Menu Plan Monday and the Joy of Food Blogging

I love food blogging. I love drooling over other people's pictures, I love commenting, I love encountering new and interesting recipes. But every so often something comes along that is, well,
spectacular.

No jokes, go read Nabakov's story over at Progressive Dinner Party. I would like to go to dinner with this man. I think he would make a most awesome travelling companion.
But mostly I just wish I could have been there. I feel like I was.

Oops! the menu plan.
French Onion Soup
Flat bread Nachos
White Bean and Green Bean salad with eggs
Curries of a vegetarian persuasion.

Happy Monday!

Fun lists and foodie friends

I guess when I signed off in January, I thought the blogosphere would forget about me. It was gratifying to get a few comments while I was away, and lovely to see that people were still searching and finding my recipes. But today came something completely unexpected.
I'm on a list. And a list in good company! The Culinary School Guide had put me in a list of 100 blogs for the Frugal Gourmet. I am flattered. But I'm also looking forward to exploring the rest of the list. There are several familiar blogs, but many that are new to me. I hope you find it interesting to explore too!

Canberra Food Bloggers

I've discovered there are many more food bloggers in Canberra than I knew! I thought I'd put a list out of the ones I've found, but if I missed any, please let me know:

Brazen's Culinary Adventures - this is one prolific lady! With a thermomix. I'm not entirely sure what that is, but I'm beginning to think I want one.
Food History - not just a prolific poster, Gillian also knows everything there is to know about food history. I loved her recent posts about food for invalids.
The Canberra Cook - Another regular poster. If Ryan would ever let me make Corned Beef, I'd love to try her recipe.
Progressive Dinner Party - seems to have many friends that help out with posts. And my favourite recent post was her riff about the farmer's markets here in Canberra. Thought provoking.
Then there's Faux Cuisine, Eat Australia, Flagrant Food Fawning and Gnashings Capital. None of them have posted much lately, but I'm hopeful!
For other more general Canberra fun, there's Riot-Act and Culturazi (good coffee reviews).
Sadly The Canberra Blog Community seems to be a bit of a ghost town.

Two more discovered as a result of this post: eat at dixie belle's - love the tiara - and Mouthfuls of Heaven - oh my, they share my Nigella fetish!

hmmm... maybe I should have just posted my feed reader...

Share a recipe with me!

Ryan and I are going on a VERY BIG TRIP. We will be away for 6 whole weeks, and I'm worried that my blog will wither and die without me here to feed it all the time. A clever blogger would have stockpiled lots of great food pictures, with awesome recipes, to fill it up while I'm away. But I'm not that clever...
So here's your chance to get your name up in lights, or at least score some linky love for your blog. Send me a recipe, with or without pictures, at kazari dot recipe at gmail dot com
Send it before May 1.
Include a link to your blog (or another site you like).
Sometime during May or June it will appear on this blog.
If you don't have a blog, you can still play(Mum?), and instead of linking I will say nice things about you.
Hopefully, with your help, my blog will not be totally anaemic by the time we return. I'm going to post about our travels, especially about food shopping in strange counties, but I don't think we'll be doing much cooking.
Thanks in advance!
k

Technologically Challenged

I have spent the last week cursing and grumbling at my photo uploading software - only to realise that it's the website that HOSTS my photos that is broken. Doh!
So there are no pretty pictures on my blog. And I've been a bit distracted from posting anything else...
Anyway, I should have it figured out soon.
Just thought I'd let you know : )

Blogging Weirdness

I love google analytics. If you blog, you really need to play with this. It tells you fun stuff like, 53 people visited my blog yesterday, 61% for the first time. It has a neat map so you can tell, generally, where in the world they came from. And, if you found my blog via google, it will tell me what you searched for. Thats how I know that somebody, yesterday, searched for:
porridge microwave lumpy gooey mess
and my blog was the first thing on the list.

I love google analytics.

Oops! Updated

I inadvertently updated my template - please bear with me while I tinker!

Edited to say:

While I tinker, you can check out Smokey Mountain Breakdown, where I've guest posted about Ryan's latest cookie discovery. Rosie posts about wildlife, goats and local culture as well as food. And her short-story posts are breathtaking.

The Fantastic Four - a meme

I have been neglecting this blog recently. But because I am a vain person (and nosy to boot) I still check my stats on technorati to see who is linking to me. And guess what? I got tagged with a meme! This is doubly exciting because I wasn't familiar with Something Yum, and now I have links to a whole heap of new UK bloggers. Yum : )
I don't know where it came from, but I thought I'd play along anyway. You will have to wait until tomorrow for my post about Chocolate Velvet Pie.
4 jobs I've had
Purveyor of Christmas trees
Front counter at an upmarket veggie shop called Epinards
Nanny
Marine Conservation Officer
4 places I've lived
Winnepeg, Canada
Grand Cayman
Perth, Western Australia
Canberra
That's pretty much the whole list...
4 places I've holidayed
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Tours, France
Margaret River, Western Australia
Budawang Ranges, New South Wales
4 favourite foods
Only four?
Cheese - blue, sharp, crumbly, soft and gooey - I don't care
Bircher muesli - I still remember being surprised by my first taste of this. It looked so boring!
Mussels - specifically, chilli mussels from Kailis in Fremantle. But I'm not fussy.
Dessert - whatever Ryan has decided to make.
4 places I'd rather be
Near the beach. Anywhere.
In the UK with my sisters
Villandry
Somewhere like Rosies farm, where there is goats and wilderness and running water
4 bloggers to tag
Well, I decided to pick 4 bloggers that I'd like to know more about. Kat was right, this is a bit nerve wracking!
Neil at At My Table
Traceyleigh at TLSC
Rosie at Smokey Mountain Breakdown
Mummy at Red Dirt Mummy

Anyway, I hope somebody finds this interesting, or at least click through to some of the other blogs. I always find them interesting!

Simple Savers' Blogs

Quite a few of my recipes (and much of my inspiration!) come from the community at Simple Savings in Australia. There is much conversation on the joys and woes of frugality, simplifying and cooking! Vegetarian alternatives, sources of organic food and the many uses of vinegar are hotly debated.
Many of the clever contributors are also bloggers, but my blogroll is getting increasingly messy. Instead, I've decided to put them all in one post, and link to it afterwards.
If I've missed you, or inadvertantly messed up the link, please comment and let me know : )

Food Life Style
Amy Simple Saver
**HOME SWEET HOME DEPOSIT AND OTHER LITTLE LUXURIES**
Miserly Mum's Musings
Lightenings thoughts, musings and happenings
Becoming a Gardening Goddess
Low Income Lady
NikkiShell
Saving a dollar in a spend spend world
Kez's Blog
Jo's thoughts and woes
Day in the Life fo Jade
Rich Student Poor Student
The Frugal Family Blog
Greener by the day