My Seven Links

I hope everyone enjoyed your weekend.  On Saturday, my family went Felton, California to ride Thomas the Tank Engine train.  Compared to other boys, I think my son’s “train” stage was relatively short.  Soon after turning two he had already shift his interest to airplanes and spaceships.  However he enjoyed meeting the real life Thomas and the train ride in the beautiful Santa Cruz forest.  We then went to the beach in Santa Cruz to spend the afternoon, and the children were digging sand most of the time.  We’ve been having a pretty cool summer in SF area so far, so it was nice to be able to enjoy being outdoors and the sun.  On Sunday, we went to IKEA and bought a bunch of things to organize the house and spent the entire afternoon and evening re-organizing the house.  My back hurts a bit but we’re happy with our new arrangement (I’m famous for rearranging the furniture every 6 months).

Last week I was nominated by Heidi of Food Doodles to take part in the Seven Link Challenge that’s been going around in the blogosphere.  Since my Facebook fans reached 600 recently (THANK YOU!), I thought it might be a nice way to introduce my website to share some of my older posts to those of you who started to follow my site recently.  The purpose of this challenge is to unite bloggers from all over to share their old and forgotten posts that deserves recognition.  The Rules are 1) Blogger who is nominated must publish his/her 7 links of his/her own blog for the categories below (1 link for each category).  2) Blogger then nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part, and it goes on. So here we go, these are my 7 links!

1. The most beautiful post:

I remember Bouillabaisse (French Seafood Stew) picture was taken in my living room right before 6 pm dinner time.  My living room has a high ceiling and we get quite a bit of light.  I placed “fake” table right next to the window which is facing the big wide canyon (yeah I live next to a canyon, we get to see deers, rabbit, and unfortunately rattlesnakes as well).  This was in April and we just started to have nice sunny weather after continuous rainy days.  It was meant to be a food photography day.  As soon as I finish cooking this dish, I ran to the fake table and placed the dish.  I asked my brother-in-law who was visiting for dinner to hold a reflector for me (I was using a aluminum sun shield for cars).  Thanks to him, I could create this pretty bright picture with beautiful natural light.  This picture has been featured on Food Porn Daily, and I can proudly say this is one of my beautiful posts.

2. The most popular post:

I’m sort of surprise that Crème Caramel (Purin) post was one of my more popular posts according to Google.  If you have been following me, you know that I don’t bake or make dessert like the majority of food bloggers.  It’s kind of ironic, or it means I should be baking more.  Anyhow, a lot of people Google “purin” and came to my site and a lot of you clicked and open to read because you have sweet tooth like me!  Purin is a popular Japanese dessert and I hope you give it a try.

3. The most controversial post:

I don’t think I have any post that was controversial… Did I??

4. The most helpful post:

I am hoping that you agree with me when I say this was the most helpful post.  Tonkatsu is very popular Japanese dish.  I don’t think there are not too many Tonkatsu recipes written in English, especially not explained in detail so users are comfortable with the instructions.  I put a lot of step-by-step pictures to prove that it’s not that hard to cook.  You just need to know a few pointers and practice deep frying at the right temperature.  I am working on a recipe right now which could be even more helpful… so stay tuned.  I bet you all like this recipe!

5. The post that was surprisingly successful:

I didn’t expect Unagi Chazuke to make Foodbuzz Top 9.  I mean, when I look at this picture again, I’m really, really surprised that this made it to Top 9.  The photo is dark and yellowish….isn’t it?  I took this picture on the dining table in the formal dining room.  We have this yellowish light (you know lights look like pillar candle) hanging from the ceiling.  I knew very little about food photography back then and every day I was taking the food pictures on this dining table.  You will see all my pictures are “yellowish” during the first two months of this blog.  I thought it was some sort of mistake by Foodbuzz to choose my picture, but guess what, even Tastespotting accepted it.  That’s why this post was a very surprising one to me…

6. The post that did not get the attention it deserved:

I  posted a lot of quick and easy recipes on my blog, but Teba Shio (Salted Chicken Wings) is one of my go-to recipes for an appetizer when we have guests.  They are always popular among my friends and guests.  It’s easy, quick, and yummy, and a lot of people enjoyed this recipe throughout years.  So I want to get your attention to this post again thanks to this Seven Link Challenge.

I actually thought I could share more of my old posts for this challenge, but unfortunately it looks like only #5 and #6 are applicable to the categories.  If you are curious what I’ve cooked for the last 7 months, please click my Food Gallery for a quick recipe tour on my blog.  Now let’s move on to the final category…

7. The post I am most proud of:

Since January this year, I’ve been taking thousands of pictures of food.  For every food I prepared, I take over 100 pictures (including step-by-step photos).  Among all these photos, I think this Spring Rolls with Sesame Ponzu Vinaigrette post was the most beautiful one.  My family and I love these spring rolls and I also cooked this when my mom was visiting us last month.  She absolutely loved it.  I especially like how this picture turned out.  It has nice colors…and I just love the feeling of this photo.  I’m not very good with food styling so I am studying everyday by visiting many food blogs to get new inspirations.  I hope to create more of these pictures.

Now I’m passing this Seven Link Challenge to… all the male food bloggers!  I think they deserve the special attention.  Majority of food bloggers are female but there are wonderful male food bloggers out there who need to be recognized.  Here are 6 food bloggers that I have been visiting (in alphabetical order).  I know I am bending the rules since I’m only supposed to pick just 5.

1. Ciopan and My Sauce Pan @ Chopin And My Saucepan

2. Jeff @ Jeff’s Plate

3. Mr. Three-Cookies @ Three-Cookies

4. Paolo @ Quatro Fromaggio

5. Ray @ Wok with Ray

6. Raymund @ Ang Sarap

I hope you will take this challenge and show us what you got.  It’s going to be interesting!  Good luck!