blog without reader comments, and Bitten's yield some solid cooking advice,

such as Adam's two cents regarding a recent post on an underutilized, savory

ingredient: "I often add anchovies to my ratatouille to give it that extra some-

thing ... perhaps not strictly traditional, but bloody good nonetheless." Browse

just a little while and you'll surely head for the market full of ideas.

SMITTEN KITCHEN (smittenkitchen.com)

We're not sure what's most delicious about this blog: Truly gorgeous photo-

graphs document the elegant yet down-to-earth recipes created in the tiny

East Village, N.Y., kitchen of Deb Perelman. And the professional writer's

language is equally compelling, amusing, tasteful yet a little bit snarky all

at once. Her praises have been sung by everyone from Martha Stewart to

Entertainment Weekly. On her site, says Perelman, readers will find "a lot of

comfort foods stepped up a bit, things like bread and birthday cakes made

entirely from scratch and tutorials on everything from how to poach an egg to

how to make tart doughs that don't shrink up on you, but also a favorite side

the gift
of health

dish (zucchini and almonds) that takes less than five minutes to make.

ORANGETTE (orangette,blogspot•com)

this New Year

"I thank my lucky stars every night," says Molly Wizenberg. She once fanta-

sized about writing for food magazines but had no idea how, and after her

father died of cancer, she found herself feeling lost. So she began her blog

Orangette in 2004, describing meals and market visits. Now, the foodie with

a romantic and compelling prose style that earned her a devoted following

— so devoted that one reader in particular who courted her long distance from

New York to Wizenberg's Seattle via e-mail became her husband — has her

beloved blog; a monthly column in Bon Appetit; a book, 2009's A Homemade

Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table ($25; Simon & Schuster) —

which includes a recipe for pickled carrots the couple served at their wedding;

and a restaurant, Delancey, just opened in August.

BIG GIRLS, SMALL KITCHEN: A GUIDE TO QUARTER-LIFE
COOKING (biggirlssmallkitchen.com)

Cara Eisenpress and Phoebe Lapine met in the throes of competition (a high-

school chocolate-chip cookie bake-off) but soon realized their forces were

much more powerful combined. Buddies ever since, they began their Web

site, Big Girls, Small Kitchen, in their New York City kitchens in an effort to

teach 20-somethings that cooking is not as daunting as it might seem. User-

friendly, affordable and humble, their writings and their recipes are just plain

fun. On their blog, look for grown-up takes on childhood classics, like Pesto

Mac 'n Cheese and Pancakes with Pomegranates, and for a yet-to-be-released

book by the pair, tentatively titled Cara & Phoebe's Quarter-Life Kitchen

(Harper Collins), with a foreword by Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten (a high-

school friend of Phoebe's father and childhood cooking mentor to Phoebe).

DINNER AT DAD'S (dinneratdads.com )

When his two teenaged daughters got sick of eating the same carryout when-

ever they visited their dad, David Dworkin, he decided to do what he could

to make them happy. If that meant the Washington, D.C.-based Detroit native

and recently separated-from-his-wife CEO of a consulting firm needed to learn

to cook, so be it. After mastering some very successful basics, he decided to

share his wisdom with other struggling (both in and out of the kitchen) sepa-

rated and divorced dads. Dinner at Dad's, which debuted in November, offers

shopping lists, recipes, advice and musings on life on his sometimes quite

serious, often very fun, blog. The best part? Says Dworkin, "My daughters love

the recipe tasting."

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