other food blogs

Roar! The Hungry Tiger is back!

maki — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:08:36 +0200

Back in 2003-2004, when Just Hungry was born, there were only a couple of hundred food blogs instead of the thousands that are in existence now. Of those, a well written, quiet little blog with lots of delicious sounding vegetarian recipes called The Hungry Tiger was one of my favorites. I wrote a short review of it back in March 2004.

The Hungry Tiger disappeared from public view for a while, and I lamented the fact that my favorite recipes such as vegetarian kibbe (lentil snacks) were gone from the web. Some months ago, I was able to get in touch with Ms. redfox, who kindly gave me password access to her blog. She’d locked it away since it was too close to her more serious academic career.

Well the good news is, The Hungry Tiger is back as a fully public blog, in a new home! Ms. redfox has organized her past recipes into easy to navigate categories. I have more favorites here than on any other food blog, such as preserved lemons, crispy onions, easy, copious cauliflower soup and of course, lentil snacks. Even if you’re not a vegetarian, you’ll find The Hungry Tiger to be a very delicious beast indeed.

(Sitenote: Most of the entries on The Hungry Tiger are refreshingly ‘old school’ with lots of text and no photos. It reminded me of the early days of food blogs, which happens to be just 5-7 years ago, when people just wrote up their recipes and food reminiscences. Nowadays of course, possessing a good camera and the ability to take beautiful bokeh food porn photos seems de rigueur, making the bar for entry high. But the older entries on The Hungry Tiger are a good reminder that it doesn’t have to be like that to make for great reading.)

Rebecca Blood: Eating Organic On A Food Stamp Budget

maki — Wed, 09 May 2007 09:16:57 +0200

Rebecca Blood, one of my favorite (non-food/general) bloggers, has started an interesting challenge: eating for a month organically on a U.S. Food Stamp budget. Naturally she is blogging the experience. Given the current ongoing discussions in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere about the cost of eating ethically, let alone organically, it’s a very timely experiment. Rebecca’s budget for 2 is “$74.00/week or 320.80/month, the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] ‘Thrifty’ standard for a family of 2 adults, aged 20-50 years.”

(My only very minor nitpick would be that Rebecca lives in the Bay Area, which has to be one of the easiest places in the world to conduct such an experiment. :) Now I’d like to see a similar one by a blogger in say, Iceland. Any takers? )

Swiss food bloggers?

maki — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:21:56 +0200

I received a lovely email from Myriam of Once Upon A Tart, a beautiful food blog unknown to me up until now. I should have, since she is a food blogger in Zürich - just a few kilometers (or miles, whatever) away from where I sit now. This did get me thinking though about Swiss food bloggers - or to be strict about it, food bloggers who write from Switzerland. (The very popular 1x umrühen bitte is written from Andalusia, Spain I think.)

So far, besides Once Upon A Tart, I know only of a handful of Swiss-based food blogs. There’s posie’s place from Basel, the red kitchen from somewhere near Zürich, Veggie Chic from Zürich, and sooshi (in French) from somewhere in the Romandie. That’s not a lot I know. What other Swiss-based food blogs am I missing? (I feel another list brewing here, similar to my Expat Food Bloggers.)

Two food travel related links

maki — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:33:00 +0200

People email me about their food sites and blogs all the time. I don’t mention those that I don’t find interesting or think would interest any Just Hungry readers, but here are a couple that came in recently that did catch my eye.

Foodtripper is a new site that reviews restaurants and food shops. What makes it stand out in this very crowded category is that they seem to have a European outlook on things, that aren’t limited to the usual places. I found several unusual and intriguing places listed, such as a restaurant in Pompeii that takes its inspiration from ancient Roman cuisine (though hopefully they don’t have authentic garum) and a chestnut factory in southwestern France.
If you’re visiting a major food-obsessed city where you don’t know anyone, finding your way around can be a bit daunting. A culinary tour may be one way to get your bearings. Zerve.com offers walking and noshing tours of New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and New Orleans. If anyone’s gone on one of their tours I’d be interested to hear your impressions.

Let Them Eat EU Cakes!

maki — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:23:31 +0200

This year is the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (EEC), which lead to the formation of the European Union. Over the weekend they had a big party in Berlin, where among other things they sampled two traditional cakes from all EU member countries. Here is the official list of cakes.

Over on European Cuisines they are planning to feature recipes for all the cakes - quite an ambitious undertaking. Here is their list of cakes with links to the recipes. So far they have the British Eccles Cakes, Banitsa with feta and Banitsa with pumpkin from Bulgaria, and the Cake That Conquered The World in the ’70s-’80s, Schwarzwalder Torte aka Black Forest Gateau from Germany.

I do wonder how those official cakes were decided upon though. The definition of ‘cake’ seems a bit stretched - for instance the Bulgarian entries, both involving strudel, seem to be pastries, not cakes. And why Eccles cakes, which are also technically more like pastries, over so many other great British cakes that are really cakes? The other British entry is Hot Cross Buns - surely that’s bread, not cake. What about a Dundee cake? A Victoria Sponge? A classic seed cake? If we’re going the bun route, surely a teacake is more cake-like than a Hot Cross Bun? And Belgium is represented by the Doughnut of all things.

Here’s a page from the British Food Trust that lists some Great British Cakes. Amusingly, they list the Black Forest Gateau there.

The Powers That Be, whoever they are, seem as confused as Marie Antoinette.

Switzerland is not on the list since it’s not part of the EU (and won’t be for the forseeable future, given the anti-EU stance of the party in power at the moment). I’ve been talking to some people about what official Swiss cakes would be, and the current concensus is on the Zuger Kirschtorte, a cherry torte that oozes with kirsch, and the Aargauer Rüeblitorte, a dense and moist carrot cake. I have to say for my tastes both are a tad heavy….my favorite Swiss cake is a plain, elegant Mandeltorte (almond cake).

Food Destinations #5 roundup is up

maki — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:49:20 +0100

Natalia has the roundup for Food Destinations #5 up on her blog now - go and check it out!

A feast of genuine Irish recipes

maki — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:53:44 +0100

If you are planning a St. Patrick’s Day feast but still haven’t decided what to make, European Cuisines has been posting a new real Irish recipe every day since the beginning of the month. There’s everything from colcannon to Irish Stew to boxty (potato pancakes) to crubeens, which are “crunchy Irish pig’s trotters”, and a whole lot more. They also have a rant about how corned beef is definitely not the Irish national dish. I wasn’t planning on anything Irish myself this weekend, but those, um, crunchy pig’s trotters sound interesting…. [via Diane].

Expat food blogroll update

maki — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 21:02:06 +0100

I haven’t updated the expat food blogroll for a while, but I’ve just added three new ones: please check out the original expat food blogroll post, as well as the right sidebar on the front page.

Remember, if you are an expat food blogger and you want to be added to the blogroll please just leave a comment on that post or contact me.

An about page, please

maki — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:18:40 +0100

I often find blogs that are new to me via my referer logs. If I see an unfamiliar URL, I will usually go and check it out. (I’m much less likely to go check out a site that’s just emailed to me, so the best way to get my attention is just to link to this site somewhere.) I’ve discovered quite a lot of great food blogs that aren’t that well known yet that way.

One thing that isn’t always on some new blogs is an about page. I would really love to know even a little about who is behind the blog. It doesn’t have to be as long as the one on this site but - just a little bit. Like, where do you live? Where are you from? Who do you cook for, and why? What do you like to cook or eat? Why did you start a food blog? What’s the objective of your site? Just a couple from that list would really bring your blog to life for readers.

Blogs and websites about weight loss and exercise

maki — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:34:32 +0100

[Updated - Nov. 26, 2007]. See also my post about how I used bento lunches to lose 30+ lbs on our new sister site, Just Bento.

I don't have any plans to turn Just Hungry into a site dedicated just to diets and weight loss. There are however many, many sites that do just this.Here are just a few that I've found interesting.

Diet and weight loss news blogs:

Diet Blog is my favorite blog devoted exclusively to the subject of diets and various weight loss schemes. Measured in tone, it approaches popular diets and books with a healthy amount of skepticism and objectivity.
Caloriecounter News is a similar site that tracks diet and weight loss news.
Hungry Girl offers news and such. If you want to find out about low-calorie packaged snacks and 'diets foods' (only available for the most part in the U.S.) this is probably the place to go. There's no RSS feed here however.

Online calorie counters/diet planning sites (free)

Just a couple amongst many. While I do use one of these sites (Calorie Count) off and on, I prefer to keep my food journal on paper, in a small notebook I can carry around with me. I've played around with Palm versions and so on in the past (I no longer use a Palm device) but paper is by far the fastest. [Update:] My preferred calorie counting method now is the standalone version of CalorieKing, which is available for OSX and Windows. I do keep notes when I am away from the computer in a small notebook I carry around.

CalorieLab Calorie Counter.
Calorie Count, from About.com. Offers a handy calorie-counting toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer, with an "Eat Meter" bar that shows how much of your daily alloted calories you've already eaten.
The Daily Plate - features a slick Ajax-Web 2.0-esque interface and the ubiquitous "Beta" under the logo. This one is slick looking but has one glaring fault: it doesn't allow you to change the default quantify of a given food. So even if you ate a handful of peanuts, not the default amount of 1 cup, you can't enter the amount you actually ate. Hopefully they will correct this before taking the "beta" off.
FitDay - a veteran of the scene.

Lose weight and get fit with online buddies - social weight loss/fitness sites

If you are the type of person who gets along a lot better with friends or peers in the same situation to encourage you, there are many sites that let you do so. A comprehensive list of such sites is on the Diet Blog site. Many of these offer many other features, like calorie counting, diet planning and more. I think that which site you might choose has a lot to do with how comfortable you feel in the community.

Sites that compare diet plans

Compare Diets
Weight Loss on WebMD (WebMD has an extremely annoying popup at the moment that warns people using Firefox 2.0 that their browser is outdated.)

Personal diet blogs

There are many personal diet blog type sites, too numerous to list. Some are journal-like and vary wildly in tone and content. Whether or now you get inspiration from these personal diet blogs is up to you. Others post recipes and tips for a particular diet plan, such as the very popular Kalyn's Kitchen, which is dedicated to recipes and more for the South Beach Diet.

Pay sites

There are several for-pay web sites to assist you in losing weight. The only one I have experience with is eDiets. I discontinued my membership, for reasons I might get into in another post, but it may be exactly what you are looking for, if you can afford the fee. The best thing about eDiets may be that it's non-denominational: it offers a choice of several plans that you can tailor to your needs. Most other for-pay sites tend to be for a specific diet, such as South Beach Diet Online, The Biggest Loser Club, and of course Weight Watchers (several sites around the world).

Miscellaneous sites

Video Fitness is a long established site that reviews exercise videos.
If running, jogging or walking is your preferred method if keeping fit, there are lots of free podcasts now that offer steady BPM (beats per minute) music to accompany you. My favorite at the moment is fitPod.com's fitMix podcasts. Anyone want to offer non-pop, non-electronic tracks though? I also wonder if audiobooks with a very quiet 'pulse' in the background to keep up your pace would work.

Update: I've had to close comments on this post, since there is a certain web site that keeps trying to spam it. I don't care how worthy you think your site is, if it's offering a for-pay service and you keep leaving the link it's going to be considered spam. This is why so many diet- and weight loss related sites have a bad reputation. Sheesh.