A happy life is made up of small private pleasures – things that hardly seem significant to others, but nevertheless give you a lift. I sometimes buy a French interiors magazine that celebrates the seaside, which can keep me cheerful for a whole 24 hours. A website called tartelette.blogspot.com has a similar effect . It’s a blog written by a French pastry chef living in South Carolina and it’s full of inspiring ideas. Most of the recipes I’ve tried needed to be tweaked, and they are written in a conversational style that is sometimes hard to follow, but they have such romance they’re worth a go. What could be more uplifting after a tough day than to log on and find a recipe for apricot and lavender panna cotta or cherry bakewell tart with cherry-pit ice cream?
Much has been written about the popularity of food blogs and their increasing power. But I’m not excited by reading reviews by bloggers who traipse round the world’s Michelin-starred restaurants (I turn to professional reviewers for that). Nor do I want to gaze at photographs of every meal cooked by a crazed obsessive; much as I love food I cannot help looking at a blurry picture of some guy’s tortilla wrap and thinking that he should get out more. I go to food blogs for warmth and intelligence and irresistible recipes. Some are lovely for the sheer beauty of their design. Log on to nordljus.co.uk and you will be charmed by the photographs taken by a Japanese woman living in Suffolk. Keiko Oikawa is a piano-tuner who taught herself photography; her pictures make you think again about the beauty of a poached white peach.
Some are appealingly private, if you can get your head round the contradiction. I love thewednesdaychef.com, written by Luisa Weiss, a book editor living in Queens, New York. It’s very American, so full of a particular brand of warmth and honesty. A posting entitled 'Love and Baked Beans’ tells of the breakdown of her marriage and how it is making cooking difficult (which is why she succumbs to the fudgy, vinegary flavour of the baked beans of her childhood). There are also some great recipes ( Turkish-style pasta with beef and yogurt, or banana and crystallised ginger cake). This blog is about life and – as another blogger, Heidi Swanson of 101cookbooks.com, puts it – the recipes that 'intersect’ it. If you fancy entering the private world of another passionate cook, reading a love letter to elderflower jelly or finding a truly irresistible recipe, there is a food blog out there for you.
THE BEST FOOD FORUM IS SARA'S SOUP KITCHEN, RIGHT.
www.curezone.com/forums/f.asp
