me a passport. Anyways, don’t ask me anything about St. Lucia. I left when I was a few months old. All I know is that the banana boat called every few weeks, and children were killed by falling coconuts (I must’ve lived through that). If I was to call anyplace home, it would probably be Kitsilano, a neighborhood in Vancouver. I grew up a few blocks from where Lumiere is located now. I might have more memories about the soft ice cream cones dipped in chocolate at the Dairy Queen, though, than Lumiere and Feenies……(Modern Burger is pretty close, too). I left Canada over 22 years ago, and haven’t been back much. Houston, then Egypt, a very brief stint in Calgary that made me understand why I wasn’t staying in Canada (Yoonhi’s eyelashes froze shut on her), and then the Middle East for the last 22 years or so. We’re going to concentrate this week on the food of my great love, Indochina, and Thailand in particular. At first I had no interest in Thailand. Garish orange roofs, it all struck me as too much like a big Denny’s concession. But all the other expats in Egypt (our posting then) were going to Thailand and coming back to bend my wife’s ear. “Couldn’t we go to Korea or Japan or China or Italy or….” I’d protested. But Yoonhi has that steely perseverance that can get downright scary at times. Finally I gave in, and we were off for one month in The Land of Smiles. My attitude lasted only up to the point of my first bite of real Thai cuisine. I was head over heals in love. Let’s drop back into the normal time stream (or what passes for such around here). I’m tidily packaged into my economy class seat. I’m still cheap about flights if I have to pay for them myself. We’ve just had our in-flight Gulf Air meal, and, much as it pains me to say it, it wasn’t bad. Both of us started with the mild spiced noodle salad with cucumber and tomato, then I had the red curry beef with traditional biryani rice and vergetable casserole, and Yoonhi had the penne past with steamed carrots, pumpkin in cheese veloute, served with pan seared chicken and tomato sauce. Top that off with “white bread slices” which are straight from a Thai bakery. Only dessert was inediblem with a rather dismal pineapple crumble cake (it should crumble, not wallow in juice). I had tried the Blanc de Blanc earlier, but it was horrible, especially warm, so I’ve switched over to Carlsberg. It’s not cold either, but it’s bearable. I wonder who does their catering on the Thai side? Once landed, cleared through customs, and in the taxi, the rest was a piece of cake. We arrived home hungry again, and found Serena’s babysitter had steamed up some brocolli, breaded and fried some chicken breast and had some Filipina lumpia on the go. At that point we went to sleep. And now it’s not quite 6 a.m. here. It’s Ramadan, so there’ll be no coffee in the office later, so I’ve got a pot of Pakxong beans perking me up right now (I still think I’ve got a couple of kg of those Lao beans squirreled away somewhere). I’ll get this up, and then see if there’s still time for more before work (we start at 7:00 a.m.!) Next: more

Tere õhtust (that’s „Good evening“ in Estonian)! I’m very, very, very excited to be doing my first ever eGullet foodblog. Foodblogging as such is not new to me – I’ve been blogging over at Nami-nami since June 2005, and am enjoying it enormously. But this eGullet blog is very different in format, and I hope I can ’deliver’. There have been so many exciting and great food blogs over the years that I've admired, so the standard is intimidatingly high! Also, as I’m the first one ever blogging from Estonia, I feel there’s a certain added responsibility to ’represent’ my tiny country A few words about me: my name is Pille, I’m 33, work in academia and live with my boyfriend Kristjan in a house in Viimsi, a suburb just outside Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. I was born and schooled in Tallinn until I was 18. Since then I've spent a year in Denmark as an exchange student, four years studing in Tartu (a university town 180 km south), two years working in Tallinn and seven years studying and working in Edinburgh, the bonnie & cosmopolitan capital of Scotland. All this has influenced my food repertoire to a certain degree, I'm sure. I moved back home to Estonia exactly 11 months and 1 day ago, to live with Kristjan, and I haven't regretted that decision once Edinburgh is an amazing place to live, and I've been back to Scotland twice since returning, but I have come to realise that Tallinn is even nicer than Edinburgh I won’t be officially starting my foodblog until tomorrow (it’s midnight here and I’m off to bed), but I thought I’ll re-post the teaser photos for those of you who missed them in the 'Upcoming Attractions' section. There were two of them. One was a photo of Tallinn skyline as seen from the sea (well, from across the bay in this case): This is known as kilukarbivaade or sprat can skyline A canned fish product, sprats (small Baltic herrings in a spicy marinade) used to have a label depicting this picturesque skyline. I looked in vain for it in the supermarket the other day, but sadly couldn’t find one - must have been replaced with a sleek & modern label. So you must trust my word on this sprat can skyline view The second photo depicted a loaf of our delicious rye bread, rukkileib. As Snowangel already said, it’s naturally leavened sour 100% rye bread, and I’ll be showing you step-by-step instructions for making it later during the week. It was fun seeing your replies to Snowangel’s teaser photos. All of you got the continent straight away, and I was pleased to say that most of you got the region right, too (that's Northern Europe then). Peter Green’s guess Moscow was furthest away – the capital of Russia is 865 km south-east from here (unfortunately I've never had a chance to visit that town, but at least I've been to St Petersburgh couple of times). Copenhagen is a wee bit closer with 836 km, Stockholm much closer with 386 km. Dave Hatfield (whose rural French foodblog earlier this year I followed with great interest, and whose rustic apricot tart was a huge hit in our household) was much closer with Helsinki, which is just 82 km across the sea to the north. The ships you can see on the photo are all commuting between Helsinki and Tallinn (there’s an overnight ferry connection to Stockholm, too). Rona Y & Tracey guessed the right answer Dave – that house isn’t a sauna, but a granary (now used to 'store' various guests) - good guess, however! Sauna was across the courtyard, and looks pretty much the same, just with a chimney The picture is taken in July on Kassari in Hiiumaa/Dagö, one of the islands on the west coast. Saunas in Estonia are as essential part of our life – and lifestyle – as they are in Finland. Throwing a sauna party would guarantee a good turnout of friends any time Finally, a map of Northern Europe, so you’d know exactly where I’m located: Head ööd! [Good night!] I'm off to bed now, but will be back soon. And of course, if there are any questions, however specific or general, then 'll do my best trying to answer them!

Introducing our tag team. Take it away, Melissa and Owen!

Just a 20 mile ride from miss Suzy and were here, still in the far northern reaches of NJ. Ok the fire is started and I am only running 2 hours late Yes we are smokin' today, let me go get the piggy on the grill. Tracey

Good morning, all! Welcome back to New Jersey. The 34B in the description is not my bra size but the exit off of Rt. 80 where I live in the northern part of the state. Now for a very sad,sad sight empty toast dope containers

Hello, everyone! I've foodblogged before, both here and here - and believe me, props I got from all of you during my first attempts at cooking meant a HUGE amount to me and I will never forget them. A lot has changed since then. Brief recap: about a year and a half ago, I tossed my whole life up in the air, and with a lot of help and support from family, friends (among them the incredible Eric_Malson), and some people who had never met me before (some still haven't, in person, at least), came down squarely on my feet...in Madrid. Basically, in January 2006, I went to Spain to sing Violetta in a tour of La traviata. It was my first biggish gig (which is to say the first of any size that anyone would be interested in), my first important leading role (as in, uh, the title role???? In an opera that has been sung by every great diva since the damn thing was composed???) and my first - well, technically second - time in Spain, the other one was 3 days in Bilbao back in 1999. To say that I had a huge blast is the understatement of the year. In fact, I fell passionately in love - with the country, with the people, with the whole idea of working to live, rather than living to work, and, possibly most of all, with the food. Oh my god, the food. At the end of the tour, I took the single least planned, most spontaneous step of my entire life. I was supposed to get on a plane from Alicante to Madrid, and from Madrid to NYC, to go back to "normal" life, the day job, and all that involves. Instead, I got on a bus in Valencia, went to meet Eric in Gijon, traveled with him for several days, then went to Alicante for several days to see my friend Iva, and then found a room to rent in Madrid and just...stayed. The most amazing thing happened. As most of you know, in NYC I had to make a living working a day job (legal secretary ahoy!) in addition to the very few singing gigs I could scrape up. Here, I have been working as a full-time singer since I got here. Violetta was followed almost immediately by another Violetta in Italy, followed almost immediately by my first Lucia di Lammermoor...you get the picture. Almost everyone I audition for hires me...and I just appeared on the cover of a magazine, if you can believe it (if you can't, go here for the proof), as part of the festival Músicos en la Naturaleza, with whom I'm singing 8 recitals throughout Castilla y León this summer (with the utterly amazing Eric_Malson at the piano!). I am booked solid through summer of 2008 at this point, and more gigs are coming in all the time. As you might imagine, I keep thinking someone's going to wake me up and say "PSYCH!!!!" Anyway, on to blogging! I have a fun week in store for you - a few of my favorite places in and around Madrid, then will be heading up to Salamanca, possibly my favorite city in Spain, around Thursday with the man my father calls my gentleman friend and I will just call "C," or perhaps "Mr. Trouble," to visit his sister and her new baby. On Saturday we'll be joined by Eric_Malson for lunch in Zamora, I hope, if the restaurant is open (Spain. August. Entire country on vacation. You do the math), and Saturday night I have the latest of this series of recitals in Fermoselle, which should make for some great pix. Sunday we'll head back to Madrid! Before I head on to the foodblogging part of the foodblog, I would just like to give one unsolicited piece of advice: if you decide to drop everything and move to Spain, it might behoove you to speak more Spanish than "sí," "no," "gracias," and "una cerveza, por favor," although some here would say that's all you need . I did not speak any more than that. Shockingly enough (yes, for the humor-impaired, that's sarcasm), considering it's a country in which the first language is, yanno, something not English, remarkably few people SPEAK English. I do speak much, much more Spanish than that now, although the subtler subjunctive forms (or, perhaps, el puto subjuntivo) continue to elude me. On to the food! Later in the blog you'll get pix of my apartment, but right now I'm at C's. I'm cheating a bit, because I ate dinner after midnight, so technically it was Monday. Last night I drove back from Riaño, the site of Saturday's concert, which is a solid 4.5 hours from Madrid. I arrived about 11pm and drove to C's house, where he made me dinner (bless him. I was tired). A bit of background: C is a pilot for a large airline (they fly all over Europe and to Mexico, Central and South America, although not yet to the US), recently divorced, two kids ages 3 and 5 who are adorable (you won't get any pet porn in this foodblog, as neither he nor I have them, but if I can get his permission you might get some cute child pix, although I'm not sure we have any of them eating). How we met is, to me at least, amusing and an indication of the technological age. I won't post it here, but feel free to pm if you are curious. We've been dating for almost 9 months now, done a fair amount of traveling together, and share passions for great music, the beach (or the pool, or really anywhere we can swim) and really good food. We cook together a lot, we cook for each other a lot, and we go out to really good restaurants, too. Yes, he speaks fluent English. Together, we speak fluent Spanglish. We had filets of fletan (halibut), cooked with olive oil, garlic and butter, a salad (just lettuce this time, it was late) with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and clara con limón, which is beer mixed with lemon soda (I know how it sounds. It's delicious, especially in summer in Madrid, when it's hot, hot, hot). filets in the pan, slightly blurry (these first two pix were taken with C's phone, as my camera batteries were dead). C says he forgot to put lemon on the fish for decoration. Oops. the whole thing, on the table Then we had some raspberry cheesecake ice cream, which uh, I forgot to get a pic of, and hit the sack. This morning's breakfast - coffee (unfortunately instant. There are a few reasons C drinks instant coffee, one of which is he frequently has to leave the house at 4 or 5 am to fly and doesn't want to have to think about anything at that hour more complicated than putting a cup in the microwave. Later in the week you'll get some Bialetti Mukka porn from my house) and Pastas de la Montaña, which are butter cookies from the region around León. The mayor of the town gave me a HUGE bag of regional products, including a longaniza (similar to chorizo), a salchichon (regular cured sausage, less spicy and more pink than chorizo), a goat cheese, some creamy blue cheese and these fabu cookies. The cookie box Plated Then C went off to a paddle class (like a combination of tennis and raquetball) and I went off to the store to get batteries for the camera and some groceries for later today. He has to go to work at 6, so we'll be having lunch fairly soon here. More pix and postings to come, and I hope you enjoy your virtual trip to Spain with me! K edited to add, oops, January 2006 is when I came to Spain, not 2007.

Welcome to Portland, Maine, at the mouth of the Fore River on Casco Bay. I, johnnyd, will be your designated foodblog pilot for the next seven days. The teaser photos are taken from Spring Point Battery, one of three fortified defense points for Portland built in the 19th century. Some members might recognize the following shot from my first foodblog: Dining Downeast I The forts were fitted with giant gunnery... ...which, these days, are a perfect setting for Shakespeare and Wilde... We had beautiful weather this weekend so I took these photos to introduce the area to members and visitors of eGullet who may not know or have heard much of our part of the world. Hey, you never know - I knew zip about Surinam (and it's fascinating foods) exactly one week ago - hats off to Mr. Morse for his soon-to-be legendary blog. This a view of Portland from "Ferry Village", where I live, in South Portland. Momentarily, I am headed out on my friend Jeff's Lobsterboat to help him lay a few strings, re-bait a few traps, and hopefully bring home some you-know-what for dinner. I won't be back at the computer for at least ten hours. You can come along on our day by listening in on the NOAA Marine Forecast for Casco Bay: ** Clickity ** choose "open with" If you are patient enough to slog through the terrestial forecast and conditions, you eventually hear the current ocean buoy readings - wave height, wind direction and speed - and what the weather has in store for people foolish enough to agree to haul traps on a drizzly day in Maine. Jeff, however, has been a friend for a very long time, and his charm won me over. Pics to come.

How-do. I'm Mark, I've just grown a very big moustache, and I'll be your blogger for the next week or so. I live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands....yes, the very same Amsterdam that is home to one of eG's more revered foodbloggers, the lovely and talented Chufi. When snowangel asked me to do this here foodblog thing, of course my first concern (understandably) was that my blog would do nothing more than serve up a healthy slice of relative suckitude. ...but then I thought about it a little....and as many common tastes as The Chufe and I seem to have, we come from quite obviously different perspectives: I'm an immigrant here (5 years in March), and an American, and that immediately plunks she and I down at two distinctly different reference points: I think the Dutch Cooking thread (the reason I joined eGullet, BTW) and her foodblogs beautifully articulate where she's coming from. I think I may be coming from an almost opposite direction. What i eat here in Amsterdam happens to consist primarily of other immigrating cultures' food...Indonesian, Surinamese, Antillean, Turkish, and Moroccan foods show up in our apartment on a daily basis. And what fascinates me about the Amsterdam versions of these kitchens is that they reflect all of the compromises and constant adaptation that immigration requires, and what we ultimately end up with is a set of multicultural cuisines that you can't really find anywhere else in the world. So, in showing you a normal* week for us, I hope I can show you some of the interesting hybrid grub that makes up our daily eating life. * Actually, there is nothing normal about this week. It is the dead of summer holiday here: all of the music venues are closed, most of our friends and neighbors are out of the country, and a good number of our normal eateries are on on vacation as well. I just realized how strange this sounds: "all of the music venues are closed". This directly affects our life because we are closely tied to one of the, eh..."alternative" music scenes here in Amsterdam. I'll probably elaborate on that eventually, but what it means is that most of our friends are musicians, producers, label owners, etc...and going out and seeing or playing music is the cornerstone of our social life. But every July and August the citywide music scene shuts down and almost everyone we know leaves town, either to play in festivals around Europe or to just get away until the season restarts in September. We have not yet mastered this "getting out of town" bit. +++ I'm a bit of an insomniac, and summertime is especially tough because of all the daylight hours. So, I'm off to (hopefully) sleep for awhile, but I'll put my nose to the grindstone here as soon as it wakes up.

Good morning! I'll be your food blogger for the week. I seem to be unknown enough that the only thing you guys guessed correctly from my teaser photos was the city, so I hope you're not too disappointed. My name is Jen, I do in fact live in the Kansas City, more specifically in Wesport. There's no where I'd rather live, and I'm really excited to show you guys my favorite food-related things. I just had my usual breakfast (part 1), juice and a cigarette on the rooftop that serves as a porch for my apartment: Classy, I know. I need nicotine and a little sugar to bridge the gap between sleep and functionality. I'll eat an actual breakfast once I get to work. Which is where I have to go now, so, more in a little bit!

Howdy! I'll be your blogger this week and would like to show you my little part of the country. A few things come to mind when one thinks of Texas -- barbecue, cowboys -- but this week I want to share with you some of the lesser known aspects of Texas food and culture. I was born in Shanghai and lived there until I was six. I moved with my parents first to Baltimore and then a few years later to Galveston, an island southeast of Houston. I consider Galveston to be the home of my formative years of middle and high school. My mother is a terrific cook, having been cooking since she was thirteen. During the Cultural Revolution in China, her father was imprisoned for being an intellectual and the family fell upon hard times. Her older siblings all had to work to make ends meet, so as the youngest child she learned to cook from her grandmother. (See Food stories from the Cultural Revolution). When I moved out on my own to Austin to attend the University of Texas, my mother's only stipulation was that I learn how to cook. So, armed with three months of basic lessons and a dozen of her recipes, I moved to my own apartment in Austin. That is when I first began to develop my passion for food. I'll tell you a little more after I fix myself breakfast, but let's take a look at my teaser photo: Any ideas for a caption?

Hi, my name is Jessica, and I'm very excited to be doing my first food blog. I'm also a little nervous because I don't normally post that much, so hopefully I'll be able to live up to the previous blogs. Anyway, a little background. I was born and raised in NYC near Columbia University (where my mom and sisters still live). I've been living in the East Village/LES area for the last 8 years or so. 2 years ago I got married and about 4 months after that my husband Josh and I opened a housewares/home accessories store on avenue B. The store is called Live It Up, hence my screen name. Having our own business has totally changed our lives. The store is open 7 days a week from 10am to 9pm. That means that either Josh or I have to be there during those hours because we have no employees--well, except my youngest sister who we force to work for us for free when she's home from college (like now!). So, while it's really nice Josh and I see each other a lot, we have very little free time, and even less free time together. Also, we both have other interests (I kick box 4-5 days a week, Josh is in 2 bands and plays hockey), so that puts even more of a strain on the free time we do have. So, basically that's the topic of this blog: how we find time for good food with our wacky schedules. The main way that having this schedule has changed our eating habits is in the shopping. I used to have time (and money) to go out of my way to find specific ingredients or go to the farmer's market for in season produce. Now I'm pretty much bound to my route between home/work/gym/home. Here's a map showing the boundaries: clicky Well, that's the basics. The funny thing about this "working" constantly is that most of the time I don't actually have anything to do here at work, so I spend more time on the internet than ever before. So, bombard me with questions--I'll just be here waiting to answer them.

I was delighted to be asked to do this blog. It’s exciting, sort of like getting a new job or something. At my age I like some new excitement. Obviously, it’s my first blog so bear with me as I stumble through it. So you have some background; I am an American, retired, and living in rural France with my wife Linda, who is British, and our dog, Rupert, who is a 2 1/2 year old standard poodle. We’ve been here full time for nearly 5 years now and absolutely love it in France. I’ll answer the question that I expect will get asked right up front; namely: “How did a native Californian end up living in rural South West France?” As you might expect the answer ain’t that simple. Firstly, I lived and worked in Europe for over 20 years; Spain, Belgium, France, Germany & mostly England. During all of that time my work responsibilities covered all of Europe so I traveled widely. Thus, Europe is very much a second home. When Linda finally persuaded me to retire we were living in Rhode Island and planning upon retiring to our home in Carmel Valley, California. But then as the reality hit we realized that all of the family (kids from previous marriages for both of us & Linda’s extended family.) lived in the UK. Why were we going to locate 6,000 miles away? Stupid! So we sold the house & thought this retirement out. Closer to family & kids, Yes. Good weather, Yes! Good food & wine, Yes! South West France which we had visited many times qualified. Weather, good communications, food! Cheap (at the time) property was an added bonus. So, here we are. The kids & grandkids & family & friends from all over visit frequently. Between our French & expat friends we have an active social life; so life is very very good. And, of course, we’re in one of the great food & wine regions of the world. So, now that I have the time I can indulge my passion for cooking; thus my interest in eGullet and thus this blog. My focus will be upon food & cooking. The meals will be things we eat fairly regularly. In a couple of instances I am going to try to give you recipes that I’m going to do the next day. Using the time zone difference to our advantage you can, if you are so inclined, cook the same dish (s). As a result I’ve tried to pick things to cook that have ingredients that are readily available in the states. I’ve not always succeeded, but I’ve used nothing so French that you just can’t get it any where else. Because the 4th of July holiday falls in the middle of my blog I’m going to cover that in a special way by describing a local yearly event. Think you’ll enjoy it. Also, we will be going to one of my favorite restaurants. Michelin starred & one of the top 5 female chef’s in France. Since I was asked, I’m going to do a little rant about drinking & buying wine in France. I’ve been asked to comment upon wine, cheese and cooked meats (sausages) so I’ll do that in essay form to get a topic started and to impart some general information. After that its open to anybody to contribute, ask questions or whatever. We’ll also do a bit of touring around our local countryside & I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have about France. I understand that on blogs there is a certain amount of ‘off topic’ latitude so here’s your chance. I only hope that you, my audience, enjoy this blog as much as I’m going to enjoy doing it. Bon appète! (No cringing, friends on the French forum!)

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

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