Tazi Recommends: Go Ireland AND The Italian Blog

Dear Readers:

As I am sure you all know, this week was St. Patrick's Day; but tomorrow is another Feast Day dear to the hearts of my hometown: St. Joseph's Day! Being from a city that has both strong Irish and Italian roots, I am honoring both Feast Days today with my blog recommendations!

Normally, I prefer to recommend amateur blogs, but

The Go Ireland Blog
the featured blog of GoIreland.com
offers so many interesting and informative blogs on a variety of topics - from political to human interest - that I could not resist. Featured for St. Patrick's Day was a blog on the health benefits of Guinness, which made such a strong argument I am thinking of asking my Mommie to pour some of hers in my water dish! Another blog of interest was done as a picture blog, with a poster graphic illustrating the theme 10 Irish Inventions That Changed the World. Raise your hand if you knew the Irish created chocolate milk? The blog is an offshoot of an Ireland Tourism website, so many of the blogs are primarily related to tourism and things to do in Ireland, but they feature some great pictures and offer an interesting view into the Irish culture and history (check out Historic Sites of Dublin or the 7 Wonders of Ireland to see what I mean!). The site is categorized with a table of contents running down the right sidebar of the page, so it is easy to navigate your way around the page and find exactly what you are looking for - from Irish Culture and Irish Food and Drink (including recipes) to Irish Geneology blogs that offer tips on how to trace your Irish family tree! Even if you are not Irish, there is something on the Go Ireland blog for everyone to enjoy and explore.

If Irish food and culture is not your thing, check out

The Italian Blog
by Daniele, Lori, and Jay

The authors are REAL Italians, who are from (and still live) in Italy! The blog is (mostly) written in English, so you do not need to speak the language to enjoy this blog. The theme of the blog is Italian culture - daily living, recipes, history, and holidays - told from the point of view of your average Italian citizen.

Hailing from one of the many Little Italy regions here in the United States but not actually being Italian myself (I am American Short-Hair), I found this blog fascinating! When I saw the headline "Not Only Mafia" I thought I was going to read an article dispelling the stereotypes of Italians pictured in The Godfather and Goodfellas, so I was surprised to discover it was an informative article on a museum in Calabria that is featuring the documentation of many other criminal enterprises that go under the radar, thanks to the focus on the mafia. The museum site is in Italian, but easily translated if you have Google Chrome.

In the blog post "Sometimes You Just Need to Be Hungry" the authors give a brief but hypnotic review of a little cafe in Siena. The description paints a picture of what it is like to spend the afternoon "among culture and art", seeking to wind down with a pleasant meal. Though short, the blog gives the reader a sense of what it is like to live in Italy and participate in their culture. As a cat, I have to say I am liking the relaxed atmosphere much better than the hustle and bustle of American living!

The Italian Blog will keep you occupied as you jump from the funny little jokes they post, like the picture and translation of a humorous Help Wanted sign they saw in a village near Torino to their praise of the coffee break, an apparent universal love of humans everywhere! I would suggest that you take a coffee break right now! You know the drill: Put down that Sunday paper (so kitty-cat can nap on it), grab a mug of your favorite caffeinated brew, and check out the Go Ireland blog and The Italian Blog. Consider it your daily dose of culture. You're welcome!

Snuggles,
Tazi

Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.

Tazi Recommends: The Garden Of Eaden

Happy Sunday, Readers!

Is it just me, or is the warm weather being a tease, coming out for a few days only to turn cold again? Not that I care a paw lick about the cold - I have a nice warm fur coat - but when it gets too cold my Mommie shuts the windows and I cannot sit in them and sun myself! No matter...the nice weather is coming for good, soon, and with it Mommie's garden - the most wonderful place on earth, full of large leaf plants that are perfect for me to crawl under and hide as I watch the world go by! In the spirit go garden celebration, I am recommending a gardening blog this week! I suggest you head on over to

The Garden of Eaden
by Simon Eade of Kent, United Kingdom

Why do I suggest this blog over all of the other gardening blogs that are out there? Besides the obvious play on the author's last name? There are several reasons, ranging from pure bias for the people of Kent (my Mommie's ancestry traces back to Kent) to the credentials of Mr. Simon Eade, to the ease of navigating the page; not to mention the enxcellent web-design work.

The Garden of Eaden is a site for people who want to learn how to garden from a professional, but don't know where to begin. Simon Eade is a professional horticulturalist and gardening writer, and has been featured on several British television shows where he offers his expert gardening advice to viewers who are probably just as lost as you - if they weren't, they would be outside in the garden; not inside, watching it on the telly!

The Garden of Eaden is dedicated to "Combining good gardening practice with sound organic and environmental advice", so you will find a variety of topics from which to choose - feel free to dig in anywhere that interests you! The site offers a Blog Index that is alphabetized by category - starting with Bulbs, Corms, and Tubers and finishing up with Wildlife and the Environment (my Mommie's favorite is Medicinal Plants). Most of the categorical headings feature a blog, video, or full-color picture offering explanation or information on the overview topic, followed by a long list of blogs related to each specific topic being covered (also alphabetized), such as Are Slug Pellets Poisoning Our Wildlife? (found under Pests and Diseases) or the particularly interesting Gardening In The Arctic Circle - Greenland (found in Plant Myths, Legends, and History). Before reading this article, I know I never thought of the Arctic Circle as a good place to grow crops, although I suppose it should be the obvious choice for cold weather crops like potatoes, cabbage, and radishes.

For the armchair gardener, The Garden of Eaden offers plenty to read in the form of informative blogs and vlogs (video blogs), which offer a National Geographic feel to the site - check out Living Dinosaur Shark - The Frilled Shark to see what I mean, and you may find yourself drawn into spending the day exploring the other topics listed, as well.

For the active gardener, there are plenty of gardening tips and tutorials on how to properly seed and grow various vegetables (Gardener Eade was discussing onions on my last visit to his page, earlier this week), which is when I also learned how to grow strawberries from seed - a tutorial I will be showing my Mommie, so she can grow her own, in addition to picking her own (something I mentioned in my review of Stuff White People Like just a few weeks ago!). Some of the blogs seemed a little tame (really now, How to Grow Cucumbers from Seed? This one just seems a little too obvious, although I did learn that cucumbers originated in India and have been cultivated for over 3,000 years now, so I guess that blog serves a purpose, too).

I have some mixed emotions about the way The Garden of Eaden constantly plugs its Garden of Eaden Seed Shop, an online store where you can purchase any of the seeds that the blog is discussing. On the one hand, it is marketing brilliance to offer the seeds being discussed for convenient sale; but on the other hand, I think it might pull people who are not ready to commit to gardening into the idea that they, too, can grow their own; essentially setting people up for a rather pricey failure (gardening, while not an expensive pastime in the long-run, can be costly at the start). Well, caveat emptor, right?

Last but not least, one of my favorite features of The Garden of Eaden is that is offers recipes that feature the goodies that you have grown in your garden! Imagine making homemade tomato soup with tomatoes grown from your very own garden? Or even an old-fashioned fruit chutney (is there any other kind of chutney besides fruit?) from fruits fresh-picked form your local farm? I have to be honest....I may skip my Sunday afternoon nap today and pester my Mommie to learn how to make homemade gelato from the blueberries she is planning on growing this summer...but then, blueberry season is still a few months away, so I suppose my afternoon nap can happen after all - just as soon as you put down that Sunday newspaper so I can crawl all over it!

Snuggles,
Tazi


Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.

Tazi Recommends: Closet Cooking

Dear Readers:

Do you like to cook? If you do, do you want to come cook for my family? Seriously, I love my Mommie and she is an awesome cook, but she is at her most disorganized when she is in the kitchen! The other day, it took her half an hour to make sandwiches! It is pitiful to watch her try and pull together a meal where everything comes out of the oven and is ready to serve at the same time. Invariably, the rice gets overcooked. It's pretty sad. What is worse is that this past month, my Co-Mommie (her Mommie) has been sick, so my Mommie has been doing all the cooking!! This is what brought her to the site I am recommending today:

Closet Cooking
by Kevin from Toronto, Ontairo, Canada

Mr. Kevin could teach my Mommie a few lessons. Like her, he realized that his meals were boring and uninspired; so I am guessing that he decided to actually open one of the one gazillion and five cookbooks that he probably already owned but never touched and share the recipes he finds on his blog, Closet Cooking. (For the record, my Mommie actually has one gazillion and five cookbooks that she never opens - I have counted them all!).

Now, I realize what the blog name implies, but that is actually misleading. Mr. Kevin is not a closet cook, nor does he cook in the closet or cook closets. Closet Cooking is a reference to the size of his kitchen - apparently, it is pretty tiny, so he does not have room to transform the place into Rachel Ray's studio or the Paula Deen Store. For this reason, all the recipes featured on Closet Cooking can be made with minimal kitchen equipment - there is no need to go out and buy a stand mixer or a dutch oven in order to prepare these recipes!

The great thing about Closet Cooking is that it has recipes that everyone will enjoy, from picky kids to the gourmand in your life. Are your cooking skills limited to making grilled cheese? This site offers several grilled cheese recipes, including a jalapeno popper grilled cheese sandwich, a spinach-pesto grilled cheese sandwich, and my personal favorite, a buffalo chicken grilled cheese sandwich. For those with more sophisticated palates, Closet Cooking offers recipes like double-smoked, bacon-wrapped filet mignon and tilapia piccata. If breakfast and brunch are more your speed, you can impress your guests with an easy appetizer of cucumber and feta rolls followed by a main course of raspberry and Nutella crepes (or apple pie French toast if you want something heavier), and finish off with individual pots of orange chocolate mousse.

What I like best about Closet Cooking is that each recipe comes with easy to follow instructions and ingredient lists, as well as full-color pictures of every recipe; so there is no guess-work involved on your part. What you see is what you get! Plus, each recipe gives an estimate of the prep time, cooking time, and total time in the kitchen; so you know what you are getting into before you start cooking. There is also a Google search feature on the site, so you can type in a keyword (like "chicken") and page after page of recipes that match your search word will appear like magic - complete with thumbnail pictures of the completed recipe.

I would recommend Closet Cooking for anyone who likes cooking - or would like to learn how to cook - but does not have the kitchen of Martha Stewart. Many of the recipes featured can be done as a family project, with little hands handling the less demanding tasks of stirring, rolling, and layering; while larger but still inexperienced hands can cover the duties of peeling, slicing, and chopping while the main cook handles the job duties of pulling everything together.

All this talk of food has made me hungry, so I am off to have a snack and a post-snack nap on top of the newspaper (of course). Enjoy your Sunday, dear Readers!

Snuggles,
Tazi


Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.