This is just a quick hit of things that have been turning me on or giving me a bit of amusement lately.
I am thisclose to being diagnosed with a clinical obsession with food and cooking. Obsessed. In a previous professional incarnation, I was a restaurant critic for a major newspaper. It gives me great joy to walk into restaurants I now frequent and see reviews I’ve written framed on the wall.
In addition to watching more food-related TV than is reasonable or healthy, I read about food, cooking equipment and techniques voraciously. I adore Alton Brown and the Iron Chef. I consider Giada de Laurentiis a personal friend. I own “Cupboard Love” (a “dictionary of culinary curiousities”) by Mark Morton, “How to Peel a Peach,” by Perla Meyers, a few of the “Best Food Writing” annual anthologies and subscribe to Gourmet Magazine.
I started reading Gluten Free Girl last summer, after deciding that I wanted to “eat clean.” If you click the link, it looks like my girl Shauna has really started to garner the attention she deserves for making eating an exercise in joy again for sufferers of Celiac disease and others, like me, who just want to eat less processed foods. If you enjoy reading, food and cooking, you will most likely enjoy her stuff. She writes as clean as she cooks, and takes some really lovely photos.
Over on TMMB RMMB, I discovered a link to Pandora, an eerily predictive streaming music machine. Confused? Well, you type in the name of a musical artist or song and it creates a streaming music station based on what it predicts as your taste. So far, I have a Morcheeba station, a Sia station (thanks Michelle!), a Thievery Corporation station as well as a few Hip Hop stations. It is the antidote to my frustration with the iTunes streaming radio stations and effectively chills me out at work when my co-workers are getting rowdy playing with Monkey Mail.
I’ll come back and beef this up later, but my kitchen beckons and a series premiere (I”m too ashamed to admit what it is) awaits. Tell me what’s been turnin’ you on lately. Besides me. Smooches.
Dangerously Enthusiastic 