Klunk is me falling on the floor. With much surprise that I found out I got the Arte y Pico award from Gregorio Art Studio. I am overwhelmed.
Rules of the Arte Y Pico Award
Take a Lesson in Viral Marketing from the Arte Y Pico Award
You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone. [Nicely viral to have a backlink for appreciation to the blog you think deserves the award. Very clever.]
Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
Hey y’all, didja miss me? I’ve been back to my old stomping grounds (see Dork on Break) and I came back with some pictures for you of the food market in downtown Monterrey Mexico. Just so you have an idea of the prices, the Mexican peso was trading at just above 10 per US dollar, so the conversion is really easy. If something costs M$100 that equals US$10.
This is the first post I am composing directly in FlickR— Woot! About eight years ago I planted some red amaranth in my garden. The fully mature red amaranth plant is a showy purple red affair with a large (OK I have to say this) phallic shaped seed cluster that is a brilliant red in October. Red amaranths grow like weeds but they are easy to get rid of where you don’t want them. I have never specifically planted any further red amaranth seeds but some always come up and I always let a few of them grow up. The red seed cluster contains little black seeds that are very nutrient dense. If you’re a glutton for punishment you can cut the stalks and dry them and thresh out the seeds when they are dry. They can be used where you would use poppy seeds, except that they taste better. They can also be popped on a hot comal. They are like teeny popcorn.
The young leaves of the amaranth are also highly nutritious. I was removing some red amaranth from my garden and I took a picture of them for you before I devoured them. They have a slightly bitter and otherwise deliciously nutty taste, and really do wonders for the presentation of a green salad.
The Aztec Indians of Mexico practically treated the amaranth as a deity. It is said that Cortes defeated the Aztecs by destroying their
amaranth fields.
I know this is not a vegetarian recipe. There are those in my family who must have meat from time to time. If you eat meat, a recipe like this one is a good way to make a little meat stretch quite a way. And it has collard greens in it, and they are those dark leafies that all the nutritionists say you should eat.
One thing I like about Food Buzz is how they seamlessly integrate your self-hosted or other third party blog into your Food Buzz Blog. I had wanted to review Magenta Restaurant for a while, and it seemed like Food Buzz was the best place to do it because they structure the data and it would get Magenta into their database, you get the google map for free, etc. etc. and Magenta gets better exposure than if I just did an unstructured review here. Of course we must avoid duplicate content at all costs, so I will link to, rather than duplicate here my Review of Magenta on Food Buzz. I was a little disappointed that the link to Magenta’s website did not appear directly in the review. So I fixed that for you here.
Pictures from our local farmer’s market. I got there a tad late, so a lot of the booths were looking kind of skimpy. I still managed to pick up Maitake mushrooms and green snap peas and I’m so glad to see the market doing so well that the farmers don’t have much to take back home. And it’s kinda fun to do digital photography.
Taking a break from always being food political to just share with you some flowers from my very own flower terrace. That’s what’s left of Grandma’s sewing machine. I like it in my garden because it reminds me of her and her big farm garden she used to have when I was little. When I was small it seemed like Grandma was all about flowers and vegetables, when there were so many “important” things out there. But now that I’m older, I think Gran had it right. The so-called “important” things come and go but the daffodills come back every year, and every summer with out fail I chew my way through a large pile of garden produce. Speaking of which, unfortunately my vegetable garden isn’t interesting yet. Last summer I broke my hand and so the garden went all to hell. In 2008 were blessed with a freakishly long wet cold spring and the result is that I didn’t do any early greens because we had such a mess to clear out from last year.
Browsing foodie links you can’t help but hit Food Buzz — the social network all about food, restaurants, cooking, and of course recipes. This is a very well done social network where you can link in your favorite recipes, search for recipes, review restaurants, and find like-minded friends. I especially like how Dork Chow automatically IS my blog on Food Buzz — they don’t give you some lame little zero feature bloglet like on stumbleupon or ning.
About a week after I joined, Food Buzz contacted me and made me a “featured publisher,” which means I get a badge and a skyscraper ad CPM ad down my right sidebar. I insisted on the ads not showing any chunks of dead animals, and who knows, I might earn $5 a month or so.
Now that I’ve told you about Food Buzz, rather than blather on, I recommend you check it out and see it for yourself. Oh, yes, and while you’re there buzz me — I’m dorkage!
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