New Online Survey Investigates U.S. Food Blog Usage

Yeah, I'm still alive and eating well, might I say.

Guys, I am almost there. I am almost done with the dissertation that ate Adelaide (my working title, what do you think?) Cue Chariots of Fire Music.

Da Da Dada Daaaaaaaaa Daaaaaaaaaaa

I just want you to know that I recognize our relationship as food blogger and food blog reader has been compromised over the past few months. Sometimes, it has been downright ignored and damn it, that ain't right. You deserve better than that. You deserve, at the very least, to be bribed with homemade brownies and cupcakes personally delivered by me and perhaps a kick line of koalas trained to do a pop and lock routine to Salt n Pepa's famous song, Shoop, at least until you forget this whole mess occurred. Lucky for me, I'm a poor college student who can't afford to do that, so you'll have to settle for a sign that I am alive.

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So I'm sorry, yadda yadda yadda, on with the food and signs of life. Just to let you know where I am, in one day, my 15,000 word dissertation is due (still 2000 words short, people), I move out of my apartment, and in 4 days, I fly home to Chicago (with no less than 5 stops, yipee! DVT, here I come!). Two days ago, I got the flu. Like snotty, body aches I want to die sort of flu. And every day at 4:30pm, while I am working on my paper, the tip of my left hand pinky finger falls asleep. Yeah, I know. FREAK.

Why am I blogging instead of finishing this paper and wrapping up my life? You see, I am a part of the MTV generation. I want things fast, free and for minimal effort, and I have the attention span of marmoset. Which is like...chicken...Barack Obama...what was I talking about? OH yeah, so to focus on one project for six months straight has really messed my mind up. I have to stop working every hour or so and spend my A.D.D. moments playing on the Internet, until recently.

This is where I spend all my time these days, the food section of the library at school.

Trust me, this is my Disney World. Well, maybe this with some smoked polish sausage...

One of the largest collections of food books in the world, all at my disposal. Yes, I have been procrastinating by reading books about food and food people. A lot of them. Food nerd! In three weeks, I have read:

The Apprentice by Jacques Pepin
Climbing Up the Mango Tree by Madhur Jaffray
The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
The Reach of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman
Everything ever written by M.F.K. Fisher (still working on this one)

Yeah. I figure I will only have this library available for so long, and I have to procrastinate, so I might as well make good use of it. And what a good idea that was. What a range of people to read about, like Jacques Pepin who literally helped change the culinary atmosphere in the U.S., who was there for it all, for Julia, for television chefs, for the force that was Craig Claiborne (and he also started one of the first food writing programs in the country!). Or Julie Powell, one of the first food bloggers who actually published her blog into a book (and now a movie, apparently). Or Ruhlman, whose books have been tracking the changing food climate in America since 1996, when he decided to go through the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) as a student/journalist but accidentally fell in love with cooking. Who else got to spend years with one of the country's greatest chefs, Thomas Keller, and write a new style of cookbooks?

My only friends over the past four weeks...

It didn't really matter if I liked the books or not (although I loved most of them), because I learned so much from each one off them, and it was actually fun to do. I love reading. I'm a dork. A food nerd who still hasn't finished her freaking dissertation! Ahhh!

This guy flew by my balcony the other day. We chatted a bit. It was a nice change of pace.

My other new friend. I call him Paco.

But I'm still eating, like this delicious sugar-cured wagyu beef carpaccio with cornichons and capers from Urban Bistro. Ugh. More on this amazing meal later, but can I just say beef and pickles rock my world a bit? Thanks.

Sugar-cured wagyu beef carpaccio.

I'm also drinking...a bit too much, but hey, I gotta take in the South Aussie Shiraz while I can!

My perfect Shiraz...soft bodied, no really sharp tanins, and a cinnamon-clove spice sort of after taste that makes me feel all warm and loved like Christmas.

I'm still trying to soak up as much Aussie culture as possible.

Can I get a holla for new season lamb at only $10 a kilo? HOLLA!

Some of the culture was explored with new friends, like Cari, my fellow Gastro student and food blogger pal...

Chook = chicken. Poo= awesomeness for your garden. OR your nose.

And a lot of it with old friends...

Bec and Andrew, two fair dinkum mates I'm gonna miss!

I'm gonna miss you, Australia. Readers, you have about 20 more Australia posts to look forward to, so fear not! And, coming soon in May, the results from my online food blog user survey! After that, I will be a Chicago girl for at least the next year (although Italy looms in the horizon!), and I can't wait to show you how amazing Chicago food is. Be prepared, people, for some major gluttony. And a bit of gourmand-ism. I like to mix up my sins.

I want to leave you with a photo that I predict will be me in a week's time, when I done with this paper, home safely in Chicago, and restarting up my life:

Don't let this fool you--there might be a bug in my pants.

~LTG!