Over the years of doing this, I've collected many photos of dishes I've never written up. Whether due to laziness or some other affliction, these dishes will never have accompanying recipes. But rather than rot in my photo files, I'll serve some of them up here anyway.

Pasta with Italian Sausage. This is a typical everyday meal for me. This usualy turns out better coated with mozarella in thrown in the oven for awhile.

Lamb Curry. Made with the excellent red curry from the Spice House. Probably made with some hot thai peppers, mushrooms and coconut milk.

Short ribs and soba. Some sort of vegetables, probably lots of red peppers.

Beef and Mushroom pasty. Pie dough type crust. I obviously followed a recipe from somewhere.

Beef Stroganoff. This also had to be made from a recipe. I wouldn't now how to make it just by winging it.

Kumquat Chicken with Fennel and Spaetzle. Probably lots of honey and ginger to make that nice glaze.

I meant to post this list a week ago, but I've been held up by work, and some strange "global CGI" problem from my webhost.

Don't fret if you've contacted me and aren't on this list, I have another one coming that's just as long. By the way, I've written some inclusion/exclusion rules that basically say that I'll link to food blogs, not food sites. I'm getting an alarming amount of form requests to include cheesy link farms.

The Adventures of the Tastebuds!

cheap veggie gourmet " I'm poor. Really poor... I constantly see people complaining about the cost of food, and it baffles me. I've always eaten very well, and food is one item that has never strained my budget."

Cook's Journal "I am a professional cook. I chose this life because food is exciting to me! Equally exciting to me are the techniques that are always there to be learned, even by the most seasoned chef. A chef or cook that "knows everything" is a fool. A great Chef, is always a student, even to his cooks, although he may remain a silent student."

Delish "A food blog from New Zealand"

Feeding Faces "A forum for my musings about the life I lead as a waiter and/or cook in the dining industry."

Food- Got To Love It

The green jackfruit Pittsburgh

Home Cooking Amateurs Anonymous

Is It EDible? San Francisco

Mahanandi "Cooking with Consciousness - Recipes from India ~ Andhra Pradesh ~ Rayalaseema ~ My hometown Nandyala"

New Orleans Cuisine

Nibble & scribble Singapore

The Occasional Epicure Brisbane, Australia

Oswego Tea Heidelberg, Germany

Post Punk Kitchen "Behind the scenes at the world most beloved vegetarian, punk rock cooking show" Brooklyn.

Renaissance Culinaire A pastry student, blogging my way to Pastry Chefdom

Seven Spoons Another Blog with outstanding photography. Southern Ontario, Canada

Sibilous Observations on Food in the Bay Area

The Travelers Lunchbox Edinburgh, Scotland

The World on a Plate "The online home of the Food-and-God Guy, Frank Remshifski, and his newspaper column, The World on a Plate.  The column, and this site, regularly serves original recipes, food history, and cooking techniques." Lambertville NJ. Frank noticed I was in Lambertville early this year and laments the loss of a burger cheaper than ten bucks in his cool, but gentrifying town.

But I still envy him because he's in the same town as the River Horse Brewery.

How I got busted -- for harboring ham So there I was at O'Hare, sleepily waiting to clear customs after a long flight from Spain, when that darn beagle came along and ruined everything."

Eating for Arousal "Food lovers' favorite succulent treats turn meals into sexual feasts"

Critique of Pure Riesling "Wine snobbery in an age of globalization"

Court upholds 'Beef: It's What's for Dinner' "The justices rule that First Amendment protections don't apply to the beef campaign, alienating some ranchers. ...some ranchers and others in the beef industry complained that the congressionally mandated, industrywide funding requirement forced many beef producers to pay for advertising that they did not support."

I've got a great big list of new blogs for the list, but here are a few with some interesting, focused themes.

The Bruni Digest "This blog is predicated on the suggestion that every Wednesday, in the Times Dining Out section, Frank lays a huge faberge egg of hilarity."

A Hamburger Today "a beefy mix of news digests, original reviews, and musings on burgers. Our favorite condiment here is opinion, and we've got plenty of it." From The People who brought you Slice

Independent America "We're on the lookout for "Mom & Pop" -- producing our own road movie across the United States. More than ever it seems like it's Independent America vs. Corporate Chain store America. We're hunting for those pressure points along with our black lab Miles. We've vowed to make our 52-day trip without setting one tire on an interstate highway – without setting one foot inside a corporate chain restaurant, motel or store."

PikaPikaChick's Food Pricing Blog "I'm going to dissect recipes and hopefully figure out a way to make things more budget-friendly without losing out on taste and appearance."

Kitchen Parade: Veggie Venture "On April 1, Kitchen Parade launched a Veggie Venture. The goal was to cook a vegetable, with new recipes and new vegetables, every single day for an entire month. Why? Because our diets need more vegetables. Because vegetables are too often an after-thought. And because it's easy to get stuck in a veggie rut. But after a month, we were just getting started - and summer vegetables will soon arrive!"

A Short History of the Chinese Restaurant From stir-fried buffalo to Matzoh Foo Young.

The Power Nosh "With its pricey steak-and-sushi menu, the Prime Grill has undertaken the ambitious challenge of adapting the look and taste of nouvelle cuisine to the Orthodox Union’s ultra-strict dietary guidelines. "Kosher" actually means "ritually fit or pure," and the 3,000-year-old code consists of dozens of complex strictures that can cramp the most accomplished chef's style. Milk, of course, cannot be mixed with meat, and shellfish are verboten—but that’s only the beginning. Stoves can only be lit by Jewish hands, lettuce must be checked to make sure it’s free of insects, and meat must be soaked, salted and drained of its blood before it can even enter the restaurant."

Vintage Technology "Phylloxera, a stubborn, tough-to-kill root louse, had been devastating wine crops in California since the mid-eighties, and maybe nasa's eyes in the sky could help solve the problem."

Selling Tofu in the 21st Century "Since tofu arrived in Japan in the late 12th century, it has been a staple of the Japanese diet. But Western-style competitors have taken a bite out of tofu's appeal, hitting mom and pop operations especially hard."

I'm not usually a blog stick-meme follower, but I did it over at KIPlog on regular books, and I wanted a chance to discuss cookbooks and this one came along. You can find a list of other foodbloggers participating at Spiceblog, who started it all.

1. Rationale behind what we're seeing?
Your not seeing anything, since I don't really have a cookbook shelf to take pictures of. Unlike most people with food blogs, I can count my cookbooks with only two hands. All I have is LaRousse, Alton, Trotter, a few old ones left in the pantry from old roommates (stuff like The Bisquik Cookbook, and the Bennigan's Cookbook), and a couple of new ones sent to me by publishers and authors expecting me to be not as lazy as I am about writing about them. There's a cookbook in my bedroom, one among the large format books on a shelf next to my atlases, and a few tucked away behind some old wine in the pantry. Basically, the internet is my cookbook.

2. Most recommended?
Culinary Artistry Andrew Dornenburg, Karen Page, When I'm done reading this one, I'll give it a proper review, but this thing is an anti-cookbook. Sure, there are recipes in it, but it's about learning how to cook artistically, rather than learning how to cook a recipe or a style of cuisine. It's more about creating, than copying. I love its "teach a man to fish" philosophy - to be a great chef you need be able to walk through a market and come away with the ingredients that compose a great meal without needing a book. Lots of lists of ingredients, flavors, food pairings and menus that serve as composing and inspirational guides. Tons of interviews with Chefs that pick their brains for their experience and advice. I'm convinced this book will inspire you to close your other cookbooks for awhile and see what you can come up with on your own. DISCLAIMER: The authors sent me this book.

3. Cookbook that made you what you were? (sic)
Cooking in a kitchen made me what I were, but I'd be making a lot of mistakes without the basic Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. Although my copy is far from New, and mostly what it makes me is sticky-fingered, since it's extremely greasy.

4. Porniest cookbook?
Charlie Trotter's Seafood. Tim Turner is the undisputed King of food porn.

5. Sophie's Choice cookbook?
Probably Alton's "I'm Just Here for the Food", but only because it's a personally signed copy.

6. If you were a cookbook, which cookbook would you be?
I don't know how to answer this one. I'd like to be LaRousse, so I could be encyclopedic, or I'd love to say I'm Gale Gand's Short+Sweet, but realistically I'm more like the Better Homes and Gardens, cause of the grease and age.

7. If your cookbook were extremely valuable, so valuable you might hide it with other valuables, where would that place be?
I try to keep Alton's book out of the kitchen, away from the grease, because of the signature, but I don't value cookbooks all that highly. However, you'd have to torture me with canned corned beef product to make me give up where my Wustoffs are hiding.

I should mention that unlike cookbooks, I do have lots of food magazines. Bon Appetit and Cooks Illustrated among the subscriptions, Savuer among those I occasionally pick up.

I really should have a picture of a few candles on a cup cake or something, but I usually forget to brag about my blogs' birthdays until it's too late anyway.

I was reminded when I saw Becks & Posh's Birthday was this month too.

With a salt cod from Lincolnwood Produce, a few spuds and an onion, this is a fairly simple dish, but it does take some time, and isn't cheap. The salt cod (Bakalao) is $8.50 a lb. at a very cheap market, and takes at least 24 hours to soak.

I've modified this recipe with a few additions.

1 lb salt cod
4 medium white potatoes
2 onions
oregano
garlic
fennel fronds
dill
an egg
2-3 T heavy cream

Soak the salt cod for 24 hours, changing the water 3-4 times. Boil the fish with some dill, salt and a roughly cut onoin. Discard the boiled dill and onion when done. Boil the potatoes, and put them through a food mill. Mince and sweat the garlic, mince another onion, the herbs and combine with the potatoes, forked-up fish, a beaten egg and the cream. Mix to combine. Plop out onto a well-floured surface and form 3" diameter cakes. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

The dipping sauce is made from raosting a few cloves of garlic, 7-8 mushrooms, and 3 kinds of peppers - poblano, cubano and red peppers. It's pureed and unstrained. You could choose to spice this up, but I didn't want to over spice all the flavors.

A friend brought over a Belgian Waffle maker, so of course we had to make some. We used this waffle recipe, with the addition of a teaspoon of baking powder for some rise. I would never have attempted this sort of thing without my new Cuisinart hand mixer (thanks Mom!). Beating egg whites into peaks and egg yolks for 5 minutes by hand is just not something I do in the morning. The pink stuff is pureed and strained raspberries mixed with cream.

The recipe made a lot of waffles, maybe a dozen (or two dozen pairs if they're counted that way). Thankfully we didn't use any of these recipes which call for as much as a pound of flour.

POSTSCRIPT: I just found Heidi's recipe for power waffles, which is more like what we were looking for - yeast waffle with some substance. We'll have to try these.

Chicagoist has a quick review of Alinea, Grant Achatz's new Chicago restaurant.

Chicagoland Farmer's markets

Bacon strip bandages

Banana Guard "Protect your Banana!" You know we're living in the future when we can buy a glow in the dark plastic banana protector.

The World's First All-glass Undersea Restaurant Opens in a Hilton resort in the Maldives.

Museum of Food Anomalies "See horrific aberrations of nature in this collection of photographs depicting common food items that have distorted into something more sinister than words can describe."

How to Brew Beer in a Coffee Pot

Ling, from Little Gingko Nut has dinner with Anthony Bourdain. "On what he won't eat: 'If you're smaller than me, slower than me, stupider than me... I'll say "run"... pass the salt man...'"

Need some Czech Dumplings? Their recipe page has one that starts: "Clean one hog head and ears and cut up head and remove eyes." The Chilled Czech Blueberry Soup sounds pretty good though.

Gourmets Gone Wild has some good articles on eating things like wildflowers and stinging nettles. I'm kind of upset that I won't be getting out camping this spring in time for the fiddlehead fern season.

Jackie Pluton has closed his River North restaurant and is moving to an undisclosed location in the Gold Coast/Streeterville area. He had to move his 3,000 lb. custom stove by demolishing a kitchen wall. In the meantime he's opening NARRA, a "European steak house" in Evanston attached to the Orrington, in June. I wonder how many diners will know the location was once a McDonald's.

Until then, go across the street to the Celtic Knot and get a Knot steak sandwich. And it would be a shame if you don't get some Sticky Toffee Pudding too. I'm presently in bribery negotiations to get that recipe.

Just when I thought I had most of the food blogs, I find a whole bunch more. I'm always amazed when I find a food blog that I've missed, that has been around for a year or so.

The Adventures of Pie Queen "Food, recipes, and tasty musings from a writer in Brooklyn."

The City That Eats "On gastronomic and gustatory adventures in Chicago."

Confessions of a Restaurant Whore

cookiesinheaven "delicious ramblings about spilled milk and cookie crumblings"

Culiblog

Delicious Paths "A journey in cookery, devoted to one girl's experiences as she forges her way, recipe by recipe, through cookbooks in an attempt to learn something about food and maybe, just maybe, about herself." Connecticut

Eat Stuff "A girl a guy and a cat eating stuff around Sydney Australia, then writing about it."

Fancy Glass
Tokyo

The Fruit Blog "A discussion (if any one comes along to discuss with, otherwise it's more of a monologue) of fruit and fruit breeding."

Grab Your Fork Life is one long buffet table...

Kitchen Savy "Answering Your Food and Cooking Questions"

Love and Cooking

My Restaurant Rules is an Australian television program that follows five couples as they set up and run their own restaurants.

Restaurant Widow "dining.drinking.cooking." Ohio

she bakes and she cooks "Welcome to my world where calories and carbs don't count for naught." Singapore

Snackish "Yes, I believe it IS snack-time!" Southern California

Soul Fusion Kitchen Los Angeles

Taste Everything Once "Daily food ramblings of a compulsive baker, taster, nibbler, shopper, and slurper... " Spokane, Washington