Seriously, the James Beard Foundation actually has awards for Books, Media and Journalism (click here for the list). And, about halfway down the list, there's a category for "Website Focusing on Food, Beverage, Restaurants, or Nutrition." This year's winner was chow.com., which is rather . . . . intimidatingly comprehensive. It has an article on "The Future of Cookbook Publishing" and one on "Bunnies for Breakfast;" though the thing that seals the deal is the series (not a story, a series) on starting your very own dive bar. Let's be honest, chow.com is a very high powered blog. It sets a very high bar for Umami. He'd be better off starting a dive bar (after more research, of course).
It's sobering (seriously, it is) for Umami to realize his plan of global domination through food blogging is more unrealistic than anything dreamed up by, say, Lex Luthor, Pinky and the Brain, or Galactus. What is there to do but eat?
So let's eat: dinner was leftover falafels and some pasta. The falafels are nothing spectacular, mix out of a box, add water, fry. The original plan, though, was to make a yogurt dill sauce. Full fat Greek Yogurt? Check. Dill? Check. Oops, mistake, the yogurt is honey flavored and not delicately honey-flavored. No, this batch is aggressively honey-flavored. It overpowered the dill, basically reducing the herb to a colorful accent. But, in the end, it was a very pleasant combination, the somewhat savory and hot falafel with the cool and sweet yogurt.
The pasta was not leftover, rather, it was a do-over. It's basically, sauteed turkey bacon, onion, tomato and some dry basil on spaghetti, dressed with some white truffle oil that's been sitting on my counter for almost too long. It was okay, but fresh basil would made it much better (duh).
The reason it's a do-over is that there was an error in the preparation last night. Remember that the white truffle oil had been sitting on my counter for a while? Well, it was apparently long enough for me to forget what the bottle looked like. Because, when I went to dress the pasta, I didn't bother to read the label and grabbed the adjacent bottle of champagne citrus vinegar instead.
So, I'm eating this pasta and thinking, "Hmm, this oddly dry, what happened to the oil?" I decide it needs another shot of oil, grab the wrong bottle again, toss a little more vinegar in, taste it, and think, "Hmmmm. This is oddly dry and citrus-y, what the hell??" But, funny thing, I actually liked the citrus taste and how the acid cut the fat of the bacon.
Perhaps, then, Umami should leave the high-falutin' food bloggin' to Chow, and ePicurious, and all the others where recipes work, food pics are beautiful and the restaurants reviewed are fabulous. Umami will stick to generally goofing around, taking random pictures, and checking out food at random.
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