tree arch

I’ve obviously taken a little vacation.

No, I did not have anything ready to cover the two weeks I decided to disengage. It seems that my capacity for smooth content is about two months. Running a blog isn’t easy; coming up with ideas, writing and editing articles, cooking, and taking photos, cataloging and editing the photos, choosing what goes up when. Yes, many of the food bloggers make it look easy. Most of them started small, like me, then they gained staff. There are two of us that run this little corner of the web and, sometimes, we run out of steam.

I know some bloggers who are months out on their content. They are scheduled for when the unexpected happens. I have yet to work like that. I like fresh content. Things that strike my fancy. Side trips that take both you and me on a culinary journey of senses, tastes, stories, and knowledge.

lots of flowers

Lately, I’ve been busy reading a book called Spice: The History of a Temptation by Turner, Jack (2011) Paperback. I’ve been busy formulating how I am going to present this material. It is yet another spice book that covers the long history of how Europe conquered a small group of islands in the Southwest Pacific ocean and then spread those spices throughout the world.

I’ve also been reading By Ann Vileisis – Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes from and Why We Need to Get it Back (3/30/10)a book that covers the journey of how Americans once knew how to cook, how we lost that knowledge, and how we need to gain it back, because McDonalds and Papa Johns won’t always exist. I hope neither will Monsanto, but that is a different debate.

purple flowers
So while I am devouring knowledge in order to inform you the reader, because you don’t have the time or desire to read the books, I hope you are out experimenting with cooking, with spices, techniques, and putting together combinations that might be fascinating. Next week I’ll be back with recipes, more stories from the kitchen galley, and food porn, because, who doesn’t love a stunning photo of food.