What To Do With White Asparagus And My Sidebar Links?

(Cross-posted at F16's Don't Kill People, 500 Lb. Bombs Kill People)

No cake this week.


I have a jar of lovely white asparagus chilling in the refrigerator and I may not be able to sleep knowing it is there. I’d indulge in one or two spears, but I know my lack of restraint would see the entire jar gone rather quickly. I don’t actually know what I’m saving them for. Other than cold on a salad, I can’t think of many uses well suited to the packaged variety of asparagus. I doubt it would withstand much sautéing. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I really do need to update my sidebar links as many of the blogs have gone defunct over the past year. That’s a shame, as some of them were awfully enjoyable reads. I have this habit of checking back now and then to see if any rise like a phoenix from the ashes, but am rarely surprised with a new post.

As regular readers know, I maintain a cooking blog. I don’t make a fuss over presentation or photography. When I first began painting years ago, I had it in mind that I’d mix my own raw pigments. That’s more complicated than it sounds as one needs all manner of protective masks and gloves as the particulate matter in some of those cobalts and cadmiums are toxic. One day, at my favourite art supply store, I was picking up some raw pigment and linseed oil (I was in my gloss stage) and the sales asked me rather directly;
“Are you an artist, or a chemist?”
She was perfectly right. It wasn’t saving me any money mixing my own pigments and the tubed paints were far better than anything I could produce. It was, largely, an exercise in geekery. From there on, I bought paint in tubes like everyone else and devoted my energies to “making art.” I feel much the same about food photography. While I do own a light table, and many lovely tablecloths, I cannot imagine devoting the time required to posing the gastro-porn when I could be cooking. My favourite cookbook has no illustrations incidentally.

That said, a number of more talented cooks than I are able to do justice to their culinary skills with their photography and knowledge of light settings. If you have never visited Nordljus and marvelled at the photography, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so. It is a truly magnificent blog.

Another favourite is Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once. I’m always astounded by the recipes and photography there, as well as Haalo’s lovely writing.

For bread baking, The Fresh Loaf has been a tremendous help.

If you enjoy cookies (like, who doesn’t?) My Little Kitchen is a fun read as Cathy works her way through a cookbook one recipe per week.


Over the next few weeks, I hope to change the format at the cooking blog so that it is simpler to access old recipes. I also plan to do a bit of link-updating around here. Feel free to mention any blogs I ought to be reading, but have overlooked.
When I was expecting, I kept a food diary of everything I cooked/ate. The idea was that it would be a fun thing for Danny to have when he’s older-a sort of "This is what you’re made of" type of joke. After I developed gestational diabetes (I’m told that happens quite a bit with "older" women) it became less interesting as I had to measure and count each thing that I consumed. I’ve thought about posting some of it, maybe as an "on this date, I ate" type feature. I wonder, would that be interesting to anyone, or is that just too weird a concept?
Anyway, changes ahead at both blogs.