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Hello there! Talk about a hard act to follow, Zeemanb! But anyway - welcome, everyone, to a week of shopping, cooking and eating in Sydney. Woolloomooloo, to be exact - an area of Sydney basically in the central business district and on the waterfront, steeped in both Aboriginal and colonial history, and my home turf. The University of Woolloomooloo reference in the foodblog's subtitle, is, (for the fans) from the Monty Python sketch of the Bruces - this sketch was the genesis of the great Monty Python that accompanied many a beer swilling night in my own university days.Not many takers on my teaser pics, though kayswv and Kerry Beal were on the right track recognising the naval shipyard; that's the Garden Island naval base on one side of Woolloomooloo Bay. On the other side are the rock formations you can see to the left, jutting out to a peninsula into the harbour, called Mrs Macquarie's Chair, after the wife of one of the chief governors of Sydney when it was a penal colony - she had a chair carved into the rock at the very tip of the headland so she could survey the ships come in and out of the harbour. She really was a lynchpin in the early (European-led) economic development of Sydney in its transition from penal colony to free town, and I think of her keen mercantile eye when I walk out there most weekends. My second teaser pic really speaks to the fact that these days I get most of my food inspiration from the web (including from you guys! Sometimes mostly from you guys..) and often whack my iPad onto the fridge with its magnetised case to follow a recipe, or inventory what's in the fridge, or look desperately for dinner inspiration. You'll see why I'm into magnetised spice jars, measuring spoons and whatever else I can attach rare earth magnets to and whack on the fridge when I share some more photos of my very space-poor kitchen. So apart from that compelling prospect, I'm hoping this week to show you some of the interesting food scene of central and Eastern parts of the city, take you on some of my marathon food-mission adventures (I'm an obsessed food-shopper, but aren't we all?), share in cooking with the spoils of the hunt, and generally indicating how well you can do for yourself being a greedy girl in Sydney.

Titles are hard. So if you're just joining us, this is a continuation of a Foodblog that didn't quite get off the ground (you can view the one that occurred in May here: ). Maybe this one will be problem-free. I don't know if I picked the best week though as Irene is scheduled to smash into the City sometime between tonight and tomorrow. I checked http://www.nyc.gov/hurricanezones and thankfully my apartment building isn't in an evacuation zone, but that doesn't mean that I'll be immune from power outages and the like. That being said, if previous disaster stories have been any indication (i.e., the infamous City-wide blackout of 2003 and several high-temperature summers in intervening years since), I don't think I'll have too much to worry about. Larder's all stocked with various good things to eat, most of which can be eaten raw if necessary. No pix from the market today since my camera's batteries are recharging. List was: heirloom tomatoes cauliflower herbs -- thyme, parsley, rosemary, mint rocambole garlic peppers okra white peaches corn eggplant yellow romano beans You'll see all of those and more in this week's Foodblog. I tend to cook, as many readers will attest, a vegetable-heavy/vegetable-focused style of cooking. I'm not a vegetarian although it would be easy to think that, just from leafing through posts on eG and on my regular blog, the one that's linked in my signature. I do try to buy locally when possible, but I don't carry my locavorism to extremes. I feel that people don't cook as much these days as they used to. Maybe that's a function of the way we live now. There's something to be said, though, about how cooking centers and focuses the self. It's a relaxing activity for me. Never am I more at home than in the kitchen preparing a meal. If I can inspire someone to eat more vegetables or to cook more often, then that's one more victory that's worth having, especially in our technology-driven society. I'm off to Citarella in a little bit ... going to pick up some seafood, part of which will be in tonight's dinner and tomorrow's breakfast.

Welcome to the new season of the ever popular eGullet Foodblogs. I will be coordinating them this season, so if you want to participate as a blogger please let me know. We will be starting off slowly and hope to jump up the pace as the calendar fills. Starting Saturday August 27th through Friday September 2nd we offer a blogger with these teaser shots:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi, 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! 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!

Good morning! I'm pleased and a bit surprised that nobody identified me as the next Foodblogger. The teaser photos are of Highland cattle and a plate of seafood with lupins. The cattle are in the back field here on the farm in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. The chowder and flowers are from my home outside Halifax. It's been more than four years since I put together my 1st eG Foodblog. This time I'm on the road and away from my own kitchen. We've just finished catering a wedding here so there will tons of photos in the very near future. Tonight I'm going to Cavendish, Prince Edward Island for the week. The Foodblogs of late have been quite excellent and I've got some hard acts to follow. This week I can promise you a lot of seafood, extreme cheese, fine port and good whisky. The topic description reads "More Maritimes" which refers to the three eastern provinces New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI. If you throw in Newfoundland & Labrador, you get "Atlantic Canada". Time to pack!

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

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

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

!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)

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.

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.

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

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

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

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