"French Laundry at Home" news and stories

It's been just over a week since Marisa mentioned the end of Carol Blymire's French Laundry at Home, and now we've got the final recipe: "Cornets" -- Salmon Tartare with Sweet Red Onion Creme Fraiche. A simple, buttery cone filled with onion creme fraiche and some chopped salmon tartare? It sounds like a nice and delicious end to me, and as Carol describes it, the cornets are "Perfect. Absolutely perfect."

With this, she has done the whole cookbook. The end. But this is one of those times when language fails to adequately describe the power of reality. Think of it this way: Whether we're cooking a Thanksgiving dinner, making a difficult cake, throwing a dinner party, or cooking something beyond our comfort zone, it's ONE meal. The hours from prep to plating fly by, and then we sit down, exhausted and fulfilled. Now imagine that feeling 100 times over, with many intricate and difficult recipes spread out over a couple of years -- all set to a kickass playlist. Carol is the home kitchen's Wonder Woman.

On to Alinea at Home!

Last summer (the one before the one we just wrapped up), I wrote about a food blog called French Laundry at Home. By this point, I'm fairly certain you've heard of it. Written by the very talented Carol Blymire, it chronicled her journey as she cooked her way through the entirety of the French Laundry Cookbook. She's been cooking now for nearly two years and the blog is drawing to a close. It has been a hugely successful project, bringing into Carol's life many friends, myriad new experiences and potential new career paths.

However, Carol isn't one to rest on her laurels. She announced that her next big project would be to cook her way through the recently released Alinea cookbook. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Alinea is a restaurant in Chicago that exists on the cutting edge of food and flavor. For those of you who are like me, you won't want to miss this one, so make sure to tune your RSS readers to Alinea at Home.

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It all started when Julie Powell decided her life needed additional meaning and purpose. She opened up Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, created a blog and, a book and movie deal later, the rest is history. She created a genre of blogging, in which people take on the entirety of a cookbook and blog/cook their way through its contents.

An article in today's Wall Street Journal, entitled, Latest Web Bloggers Give Cooking the Books a Whole New Meaning, Lee Gomes explores the crop of blogs that have sprouted up in the last few years that take on entire cookbooks. He calls this practice "cook-through" blogs and calls out several notable blogs that are currently cooking their way through volumes of recipes.

When it comes to this genre of food blogging, I've enjoyed reading Carol Blymire's French Laundry at Home and I'm excited to explore another site mentioned in the article, Ryan S. Adams' Nose to Tail at Home. I think part of the enjoyment comes from the fact that these blogs all me the vicarious thrill of this type of cooking, without the expense or clean up. How about the rest of you? Do you love cook-through blogs or hate 'em?

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"I wanted to be The Girl Who Is Not Afraid To Order Tripe And In Fact It Makes Her Even Cooler And All The More Sexy Because She Enjoys It. Alas, it was not meant to be." Carol at French Laundry at Home

Hear, hear!* I don't know about you, but this sort of rationale is what made me a foodie. I was a fairly picky eater growing up. I wasn't so bad that I'd eat PB&J for every meal, but if they weren't like the usual meat-potato-veggie triumvirate, or something else I'd eat normally, I'd get testy. If you were at the Mexican restaurant about 25-years ago where a little blonde girl went nuts because her beef was shaved instead of ground, that was me.

But then I got older, moved to the big city, and shed many of my food inhibitions. I hated it when my friends gazed at me in disappointment whenever I wouldn't try anything. I couldn't say no when someone slaved over a hot stove to bring me a meal full of food I didn't like. Soon, eating became an adventure -- discovering new tastes, learning about the foods, making meals fresh and fun.

We've heard of food blogs being turned into books, movies and Food Network web shows. But we haven't seen much in the way of food bloggers making the leap to our living room screen. Well, apparently, that may be changing soon.

Remember that blog that I raved about last summer? You know, the one where you take one Mike Bloomburg-crushing, Washington, D.C. area, adventurous foodie and mix her with a copy of the French Laundry Cookbook. Well, it seems that I wasn't the only one smitten with blogger Carol Blymire's food attitude.

According to Ted from E's! The Awful Truth, Carol the blogger behind the very fun French Laundry at Home, may soon be coming out from behind her computer and straight onto her own show on the Food Network. I do believe she is just the woman to shake things up over there.

Good luck Carol!

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