Connections through Food and the Liebster Awards

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart. ”
~ Helen Keller

My day today started out in the most uncanny manner. At the very same moment that I posted my Rosemary Bread (my planned post for today), Saucy Girl’s Kitchen posted the very same recipe. I know that it occurred at approximately the same time because her automated twitter post happened at the SAME time my automated twitter post went out. I just happened to log into twitter this morning. I have been neglecting my twitter account because I can’t SEE the food, but something told me to get on twitter this morning.

So right then I knew it was going to be a special day of connections through food.

And today turned out to be even more amazing than I could have ever imagined!

Today, while I was working through some documentation updates with our engineers, Karie, one of my very sweet friends featured my appetizer in her article and THEN two of my dear friends have presented me a very special award!

The Liebster Award

This award is called the Liebster Blog award … which in German means……Liebster (n.) beloved, dear, dearest, love!

Cooking with Mel

Mel was the first to send me this award and her sweet words had me in tears. Mel is a dear foodie friend … we are definitely kindred spirits. I love her posts and her friendship. She is just the dearest person you would ever meet! This is what she said about me:

“The name says it all, right? I feel like Ann needs no explanation, but I’ll give one anyway {because let’s be honest, I never turn away a moment to talk or type}. Ann says she’s an engineer and not a chef? I always roll my eyes at that. She may be a classically trained engineer, but her food is always amazing.  I guess her classical skills really help her engineer delicious looking pictures and wonderful recipes. I mean, go check out her website right now. I almost fell over earlier when I saw that Rosemary Rustic Bread. Seriously. I almost fell off the bar stool. She’s so lovely and I feel so blessed to know her!”

Mel, I feel so blessed to know YOU! And did you know my first cat was named Pippi? So I think it’s so funny that you have a puppy named Pippy!

Bia at Rich and Sweet

Bia was the second one I received this reward from and I love what she says because I feel EXACTLY the same way: “deep in my heart i wish we lived in the same neighborhood and could hang out together every night, enjoying our friendship, good food and good wine! But that’s a dream… and sometimes dreams do come true!!!”

Bia chose me because: “Ann from Sumptuous Spoonfuls, because we think alike, we could hang out in a kitchen all day and knowing what the menu would be, there would be no problems!”

And she’s right! We totally could! Bia I do really wish we could live like your dream! Somehow, someday we will. Perhaps we won’t actually live by each other, but we could at least spend a few days together each year, couldn’t we? Oh my gosh we would eat well.

The Rules

So with this award there are some rules… First you should thank the person(s) that gave you the award. THANK YOU MEL! THANK YOU Bia! I love you both!

And then you must pass the award on to 5 other blogs you love.

That’s the hard part. Choosing just 5.

First of all, although I really DO want to give all of them this award, I don’t want to duplicate any of the sweet people that Mel and Bia already awarded. It seems to me like the point of this award is to SHARE the love, right?

So what I am asking you to do first, dear reader friend, is go visit Mel and Bia and follow every one of the people they mentioned because they are ALL golden in my book. (click on their names to get to their award posts) Have you done that? Well, have you at least bookmarked those pages so you will return?

Okay, then you may proceed …

The AWARDS!

(In no particular order …)

I have never met any of the people below in person, yet I am proud to call them my dear friends and I love them with all of my heart.

Zestuous

This is how she summarizes her page: “Good food from a well-travelled Army wife”. I spent quite a long time working with military people and I have a fondness for them in my heart. I was immediately captured by her beautiful photographs, but in Zestuous I also found an amazing friend. I know when I see something from Zestuous, it is going to be good. Once she asked what “Zestous” meant to us, and I don’t exactly recall my response, but I remember saying that to me, Zestuous means HER, the wonderful person that shares all these fantastic recipes with us every day. I will just call her “Zestuous” here because the name suits her well, and if you visit her blog, you will most definitely find something you LOVE. I could spend all day on her site and never tire of it. A few things to tempt you: Chopotoes ~ Twice Baked Chorizo Potatoes with a Tomato-Sour Cream Aioli, Flourless Chocolate Cake with Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce, and Brown Sugar-Chili Bacon.

A Little Bit Crunchy A Little Bit Rock and Roll

Crunchy, as I like to call her, is a unique and beautiful soul. Obviously music is important to her and she weaves in references to music in bits and pieces throughout her site. She is a vegetarian, so I essentially LOVE her food. I eat meat, but only occasionally. While  people attempt to skip meat on Meatless Mondays, I tend to find myself eating meat ONLY on Mondays. And Crunchy loves Micro-brews! Hello! We are definitely food sisters. When I made her Italian Bread Soup and my post on it got featured on another blog, I was horrified. I felt like it should have been Crunchy’s soup featured there! But she wasn’t worried and said simply that “recipes are meant to be shared”–and she is right. That is what we food bloggers live for, right? To have someone make a recipe of ours makes our heart sing. (At least it does for me!) Crunchy’s cooking is both healthy and decadent. I am terribly excited about her Grilled Salad Pizza and the  Provolone White Bean Grilled Panini.

Food College, PA

Day is a sweetheart with a very mixed repertoire of food. A comment or post from Day always brings a smile to my face. She is the kind of person you can’t help but smile when you think of her. She has  lived in Venezuela, USA, Germany and Mexico, so she has experienced a lot of different cultural cuisines and you can tell that in her posts. She has introduced me to so many foods I never knew existed! I mean she posts German, Indian, Italian, Russian, Thai, Japanese, you could almost pick a country and bet that Day has created something from there. Day shares dishes like Tequeños (Venezuelan cheese sticks), Cajun chicken wraps with mango salsa and plantain chips, and Homemade shrimp and cheese ravioli in garlic sauce.

Journey Kitchen

Kulsum is an amazing cook and artist and she takes phenomenal pictures! She has a big heart and is such a pleasant person to talk to. She sees the world through very special views–seen through her eyes, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Every single post of hers is a work of art. I really love her posts because they are a mix of Indian and other cuisine. You will Indian dishes like Karahi Chicken – Chicken Curry in Red Gravy with Green Bell Peppers, and then things you might not expect like Blackberry Frozen Yogurt and Nutella Hazelnut Ice cream. I promise you a trip to Journey Kitchen will be most memorable and you will NOT want to leave. Except maybe to go on a virtual tour of her home town.

Pass the Sushi

When I first “met” Kita on facebook, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be her friend because sushi is one of the few foods I just do NOT like. But it didn’t take me long to get past that with all the wonderful different kinds of food that she shares! Kita and I have things in common and things that just do not jive–like the fact that I hate sushi and she hates cilantro. No, not cilantro! I LOOOOVE cilantro! But there are quite a few things we CAN agree on, like her Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies (oh my!), her Godiva martini (yes please!) and how she breaks the rules with Macaroni and Cheese.

I want to end with a quote from Simple Fare, Fairly Simple. One of my other good foodie friends and I think it is SO true. You cannot feel lonely when you are cooking, even if you are just cooking for yourself. Cooking in itself is sharing.

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present and the wisdom of cookbook writers.”
~ Laurie Colwin

This is part of my series of 31 Days of Warmer Connections. Every day in October, I am blogging about connections through food.