I'm falling behind on adding to the food blog list. Forgive me If I missed you, I'm getting there.

The Bloated Belly "Comments on consumption..." St. Paul, MN

Cookin' With Cyndi Forest Falls, California

Cooking With Kilby "... and other adventures in the Ottawa food scene"

Cream Puffs in Venice "Making my food dreams come true..." Toronto

The Finicky Lawyer "Dulling the Pain With Food and Wine. Present Sense Impressions and Past Recollections Recorded by a Common Diner."

Fish and Seafood Weblog "Hundreds of tried and true fish and seafood recipes and fish talks."

Food Service Blog

Food Writer's Diary

Dessert First "a passion for pastry"

Garlic Breath

Guinnah Vegetarian cooking

Hungry In Hogtown
This blog is about our love of food -- shopping for it, cooking it, and eating it. It's also about the rewards and challenges of pursuing this passion in Toronto, our home.

Hungry Magazine, from Chicago, featuring podcast interviews with chefs.

A Kitchen Fantastic "Everything and the kitchen sink"

La Tartine Gourmande

The Laughing Gastronome, Wellington, New Zealand

My Dinner "- One man's daily bread: A Dietary Barometer of my Emotional State"

Nina's kitchen Sweden

Passionate Eater
California

Teich.Net :: All In

Trivialissimo Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Yummy Banana is a blog about the bananas that we love.

Zen Kimchi Korean Food Journal

More controversial, political food news: Homeland Security Protects the Ham "… these people were protesting HAM. And I think you would have a very hard time finding someone willing to publicly take the position that these ham protesters are endangering our national security, or our soldier’s will to fight. Even here on the home front, I personally do not feel that my ham purchasing rights are threatened in any way. Nor is anyone forced to buy ham."

France Battles a Problem That Grows and Grows: Fat

The Fish That Swam Uptown A NY times article on the popularity of black cod, formerly known as the sablefish. After I had the black cod at Nobu 57 last month, I looked it up to see what the real name was, since I know it's fairly common for the market to rename fish especially with names like this. I learned the real name is sablefish, but I figured that was just another name, and not the same as the smoked sable found in Jewish deli's. I've had it at Kaufman's Deli (4905 Dempster St, Skokie) many times.

2005 Champagne Cork Chair Contest

Surfeit of Food Celebrities, Part 2: Separated at birth?

Ever wonder why you only see steam coming off a sauce when you turn off the heat? The scientific chef: Peter Barham on boiling milk "The steam becomes visible only after the gas cools below 100C and small water droplets condense."

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Chicago Clean Air Ordinance and the smoking ban.

Everybody's talking about "My Week as a Waiter" By Frank Bruni and how we should all read it and learn to treat our servers better. I'm going to start abusing my waiters now, on the off chance it might be Frank in disguise.

Iraqi Farmers Threatened By Bremer’s Mandates Number 8 of the top censored stories of 2006 "Smith explains that "Under the guise of helping Iraq back on its feet, the U.S. setting out to re-engineer the country's traditional farming system into a U.S.-style corporate agribusiness." In that traditional system, "97 percent of Iraqi farmers used their own saved seed or bought seed from local markets.” He continues, "Unfortunately, this vital heritage and knowledge base is now believed lost, the victim of the current campaign and the many years of conflict that preceded it." More on this at FactoryFarming.com and at grain.org.

More junk food. A hot dog with everything from Mustard's Last Stand.

A typical tasty Vienna beef dog, on a nice soft bun. Be forewarned that 'everything' means catsup too, so note that if you're one of those militant about that.

Right next to Northwestern's Ryan Field, this small shop is packed with sports pictures and gear. I used to work right next door, so I've had a few too many dogs here in the past, but it has been awhile. It hasn't changed in years though. Squeezing around other eaters, ordering and paying is a little more complicated than it has to be, but it's fast. I remember that they used to sell concert tickets too, but I didn't confirm if they still do.

Gigio's 2 times in one week. Considering just how long it's been since I've had anything from them, I guess I'm catching up. In fact, it's been so long that the menu I found had coupons which expired in 2001. It's nice to know the prices hadn't changed much - a slice only went up 20 cents and the Italian sausage didn't change at all. This is a shot of the 'thin' crust "special".

Decent enough pizza, but not nearly chewy, drippy or saucy enough to match a good NY style. I got some of their fried mushrooms too, but was more interested in eating those than photographing them.

When I started blogging I made a promise that I wouldn't post cat pictures. But back then I didn't have access to a cat. Now I figure I should do it at least once. Here's Doc proofreading one of my posts. More Weekend Cat Blogging at Masak Masak.

Just before I was about to post this he got off the couch and puked out a hairball. I should have got a picture of that.

Tags: WCB34 and Weekend Cat Blogging

Some quick food porn.

A sausage sandwich with hot peppers from Gigio's in Evanston. I really wanted a meatball sandwich, but they were out of meatballs. The fries are generous and very good, and the hot peppers are actually hot, and they are actually peppers, unlike many places who think giardiniera is synonymous with hot peppers.

I hadn't been there for awhile, but since it's been around so long I have much experience with this place. Conveniently located close to the train station, and open 'til 1 am everyday but sunday, this place becomes one of the last choices in Evanston when coming home late. Luckily the food is good enough. They advertise a New York style pizza, and it's as close as I've seen to it in Chicagoland. It's not the real thing, (I'm from the east coast, I know a foldable, oily, chewy crust pizza from the imposters) but it's a nice antitode to the matzoh thin crusts or the 10 lb, 4" deep dishes everywhere else. And it's much closer than Philly's Best, another Evanston pizza place with an attempt at NY style. (Although Philly's best has a real stromboli and Tastycakes, two things you won't find anywhere else in the midwest).

Their website says "Gigio's Pizzeria in Evanston makes it all from scratch. We butcher the pig, ground the meat, season it to perfection, and prepare it for our pizzas and sandwiches. Our burgers are ground here and prepared into patties on location." I don't know if they really butcher the pig, but I do know they've been around so long that they own the building they're in, and they have a huge prep and bakery facility downstairs. They make their own meat and bake their own bread, they don't bring in parbaked or frozen stuff like half the other italian beef shops in the city. In fact they are a big supplier of bread to north shore places.

Sometimes the service is ridiculously slow, but it's not fast food. I've had inconsistent pizza there, and too many times I've wanted something and they didn't have it (although that's forgivable late at night). I saw some students coming out of there once exclaiming that they got some extra pizza because it was closing time, but haggling in there doesn't work. But it's relatively cheap, the sausage was $3.22 and the fries are $1.61. A slice will cost you $2.13 to $2.30.

Vintage or vile, wine is all the same after cheese "...proteins in the cheese may bind to flavour molecules in the wine, or that fat from the cheese may coat the mouth, deadening the tasters' perception of the wines' flavours"

Corn Dog Air Freshener

Catalogue of Banana Stickers

Insect Candy Just in case you were looking for BBQ flavored mealworms.

How To Cook With Lava

Any day now we should see the results for the 2005 Food Blog Awards. UPDATE: they're in! As a judge for this years I had a hand in choosing who got in the final running. Just as Kate from Accidental Hedonist mentioned in an email, I have no trouble defending my choices, or the combined results of the judges decisions.

There were a few shouldn't be missed foodie sites that didn't fit the blog format. Here are my picks for the food non-blog awards.

Best Restaurant Photography
There's lots of great food photography out there, but Noah Kalina has by far, the best restaurant photography. Beautiful shots of interiors of bars and restaurants in NY. Technically this is a blog, but technically not a food blog.

Best Food Podcast
There's lots of good food related podcasts out there but the Restaurant Guys beats them all. The podcasts of a professional radio show done by two New Jersey Restaurantuers is funny, informative and should be required listening for anyone wanting to get into the business. Great guests, which have included people like Charlie Trotter and Ruth Reichel, but you'll learn tons from all the other wine and food experts they have conversations with. Over the holidays, I ate at Catherine Lombardi's, recently opened by the guys.

Funniest Extreme Food Writing
While Eddie from Deep End Dining is undeniably a better writer, and his explorations are a little more of what foodies might want to know about, Steve Don't Eat That beats him for out and out explicit hilarity. And horror. Eddie's post "Balut. The Egg of Darkness." would be my pick for post of the year, but it just doesn't match the shudder factor from descriptions of chocolate breast milk and prison wine brewed with the help of an old sock, moldy bread and a garbage bag. And Steve's bravery in the face of these horrors trumps a mouthful of tentacles any day. I'd hate to go to a potluck where these two guys were invited.

The Best Blog Post that Wasn't a Blog Post
Autumn Omakase, A Tasting Menu from Tatsu Nishino of Nishino is a beautifully produced cookbook in PDF form from Tasting Menu. "One tasting menu. Nine recipes. One hundred-twenty four pages of obsessive detail. 399 gorgeous photos of every step, not just of the final dish." Inspiring not just for the food and preparation, but for the design and photography. And it will teach you how to clean an uni.

Point and Eat 'Other people say grace before they eat -- we food bloggers do it with our digital cameras.' GRANT ELLIS reports on the new obsession with documenting dinner before devouring it'. via Candied Quince

Mobile Cooking "Many students, and other young people, have little in the way of cooking skills but can usually get their hands on a couple of mobile phones. So, this week, we show you how to use two mobile phones to cook an egg which will make a change from phoning out for a pizza."

Dinner time at Amateur Microscopy

Last weekend I made it to Paulina Market, often cited as Chicago best butcher shop. Chefs and restaurants brag about getting their meat from them. I got there a little too close to closing time, so they were unstocking the cases while I stood gaping, trying to decide what I wanted. The sausage case was a little intimidating, I had no idea what was what. I'll need to study up on my sausage before I go back.

They have a case of game meat, elk, buffalo, venison, quail etc. Fairly pricey, but this stuff is never cheap. I got about a pound of ground goose meat for 6 bucks.

Lamb loins were on special, so I got 4 at about 12 bucks a lb. And 2 smoked ham hocks.

The lamb loins were braised in fennel, carrot and onion, served with some root vegetable puree and wild rice with some of the ground goose and mushrooms.

The goose also made it into a couple of other meals - a sheperd's pie I should have photographed, a goose, wild mushroom pizza and a pasta sauce. The ham hocks are simmering in some split pea soup at the moment.

I really hate theses meme things, they feel like a homework assignment. And I almost never do non-food related ones. But once in awhile I'll do one. S'kat tagged me with one that will make me sound interesting. Ten random and interesting facts about yourself (they don't necessarily need to be food-related). Also you'd need to read through 6 years of KIPlog to find out anything about me, so here's some stuff.

People who know me now, don't know I once had really red hair.

I once ripped asbestos out of the basement of the lion house in the Lincoln Park Zoo. And the old fossil hall in the Field Museum.

I used to go into people's homes and shoot their babies. Then I'd try to sell them a nice album and wall frame package.

I lived above a pub in Auckland for several months.

I've skied on an active volcano.

I've chased a tornado in a Chevy Citation.

And some food related things-

I've never had a Cosmo.

As a result of spending some time as a prep cook, I can crack eggs, clean lettuce and de-vein shrimp faster than most people.

As a result of other restaurant experience, I can wash dishes better than most people.

I didn't own a microwave until about 2001, when someone gave me one. I didn't use it much for a year or so.

Since I hate these things, I don't like passing them on, but I'll tag a few of Food Blogs that have requested to get on my list. They look like the meme type.

So I tag Confessions of a Cardamom Addict, Passionate Eater and Tartine Gourmande.

From Consumer Reports - When it pays to buy organic "We found, for example, that it’s worth paying more for organic apples, peaches, spinach, milk, and beef to avoid chemicals found in the conventionally produced versions of those items. But you can skip organic asparagus and broccoli because conventional varieties generally have undetectable pesticide levels. You can also pass on organic seafood and shampoo, which have labels that are often misleading."

A movie about How to eat at a Japanese sushiya. You may need to understand some Japanese cultural traditions to get some of the jokes. Found via this post at Presentation Zen, which has several more food related links like the Bento Blog and pretty pictures Kyo-ryori.

Lord Of The Rings - The Hobbit Feast We missed it, but it was $88, 12 hours and 7 meals (1st breakfast, 2nd breakfast, elevensies, etc.) "Elevensies - Pan Seared Sausage and tomatoes with cheeses, cabbage and pickles"

Not-as-fast food "Drive-through wait times creep up as menu options get more complex" "Wendy's maintained its ranking as the fastest ketchup gun on the block. But its average service time jumped from 124.69 seconds last year to 135.7 seconds in 2005..."

Starbucks Economics - Solving the mystery of the elusive "short" cappuccino "The short cappuccino has the same amount of espresso as the 12-ounce tall, meaning a bolder coffee taste, and also a better one."

What the World Eats Photo Gallery

Food Scarves

Dead restaurant chains. As the page explains, they are not all dead. This Roadfood Forum thread talks about more long gone regional chains such as Shakey's and Tastee Freeze. My long lost favorite was Mr. Bee's, a NJ chain featuring honey fried chicken.

The Seduction of Cognac "Most of the early cognac makers were not French. They were English or Irish, which is why cognacs carry such names as Hine and Hennessy."

Way too nice to use on food (or anything), these are some beautiful knives.

Flash Virtual tour of Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian, "a new exhibition featuring a reconstruction of the entire kitchen as it existed when Julia Child cooked in it." Includes details on all the knives and gadgets in her kitchen.

NPR's Leonard Lopate did a show with Ruth Riechl, editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, and several food bloggers on what it takes to be a good food critic. It's not up yet, but it'll probably be availble as a podcast here soon.

The LA Times lies. The last sentence of their article on Food Blogs says that I "blog about food blogs, with comprehensive, up-to-date links to the newest entries." Hardly up-to-date or newest around here.

And they obviously didn't check their facts, this isn't just a food blog about food blogs, I also blog about marshmallow bras and sushi, dimsum and fried shrimp USB drives.

You've probably heard the story before but here's the chef vs. food blogger cease and desist story from the wife's perspective.

Macworld Eats For those going to Macworld Expo, "a guide to eating near the Moscone Center (with a few suggestions for side trips beyond downtown)" in iPod format of course.

Some 2005 local food round-ups.

From Chicago's LTH Forum - 2005: The Year in Food Photos, a food porn slideshow.

The Chicago Tribune's top 10 favorite recipes of the year.

Citysearch's Top 10 New Restaurants of 2005.

Metromix's year in review of new, local nightspots.

Vital Information's 25 Best Things Eaten in Wisconsin in 2005. His Food Envy Wish List for 2006 is pretty good too.

I have a confession to make. One time last year, after a night drinking downtown I did something I hadn't done in years.

I'm not a complete health food nut or anything, I just hate the idea of wasting a meal on something as generic as McDonalds. I also hate the idea of spending money at a chain when I could eat independent and local.

I think the last thing I got at a McDonalds was one of their steak bagel breakfast things a couple of years ago. Those things make me drool. This year I've had Arby's once, Burger King a few times, KFC a few more times, and my first Quizno's experience. (Did you know a new Quizno's opens every 7 hours!).

That one night out was turning late, and I walked past the Super-sized McDonalds formerly known as the Rock 'n Roll McDonalds and it beckoned me. I had to check it out. It's 24,000 square feet but it really isn't as big as it looks on the outside as far as the seating areas, although the kitchen area is huge and there were at least 30 employees roaming around. I ate upstairs where they have some cool tables with wierd lighting effects that waver when you touch them. There's some designer chairs up there too, but I think they rope them off late at night.

I just had a quarter pounder and some fries. The burger was much better than I remembered, but the fries weren't. Probably because last time I had them, beef tallow was somewhere in the process.

The gigantic McDonald's is at 600 N. Clark street in the shlockiest tourist area in Chicago. It's open 24 hours.

Just a few food blogs to add to the food blog list. Quite a few more to come.

Bitchin' in the Kitchen with Rosie "I like food. I like bitchin'. I like making sure eveyone hears about both frequently. Hence, the blog." Columbus, Ohio.

Cakehead "Sweet news for food heads"

Chilefire Is this the only food blog to cooking in a galley on a yacht? Washington DC.

Dan's Kitchen Pasadena, California

Eat, Drink & Be Merry West Los Angeles, California

Fallen Souffle

The food pornographer "Food at its porniest."

Haverchuk "a little bit kosher, mostly treyf"

The Hungry Rose "Exploring food in New York City, one day at a time."

Just Braise "Succulence. This is the goal of braising; it is the aim toward which one strives, from the very begining, and it is the direction in which all techniques and methods lead. " Astoria, NY.

Live To Nibble "Experiencing life one small bite at a time" Atlanta, Georgia.

Madison A to Z "we decided to eat at every restaurant in Madison in alphabetical order"

Meal Me

Podchef Show "The podcast about cooking, food, and the politics of food."

SaltShaker "Casting a little flavor (and a few aspersions) on the world of food, drink, and life."

ToastPoint "A hymn of praise to foie gras...and Cheetos." Washington, DC

Here's a recipe I want to perfect. It would probably work on chicken too.

Slightly inspired by the Black Cod with Miso from Nobu, I wanted to achieve a lacquered skin, with a nice sweetness. Nobu's black cod isn't so much about the miso, as it is about the mirin and sake that it uses in its glaze. Here's Nobu's recipe for black cod with miso.

I had just been to Penzey's, where i got a bunch of stuff, including some allspice and black cardamom. I also got some ground galangal, which is something I hadn't seen before.

I figured the cardamom and mirin would be a nice match together, and it works well. I didn't have any sake, but I did add a little maderia, for a little extra liquid. The mirin I bought was rather expensive, otherwise, I would have used the whole bottle. The ingredients for this attempt:

1/2 cup mirin
1/3 cup maderia
1/2 a minched onion (2-3 T)
3 T sugar
2 T honey
3 t cardamom, freshly ground
1 t salt

I threw all of the above into a pot, boiling it for 10 or 20 seconds to melt the sugar and boil off a little alcohol. After a bit of cooling, I poured it over two Cornish game hens, and let them marinate for an hour. The hens were stuffed with some onion and tangerine and went into a 350 F oven for an hour, then I turned the oven up to 450 F and left them in for another 15 minutes. During the cooking, they got a slathering of the reserved marinade once in awhile.

It turned out delicious but I'll work on this one and make a few corrections. Next time I'll thicken the sauce with more honey or sugar, and put the hens under the broiler for a bit to really crisp up the skin. I'll also buy the cheap mirin so I won't feel bad about using more, and I'll leave out the Maderia. I might do this sort of thing with just Maderia, but I think the flavor of the mirin and cardamom work well enough by themselves. One thing I have learned about my cooking is that removing an ingredient sometimes makes a better dish. This is because I tend to be an experimental cook, adding things to try to figure out what a dish 'needs', when what it really needs is more simplicity.