Cooking, Readers, and Blogging

This post is a somewhat miscellaneous hodge-podge... I think most of you know that I enjoy cooking (I wouldn't call it a passion, but I do like to try new things) and I especially like reading about cooking and recipes. I guess that should not come as a surprise since I'm "that girl" that reads manuals and instruction books. Recipes are not all that different.

Keeping up on my cooking interest would be impossible without my faithful [Google] reader. I find a site I like, make sure it has an Atom/RSS feed, and blammo, it is mine! I don't miss a post and even pass along the ones I think might be of interest to others. I am currently subscribed to 21 cooking sites. Here are my top 3:

1. Cake Wrecks (http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com): features all kinds of decorated cakes gone wrong. One of my favorites -- if a bad and bizarre cake can be a favorite -- is "We Have a Runner" (http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2009/03/celebrating-different-kind-of-v-day.html)
2. Serious Eats (http://www.seriouseats.com/): cooking news and recipes. I love French in a Flash.
3. Simply Recipes (http://simplyrecipes.com/): an amazing collection of varied and accomplishable recipes. Elise is amazing.

If you are interested in seeing more of my daily view of these cooking feeds, take a look at my public feed (http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user%2F04865435085322425860%2Flabel%2FCooking) or click on the image below.



And now my two cents on blogging. I read this post in Miss Conduct's column over at the Boston Globe Magazine. This writer -- who uses her BLOG as a vehicle to communicate with readers -- has the audacity to complain about a friend who has sent repeated inviations to view their personal blog. Worse yet, people commenting about the post call bloggers "narcissistic."

Squeeze me? Did I get this right? A blogger is too good to read someone else's blog, complains about it on their blog, then the readers comment on a BLOG say that bloggers are narcissistic. Then why are they visiting and commenting?! Further, what's up with the blogger?

I blog for many reasons, but mostly because it is fun and it is a good way to stay in touch with friends and family, even though the topics are sometimes silly. I don't think I am so wonderful and people have to read this (though I do love it when people read this blog). I assume if you didn't want to read it, you wouldn't...

Ok (sigh). I am stepping off my soap box now. It does make me a little taller, but if I get too worked up, I might fall off anyway!!!

Have a happy day!