Do you ever get that feeling that you’re a hamster,  running in your exercise wheel, going nowhere?  I get that feeling more and more with every passing week.  At the very least, it’s Friday, so I have a few spare moments to myself so I can update finally.

But before I get to it (or tomorrow, as I’m pretty beat right now) I figured I would post a few articles and tidbits that tickled my fancy recently.  Maybe you’ll find them interesting as well.

It turns out, this little blog of mine was mentioned alongside a couple of amazing food blogs in a recent article in the Washington Post which was about my muse, Carol Blymire, and her new food blog–which you already know about–Alinea at Home.

Powell’s site also spawned a slew of copycat blogs, including Nose to Tail at Home, Cooking Bouchon and Blymire’s first blog, The French Laundry at Home, which Blymire began as a way to raise her game.

I’ll be the first to admit that this is a copycat blog–Powell was the first, and I owe a debt of gratitude to her for kicking things off–but my inspiration has always been Carol’s work.  It’s just an honor being mentioned in passing.

Over at Menu in Progress, there is this amazing looking Smoked Meatloaf.

See?

He’s got the recipe up too, so go take a look.  I’m going to give this a try once I get my smoker.

Superstar commenter Elie Nassar sent me a link to a review he posted over at eGullet about a recent meal he had at Feast, which it turns out houses a chef who worked at St. John at one point.  The menu looks mouth-watering, and I can’t wait to make the trip to Houston, TX to enjoy their fare.  Thanks Elie!

Finally, my co-worker Paul notified me that offal is making a comeback over in the U.K. thanks to the economic downturn.

British chef Fergus Henderson, who had a hand in the trend back to organs when he opened his London restaurant St. John with an offal-filled menu in 1994, says taste matters — and every part of an animal can be delicious. “It was never a mission to start the offal ball rolling; it just seemed common sense, good eating,” says Henderson, whose cookbook Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking was met with rave reviews in 1999.

And with that, I’m off to buy another hog’s head!