TastyKakes

Um, yes. This. (Plus ~1 tbsp ground fennel seeds, just for kicks.)

www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Orange-Scented-Olive-Oil-Cake

ETA: Here's the actual recipe, straight from the Saveur website. I skip the glaze and the sea salt, and add the fennel seeds with the flour, eggs, etc.

Orange-Scented Olive Oil Cake

2 oranges
2 1⁄3 cups sugar
Unsalted butter, for greasing the pan
2 1⁄2 cups flour, plus more for pan
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 eggs
6 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1⁄4 cup fresh orange juice
1⁄4 cup confectioners' sugar
Sea salt, for garnish

1. Trim about 1⁄2" from the tops and bottoms of oranges; quarter oranges lengthwise. Bring 6 cups water to a boil in a 4-qt. saucepan; add oranges. Bring water back to a boil; drain. Repeat boiling process twice more with fresh water. Put oranges, 1 cup sugar, and 4 cups water into a 4-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring often, until sugar dissolves and orange rind can be easily pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes. Remove pan from heat and let cool to room temperature.

2. Heat oven to 350°. Grease a 10" round cake pan with butter and dust with flour; line pan bottom with parchment paper cut to fit. Set pan aside. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. Remove orange quarters from syrup, remove and discard any seeds, and put oranges into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until oranges form a chunky purée, 10–12 pulses. Add remaining sugar, reserved flour mixture, vanilla, and eggs and process until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add olive oil; process until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan; bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 40–45 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes.

3. In a small bowl, whisk orange juice and confectioners' sugar to make a thin glaze. Remove cake from pan and transfer to a cake stand or plate. Using a pastry brush, brush orange glaze over top and sides of cake; let cool completely. Garnish cake with salt.

The Horny Chef

Crass, but I like it.
http://cooktobang.com/

My Mind Is Blown

http://insideinsides.blogspot.com/

Holy crap, artichokes!

Cheese People, and Other Monstrosities

Things I found on the internet yesterday (or, you can tell I've got a lot of work to do when...):
Cheese People
Bread People
Scanwiches
Slice Harvester

The first three are varying degrees of wonderful. The last doesn't live up in terms of creativity, but I like pizza, so there.

The Commies Can Cook

Newly discovered (by me) Vietnamese recipe blog. I absolutely adore Vietnamese food, but i've never tried cooking it before. I've got a pot of (kind of) their pho on the stove now; I'll report back later.
www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/

ETA: The pho was okay, but to be fair I didn't actually end up following their recipe at all, so I take full blame for that one.

Brilliant

The New York Subway culinary map: http://www.rickmeyerowitz.com/Classic%20Htmls/SubCulinary-Enlarge.html

Balls for Dinner

Yes. Just yes.

www.portlandmercury.com/portland/testicle-its-whats-for-dinner/Content?oid=2518292

Coffee, Curry, Cranberries

First off: A friend directed me to this blog. It's pretty brilliant. Dammit, why are all the good ideas taken? http://puttingweirdthingsincoffee.com

Also: Breakfast yesterday. I'd been out of town for a few days, so my fridge was pretty empty, and the undergrad I tutor wanted to meet me early (since when do undergrads willingly wake up before noon?), so no time to put something together. So I stopped by Cafe Romeo on my way in to school, which is pretty much always a good idea, regardless of fridge status. The pastry case was pretty sparsely stocked for breakfast time, but on top was sitting a basket of cranberry-curry scones. Yes, cranberry-curry. Of course I got one. And you know what? It was delicious. The cranberry and the curry flavors really worked together, like those Indian/Middle Eastern dishes with savory spices and raisins. Could have even used a bit more sugar on top, to highlight the sweetness. It would have gone beautifully with a nice cup of Assam, but the closest I had was Yunnan. Alas. Still, breakfast success. Put that in your coffee, Mr. Weird Things. I dare you.

100 Chinese Foods to Try Before You Die

While we're listing goals...

I didn't do quite as well on this one.

[ETA - I'm updating this after my 2 1/2 months in Indonesia & SE Asia. Unsurprirsingly, there's a lot to add.]

1. Almond milk
2. Ants Climbing a Tree (poetic, not literal, name)
3. Asian pear
4. Baby bok choy
5. Baijiu
6. Beef brisket
7. Beggar's Chicken
8. Bingtang hulu
9. Bitter melon
10. Bubble tea - my favorite
11. Buddha's Delight
12. Cantonese roast duck
13. Century egg, or thousand-year egg - not so bad, actually.
14. Cha siu (Cantonese roast pork)
15. Char kway teow - Indonesia
16. Chicken feet - a little chewy for my taste
    
17. Chinese sausage
18. Chow mein
19. Chrysanthemum tea
20. Claypot rice
21. Congee - (aka bubur ayam, in Indonesia. Pretty sure I also had it at a Vietnamese pace in Philly once.)
22. Conpoy (dried scallops)
23. Crab rangoon
24. Dan Dan noodles
25. Dragonfruit
26. Dragon's Beard candy
27. Dried cuttlefish - no, but I saw a vendor with a cart of them
28. Drunken chicken
29. Dry-fried green beans
30. Egg drop soup
31. Egg rolls
32. Egg tart, Cantonese or Macanese
33. Fresh bamboo shoots - picked 'em myself in Laos
    
34. Fortune cookies
35. Fried milk
36. Fried rice - the only Chinese food I'd eat until age 10 or so, when I discovered wonton soup.
37. Gai lan (Chinese broccoli)
38. General Tso's Chicken
39. Gobi Manchurian
40. Goji berries (Chinese wolfberries)
41. Grass jelly - I think so.
42. Hainan chicken rice
43. Hand-pulled noodles
44. Har gau (steamed shrimp dumplings in translucent wrappers)
45. Haw flakes
46. Hibiscus tea aka jamaica aka Red Zinger
47. Hong Kong-style Milk Tea
48. Hot and sour soup
49. Hot Coca-Cola with Ginger -????
50. Hot Pot
51. Iron Goddess tea (Tieguanyin)
52. Jellyfish
53. Kosher Chinese food
54. Kung Pao Chicken
55. Lamb skewers (yangrou chua'r) - street vendor in Flushing
56. Lion's Head meatballs
57. Lomo Saltado
58. Longan fruit
59. Lychee
60. Macaroni in soup with Spam - eew?
61. Malatang
62. Mantou, especially if fried and dipped in sweetened condensed milk
63. Mapo Tofu - my current favorite thing ever
64. Mock meat
65. Mooncake (bonus points for the snow-skin variety)
66. Nor mai gai (chicken and sticky rice in lotus leaf)
67. Pan-fried jiaozi
68. Peking duck
69. Pineapple bun - (the Indonesian variety)
70. Prawn crackers - krupuk udang, served at nearly every meal in Malang
71. Pu'er tea
72. Rambutan
73. Red bean in dessert form - once, as a child, thinking it was chocolate - never again.
74. Red bayberry
75. Red cooked pork
76. Roast pigeon
77. Rose tea
78. Roujiamo
79. Scallion pancake
80. Shaved ice dessert
81. Sesame chicken
82. Sichuan pepper in any dish - Sichuan pepper in every dish!
83. Sichuan preserved vegetable (zhacai)
84. Silken tofu
85. Soy milk, freshly made
86. Steamed egg custard
87. Stinky tofu
88. Sugar cane juice - with lemon in a Singapore hawker center
89. Sweet and sour pork, chicken, or shrimp
90. Taro like a cross between a potato and an apple, except delicious. Helped harvest them in a little village in Java.
91. Tea eggs
92. Tea-smoked duck
93. Turnip cake (law bok gau)
94. Twice-cooked pork
95. Water chestnut cake (mati gau)
96. Wonton noodle soup
97. Wood ear - I'm pretty sure
98. Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings)
99. Yuanyang (half coffee, half tea, Hong Kong style)
100. Yunnan goat cheese

Another goal to aim for...

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
"Here’s what I want you to do:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating."

Keeping in mind that I haven't eaten seafood or (corn-fed) beef in about 10 years...
[ETA - also updated after Indonesia etc. Not much longer, but way more badass.]

1. Venison - got some sausages in my freezer right now
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich - probably tried one at one point. I hate peanut butter. Jelly too, actually.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart - long long ago...
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle - it was on a terrible dish of macaroni & cheese.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - wine tasting in CT. Strawberry. Not terrible.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes - mmmmmm
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras - in Italy I was served some sort of liver - foie gras? pate? - rolled up in pork. Way too rich - I couldn't eat it.
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda - I've taken to eating the Northern Italian version, with olive oil, tomatoes, salt, pepper, & herbs on a good baguette. Fantastic in late summer.
31. Wasabi peas - yuck
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
X 38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O X - never tried a jello shot in college, though they were common. I'd like to think I've got the good sense not to do it now.
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail - sup buntut, an Indo specialty
41. Curried goat - no, but I did have goat satay
42. Whole insects - grasshopper tacos in New York, fried tarantulas in Cambodia, fried crickets in Laos, and silkworm larvae & a giant water beetle in Thailand. Tasty little buggers, for the most part (pun fully intended).
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk - goat cheese and yogurt yes, never straight milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - Octomore
X 46. Fugu X - I'm not willing to risk death for a piece of fish. Sorry.
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi - at the Modern Languages Dep't party senior year of college, the same professor who'd just introduced me to Barolo offered me one of these. What a cruel trick.
53. Abalone - New Zealand, in fritter form.
54. Paneer - had some for lunch today, in fact.
X 55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal X
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine - Melted cheese & french fries... yum.
60. Carob chips - tastes like raisins.
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian - Durian cake from Singapore, actually; the beginner's version of the fruit. Kind of like the inside of a Fig Newton, but denser, stickier, and made of durian. Tasted like onions. ETA - had a durian shake in Malang. Fruit really shouldn't taste like onions.
66. Frogs’ legs - very tasty.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - all of the above
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe - I have a bottle of absinthe that I bought in Switzerland. Is it louche? I don't know.
74. Gjetost, or brunost
X 75. Roadkill X
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail - If rubber bands and dirt had a love child, it would be a snail. The garlic butter was good though.
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare - does rabbit count?
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
X 91. Spam X
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa - definitely harissa. Not sure if it was rose or not.
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake - cobra. First I drank its blood and bile from a shot glass, then ate the stir-fried meat for dinner. A little chewy, but not bad. And yes, I have pictures to prove it.

Speaking of Thai...

Thai recipes & ingredients: http://importfood.com/recipes.html

Not For Vegetarians

This guy ate a different animal's meat every week for a year, from cow (boring) to scorpions (less boring) to python (pretty neat). As of writing I've tried 14 or his 52 critters, plus whatever was in that Namibian Biltong (aka unspecifiedwild game jerky) I tried once in college - "ingredients may include springbok, kudu, wildebeest..." This may set off a quest a la my strange and unusual fruits obsession - I'll keep you posted.

Mickey D's gets a makeover

This is beyond amazing: www.fancyfastfood.com/ Still wouldn't want to eat it, but it sure looks pretty.

And they say we don't have an "American Cuisine"

Not sure if this site makes me hungry or nauseous.
http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

another site

This guy's a hoot:
www.thegutsygourmet.net

Things I won't be eating any time soon...

CNN's list of the most expensive foods out there. Tops on the list: a flavorless, metal with no nutritional benefit, a fungus, and fish eggs; with rodent poop not far behind. Really, people?
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fsb/0807/gallery.most_expensive_foods.fsb/index.html

ETA: Okay, so I actually did try civet coffee. I've actually had five of the nine (gold leaf, vanilla, truffles, saffron, and poop coffee). Guess I'm getting bourgeois.

Zen Merlot

Because I like wine, and haiku is free.

http://www.redwinehaiku.blogspot.com/