You Make My Day Award

I have been graced by having 2 friends and fellow bloggers name me within their You Make My Day Award list.  The first time it happened caught me completely off-guard… It was Bonnie at Weaving Spirit.  And again, this week my friend Kathleen from Kathleen’s Vegetarian Kitchen also named me as someone who “makes her day”.  And this latter one is very special, because it was Kathleen who inspired me to start this blogging adventure about a year ago.

So I feel the need to reciprocate… to share with you a list of the blogs and online places out there that Make My Day, in addition to my friends mentioned above:

• Serious Eats – I can’t remember how I learned about this website, but I do remember I had something to do with Mario Batali.  I love Serious Eats because it’s a one-stop shop on the celebration and enthusiasm of food thru blogs and other content providers.  I personally love the Talk section because it provides a forum to ask, answer, vent and celebrate anything food-related.  It’s awesome!!
• Tastespotting– I also visit this site almost daily… It’s food photography at its best.  I have learned and found so much inspiration from the people who post here…

And who are these people I have met thanks to Tastespotting… 

• 101 cookbooks – Heidi is a vegetarian who takes the most wonderful pictures of what she cooks.  The premise of her blog was to go thru the recipes of all the cookbooks she had been collecting over the years.  I wish I had a table or butcher’s block like hers… it makes for a very elegant background for her pictures.
• herbivoracious – Michael is a vegetarian who took a sabbatical from his engineering job to work as an apprentice in Cafe Flora in Seattle.  He inspires me to take chances and to follow one’s dream and passion and see where that leads.
• Paola at Mijn Zoete Leven – I have no idea what the title is, but Paola is a Colombian living in the Netherlands.  She has developed a home business out of her “small but very well-equipped kitchen” in Almere. 
• Daring Bakers – After seeing photo after scrumptious photo of lemon meringue pies back in January, I decided to join this group of fellow bloggers who every month we get together, in heart and spirit, to bake the same recipe.  I have only completed one challenge so far and have loved every minute of it.

And last, but not least, my teachers in the culinary world –  Martha Stewart and Food Network, which are my food and recipe encyclopedias.  I refer to them everytime I see a great recipe on TV, which is almost everyday.

And also a special mention to Kimberly – she is a vegetarian living in Iowa and even though her blog is not food-related, I enjoy very much our email conversation about recipes, ingredients and the vegetarian lifestyle in general…  She’s a KarmaFree Cooking fan and I appreciate her very much for that.