Blog Love Fest Part Two

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Since it’s the day we are supposed to celebrate and show love, I decided that this would be a good time to post the second installment of blogs I love to read and tell you a little bit about each.  I hope you love them too!  (For Part One - click here.)

The Domestically Impaired Guide to the Retro Kitchen Arts (Don’t you just love the name already?) is written by kind-hearted +Kalamity Kelli Davidson who claims to be learning how to cook but I think she needs to change that tagline.  By day, she works in the public sector, advancing the cause of decent working conditions for in-home personal care assistants.  Her e-book, written from her personal and professional experience, Taking Care of Mom and Dad, is a godsend to anyone who is caring for the elderly.  In the evenings and weekends, Kelli cooks and bakes fearlessly in the kitchen for her family.  She’s a garage sale and cookbook junkie so I knew I had met a kindred spirit.  And she makes bread pudding with figs and bacon!  (I think you all know how I feel about figs and bacon.)
And she makes delicious jams.

The Om Blog is next on my list.  Author, Juls has a great sense of humor and is just starting her second semester at Leith’s School of Food and Wine in London.  When I first started reading The Om Blog, she was focused on cooking less popular cuts of meat, like sweetbreads, hearts and game, which I found fascinating.  Now that she is off at Leith’s during the week, Juls’ entertaining posts are farther apart but it’s great to hear what she’s learning so I always look forward to each installment.

Marmaduke Scarlet, written by Rachel Kelly, first caught my eye when she made Hainanese Chicken Rice for her first entry into +belleau kitchen’s Random Recipe Challenge.  Many recipes have a story of her childhood in England and Kuala Lumpur, which you know I love, and they all have an amusing introduction.  As much as I love a good recipe, and Rachel’s got some great ones, I will often read a blog, just for a funny story of cakes with stubbed toes and potential bullet holes.  It's all here.

Fourth up is City Hippy Farm Girl, which is, in the author’s own words, all about her hippy tendencies and farm girl aspirations - trying to live simply and sustainably in a city flat.  Brydie cooks for her husband and three “monkeys” doing her best to buy local, in season produce, which is something I aspire to, but seldom manage.  The first post I read, she was squaring off with beets and, after losing that particular battle her whole life, finally emerged victorious!  I love beets but I can certainly understand the challenge since my dear husband does not.  And finally she makes wonderful jams and waxes eloquent about Italy and bakes gorgeous ricotta tarts.  A woman after my own heart.


The Kitchen Maid is the personal project of journalist Lucy Corry, who writes for various online and print media but the blog, she says, is just her, making things, telling stories, taking photos and having fun.  As always, in all the blogs I like, you are probably going to get a back story with each recipe.  And she is likely to turn her kitchen disasters into triumphs and learn from her mistakes.  I love the breezy way she writes and feel as if a friend is sending me a few recipes to try.

Teaspoon of Spice is written by two dieticians +Serena Ball and +Deanna Segrave-Daly, who, as their tagline says, love food as much as you do.  Honestly, if you didn’t know they were dieticians, you would never guess by their stories or the way their recipes are presented.  I went way back to the beginning when I discovered their blog and have yet to find a mention of diet or nutrition.  Which is the right way to do it, if you ask me.  The four-letter D words scares folks off.  Their recipes are just delicious and the photographs are beautiful.


Little Macaroon is written by the very clever Camilla.  She’s Scottish and she lived in and loved Singapore for two years, both of which immediately made me like her.  And her prose about life  and food is poetry.  She’s also very funny.  And if you are a knitter, you’ll find lots of interesting posts about that too.

The last blog for today’s round up is called Appetite for China.  I discovered it when a fellow Cookbook Junkie posted a photo of a delicious dish she had just made from author Diana Kuan’s The Chinese Takeout Cookbook.  Diana grew up in Puerto Rico and then Boston, watching her family run Chinese restaurants, and eating Chinese food whenever and wherever they traveled.  She shares some wonderful, tasty recipes with, of course, stories and I want to make and eat every single one.  And she shares my fondness for chicken wings.


And that's it for this installment but stay tuned for Part Three sometime in the near future.  I hope you find a few new blogs to like in my Blog Love Fest round up!  But most importantly, thank you for reading my blog and for all your love and support.  I love you all, lovely people!