re: food

I've found this delicious blog, not sure why, but I imagine it was linked through some book blog I read, since her second book is coming out soon.
Why has it not occurred to me before now to seek out French blogs? I'm sure it will improve my French (which is decent), my culinary skills, and provide yet another thing to do at work when we have nothing else to do.
In any event, I'm particularly excited about making my own dried pineapple. In addition, I feel a sudden urge to buy garlic (which I've never purchased), ramekins, and to teleport my mother's unused ice cream maker from CT. I'm also craving gianduja. If there is a better combination than chocolate and hazelnut, I'd like to hear it.
I almost never buy corn because corn has always been such a massive undertaking in my family. Shucking and boiling and finding those little corn holders. Quel cauchemar! But I found the simplest thing in the world. Roasting corn. Just preheat the oven and stick your ear(s) of corn in, still in their husks, and it comes out brilliantly. You can peel off the husk and use that as you eat. It's amazing. I don't need butter or salt, so it's even easier.
I'm running low on my Avila Valley Farm pumpkin bread and am mildly devastated.
I tried the Studio Yogurt the other day and was stunned at the sheer ginormity of a small. I got the chocolate cheesecake, which I believe had some sugar alternative in it (which I'm against), but it only made it a little bitter. I wanted a little peanut butter cup to cut the mound of froyo, but did not realize when the scooper (salesman? what do I call him) said it had to be on the side that he would then fill a separate cup with crushed peanut butter cups and charge me a dollar. This is how "toppings" apparently work. So be aware.
I bought the boxed Campbell Tomato Parmesan Bisque. It's got great flavor, but I need to check the ingredients. I'm not sure what the lumps are. Some of it's clearly the cheese, but I think there must be some onion, though I didn't read any on their site. How I loathe onion.
I don't know that I'll ever become a soup person (my mother could bake, but stews and soups were not her strong suit), but I do like bisque--and anything's a good excuse to buy oyster crackers.
I really want to buy some excellent chocolate.

Oh, and one more thing about Shell Beach. Ocean Avenue, aptly named, as some incredible houses, including one that has its own greenhouse, piazza-like yard and pool, and, amazingly, a windmill. I want this house. But I'm terribly concerned about cliff erosion. This is the great "location" quandary of our time. Do you buy a gorgeous place near the ocean, a dream home in every sense, that could at any moment plunge to its doom from crumbling cliffs, be swept away by a mudslide, or be yanked into the ocean by rising floodwaters? Is the dream worth a likely nightmare?
Luckily, I'm not wealthy enough to be burdened by such a problem.