Food

"A rose is a rose is a rose" (Gertrude Stein) — unless it's rose water, the distinctive liquid essence of crushed rose petals used to flavor food, especially sweets, in Persian, Turkish, southeast Asian and more and more cuisines. Have you tasted rose water, or cooked with it yet?

Couscous is an ingredient that comes from Morocco, and it's slowly working towards becoming mainstream, but I'm willing to bet there are lots of you who haven't tried it yet. Some people think it's a type of grain, but couscous is actually made from wheat, and the quick-cooking varieties make a great side dish when you're trying to get dinner on the table in a hurry. I'm a fan of whole wheat couscous, and I like mine best with some added ingredients. If you haven't cooked with couscous, here are some ideas from food bloggers to get you started.

I recently watched a preview from Jamie Oliver's new show Food Revolution where first grade children were unable to identify fruits and vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower, eggplant, etc. While I didn't find it shocking, I thought it was quite sad. It drives the point home that as a society we are, as Oliver points out in his TED talk (which is absolutely worth 20 minutes of your time), very disconnected from our food and where it comes from.

Say hello to Deseree, a 20-something food blogger from Seattle who "cooks and eats" and relies on her talented husband to "shoot and eat" for her food blog celebrating the "food of the gods."

It was back in 2008 when I first spotted kale chips on a food blog, and before I barely had time to think about it, variations of roasted kale chips were popping up on food blogs everywhere. Now literally hundreds of food bloggers have made kale chips and posted about how tasty they are -- so if you haven't joined the kale chip fan club yet, there are plenty of good reasons you should try them.