Home Improvements

Just like any project, The Avid Appetite is a constantly evolving, living organism. With it, I hope to not only wet your appetite with tales of seriously fabulous eats, but to make this an interactive place for fellow foodies that's easy to navigate. So I'm happy to introduce some improvements around here that I hope will make your experience a great one. Since I'm a one woman show, updates will be gradual, however, I'm pleased to show off the first order of business...to easily find what you're looking for. TAA features two ways to navigate the site. The top navigation...

And the side navigation...

Recipes

Check out the top navigation bar and the side bar. Click on Recipes. Previously, you would have been brought to an unhelpful, full length journal of recipe articles. But now, when you click on Recipes, you'll get a full list of links, sorted by topic. So when you want to find out how to make fig jam, pizza dip, or even Thanksgiving turkey, just check out the Recipes tab for easy finding.

Restaurant Roundups

One of the perks of living near Manhattan is the abundance of restaurant options at my proverbial finger tips. Now you can easily find restaurant reviews, sorted by category. Looking for a serious slice of pizza? Itching to find out about Baba Booey's Crumbs cupcake (and what's a Baba Booey, anyway?)? Find it all here.

Travel

In addition to food, one of my favorite pasttimes is traveling the world and yes, sampling local goods. Now, you can easily find travel destinations with food wrap ups just by clicking on Travel in the top navigation bar and Around the World on the side navigation. Curious about fried cheese sandwiches and beer in Prague? Not sure how to do breakfast in Aruba? I hope to keep adding to this section specifically, so stay tuned!

Sneak peek: Coming soon, TAA will be requesting reader submissions! Whether food photos, reviews, questions, tales from the road, or anything else food related, TAA wants to hear from you!

One Avid Appetite

There's something you should know about me. I have a major crush on food and everything about it. You might even say I’m a little bit of an addict, though not in the traditional sense as my new found obsession isn’t just about stuffing my proverbial piehole. It stretches from learning about new foods in and out of my own tiny apartment kitchen, how the stuff’s prepared, and where it hails from to honing my own (albeit inexperienced) culinary skills, and alright…ultimately eating the goods.

Here's how it all started...
I grew up in a house where my mom always cooked, entertained and was essentially a domestic goddess. Though I had no desire whatsoever to learn to cook, after getting married a year and a half ago, I vowed to be the ultimately awesome wife who knew how to cook and who would watch football for hours on end. While I mastered the football obsession without a hitch, cooking, on the other hand, was a bit more of a challenge (being as I had never done it before). I gravitated toward the stove, opened my many cookbooks and just learned by doing...and watching many, many hours of Food Network. And then I figured, why not share my adventures (and misadventures) in cooking and eating with all of you? And so, The Avid Appetite was born. The bottom line is that I’m not a trained chef or even a very experienced foodie or cook for that matter, but I’m a firm believer that if I can do it, so can you…and who knows? You may even develop a food addiction just like me.

A Shared Love...
Shaun and I dated for 8 years before getting married in the summer of 2008, though it wasn't until after we got married that we realized we shared something major in common: that we both love food - making it, testing out various restaurants, and of course, eating lots and lots of it. Fueling the fire to this food crush, Shaun and I live in Jersey City - a sweet jumping off point to New York City, one of the major culinary hubs of the world. And we haven't wasted a moment testing out fun and famous restaurants around the city. On any given weekend, you can find us eating pastrami sandwiches, standing on a longer-than-necessary line at Shake Shack (yep, that was Valentine's Day 2009), hunting down local food festivals and traveling the world exploring local cuisine. 

And so...
All of that being said, I really hope that you'll drop in and read about my culinary adventures, in and out of the kitchen. If you're following me over from It Happened Between Jersey City & Manhattan, I hope you like the new direction (and thanks for the support!). And as a side note, all of the content has followed me over as well, which you can access in The Pantry archives on the sidebar so for those of you who are just not down with change (like me), you will still see remnants of the old site, just with a prettier layout to frame them. Oh, you'll also notice that on the top nav bar, we've got links to Recipes and Reviews for your easy access. I've got lots of tricks up my proverbial sleeve, so I hope you'll keep coming back for more. For some info about the site, check out the About and FAQ pages, and of course if you have any comments or questions, drop me a line in comments or send me a direct email. Welcome to my new site...it's going to be a delicious ride!

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