Written by Jenny of Purple House Dirt.

Think that Ireland's just a land of potatoes? You'd be wrong about that. Over the last decade, Ireland saw an influx of cash and cultures (owing to its great economy, which is sadly no more), and along with the changes came a new approach to Irish cooking. On a recent trip to the Isle, I managed to squeeze in some fantastic food experiences that I didn't even know Ireland had.

In Dublin, we visited all of the typical tourist spots - Grafton Street, the Temple Bar, and the Guinness Factory - but one of the best meals we had there was at a little restaurant called the Winding Stair. In many ways, it was the best introduction to Ireland. Listed in the Good Food Guide (which is similar to the Slow Food Guides available in many countries), this tiny spot looking over the River Liffey was in fact at the top of a winding stair.

Written by Stephanie of Sustainable Cooking for One.

We’ve all heard that “the private is public”. But, have you ever heard the phrase used about the food we eat and the way it is regulated? As least as much as politicized topics like women’s rights, food is always crossing the borders between the private and the public spheres. While we often engage with it in the private sphere (the home, the mouth, the tummy) here on Daring Kitchen and our own individual blogs, I would bet lunch that fewer of us engage as actively with the public spheres, particularly the regulatory arena. My challenge to you, dear blog readers: comment on the mother of all governmental* blogs!

Written by Amanda of The Buttery Bean Counter.
I have been coddled for most of my life. I don’t mean that I came from a super-privileged background, or that my parents walked me around wearing pillow-armour; I mean that, up until the age of twenty-two, I was time-rich, free to do as I please without the worry that there wasn’t enough time in the day to get it all done. Even during rigorous university crunches, there was still enough time to make some food and take a break every once in a while.

In October 2010, I started work as an auditor for a very large company; the implication of this (among other things) is that during the months of January to June, I am a slave to “busy season”. The hours during busy season are consistently almost unmanageable, the chairs uncomfortable and the clients irritable..

Photos & Written by Elina of Sugar Symphony

It is somewhat fascinating how the same place can mean and be two almost completely different things just over a relatively short period of time.

PARIS. I suppose that for every person who has or has not been there, the city means something else – it can be romantic, fun, inspirational, fashion-filled, business-busy as well as a hundred other things. The first time I went there two years ago it was my first trip to the "old" Europe, thus being the diligent tourists that I and my friends were, it meant that we took on the task to try and see everything a tourist guide prescribes to see and we tried to do it in a week. It all came down to a week where in our youth optimism we left the holiday apartment at 9am and came home after mid-night for seven straight days in a row and during the day so as not to miss anything possibly worth seeing, we walked almost everywhere. This meant that by the time we went back home I felt as exhausted as I had never ever felt in life because we literally had walked a few hundreds of kilometers over the week.

I enjoyed every single minute of this trip, however at that time the magical world of baking had not yet been revealed to me. I still had no clue what a macaron or madeleine is. I had no idea who Pierre Herme or Lauduree are. So as it was very, very hot when we were there, we basically lived on ice-cream. That I can say tasted more than great and I had the chance to try flavors like fig and lavender.

Since that time I have tried my hand at baking macarons, tiramisu, maple mousse, crème brulee and have had numerous other experiments in the kitchen. I have found the magic that happens when one combines flour, eggs, a pinch of imagination and a handful of heart.

Written by Jamie of Life's a Feast.

Mention France to anyone outside of the country and Paris will immediately jump to mind: the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, her panoply of restaurants, the Mona Lisa and Romance with a capital R. Or Provence with her fields of fragrant lavender, her quaint villages and her rich, vivacious garlic-kissed Mediterranean cuisine. Short on time and dollars, few tourists venture outside of these well known, well-trod vacation spots. But France is a network of wonderful cities all connected by the greatest train system in the world, and each city, town or village offers some hidden beauty, a wonderful mystery and a fabulous story.

Written by Natalie of Gluten a go go.

My kitchen has become a coveted rodent party palace. Who would’ve thought I’d need to keep mouse traps going year round? Or scour my pantry for signs of mini mammal nocturnal visitations every morning? If I have to purge my pantry and sanitize it one more time, I swear I’ll give into some primal scream therapy…oh, wait…I did that already.

Guess what made me so popular amongst the local rodentia? It isn’t my little garden, not my dog’s big bag of lamb kibble and not my bags of various types of sugars. No, it’s all because we had to go gluten free. Huh?! What has that got to do with anything you ask? Well, it’s all because of the grains I collected; sorghum, millet, amaranth and quinoa. Not to mention the buckwheat, corn, rice and sweet potato.

Have you ever been to a pizzeria and seen the person at the counter working the pizza dough? They knead the dough a little with their hands next they stretch it out and then flip the dough up in the air and let it spin a little, stretching out the disc of dough. Gluten is what holds the dough together as it is worked and spun in the air.
Pizza is problematic for the person with celiac disease, gluten sensitivity or intolerance and certain grain allergies. Since these people can’t tolerate gluten or wheat, they will need to find another way to hold their baked goods together, rather than gluten, as well as finding other flours to use.