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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...

Has it come to this? Not only are we blogging and photographing every last thought and experience for all and sundry to see, but now we feel the need to open up to the world that most accurate revealer of personality—the inside of our refrigerator. Of course, peeking inside this international smorgasbord of ice boxes brings up a host of questions about global attitudes. Pew Research Center, take note.

For instance, why no old take-out cartons filled with mouldering American food in this Chinese refrigerator? And who'dathunk you could get 7-UP in Saudi Arabia? And, rather than a few bottles of hooch, we expected the raw ingredients of some culinary delight to occupy the center shelf of honor in this French fridge. This food repository from the Ukraine, the former Soviet Union's breadbasket, features nary a loaf. This one from Italy contains Häagen-Dazs, not Gelato. And all we can say about this one is: Girl, get a grip! Ever hear of diabetes? Next time we check, we want to see a head of lettuce in there.

Should you ever motor west, you'll see that the burrito is the signature food of San Francisco. While the city is home to a number of trend-setting chefs and a wide variety of ethnic cuisine, the humble burrito is the common food that unites folks throughout the Bay Area.

With San Francisco's prolific taqueria scene and its bountiful burrito offerings, one man has made it his duty to impose some order on the carne-based chaos. Charles Hodgkins is that man. We first wrote about his site back in late 2005 and he had roughly 150 burritos reviewed on his site. Today, his review total stands at over 500 whopping slabs of tortilla-wrapped goodness.

We recommend reading his extensive FAQ for an explanation of his innovative moustache-based rating scale and the key elements behind his detailed ratings. However, we were curious about how he was bitten by the burrito bug and the site's origin story, so we posed a few questions to the salsa-slathered mind behind Burritoeater...

Hey Charles, when did you start Burritoeater? What was the impetus?

I began working on the project on New Year's Day, 2003, but the site itself didn't see the light of day until June 24, 2005. I wasn't all that into the idea of creating a website around my taqueria data until I was laid off from my job at CNET in October 2004. I was sitting around with two of my colleagues that had also been laid off, and we were discussing what our next steps would be. John's an author and was going to publish his next book; Tim's a musician and was going to finish his next record. I shrugged and said, I'll do the taqueria website. Fast forward three years later: International notoriety is now mine. Read the full profile...