What is it about Southerners and coconut cake? Maybe the thick drifts of ivory icing remind us of the snow we don't get. Maybe the lacy curls of coconut call to mind the frilled white gowns at the debutante balls we're (still, seriously) so fond of.
Though, in what's perhaps a sign of the changin' times in the New South, the best "classic Southern" coconut cake I've ever tasted was from a Thai restaurant near where I grew up in Durham, North Carolina.
I adore the looks of this Southern coconut cake from BigCity, Little Kitchen, adapted from Gourmet Magazine. So light and soft. I'd like to make this on a Sunday afternoon and take a fat slice out to the veranda with a good book. If I had a veranda.
Really now, when you think of food porn, that last thing you think of is bean dip, right? Okay, maybe a luxurious cannellini bean spread drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, or perhaps even a deep, dark sultry black bean dip, but seven layer dip? That's the stuff made with brown lumpy stuff that's mashed together with pork lard then layered together into a congealed rainbow of Taco Bell flavors most often found pre-made in the grocery store refrigerated section. There is nothing sexy about Seven Layer Dip.
Unless it's the Seven Layer Bean Dip over at Simply Recipes. Unlike all those supermarket dips, Elise demands that the refried beans as the first layer be hot. I agree. Who wants to bite into a lump of cold, hard smashed beans? When the refried beans are hot, then the next layer, shredded cheese, melts itself all over it, creating quite the pornographic seven layer dip pictured above.
You'll never be able to look at Seven Layer Dip the same way again.
Chances are, the vast majority of you reading this post right now are familiar with Flickr (and if you're not, the quick explanation is that it is a photo sharing website with lots of ways to engage in acts of community). What you may not know is that Slashfood actually has our own Flickr group. It's been around since late summer of 2005 and has more than 5,000 gorgeous, drool-inducing images of food in all states of preparedness.
The amazing thing is that even though we've neglected the group in the recent months, people have still been adding some amazing images to it. What we want to do is to get even more of you involved in adding gorgeous food photography (and accompanying recipes, if you want to share) to the pool so that we can bring back the Photo of the Day feature. We know that there is lots of good cooking, baking, shopping, preserving, roasting and braising going on out there and we want to see some of it. If your photo is selected to be featured, we'll get in touch to let you know, give you full credit for the image/recipe and link to your site/blog (if you have one).
And now, to whet your appetite for all the food gorgeousness that will be coming with the Photo of the Day, the image you see above was submitted to our Flickr pool yesterday by Jennifer at Bake or Break. She talks about these chocolate-filled cupcakes on her blog as well as her love of vanilla paste and her dislike of frosting. And now I want a cupcake!
Heirloom tomatoes are all the rage these days. And why not? They are beautiful in their imperfections and their taste is almost always out-of-this-world good. So much better than those mealy grocery store tomatoes we've been mindlessly eating all these years. Two different little items came my way yesterday having to do with these darlings of the tomato world, and the synchronicity was just too much to bear. A post was in order.
First, via Yumsugar, I discovered that Santa Sweets, the company behind the Uglyripe, runs an "Ugly Tomato" contest. This year they received so many submissions that they were forced to pick ten winners. Each one of the winners was a doozy, most with many lobes, cracks and crannies. They aren't particularly lovely to look at, but I'm sure they tasted amazing.
Just a few hours later, Matt Billings sent us a link to the set of photos he took (the pic up top is his) of the heirlooms he bought at Eastern Market this last weekend. His pictures have the power to make tomato lovers weak in the knees and offer an interesting contrast to the "ugly" pictures from the Santa Sweet's page.
There you go. Tomato food porn at its best and worse. Now if you'll excuse me, I do believe there's a tomato in my kitchen calling my name.
When I first saw this picture, my first impulse was to want to crawl straight into it. Check out that bowl of yellow and orange plums, with the sliver of water in the background. I want to be there.
There are a number of fantastic things to do with plums like that. Jam would make them last long past the summer season. A big crumble would be delicious dessert to serve to friends and family. You could also stew them down into a chunky sauce and serve it over pancakes, corn bread or scones. Oh the options!
I am going to hold off until the next paragraph my feelings about what qualifies as a "burger" so that we can all just gaze upon the gloriousness that is this Chicken "Burger" (the quotation marks are mine) as posted on food blog, Glorious Food and Wine. I like that it's a very up close and personal shot of the burger, but you know that the eater wasn't dining alone because of the burger in the background. I am always a fan of light-on-light, like the bun and the burger on a white plate against a white background.
One of the things with which I have fallen in love in recent history is squash blossoms. When I first encountered these, I was slightly turned off by the idea of eating such giant flowers, even though I wasn't unfamiliar with edible flowers. It's just that the edible flowers I've eaten in the past have been small things that have been tossed in with salads.
For some reason, this picture of squash blossoms over on food blog Big City, Little Kitchen makes me want to sit out on a sunny deck with a glass of lightly chilled wine and a plate of these things, as prepared in the recipe for Fried Squash Blossoms in the post. The cool thing is that the recipe, though uses the standard stuffing of ricotta cheese, uses cornmeal as the breading.
My kitchen has officially reported me for neglect. I've been too busy to cook much of anything lately, and dinner has consisted of whatever I could whip up in a few short minutes or (more likely) whatever I happened to pick up on the way home. My pots and pans are sulking in the corner, my wisks and spatulas are officially on strike. Even my two fridges, once filled to the brim with every conceivable form of produce, protein, and condiment are looking pretty stark these days. It is a sad state of culinary affairs in my house, let there be no doubt.
That said, I've been aching to make a return to the kitchen, so I was thrilled to see that Homesick Texan had written about her homemade Puffy Tacos, one of my favorite Tex-Mex meals. There is just enough work in making and rolling out the taco shells to satisfy my need to make something homemade, and the rest of the recipe is very simple to put together - perfect for those of us without a lot of time on our hands.
Since I prefer not to buy the pre-made taco shells from the grocery store (these taste so much better, really) I was wondering if you could make these ahead of time and freeze them before frying. Has anyone ever tried that before? If so, let us know how they worked out. I'd love to keep a batch of these ready to go in the freezer.
Alright Slashfoodies, we have a challenge for you. As posted on our sister site The Cancer Blog, one of our favorite food bloggers, Béa at La Tartine Gourmande, the creator of many exquisite dishes we have featured here before, has prepared this perfectly-pink dish of Quinoa Beet Verrine (as shown above) to help raise awareness for Breast Cancer. We'd like to continue what she has started and see what our readers can come up with. There are no rules, other than it should be an original creation and contain the color pink. As I said before, it can be dinner or dessert, anything from pink cream cheese on a bagel to an entire fuchsia dinner is fine - use your imagination. Drink submissions are fine, too.
Please send us the link to your blog/website once you have posted the picture, and we will spotlight the entries in a future post. Is there a prize? Yes - knowing that you are helping to raise awareness for Breast Cancer, is that not enough? Tell you what, we will let you judge, and then we will do a spotlight/interview with the creator of our favorite submission.
A few months ago, Sarah showed us some photos taken by James Yu, a former Slashfood writer, of his visit to French Laundry. Now Kevin, a Slashfood reader, has shared his own experience at Thomas Keller's world class restaurant with us. Though a few of the items are duplicate, I thought the majority of pictures (and individual courses) were unique enough that we could afford to take another peek. His tab? Over $600 per person, which included the extensive tasting menu, drinks, tax and tip.
In case you aren't aware, Thomas Keller recently won the title of Outstanding Restaurateur at the 2007 James Beard Foundation Awards, and French Laundry was named 4th best restaurant in the world by Restaurant Magazine, scoring as "Best of the Americas."
Needless to say, this is pretty much the ultimate in food porn. I've included a few more of Kevin's photos after the jump, but you can visit his entire collection (with full descriptions of what you are looking at) at his website via the 'read' link below.
Every month, snap-happy food bloggers pile together their favorite food photos for judging in Does My Blog Look Good in This? For the month of April, Cook & Eat was the blog that hosted the "competition," and last week, with the decision of the judges, Cook & Eat announced the winners from the incredible pool of entrants. There are, as always, three regular categories - originality, edibility, and aesthetics - and this time around, they also chose a couple of photos for Best Use of Color and Best Dish Name. The overall winner for April was a Bag of Chips by Fer Food, pictured above. Head over to Cook & Eat to see the whole gorgeous gallery of photos.
As I mentioned last week, sometimes the best pictures aren't of the completed meal, but of the ingredients themselves. We received some links back from readers directing us to even more amazing collections of fresh fruits and veggie pictures, which I've included in a little photo essay that you can view after the jump. Have more? Send them to us via this link.
I know, Jaden has been showing up in our food porn category a lot lately, but if you take a look at the pictures on her website, there really is little wonder why. I absolutely had to draw attention to this recipe though, as her latest creation includes one of my favorite foods - baby eggplants, which are drizzled in olive oil and roasted in the oven, then topped off with Caponata, parsley, and freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese.
Though that alone sounds absolutely divine, she also recommends other toppings you can use instead, including another of my favorite flavor combinations: pesto sauce with chopped parsley, roasted pine nuts and shaved Parmesan cheese.
Yeah, so maybe it's a little early in the day for burger porn, but these are classy little sliders as photographed by roboppy, who writes food blog The Girl Who Ate Everything. The burgers are a menu item at Bouchon Bakery in New York, and are made with tomato marmalade and topped with ricotta cheese. A Hamburger Today reports that Bouchon will be adding a new slider made with Wagyu beef, oven-roasted roma tomatoes and Taleggio cheese.
When we talk about food porn, it is usually referring to completed dishes that look simply outstanding. Sometimes though, it is the fresh, natural food that really looks best. A reader sent in this link to his Flickr photo pool which contains some beautiful shots of fresh produce from his local Community Supported Agriculture in Oxford, CT. Whether you eat them raw or use them in recipes, the vegetables pictured here can inspire hundreds of meal ideas.
Have you seen any other shots of beautiful, fresh fruits and vegetables? Send them in to us.
What is it about Southerners and coconut cake? Maybe the thick drifts of ivory icing remind us of the snow we don't get. Maybe the lacy curls of coconut call to mind the frilled white gowns at the debutante balls we're (still, seriously) so fond of. 
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
