Category Archives: Site News

We’ve been Blogspotted!

The House of Annie blog is very thrilled to be Blogspotted in the Malay Mail, one of the main afternoon newspapers in all of Malaysia! Welcome, and selamat datang, to all you readers who found us through that article!

Just a small correction in the article: Annie is not a doctor; she has finished her coursework and is ABD – “all but dissertation”. One day, she may decide to go back and finish her PhD but currently the only doctoring she does is to doctor recipes and our kids’ boo-boos 😉

Thank you Num, for scanning in the actual newspaper article for us.

And thank you to Sheila Rahman, the editor who interviewed us. We look forward to getting to know you new readers better. Feel free to leave comments or questions.

Cheers and Aloha,

Annie & Nate

Does My Blog Look Good In This? Compilation

Now that Tastespotting.com is gone, Even though Tastespotting is back, where do all us food porn addicts go for our fix? Sure, we can surf to our favorite sites like La Tartine Gourmande, Rasa Malaysia and Steamy Kitchen, but how about finding new sites and sources? I don’t think there was a better site than TS for compiling all the freshest, tastiest, most drool-inducing photos on the ‘Net.

I hope somebody will soon figure out how to duplicate what Tastespotting did without drawing the ire of the wrong people. Maybe there’s already a site that is already fitting the bill. If YOU know of a good site, PLEASE, leave a comment!

Until then, I’m just going to have to satisfy myself with old galleries of “Does My Blog Look Good In This?” photos. What is DMBLGIT, you ask?

Continue reading Does My Blog Look Good In This? Compilation

Menu for Hope IV

The House of Annie is participating in this year’s Menu for Hope IV, which is is an annual campaign by food bloggers to raise funds for the United Nations World Food Programme to help fight global hunger. Last year, Menu for Hope raised almost USD$63,000 in donations to support the WFP. This year, funds raised will go to a school lunch program in Lesotho (a country surrounded by South Africa) that purchases food from local farmers rather than relying on grains shipped in from overseas.

The idea for Menu for Hope is simple and fun: food bloggers around the world offer food-related prizes for raffle to raise money. Some of the amazing prizes up for raffle this year include a personal tour of the el Bulli kitchen laboratory with Ferran Adria, a private tour of Love Apple Farms plus a dinner for 2 at Manresa , an autographed copy of “Baking: From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan, a “Best of the Ferry Building” gift basket, a KitchenAid stand mixer, and a wine vacation in Napa. WOW!

In keeping with Annie’s tomato madness, House of Annie’s contribution to Menu for Hope is “The Heirloom Tomato Cookbook” by Mimi Luebbermann. The cookbook is a collection of recipes by different chefs, showcasing heirloom tomatoes from appetizer to dessert, along with wine pairing suggestions. There is also a photographic glossary of heirloom tomatoes, as well as information on cultivating them.

Of course, what good is an heirloom tomato cookbook without any heirloom tomatoes to cook with? So, IN ADDITION to the cookbook, Annie will help the winner choose seeds of 10 varieties of tomatoes out of Annie’s library of over 200 heirloom tomatoes. Annie will mail seed packets of these varieties (10-15 seeds per packet) out to the winner along with the cookbook in January.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

If the winner is in the San Francisco Bay Area, we will deliver 10 starts of heirloom tomato plants, ready for planting, in late April or early May; or they can come to the House of Annie in San Jose in late August or early September to collect a basket of ripe tomatoes from our organic garden.

So, how can you participate? First check out Chez Pim for the complete list of prizes. Make a note of the prize code for each prize you are interested in. Then go to

http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4

and click on the Give Now button. Follow the prompts for how much you’d like to give to the campaign. Specify the prize codes you would like to bid for in the “Personal Message” section of the donation form. To bid for Annie’s prize, use prize code UW24

For every USD$10 you donate, you get one raffle ticket and a chance to win a prize. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and use the prize code. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UW01 and 3 tickets for UW24. Please write 2xUW01, 3xUW24.

That’s it! The donation will be deducted from your credit card and forwarded to the World Food Programme, and the results of the raffle posted on January 9 on Chez Pim. Be sure to tell all your friends about the campaign, and good luck to all who enter!

Aloha, Nate

The Great Vanilla Bean Giveaway

Jaden over at at SteamyKitchen has a drawing going on where she is offering a half pound of vanilla beans to 8 lucky people who leave a link to a recipe containing vanilla on her blog. I have offered up my Crepes post and linked to the YouTube video of me making the crepes at home.

What’s that? You haven’t seen the video? Well, here you go!

I previously offered my Paella post for Jaden’s saffron giveaway. Unfortunately, my name was not chosen. Maybe this time (crossing fingers)!

Hey, this is fun. I’m not just blogging about food, I’m blogging for food as well! I should make a sign:

WILL BLOG FOR FOOD.

— edit Nov 8 update —
I found out that we were one of the people chosen to receive the vanilla beans!  I’m so tickled to have been chosen.  In future posts I hope to show Annie putting those vanilla beans to good use!

Aloha, Nate