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There are many reasons why we love French Laundry at Home. The blog is bold in its endeavor (to make every recipe in "The French Laundry Cookbook"). It's enamored of its subject (cuisine, cooking, and chowing down). And it vividly translates the joie de vivre of the kitchen to the webpage.

Carol, the tour de force behind the site, also has the humor and the moxie to respond to stove-side emergencies with flair. Check out this line from a January entry where things threaten to go awry: "I felt the presence of MacGyver enter my soul, and I flung (flang? flinged?) open the door of the corner cabinet in my dining room to see what I might be able to use." Naturally, the culinary secret-agent saves the day. We leave it to you to find out how.

Why did this passionate home cook (and full-time business woman) start the site—and has she heard yet from Thomas Keller, the legendary chef/owner of The French Laundry? We wrote her to find out...

Hey Carol! You have several great posts explaining why you embarked on this project. Was the blog always a part of your idea of the endeavor? Have you blogged before?

I'd helped clients and others set up blogs but hadn't really done one of my own. I knew if I did a blog, it would have to be interesting not only for readers, but for me. I didn't want to start something I couldn't keep doing, or would lose interest in.

I think blogging is a great way to tell the "story" of what I'm doing with "The French Laundry Cookbook." I love the interactivity and the feedback. It's so much fun to hear from readers who've tried some of these dishes, and it's heart-warming to hear from people who are now buying the book and making the food because they've seen that someone out there is doing it and they want to be more adventurous in the kitchen, too. That's freakin' awesome. Read the full profile...

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...

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.