Blog Day 2006

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Happy Blog Day!

Blog Day 2006 is an event that was created to help us bloggers broaden our blogging horizons. Participating bloggers from around the world are each recommending five new sites today, with the goal of spreading the word about interesting blogs that showcase cultures and subjects that are different from their own. It is an entire day dedicated to exploring new blogs.

So here are my picks for Blog Day 2006. In no particular order, these are five non-gardening blogs that I have enjoyed discovering. I hope you will find them interesting, too.

1. French Word-A-Day

OK, not quite every day, but several times a week, author Kristin Espinasse posts a French word on her blog and explains its meaning using a short story, "A Day in a French Life." She also includes a short audio clip, often featuring her kids saying a sentence, so that we can hear the correct pronunciation of the words. It is a great way to learn about the French language and culture. Merveilleux!

2. Küchenlatein

Küchenlatein is a cooking blog by Ulrike in Germany. Most of her posts are written in German, but occasionally she writes in English. I know a bit of German and I enjoy reading the posts to see how much I can remember (and to learn new words as well). I also like looking at the delicious food she makes. Sometimes there are foods or dishes that remind me of things I ate when I visited my grandfather in Germany. (I can't remember the last time I saw something cooked with currants here in the USA.)

3. Cooking Cute

Have you ever eaten a bento lunch? My husband is really interested in bento, but the recipes for this Japanese food/art form have always looked too complicated to me. They require unusual ingredients and appear to be very time-consuming. But I recently found Cooking Cute, a blog that demystifies the art of bento. It is written by a Vietnamese woman who shares recipes made with familiar ingredients and she includes links to places that sell bento supplies. At last, bento doesn't have to be complicated after all! (And we have permission to have fun with our food.)

4. Why Go

So many places to travel... so little time. I could seriously spend way to much time reading travel blogs and daydreaming about my next trip. What I like about this blog is its simplicity. Each day there is a new photo or quote that illuminates the reasons why we travel. It's a simple and uncluttered way to get a *virtual* daily travel fix. This blog is brought to us by the folks over at BootsnAll, which keeps an up-to-the-minute listing of travel blog posts. My travelin' boots are ready at all times!

5. The Blog of Henry David Thoreau

This blog is exactly what the name says it is. Each day, the blog author posts an entry from Henry David Thoreau's journals. For those who might be unfamiliar with Thoreau, he was an American author, naturalist and philosopher who was famous for writing Walden. In the book, he documented his reflections and observations as he sought to simplify his life by living alone for more than two years by Walden Pond in Massachusetts. What I enjoy so much about this blog is that I can read an entry from a particular day back in the 1800's and find that it relates to something happening today. Some things in life are timeless, and there is a comfort in knowing that.

So there you have them, my five new blog recommendations. I hope you enjoy them.

Have you discovered any interesting new blogs lately? Please share! I would love to know about them.