Agog over blogs

What a pleasant surprise to find the Food section of this morning's paper headlining food blogs. I LOVE food blogs! I've visited every single one mentioned in the article, and have several of them bookmarked that I read regularly. What fun! It's one of my favorite ways to waste a few free moments, in the morning with my first cup of coffee, or at lunch when I've got a couple of extra minutes . . . or late evening when there is nothing on tv and I've got an hour to spare. I don't often actually cook the recipes, I just like to revel in the descriptions, pictures and sometimes get inspired to do new stuff with the ingredients listed. I think I read more food blogs than craft blogs or tech blogs or entertainment blogs . . . or whatever blogs.

Clearly there are blogs galore in this universe. Crickey! Their stats said that there is a new blog created every single second of every single day. And right this minute, there are 36.5 million blogs on the web. Well, probably another thousand just while I'm scribbling this. Nobody can keep up, or even read a fraction of those, even on an occassional basis. I've found myself having to sacrifice reading even my most favorite ones for a week or so, when doing a little hunting around and finding something else to pique my interest. Yesterday I was on a music blog jag.

I'm going to share some of my faves today -- it's kind of a mini-tour of my little travels around the web. I've toyed with the idea of adding huge lists of them to this very page . . . but I'm still turning that around a bit.

Two of the food blogs in this morning's paper (by Seattle writers) I think are swell are Orangette and I Heart Bacon. I also get a kick out of David Lebovitz who was the pastry chef at Chez Panisse with Alice Waters in Berkeley, and is now living and writing from Paris. And another expat in Paris Oswego Tea has lovely photos, stories and great food. The Traveler's Lunchbox also combines travel with food, great stories and really interesting dishes. Delicious Days writes from Munich, and every recipe I've tried from her has been truly delicious. The Scent of Green Bananas writes from Guam, and has gorgeous desserts and a fun style. And finally Accidental Hedonist, the big Kahuna of them all, is also a Seattle woman with an amazing amount of information, links and reference stuff. You can find anything there -- including every single link to the folks mentioned in the article this morning. Naturally, she's already got it all there. She's amazing.

Seattle Bon Vivant also focuses on food, but has lots of great stuff about local restaurants and markets and places to shop, not necessarily recipe testing. Super resource!

Another insatiably curious Seattle gal, who gets huge props for her crafty type blog everywhere, is not martha. Speaking of craft blogs, a couple that I've just recently found, and haven't had enough time to really explore, but keep getting drawn back to -- Pam Garrison, who does mostly paper collage art and Hop skip jump, who makes soft sculpture toys, super cute. Once you start travelling along following the links on any of these pages, you just keep finding more and more along the back roads, until you are miles from home, with no idea what town you've arrived in, and no idea how to get home. That's what it feels like. A Sunday drive with no clear goal, just trying out a new road, winding along, taking turns and curves, happening upon a new town, then another, until it's sunset and you're lost. But supremely happy and a bit giddy from the sheer delight of the adventure.

I've just happened upon a couple of cool music blogs, or audioblogs, where a new song is posted each day for downloading. Honey, where you been so long is pre-war blues, and such a kick in the pants. Old, scratchy, vinyl from the 30's! Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting the darn songs to play in my ITunes (if anyone knows how to save these mp3's in the new ITunes 6, please, please help me out!). Keep the Coffee Coming does not have downloadable songs, but is charming, mostly geared to folk music, with a new listenable song every day and a little rambling : ) Womenfolk is a great resource for new women artists. And finally, because I'm a huge fan of old school soul music Soul Sides posts tons of fabulous soul songs, that you just can't hear anywhere else.

Satan's Laundromat is a photo blog of New York City, when I just need a little spark of "the city that never sleeps" and A walk through Durham Township, Pennsylvania has simply beautiful photos of tranquil, serene, rural scenery.

Maybe I'll stop here. I skippy hop through a bunch of political blogs, news, techie tips, trashy entertainment . . . but I've got to save something for another day. So I'll stop here for now. If you're reading, hopefully you'll find at least something that strikes your fancy in this list. If nothing else, just the amusement of what this supreme dork does with her free time should give you a chuckle:)