To wrap up home-cooking-week, I thought I’d give you all a little summary of the blogs I read most often. These are the ones that inspire my own home cooking, give me interesting ideas, send me off on projects, or that I find inspirational.
The Slow Cook — I love this site — although I’m jealous of his long growing season in DC, I always learn something here. Especially about pickling. This was the site that inspired me to make sauerkraut. He’s got a particularly good piece at the top of the blog right now, Food Lessons for Hard Times.
Chocolate and Zucchini: not a blog about hard times at all, but I like Clothilde’s writing style and her recipes. She brings her French sensibility to home cooking, but she’s never fussy or overwrought. I make her French Yogurt cake all the time — it’s become my go-to hostess gift.
Bitten: Mark Bittman’s NY Times blog — this is a daily read for me. There’s a lot of good advice about home cooking here — good clean delicious food that is neither going to break your bank nor keep you slaving away all evening. Also, he’s just published Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes a book that advocates changing the way we eat, outlining a lower-meat diet consisting of more whole grains, fruits and vegetables for our own health and the health of our planet.
Ruhlman: Michael Ruhlman’s blog is another blog I check daily — his book The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft for Every Kitchenis a must-read for anyone interested in getting beyond recipes and moving into that place where you can become a good instinctive cook. I’ve also got his forthcoming book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking on pre-order at Amazon — this is exactly the kind of info I love. I’m bad at following recipes exactly — the ones I love are like the one I got from Clothilde for her French Yogurt Cake — it’s essentially a ratio that you can play around with — changing up the fruit, adding nuts, making it plain, or as I’ve been doing lately, cooking it in a bundt pan.
I love A Hunger Artist, although it’s not a site for folks looking for quick and easy cooking tips — Bob del Grosso was one of Ruhlman’s instructors at the Culinary Institute and is currently chronicling his journey into charcuterie. Which as you all know is a subject I’m fascinated by, so this is on my must-read list.
Thyme for Cooking is another blog I’ve been following lately. I really love her recipes — good solid homey food, especially as Kate and son mari are in the process of renovating a house in France so she hasn’t had a proper kitchen during these past few months I’ve been following the blog. I’m as fascinated by the house renovation as I am by the food, but this is one of those blogs that I nearly always want to cook and eat the recipe of the day.
What blogs are you all reading on a regular basis? What do they teach you about food or cooking or our food systems that you really value? My Google Reader could always use a few more good blogs, so let’s share some tips in the comments …
How to Cook like your Grandmother. – Drew Kime
Dear Charlotte. One of my favourite food blogs is Tea and Cookies (http://teaandcookies.blogspot.com/). It is a delicous food blog, based on a good, tasty stock of recipes from the west coast, liberally seasoned with anecdotes and sippets from the author’s life and, occasionally, enlivened with the Japanese spices of her travels in the east.
Food is so intimately bound to our lives that any blog that manages to combine recipes with real life anecdotes and produce a tasty feast for the eyes is a real winner in my kitchen
The Amateur Gourmet, (www.amateurgourmet.com) because he’s a cheerleader for novice cooks, and his blow by blow accounts of his attempts at new recipes read like a conversation with a helpful friend. The Ethicurean: Chew the Right Thing (www.ethicurean.com) for collected & distilled info on sustainable food politics, especially meat. Avec Eric (http://aveceric.com) wherein sexy world famous chef Eric Ripert shows us how to make snacks in a toaster oven. Charming, yet sincere – I love it. Serious Eats (www.seriouseats.com) has some good cheap/simple recipes, as does Culinate (www.culinate.com) which is more focused on sustainability & health than SE. Chez Pim is a bit snarky, but sincere & offers detailed, interesting recipes for Thai dishes, in particular, http://www.chezpim.typepad.com.
I think the common thread in these blogs is that their recipes work — they all take the time to provide enough information for someone reading along to succeed. Or, if they’re not recipe-driven, then they provide me with a steady stream of ideas about how to eat responsibly & respectfully — of my own health, and everyone else’s, too.
I regularly read 101 Cookbooks (www.101cookbooks.com). She is a vegetarian and I’m not (although I like meatless meals just fine) and she uses a lot of ingredients that I just don’t keep around, but I mostly enjoy it for the ideas. Her creations often delve into areas where I normally wouldn’t venture, so I’m inspired to try all sorts of new things I never thought of. Also, while I don’t use actual recipes much, she has turned me on to cookbooks that I find indispensable – particularly “Hands Off Cooking” by Ann Martin Rolke. This is the ultimate busy-person’s cookbook, and I make most of these recipes to the letter, because I find that they work very well as is.
I also read Diary of a Locavore regularly (http://www.diaryofalocavore.com/) because, well, it’s just divine. 🙂 I read Ruhlman occasionally and always enjoy it when I do. For someone who enjoys good food and does a lot of cooking, I really don’t read much food-related content. I will check out some of your recommendations, though!
I agree with many of the sites you and other commenters have mentioned. A few more suggestions to add to the pack
Gild the Vodoolily – Funny as hell, irreverent and interesting cooking projects. A great read all the way around.
http://voodoolily.blogspot.com/
Last Nights Dinner – Straight up food porn. Beautiful pictures, especially on the weekly “Weekend eats and drinks’ post. With a focus on local food.
http://www.lastnightsdinner.net/
The Paupered Chef – Boys after my own heart. Recording successful and failed kitchen experiments from the perfect roast chicken to duck prosciutto.
http://www.thepauperedchef.com/
There are many more, but these three I return to regularly and am always glad I did.
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Joannah
http://myscones.com
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
http://muffinsnow.com
Hi, Charlotte,
Orangette is a beautiful read, and Molly just came out with her first food memoir, A Homemade Life. Can’t wait to explore it, as she really envelopes you in. Find her at http://www.orangette.com.
And, although you don’t know me from soap, I think you’d like my blog, Sustainable Suppers:
http://www.SustainableSuppers.com
Sometimes, it even has a snazzy little podcast. I focus on frugal flavors and on real food: pastured meats, raw dairy and traditional fats.
Also, chocolate.
We make our own vinegar out of fruit scraps, grow our own sourdough yeast and make leftover magic by, say, turning popovers into popover bread pudding. I even found a way to leftovers in the bathroom: baking soda is now my go-to cheap-n-healthful shampoo, supplemented by hair teas made from leftover herbs and tea bags.
As for the podcast, I wrangle chefs, farmers, authors, food activists and gadflies and ply them with alcohol until they tell me all about home cooking, food politics and frugal flavors.
I really like your blog, by the way. Been reading it ever since you started posting over at The Ethicurean. It’s a place to dream, and makes me yearn for a yard and manly men who hunt for me and even, when I’m really fed up with Miami, snow.
Warm wishes,
Holly