I feel a bit like a proud parent when I announce that last week was Boots in the Oven's fifth birthday. And like a doting parent, I hope you'll indulge me while I babble for a little while about our precious little snowflake (blogflake?).
As a blogiversary (sorry, had to do it) gift, we offer you a list of our very favorite posts from the last five years. These were either fun to write, or are fun to relive, or get a fair amount of traffic and sometimes rather awkward questions.
Logan learns to cook curry... and cockscombs during his year of culinary school at Apicius in Florence. (All Apicius posts can be found here.)
It takes us mere moments to fall in love with our neighborhood in Florence, with its constant street festivals, wonderful restaurants, and all around walkability. That is, unless you're drunk and trying to mount a moving carousel in the rain. (All of our Florence posts are here.)
We quickly learn that one of Florence's greatest assets was its proximity to... the rest of Italy! Friends and family visit, and we take off to Switzerland to eat fondue, or to the Cinque Terre for a little light hiking and drinking wine out of pitchers, or to Anzio to see where my great-uncle fought during World War 2.
But the best of all of these was our trip to Naples to eat our weight in pizza during Pizzafest 2006. A Chinese television crew interviews us! People cut in line... while riding scooters!
As a graduation gift after Logan finishes his year at Apicius, we go to the Fat Duck. I'll let Logan's review speak for itself.
We completely blow our faces off with the spiciest food we've ever eaten while passing through Kanchanaburi, Thailand, as a nice Thai man croons Beatles favorites phonetically in the background. Mee-shell, mai bel, sonday monkey votray ben ensahm...
This is also a notable post for the instructions on how to use the toilet at the VN guesthouse. (The rest of the posts about our trip to Southeast Asia in June 2007 can be found in backwards chronological order here.)
In Saigon, Logan eats a giant palm worm, which I can't quite bring myself to do, but I do eat a fetal duck egg after a visit to the Reunification Palace and the horrific War Remnants Museum. (The other Vietnam posts can be found with the Thai posts I just linked to.)
We visit, to date, the most amazing fish market we've ever seen in Catania, Sicily, and eat tiny raw marinated shrimp and anchovies served with freaking wild strawberries, of all things. We also meet a Sicilian cat that loves pasta (no surprise there, I guess) and visit a Roman theater made out of volcanic rock from nearby Etna. (All of the posts from our one-month trip through Sicily and southern Italy are here.)
We spend an unfortunately short time visiting Luxor and Karnak on our week-long Egypt trip, making special note of the Luxor McDonald's, sailing a boat briefly down the actual honest-to-goodness Nile and getting our camera briefly confiscated in the tomb of Rameses IV. Man, we're bad at bribing people. (Here are all the posts from our trip to Egypt in October 2006.)
And then, back to reality in Austin, Texas, home to one of the best and most famous hipster festivals in the country, South by Southwest. Logan takes his camera downtown and captures the tragically awesome in their natural habitat.
We're lucky enough to start getting invited to some really wonderful restaurants for blogging events, and we're only too happy to take the nice people up on their offers. We really like Uchi, FINO, Trio, and all sorts of restaurants whose names end in a vowel and have two syllables.
At these events, we meet a supportive, friendly group of local food bloggers and make some really good friends. There are potlucks and parties and get togethers and fun times that make us happy to be Austinites once again. (These are Fete and Feast's caprese gougeres.)
But just because we're Texans now doesn't mean we've stopped traveling. We're invited to take a trip to San Francisco, where Logan teaches a few culinary classes and we eat a very large amount of very good oysters.
AND Logan gets a job in Hawaii, where I tag along for a couple of weeks! I think Tokkuri-Tei might now hold the title of my favorite restaurant in the WORLD. No, really. How can I get them to move to Texas?
For now, though, Boots and Logan and I are really happy in Austin. These last five years have, by and large, been absolutely fantastic for the three of us - well, five, if you count the cats. Now it's time for the excitement of figuring out what the next five years will bring. I'm pushing for space tourism, but we'll see where that goes.
Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting and emailing and sticking with us through the years we've been blogging!
