Top 24 recipes of 2011

And this year is gone and it is almost my blogversary too! Many (but not too many) are the recipes I have proposed you across the past 12 months and it was very hard to choose some that have stuck in my flavors library.

After skimming my picture catalog I have reduced them to a Top 24. With one new recipe every two weeks may this list help you bringing a little more happiness into your 2012.

Top 24 of 2011

Risotto with broccoli, poached prawns, roasted sesame seeds oil and dark chocolate shavings

Sourdough and the Creative life

I have to apologize with Stephanie from Groundcherry blog for having missed my aim at this month's Secret Recipe Club http://secretrecipeclub.com/how-it-works/. This happens when you get on doing as many things at once as your computer can bare. 
I got originally assigned with her blog but in the process of looking for a recipe through the days I stumbled on a tab that had Winnie's blog on it and so I thought that was my to-be source (since it was opened already for a few days).
You see, I have been using my browser window more like a pin-board with as many as 10-15 tabs opened simultaneously at each session (and hence inherited by the next one until I deem them worth retiring).

Duck over toasted breadcrumbs and sweet-sour celery

Bitter-sweet, sour-sweet, life has to be sweet one way or another. But what do you prefer to be coupled with it? bitterness or sourness? I'd say, give me some salt and I am happy with both.

I do like sour things, they give me a high. Have you ever sipped apple-cider vinegar (for health reason not just because there was nothing better to drink at home) when you are sleepy? You can almost feel your heart speed up. Sour things release Hydrogen ions in your body and that is like eating a battery; new electricity runs through your veins and make you buzz!

Duck breast with caramelized onions & Sicilian orange sauce

Does Photography really steal souls? Probably not steal but capture it. Capturing, stealing, what's the difference? Probably the fact that we can't capture the whole soul of a place but just bits and pieces of it. So when we go on a holiday, visit a new restaurant, bar or anything alike and take snapshots of it, do we really capture its soul or just what resonates with us, what we already know and are able to recognize. To me capturing through photography tends to be the harder and more isolating day after day I try doing it. Isolating in the sense that often I'd like to be invisible sitting on a bench or at a cafe so to be able to observe for as long as I need without causing concern (or being asked to pay the bill).
Probably this is what it's all about, snap and snippets of a place, of a history, of a soul.