Cooking Resources

Blogs:
If I told you about this page, it was probably so you could easily get the link to my favorite cooking blog, Clotilde's Chocolate & Zucchini. This is my favorite cooking blog for a variety of reasons:

• Clotilde's taste is similar to my own. She frequently reduces the fats in a dish and she enjoys interesting spices.
• Clotilde tests her recipes well. 99% of what I've tried has been a resounding success. I think I just can't make ratatouille that tastes good, I don't blame Clotilde for that, her oven-based recipe was intriguing. In general her recipes have been astonishingly good.
• Relatedly, there is enough of a community on the blog that feedback is prompt and always interesting. It is not, however, so large that Clotilde can't keep it positive, and she does respond personally to messages. Perfect.
• Finally, her life mirrors mine. About my same age, she grew up in Paris and came to Central California to learn to appreciate food and cooking. I did the reverse trip to end up at the same place - an abiding appreciation for tasty food prepared with love.

A new blog I've started following is La Tartine Gourmande, a French woman in Boston who sometimes writes for the Globe. We had her clafoutis last night and I was surprised with how well it turned out.

Books: For general cooking books I did enjoy the Harold McGee books: On Food and Cooking and The Curious Cook.
(though that might be like saying The Joy Of Cooking is a good cookbook. Yes, yes it is...)

In addition to the blogs above, recently I've been working a lot out of my grandmother's hardcover and note-filled San Francisco Encore, the cookbook of the Junior League of San Francisco.

Some Cooking Photos