BRRR. BLECCH. IT’S FEBRUARY. In college, this meant something called “Feb Club,” an organized party every single night of the year’s bleakest, longest-feeling month. In real life, this means a search for escape–virtual, if not real. For me, escape from the winter blues comes through cooking and reading. Thanks to the net, I’ve found an incredible web of foodie blogging sisters (and brothers) whose recipes and reminiscences spirit me away to places much brighter and warmer. Are you in need of inspiration and escape, too? To come away with me, check out these bloggers, whose words and pictures are an escape as good as any exotic vacation, and a lot easier to come by.
1. Todd and Diane, the White on Rice Couple
I fell in love with Todd and Diane during our Summer Fest cross-blog extravaganza last year, and the romance isn’t over. With beautiful photography and accessible, adventurous recipes, they offer food for every sense. Be sure to check out their recipe for Sriracha hot sauce. One of their most popular posts ever, this recipe is guaranteed to warm things up in your kitchen.
2. Meedo and Zainab of Arabic Bites
These two Saudi sisters share their favorite recipes from their own family, and beyond. In scrupulous detail, they offer their takes on everything from stuffed grape leaves to hummus and fatoush, but I am dying to try the pistachio rice pudding and the zucchini pancakes.
3. Monica of A Life of Spice
Monica Bhide is an accomplished author and cook, and her blog is perfect for those want more of the delectable Indian cuisine she shared in her latest book, Modern Spice. A recent recipe I’m dying to try is shrimp and coriander soup–this time of year, I crave all soup, but especially clear broth full of flavor, which this promises to be. (Scroll down in the post to find the recipe.)
4. Cristina Potter of Mexico Cooks!
Cristina was born in the U.S. but has spent nearly 30 years living in Mexico, and her blog is as much an exhaustive travel guide as it is a repository of super-authentic, well-explained recipes. For a good introduction to all that’s on offer here, check out her recent post recapping her best of 2009. I can’t wait to make her capirotada, a bread pudding unique to the Lenten season in Mexico. (Scroll down in the post for the recipe.)
5. Mark of Sticky Rice
I don’t know much about Mark, an Australian living, eating and writing in Hanoi, but what I do know is that this blog is like an instant ticket to Southeast Asia. Mark covers the world of Vietnamese food from humble street vendors to fancy hotel restaurants, and does so with enthusiasm, humor and scrupulous attention to detail about ingredients, flavors and surroundings. Be sure to check out his “Sweeeeet!” category for a mouth-watering look at Vietnamese desserts.
Fuchsia (oh, how I love that name) Dunlop is not a food blogger, but an author and scholar of Chinese cooking. Her blog is a collection of musings on the state of cuisine in China (a recent post was on the Chinese government’s attempts to standardize recipes for Mao’s favorite dishes). The site falls into the “virtual voyage” category I so love this time of year. Her recipes for her Chinese-influenced take on Christmas fare (e.g., Chinese mince pie dumplings) are not to be missed.
7. Robyn and David of EatingAsia
Kuala Lumpur-based Robyn Eckhardt and David Hagerman have one of the most beautifully photographed blogs I’ve ever seen, but EatingAsia has way more than a pretty face. Robyn and David travel throughout Asia, digging into local cuisine everywhere they go. They offer a sumptuous slice of life most of us aren’t likely to experience. One recipe I am longing for is their Devil curry–a spicy-sour concoction that seems ideal for February.
8. Fran of BetumiBlog
Fran Osseo-Asare’s “labor of love” blog, which features recipes from and information about cuisines throughout sub-Saharan Africa, might be my favorite food-blog discovery ever. Fran’s approach is affectionate and scholarly, and her recipes are both exotic and appealing. She’s got step-by-step instruction for a range of savory and sweet dishes, but these togbei from Ghana (the name means, get ready, “goats’ balls”) keep calling my name…
9. Pati of Pati’s Mexican Table
What’s in the water in Washington, DC? I lived there many years ago, and though there was awesome Vietnamese food, I never found much other ethnic cuisine that lived up to its potential. The food climate must have changed, because like Monica Bhide (see Number 3 above) Pati Jinich lives and cooks in the capitol. Her blog is exuberant, and her recipes shine. As an ex-Californian who now lives in something of a Mexican-food wasteland, I rely upon books and blogs to inspire me, and Pati’s is sure-fire. I’m dying to try her pollo pibil.
10. Danielle of Habeas Brulée
It’s not that Danielle Sucher cooks any exotic cuisine in particular, but that everything she cooks has an imaginative and gutsy flair. I first found Habeas when a craving for Moroccan cuisine sent me off on a Google odyssey, and Danielle has a few Moroccan recipes to choose from. But she also has gorgeous salads, inspired sweets (try her Balsamic Fudge Drop cookies) and a deep catalog of recipes categorized as “Hot/Spicy,” just to warm things up.
11. Stephanie of Momofuku For 2
Stephanie Le loves David Chang’s New York City Momofuku restaurants so much, that when she received his cookbook for Christmas, she decided to cook her way through the entire book and blog the process. She’s the first to admit that this is no longer an original idea, but her site still feels fresh, and Chang’s inventive Asian cuisine is relentlessly appealing (as is Steph’s enthusiasm for her project). You need the book to cook along with Steph (she does not republish Chang’s recipes) but even without it, Momofuku For 2 will suck you in.
12. Martin of Khymos
Martin Lersch is a Norwegian scientist who’s passionate about food and cooking–specifically, molecular gastronomy. Martin offers a whole different kind of culinary adventure (check out his downloadable recipe book Texture–A Hydrocolloid Recipe Collection. Hydrocolloid? Oh, that’s “a substance that forms a gel in contact with water.” According to Martin.) While I am unlikely to ever cook any of the gels or foams in Martin’s cookbook, I love the adventure of reading his take on the science that (really, truly) always underlies good cooking. He’s funny and charming and unabashed in his food-geek pride. In all seriousness, don’t miss his monthly “They Go Really Well Together” (TGRWT) experiments in food pairings. Banana parsley marshmallows, anyone?
13. Indira of Mahanandi
I love Indian food. I mean, LOVE. Indira Singari’s recipes make it seem doable at home, but better, they make you feel like you’ve got her at your shoulder, coaching and coaxing you through the new or unfamiliar. In one of her most popular posts, a divine recipe for palak paneer, Indira explains in vivid detail how the woman who taught her to make this recipe explained that she needed to see it, in order to understand how to do it. Indira manages to make you see, and in the process, shares her encyclopedic knowledge of recipes (many from her own family) and ingredients. A passage to India if ever there was one.
If these suggestions leave you longing for more, read my original favorite food blogs post, or this follow-up offering more of my best food blog picks!
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What’s in the water in DC is kind of a dangerous question, given the state of the Potomac. (I kid! …Well. Kind of.) But there are definitely a lot of awesome restaurants in the area, especially for vegetarians such as myself.
Thanks for posting these! I’m excited to have some new reads.
what a great list of blogs!
Molecular gastronomy is my new mantra. I think it will work well, at least until the stomach gurgles interrupt my peace. Love this post. What a fine way to cure the February blues. Thanks, sister.
great post! so timely in so many ways: just tonight i started a new bookmark folder entitled “Food Food Food”, so i navigated to sister project to bookmark you in that folder–and found a wealth of other riches to include, especially white on rice and momofuku for 2!
BOTH particularly timely as just this very evening i had already made a sriracha bloody mary (okay, two) and a ginger scallion dip for fried tuna cakes (which i had reverse engineered after falling in major love ten years ago finding it at hole in the wall joints in chinatown when working at the federal building in lower manhattan–and which i also recently learned is a momfuku staple)
so thanks for a great post and a bunch of great new links.
but–i went through your other food blog posts, and am wondering did i miss it, or where’s alana’s “eating from the ground up?” she rocks! http://www.eatingfromthegroundup.com/
What a great way to focus some blog searching.
Speaking of bloggers (you asked), have you heard about Blog Aid? http://www.blogaid.org. Food bloggers unite!
Thank you, thank you, for letting me know about Fuchsia’s blog. I am sort of obsessed with her writing. Whee!