sunday morning breakfast links, 1/31/10

Happy weekend, friends! I'm hitting post a little early today as I'm headed out to celebrate a dear friend's birthday.

I found those seasonal produce calendars that I mentioned in a previous link roundup. All via Apartment Therapy/The Kitchn:

• PDF download from The Cottage Industrialist
• From Claudia Pearson, available in poster or tea towel (swoon!!) format
• My favorite, a perpetual gardening calendar from Krank Press 

More links that caught my eye:

• The Breakaway Cook had an interesting post about how to become a good home cook. He argues that it's easier than ever to become a great cook, and also easier than ever to outsource your dinner preparations with prepackaged convenience food, which struck me as an interesting paradox. His post also dovetailed with some thoughts that have been swirling around in my head about the difference, and sometimes tension, between cooking local and cooking seasonal. I'm hoping to write more about that in this space soon.
• From a while ago, but I had no idea that Teriyaki was Seattle's culinary "thing." "Only in Seattle, however, are teriyaki restaurants so ubiquitous that they’re virtually invisible, said Knute Berger, the author of 'Pugetopolis,' a book of essays on modern Seattle mores"--I guess that's true because I hardly notice the joints. I rarely eat in them, either--though this article made me want to play around with the teriyaki concept at home. I do remember having some surprisingly tasty cabbage at a teriyaki restaurant way back in my U. District days.
• A kid's version of the Italian culinary bible Silver Spoon.  The reviewer, again from AT's The Kitchn, writes, "Why do we think it's so exceptional? First, it uses language that appeals to kids and teens ('squash the garlic,' 'bash the pesto') without talking down to the reader or getting too cutesy." Actually, why aren't more cookbooks for adults written like that?