Adopt a Blogger: Round 4

I've adopted a food blogger! Kristin of Dine & Dish has successfully paired veteran bloggers with newer bloggers for the past 4 years and this year I jumped on board and offered to be an adoptive blogger. I figured with 4 years under my belt and being halfway through my 5th year that it was high time to give back.

I've been paired with a wonderfully precocious young blogger named Lauren. She has written Celiac Teen for nearly 2 years (and she's only 17!) about her disease and how she manages to eat well despite it.

She's got quite the following for someone so young, and she is SO good at what she does that I'm afraid I won't have much to offer her. In fact, I can easily see Lauren being the adopter for Round 5 of Adopt a Blogger.

Even if you're not gluten-free, you must see this blog ... for the recipes, the photos, the writing and the general yumminess of it all. Brazilian Cheese Bread or Gluten-Free Tiramisu, anyone?

But, wait - there's more! More? Yes, yes, there's more! She created an ebook specifically to provide help to Haiti titled, Help for Haiti. A compilation of 87 recipes from 71 bloggers, the book was made to raise funds for Haitians in the aftermath of the recent earthquake there. The Red Cross matched donations, as have Lauren's parents (up to $1,000) and the book costs whatever you'd like to donate. Please go check that link, and every link leading to Lauren's blog, she is one fantastically talented young woman and I am so proud to be her adoptive blogger.

Where's the Beef?

...or chicken, or cupcakes or anything for that matter? I know I'm slacking off here, but I have a valid explanation for it. I don't mean to ever leave my readers hanging high and dry, but my dear hard drive crashed a few weeks ago and I've been too busy to attempt a retrieval of any information from it.

I have a brand new shiny double-sized hard drive and double RAM, but it won't take the place of the many photos and writings I had stored on the other that hadn't been backed-up. Once all those lovely photos were gone (it happened so quickly there wasn't even time to back-up) I lost a bit of my desire to repeat any of what I had already done, and so my dear blog has been forsaken. I will attempt retrieval in the next week or so, and if I ever do get it all back, you'll be inundated with deliciousness, I promise!

I have reviews to post, and while I count on them myself when making purchases, I don't know of anyone who wants to read nothing but review after review, and as I have no new material for my personal blog, here it is ... sad and lonely.

I have a plethora of new posts at Family.com and they can all be found in my sidebar to the right along with any posts I've done at A Thousand Soups, my soup blog. In fact, there is a brand new page done for me at Family.com (http://family.go.com/food/pkg-low-cost-recipes-from-a-real-mom/#)- go check that out ASAP! Fear not, I'll be back in the swing of things shortly ... until then, grab a cup of something warm and check out the 4 years of yummy archives I have.

So farewell Frugal Cook . . .

How long should a blog last? It's a question, I guess, that more and more bloggers will be asking themselves over the next year or so. This one has lasted just over 21 months which isn't bad but I feel its time has come.

The online world has changed a lot in the past couple of years. When I started in January 2008, with the specific purpose of recording my progress writing The Frugal Cook book, there weren't nearly as many blogs as there are now. But the big change has been Twitter which has in some ways made blogging superfluous - especially if you already have a website. I know you can't tweet a recipe but you can tweet ideas with an immediacy and an effectiveness it's hard to match in a blog.

It's also true that you can get to a stage of casting round for things to write about, particularly if your remit is as narrow as frugal cooking. I do write about other aspects of food and drink which I'd like to explore more. I don't want to get to the stage of repeating myself.

Of course I won't give up writing about frugal eating altogether - after all I've always cooked frugally - but you'll now find my recipes and tips on my student and budget eating website Beyond Baked Beans.

The biggest wrench is the very personal interaction I've had with those of you who have followed this blog and contributed so many useful tips and comments. I hope I won't lose touch with you. Please sign up to the Beyond Baked Beans fan page on Facebook and/or follow me on Twitter where I now 'tweet' as food_writer. Fellow cheeseaholics may also like to know that I have - for the moment - a cheese blog called The Cheeselover (so you can see why I had to give something up!)

Anyway thank you all for visiting, for reading and for sharing. This blog has been richer for it.

So farewell Frugal Cook . . .

How long should a blog last? It's a question, I guess, that more and more bloggers will be asking themselves over the next year or so. This one has lasted just over 21 months which isn't bad but I feel its time has come.

The online world has changed a lot in the past couple of years. When I started in January 2008, with the specific purpose of recording my progress writing The Frugal Cook book, there weren't nearly as many blogs as there are now. But the big change has been Twitter which has in some ways made blogging superfluous - especially if you already have a website. I know you can't tweet a recipe but you can tweet ideas with an immediacy and an effectiveness it's hard to match in a blog.

It's also true that you can get to a stage of casting round for things to write about, particularly if your remit is as narrow as frugal cooking. I do write about other aspects of food and drink which I'd like to explore more. I don't want to get to the stage of repeating myself.

Of course I won't give up writing about frugal eating altogether - after all I've always cooked frugally - but you'll now find my recipes and tips on my student and budget eating website Beyond Baked Beans.

The biggest wrench is the very personal interaction I've had with those of you who have followed this blog and contributed so many useful tips and comments. I hope I won't lose touch with you. Please sign up to the Beyond Baked Beans fan page on Facebook and/or follow me on Twitter where I now 'tweet' as food_writer. Fellow cheeseaholics may also like to know that I have - for the moment - a cheese blog called The Cheeselover (so you can see why I had to give something up!)

Anyway thank you all for visiting, for reading and for sharing. This blog has been richer for it.

Happy Birthday!

To America, and to Cooking with Anne! This is the 3-year anniversary of the start of Cooking with Anne and I can't wait to roll on to the 4th year. This is what Cooking with Anne looked like in November, 2006. I love the Internet Archive.

Thanks, to all of my loyal readers and to everyone stopping by. Comments today are very much appreciated! If you've been lurking, pop in and say, "hello"!

Food blogging is better than Facebook!

Having been a food writer for some 18 years now I've got to know a lot of my fellow professionals. Very nice people they are too. I belong to a couple of good forums which are incredibly useful if you want to find out, for instance, in what respect English flour differs from American flour and the impact that will have on a recipe. People are more than generous with their advice

But frankly it doesn't compare with the heady sensation of joining the blogging community and finding out what people are cooking and eating on a daily basis. There's a joyous lack of inhibition about blogging, a manic enthusiasm, a total obsessiveness about ingredients and techniques, however off the wall, that's hugely liberating. Recipes don't have to be perfect, in fact it's better if they aren't. Everyone is on a voyage of discovery.

Every week, sometimes every day, I find out something new. Such as that Nicolas Clee, the author of the excellent and thought-provoking Don't Sweat the Aubergine has a blog called Sceptical Cook. Through Nicolas I find there's a terrific blog called Baking for Britain which not only gives recipes for forgotten treasures such as Deddington Pudding-Pie but meticulously charts their origin

Yesterday I got invited to join an American group of bloggers called The Foodie Blogroll (right) by a blogger who calls herself The Leftover Queen. A fellow spirit! This is much better than Facebook where you have to keep your food-related obsessions within reasonable bounds

At a time when you can't open a magazine without being told how to cook a perfect dinner party by yet another celebrity chef an army of bloggers is quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) creating the kind of food that they want to eat.

Writers can become photographers, photographers writers. There are no rules in the blogosphere.

Food blogging is better than Facebook!

Having been a food writer for some 18 years now I've got to know a lot of my fellow professionals. Very nice people they are too. I belong to a couple of good forums which are incredibly useful if you want to find out, for instance, in what respect English flour differs from American flour and the impact that will have on a recipe. People are more than generous with their advice

But frankly it doesn't compare with the heady sensation of joining the blogging community and finding out what people are cooking and eating on a daily basis. There's a joyous lack of inhibition about blogging, a manic enthusiasm, a total obsessiveness about ingredients and techniques, however off the wall, that's hugely liberating. Recipes don't have to be perfect, in fact it's better if they aren't. Everyone is on a voyage of discovery.

Every week, sometimes every day, I find out something new. Such as that Nicolas Clee, the author of the excellent and thought-provoking Don't Sweat the Aubergine has a blog called Sceptical Cook. Through Nicolas I find there's a terrific blog called Baking for Britain which not only gives recipes for forgotten treasures such as Deddington Pudding-Pie but meticulously charts their origin

Yesterday I got invited to join an American group of bloggers called The Foodie Blogroll (right) by a blogger who calls herself The Leftover Queen. A fellow spirit! This is much better than Facebook where you have to keep your food-related obsessions within reasonable bounds

At a time when you can't open a magazine without being told how to cook a perfect dinner party by yet another celebrity chef an army of bloggers is quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) creating the kind of food that they want to eat.

Writers can become photographers, photographers writers. There are no rules in the blogosphere.

Another "Birthday"

It's my Blogging Birthday! I've been blogging here at Cooking with Anne for TWO wonderful years! My first post was on July 4th, 2005 and I've come through so much in those two short years. Life, death, love, friends, family, and FOOD--covered it all.

Thanks, blogging buddies, for reading and being a part of my life-love you all!

Stuff I'm Posting Elsewhere

Just in case you're bored here...

Recent Posts at Cookies to Caviar:

Smoothies
What to feed the kids all summer
Chicken in under 30 minutes
Few Ingredients and Almost No-Cook

The Rest of Me:

Garden photos
Contest at Family.com
Stories at dinner

R,S,C #32

Nary a recipe to be found. Not to worry, I don't have one either. I am busy lately with several things, one being some new blogging at Family.com. Not one to give up easily, I have decided to carry on Ready, Set, Cook! nonetheless, but have once again modified the rules.

R,S,C will now be a monthly game with a full week to come up with and post recipes.
Here are the rules as modified:

The first Tuesday of every month we play Ready, Set, Cook! based on the TV show that once aired on The Food Network.

We play our own non-competitive version (at the moment!) and here are the basic rules:

1) Three ingredients are given and each player must come up with a recipe that uses all three ingredients without "losing" any of them in the dish. In other words, while they must not be prominent they must be noticeable in the dish.

2) Your "virtual" pantry is fully stocked with whatever you wish. This is not a REAL game, although I have some players that like to purchase the ingredients and actually come up with a recipe, I don't expect anyone to do that. Basically this is a "virtual" game only. The ingredients will not have amounts listed to allow for greater creativity on the player's part.

3) Once you have decided what you would create with the ingredients, post it to your own blog by the second Tuesday of the month and send me the permalink to your post so I can post it for others to see. Likewise, link back to my blog so your readers can see other submissions. Mail your permalink to me at:

irishones7 (at) juno (dot) com.

Feel free to comment that you will or won't be playing!

If you would like to submit three ingredients for play let me know and you will be credited with that.
~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~

So, stop by my newest blog venture and check out the entire site while you're there. I really like it and find it to be a great resource!