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Seems like everyone's a foodie these days. People stick their noses in the air and rave about organic, grain-fed asparagus and hand-picked, shade-grown chicken, all cooked in delicate fusions of seasonal sauces and paired with eclectic, flinty wines. Um, yeah.

Instead of hipster eats, we'll take some history for dinner, thanks to Janet, "the Old Foodie," who we discovered late last year. This culinary blogger has been serving up 400 words on the history of food, plus a fascinating recipe, pretty much every day for a couple years now.

Janet bypasses current trends and instead gives context to long-standing food favorites from around the world like coffee (nope, not invented by Starbucks). She even indulges us with a peek into the stranger pots of the past with recipes such as roast camel's hump (does not taste like chicken!). We popped into Janet's virtual kitchen to see what's cooking now.

Why did you start this blog?

My son nagged me to do it, that's the short answer! I have been interested in food for as long as I can remember, and in food history for almost as long. I wanted to improve my writing and to get more efficient at it, with a long-term goal of it playing a bigger part in my retirement (whenever that happens!). I decided to commit to sending little stories out every weekday to friends and family, as a writing discipline, to see if they had an appeal and to get feedback. Pretty soon, I found that my emails were being forwarded to others who I didn't know.

From the beginning my son nagged me to "blog" them. At that time I don't think I even knew what a blog was. Eventually, to get him off my back by proving it was technically beyond me, I logged onto Blogger.com... and within a few minutes had a blog! I was so amazed I decided instantly to take the risk and go public. It has been—and still is—enormous fun.  Read the full profile...

Does grocery shopping feel like just another chore? Maybe that's because today's big-box retailers and discounts stores have lost the kitschy charm of 1950s architecture and sleek 1960s modern styling.

If you miss the pre-prefab Safeways or perhaps you're lucky enough to have a vintage Luckys down the block, you may want to join David Gwynn and the legion of "groceteria" fans who swap photos and stories about charming Winn-Dixies and A&P markets.

Gwynn's site combines well-researched history with a dash of nostalgia, a small dose of irony, and a lot of love for the days before cookie-cutter strip malls overtook America. We caught up with David in between shopping trips to see what's new in the land of old stores.

When we reviewed your site way back in 2001, you were living in San Francisco and hunting down the few '60s-'70s era Safeways left in Yahoo!'s neck of the woods. Now you're in North Carolina. How does the grocery landscape compare?

Everything is a lot cheaper. And the lines are a lot shorter. And here, we have liver pudding and Cheerwine freely available in all stores.

But as far as history—which is my primary focus—goes, there are a lot fewer old stores here. In California, land is so expensive that it's often more economical to work with the same old space you're already in rather than try to build a new store. That's not the case here, though. Thus, it's really hard to find vintage stores still in operation here. But you still run across one here and there.  Read the full profile...

As a child, the Rameniac was "fairly deprived of good food." Now, this noodle-slurping enthusiast is making up for lost time: "If ramen is food for the starving college student, then I'm a career gastronomy major and the backwaters of Japan are my alma mater." But ramen's brothy delights aren't limited to the Land of the Rising Sun, and our blogger-eater emeritus is dedicated to noodle shops worldwide. Begin with the ramenologist's field guide to the 22 types of noodle styles, and then branch into reviews such as "the Rolls Royce of the Nissin Cup Noodle line" and the 9 levels of spiciness. Bring your own milk. And if you ever find yourself in a deserted corner mall in Southern California, recognize the clues and belly up to the counter. You may just find yourself slurping down one of the best bowls of ramen the Golden State has to offer.