Shoutout to Blogs I love! Plus Pictures of Tiara!

Serious Eats: I have mentioned them before. I love the attention to detail, the overturning of every stone that they go through before they post a how-to. I also love the community on there. Have a question? "Talk" is as unpretentious as you're gonna get in the foodie world, and you have friendly people ready to share recipes and give advice. My soda cracker bark is from this site, and if you want to find a well tested well written recipe, this is the place. Check out the food lab for in depth discussion for cooking techniques.

Hungry Happenings: Talk about mixing art with food! Everything on here is so styled and beautiful. For someone whose spam musubis are even less than perfect, I could do with adopting some of this blog's showmanship. Some of the posts are obviously geared towards people with kids, but I will never tire of happy faces on everything. I want to make the crown pastries in honor of Tiara, who is after all named after a princess crown. And yes, I would make pastries in celebration of my dog.

La Fuji Mama: This blog has tons of great hapa food, and I can't believe I haven't discovered her beforehand. Check out these avocado bacon yaki onigiri! Can you say "Yum!" I like how she feels comfortable taking traditional Japanese food and putting her own Southern California twist on it. I feel people get so fussy about being by the book they forget to have fun in the kitchen! For instance, take her avocado mango donburi: Traditional? No. Tasty and f'ing inspired? Absolutely!

Roti N Rice: Amazing Asian American food is featured on this blog! I love all the Asian baking, because I am not a very seasoned baker. Check out the Japanese Castella Cake, called "Kasutera" (カステラ), she even has a Neapolitan three colored one! I am SO making her yokan agar agar candies, my mother loves when relatives bring those from Japan, like these, so it would be awesome to make them here. Her blog has great organization, dividing recipes by dessert, grain type, breads, and even vegetables.

All of these blogs make me realize how much farther my own has to go until I am satisfied. I want to learn how to get mine as beautiful and browse friendly as theirs.

And because no post is complete without pictures of Tiara, and her puppies:

Some of her gorgeous pups posing! They are now over 2y/o!

She's 6 years old, but don't tell her that!

Shoutout to Blogs I Love

Because this is my blog, and I can do what I want, I'd like to share some blogs I love with you:

Food Librarian: I love her bundt recipes! I cannot wait to try the match mochi one! I think because she's also JA (Japanese American), but she seems like family. Or it might be that her love of jello reminds me of my jello obsessed JA mom. I think jello just reminds her of all the agar jellies in Japanese desserts. I will have to make her the broken glass jello that the Food Librarian has on her blog!

FOODjimoto: Another Southern California Japanese American lady! I love her furikake chex mix, it is the sort of Hapa food I love, like spam musubi. She does a whole gamut of food, from traditional Japanese home cooking to guacamole! I love the pictures of her family get togethers, which has inspired me to take more pictures!

Makiko Itoh: Her post on her mother moved me to tears. She writes both Just Hungry and Just Bento, two amazing sites that have tons of recipes, from bento staples to baking. She's even got an amazing bento cookbook, which I've literally read in bed just for entertainment (I do this with all good cookbooks) She's sick right now and going through a kitchen remodel, so she hasn't been posting as frequently as I spam her sites.

David Lebovitz: The man who made my very stoic grandpa grin like a Cheshire cat. I made his German Chocolate Cake for my grandpa's birthday, and it was AMAZING. I made the filling, and bought a can of Duncan Hines filling to do a blind taste test with my mother, and she literally nearly spit up the storebought after tasting David's. He's that good.

**Disclaimer** No one asked me to do these links, and I asked for nothing in return. This blog has like no traffic and its mostly my own personal diary, so don't be thinking anything sneaky like promotions and such. I love these blogs and want to share them with my friends and family so =P

And because this is a boring post with no pictures: Here's my dog as a puppy!