Food blogs provide the most delightful reading, with their gorgeous photographs and mouthwatering recipes. There are so many out there; to help narrow the field I checked out the list of favorites on my daughter's food blog, Bean Eats (discussed below), and I found she was spot on. In fact, I can almost taste the grilled shrimp on the barbecue!
Some of these descriptions are adapted from the individual blogs.
The actual Smitten Kitchen, in New York City, is a 42 square-foot, circa-1935, sort of half-galley kitchen with a single counter, tiny stove, checkered floor and a skylight above a noisy window overlooking the avenue below.
What you'll see here is: A lot of comfort foods stepped up a bit, things like bread and birthday cakes made entirely from scratch and tutorials on everything from how to poach an egg to how to make tart dough that doesn't shrink up on you, but also a favorite side dish (zucchini and almonds) that takes less than five minutes to make.
What you won't see here is: Excessively fussy foods and/or pretentious ingredients.
Smitten Kitchen won Best Food Weblog in the 12th Annual Bloggies Awards — March, 2012.
Name something sweet and you'll find a recipe for on it on David Lebovitz's blog. A small sample includes pineapple-coconut macaroons, gluten-free chocolate brownies, nonfat gingersnaps, chocolate biscotti, cranberry sorbet, vegan strawberry ice cream and panoply of international savory dishes such as Thai green curry.
David Lebovitz lives in Paris. When he lived in the Bay Area, he was named one of the Top Five Pastry Chefs by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Luisa Weiss writes this food blog from Berlin, where she grew up. She has lived in New York and in September, Viking will publish her first book, a food memoir, My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes.)
Consult the recipe index for dozens of recipes under categories such as Breakfasty Things, Soups, Salads, Vegetarian Main Courses, Fish and Shellfish, Rice and Pasta, Chicken and Poultry, Meat, Breads and Pizza, Cakes, Cookies, Desserts and Other Sweet Things as well as Jams, Pickles and Preserves.
Here is how author, Tim, describes his qualifications. If you call watching a lot of PBS cooking shows when I was growing up training, then yes [I am a trained cook/baker]. My background is in art but baking is something I have always loved. I've taken a class here and there, but most of what I know I learned alone in my kitchen. I also read a lot about food and cooking and am pretty good at following directions. My cookbook collection can no longer be contained in my kitchen and is spreading to all parts of my apartment.
The photos are as appetizing as the recipes.
Lottie + Doof was named Best Cooking Blog of 2012 by Saveur magazine.
One of my favorite food blogs comes from another untrained food blogger, Mark's mission is to get people cooking simply, comfortably, and well.
Click on the "recipes" link to see some favorites from Mark's books that he goes back to time and again. It's a wide range, but they all have this in common: they're easy, virtually foolproof, and delicious; these include Tomato Cobbler, Vegetable Pancakes, Lemon Cheesecake with Sour Cream Topping, Easy Whole Grain Flatbread, Cold Noodles with Sesame or Peanut Sauce, Simplest and Best Shrimp Dish, and the list goes on.
Mark is a journalist who writes "The Minimalist" column for The New York Times and is the author of, among other things, How to Cook Everything.
Here is breakfast goddess Noelle's philosophy that led to a recent breakfast in my home of leftover veggie pizza with fried egg on top: I think there is a sport to be made out of eating leftovers and using up all the produce in the fridge before the next market day.
I love breakfast and salivate when simply reading her recipe categories: Bread, Cake, Coffee, Cookies, Donuts, Eggs, French Toast, Muffins, Pancakes, Oatmeal, Scones, Smoothies, Spreads, Tarts and, of course, Waffles.
Full disclosure: The author of Bean Eats is my daughter. I love the way she combines two of her passions: food and travel. When it comes to food, Sabrina cares about using fresh, healthful, local ingredients and combining interesting flavors for results that please both the eye and the palate.
Her January 2012 page has one of my favorite chicken recipes as well as a mouthwatering fig and Stilton appetizer and a photo of "Street Treats in Siem Reap, Cambodia."
Her photos and descriptions of eats around the globe, whether in Southeast Asia or in the UK, make me feel as though I am there with her in this market, that café. Indeed I was with her at an Edinburgh cupcake shop, highlighted in a recent post, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gardens."
One More Thing
Every Monday on Twitter, I play #weekendeats by tweeting a delicious something I'd eaten on Saturday or Sunday to @latimesfood, who then retweets it. Dozens or even hundreds of others do the same as I do, and you can find links to awesome recipes. I follow @latimesfood on Twitter and automatically receive all these tweets of yummy treats.
As for my own blog, it is called Confessions of a Worrywart and has only a few food posts I sometimes call "Antidote to Worry." See my bio for the link as well as for links to my healthy recipes on Life Goes Strong.
See also some of my other posts:
- Picnic!
- Aphrodisiac Foods & 7 Easy, Delicious Recipes To Give Your Libido A Boost
- Brain Food . . . 5 Delicious, Easy Recipes
- A Magical Used Cookbook Shop & A Divine Cookie Recipe
- An Insider's 9 Favorite NYC Restaurants
