no food no life - i am a food blog
- rosemary
- May 28
- 5 min read
Updated: May 31
"I get a lot of inspiration from eating out and after hearing me say, “I could make this at home,” for the umpteenth time, Mike, my husband, challenged me to do it." Stephanie Le
I think this was one of the first blog titles that caught my eye, although I didn't write it down in my list of potential posts, for a long time. Well it's a catchy name isn't it - i am a food blog? As is it's subtitle - no food no life. Apparently it's author, Stephanie Le, initially wanted to call it This is a food blog, but it was already taken. But she has come to prefer 'i am' - because that's the kind of person she is:
"I actually am quite fond of it as I have a tendency to personify inanimate objects, so it makes sense to me that my food blog declares that she is, in fact, a food blog."
Although there is travel as well. Although Stephanie seems to do virtually all of the cooking and the writing, photography too, her husband Mike also plays a big role - I suspect with managing the blog and designing the blog - well from a WordPress template. Nevertheless he is given first credit as author on their second cookbook That Noodle Life (2022). Her first one was Easy Gourmet, published in (2014). The website also won Saveur's Best Food Blog award in the same year.
Prior to launching this blog in 2018? she had another blog called Momofuku for 2 - begun in 2010 - which my browser won't let me access, telling me it's not secure, but you could give it a go. How did it come to be?
"My husband, Mike, gave me a copy of the Momofuku cookbook and it was the first cookbook that I actually read through. The writing (Peter Meehan co-wrote it) and David Chang's voice were a balm. Here he was, a regular dude, just doing it for himself. I loved his story, partly because his beginnings were so close to mine (Asian, "useless liberal arts degree," abiding love for noodles). I decided to cook through the book. I learned a ton about cooking, photography and blogging, but most of all, I had a lot of fun."
A pity it's inaccessible now.
They are Canadian - Mike at least is of Vietnamese descent, and Stephanie is also Asian, but I'm not sure from where. They lived in Vancouver, but the short About piece says they are currently eating and cooking in California, although whether that is permanent or just a visit I do not know. The Travel section of the blog, is mostly about places, restaurants and other food related places in Canada, and some in California.
It is indeed an attractive looking blog, although littered with all those pop up ads you see these days, and each recipe has a longish introduction, sometimes involving a story - as for the one for Vietnamese spring roll which she declared in one interview to be her favourite - mostly because of the story it told of her first meeting her husband's mother, who made them.
It's not just a story, or a piece about origins however. There are lists of ingredients, with information about them, including potential substitutes, and lots of photographs showing the process. The photographs, as you can see, are very professional. The writing is chatty in style and the emphasis is on fun and ease of process. The recipes are "inspired by her favourite restaurants, takeout meals and the contents of her fridge". The current home page, for example has recipes for teriyaki chicken, that TikTok baked feta and tomatoes, clotted cream, green chilli cheeseburger, air fryer eggs, Japanese cheesecake and the best charcuterie board. All so very much of today's Instagram, TikTok and young person's takeaway vibe, but very well done.
Three examples:
Smash gyoza - gyoza are Japanese dumplings, but here it's made less fussy, by leaving the gyoza open faced:
"Essentially they’re gyoza flavors in a new format: smash taco style. - and also open to you mucking around with the toppings you may or may not add." Stephane Le
Then you get a step by step process, followed by the list of the ingredients, photographs of the process, and in this instance a link to her recipe for Homemade gyoza - the more authentic version, where she got her inspiration for this recipe and how to eat them when you've made them. And finally an actual recipe but with more process photographs, Almost every recipe gets comments, to which she sometimes replies if needed, which sometimes give you more insight into the process.
I think I came across this one in one of her interviews, and I couldn't resist including it, because of yesterday's post on coddled and baked eggs. This is not at all the same thing, and yet it sort of is. Basically you make a hole in your slice of bread, place on top of grated cheese in melted butter, grill, remove, add more cheese, replace bread, grilled side up, break in egg and grill again. A sort of crispy baked - no grilled egg. Could be fun.
Which I also couldn't resist - well they were featured in my Mexican piece. and here I learnt a bit more about the origins of this particular type of taco. It's made with:
"pork that’s been slow roasted on a vertical spit. Vertical spits are often associated with middle eastern food and this is no exception: legend says that Lebanese immigrants brought the cooking method to Mexico, where they paired it with traditional adobada to make the genius known as al pastor." Stephanie Ley
It's actually a pretty authentic recipe - although the pork is not cooked on a vertical grill because, as she says "you probably don’t have a flame powered vertical spit at home", so not 100% authentic. But almost, although you may well not be able to try this one because of the difficulty of sourcing some of the ingredients - achiote paste and guajillo chilles? She also has lots of other taco recipes on the site.
So yes an excellent site in terms of writing, explanations, photographs and links. In some ways a lot like Recipe Tin Eats. Particularly if you like the kind of food, that dominates social media and which you can find in trendy ethnic cafés and takeaways. I think it probably deserved its award.
YEARS GONE BY
May 28
2024 - An empty week
2021 - Nothing
2020 - Deleted
2018 - Nothing
2017 - Nothing
Unlike the eggs in an earlier ramble... and by the way Ramble is a much better word to decsribe these writings than BLOG, which to my mind has overtones of vomit. Still that's an aside. Unlie thr amble on over coddled eggs, the food herein described sounds yummy!