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While I’ve been away, I missed a veritable shower of appreciation! Excitingly, I have received not one but two Versatile Blogger nominations, which is really rather wonderful. I was too technically thwarted to respond at the time, but I am eager to do so now…
First of all major thanks go to the two lovely bloggers who nominated me:
Body of a Geek Goddess is the person who nagged, bothered and generally inspired me to start blogging in the first place. She was insistent that I had something interesting to say about food and even eats things I cook for her on occasion. She’s also the talent behind this splendid sci-fi and fantasy oriented blog which is the place to go for your feminist geek needs and/or Supernatural underwear.
Postcard of a Painting is a fab blog for those grammar geeks among us, with forays into theatre, film and television writing to boot. But it mostly mocks badly-written signs, which is a life-affirming process for some of us.
The rules of the award stipulate that I now nominate some of my own favourite blogs and then tell you seven things about myself. I would nominate my nominators but they are both already recipients of the award so I won’t give them more work! Read the rest of this entry »
Like this:
My geeky little heart loves things that deploy science in unusual places, so I was pleased to come across Caren Alpert’s food photography. Alpert uses lab equipment including electron microscopes to take extreme close up photographs of food, revealing the strange and beautiful inner lives of vegetables, shrimp and even candy. In my non-food life I spend a lot of time thinking about images, considering what we look at and what goes unseen in visual cultures. We’re fairly used to these kinds of beyond-the-naked-eye images in the medical context or in CSI, but this cross-pollination of food porn with science was new to me and rather lovely.
The image above is pineapple leaf. This one, if you can believe it, is shrimp tail. With feathers, apparently. Gorgeous! Check out Alpert’s work at Caren Alpert Fine Art.
Via boing boing.
Just a quick post to say how delighted I am to have won the Chinese New Year recipe contest on Farina’s Asian Pantry blog. I entered my recipe for Sichuan braised beef cheek with orange, and Farina’s Singapore foodie judging panel loved the braise and found it to be both approachable and versatile. Yay! Farina has a fab looking new iPad and iPhone app on demystifying Asian cuisine and her blog is chock full of recipe ideas and lovely photography. I’m honoured that she enjoyed my food.
Sometimes, I don’t have to search out deliciousness – it just comes to me all on its own. My talented friend V made her own membrillo this year, and turned up in my office with a box of ruby and garnet coloured treats. In addition to the traditional Spanish quince version, she made a deep red plum version which was, if anything, even better than the original. Membrillo is a popular snack across Spain and Latin America, often served with cheese at tapas time or for afternoon tea. We ate it with a lovely Spanish manchego and bread from our new neighbourhood delicatessen. Although, to get this shot, I actively had to stop Mr Lemur from eating it all straight out of the box.
Haggis Dumplings (photo Lydia Nagai)
I came across this article about Burns night crossed with Chinese New Year in Vancouver and couldn’t resist. Apparently, Chinese-Canadian Todd Wong founded Gung Haggis Fat Choy to bring together the two major ethnic groups who emigrated to British Columbia: the Scots and the Chinese:
Wong, or “Toddish McWong” as he is known in the Scottish community, invented a new holiday by combining the Chinese New Year with Robbie Burns Day, the holiday that celebrates the birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet. The two holidays fall close together in the calendar year, making it convenient to combine the celebrations, notes Wong, a fifth generation Chinese-Canadian. On Jan. 31, Vancouver’s Chinatown will host the 12th annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy festival where deep-fried haggis won ton will be served alongside single malt whiskey.
Scottish people and Chinese people…eating innards together. Could there be a more splendid version of multiculturalism in action?
