Cookbooks & Food Blogs.

Article: The art of food blogging

According to Anne Sage, author of a popular design blog The City Sage, a good food blog is like a trusty friend. “It should illuminate the blogger's personality, whether he or she is writing about a recipe for scones or their latest kitchen gadget. It’s like getting a recipe tip from a good friend, and who doesn't love to get kitchen advice from someone whose taste you trust and admire?”

Article: Pluck a flamingo

An article about cookbooks.

Although the recipes in one book are often similar to those in another, their presentation varies wildly. There are Lutheran cookbooks, Wiccan cookbooks, feminist vegetarian cookbooks (“The Political Palate”) and satirical cookbooks. There are instructions on cooking the food that Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes and Thomas Jefferson might have eaten. Cookbooks have been written by French prisoners, the pop singer Tom Jones, the astrologer Nostradamus and the winners of the Miss America competition.

The reason for this profusion is that cookbooks promise to effect a kind of domestic alchemy. Although seemingly straightforward, they hold out the hope of liberation from a routine of leftover chicken and from children who refuse to eat food of any colour except white. To follow their instructions—or, as Mr [Nigel] Slater would prefer, to be inspired by them—is to turn a mundane task into an engaging, romantic process. Cookbooks also provide an opportunity to delve into distant cultures without having to turn up early at the airport or read subtitles.

The first Western cookbook appeared a little more than 1,600 years ago. “De re coquinara” (concerning cookery) is attributed to a Roman gourmet named Apicius who, legend has it, poisoned himself upon learning that he could no longer afford to eat fancy food.