It's cold outside. And that means that it's cold inside, since this Potrero Hill apartment with the lovely view is magically able to concentrate the weather outside and -- I don't know how, but I swear it's true -- actually intensify the temperature inside. When it's warm outside, it's blazing inside; when it's cold, this apartment is frigid. I suspect our landlord, annoyed that he's not making more on our place (ten years, thank you rent control!), has deployed some voodoo. But he'll have to kick us out, or pay us off (Are you reading this? We'll take cash.) -- because we can't afford anywhere else in this city.

The main point is that it's cold outside (secondary point: SF housing market sucks), and it's cold in my heart and in my hands, and so I turn to food bloggers for a little inspiration. The truth: I got nothing. No inspiration. No fabulous food finds this week. Nothing to share.

Luckily, inspiration roosts anywhere it can. Like chickens (see below). And others have it in abundance. Well, some others. Not all. It's been a slow week out there in general.


Chickens rooting through trash in Rio. Only marginally related to anything in this post.

Kevin from Bacon Press has so much inspiration, he started a new blog. (Thanks to A Full Belly for the tip!) Called Dive, it delves deep into "all about the places our mothers warned us about." Dive deals in dives, and so you'll find no eat-local, eat-organic, hear-the-angels singing. This week, Kevin goes to Allstar Donuts and New Lun Ting Cafe. References to drunken munchies, canned corn, and Jello ensue. If Kevin keeps this up, he'll be crowned the next Nick Denton or perhaps L.E. Leone.

The Independent Food Festival Awards have been taking up a lot of food blogger bandwidth, with Becks & Posh, Gastronome, I Heart Bacon, and our very own eggbeater and Cooking with Amy, among many others, all weighing in. There's a lot of eating to be done in the year ahead. Does anything stay secret anymore? Do we have any private pleasures that we don't blog about? Food pleasures, that is.

So, elsewhere in the blogosphere, it's been a slow week. Why has In Praise of Sardines not been updated since last Saturday? Pim appears to have moved to Santa Cruz, and perhaps that has slowed her down. The Restaurant Whore blames her slow posting on Disneyland -- but the truth is she's been busy with her show.

Someone who does seem to be keeping to a schedule is Tablehopper, a new weekly email newsletter by Marcia Gagliardi. She posts the newsletter on her blog, and offers free restaurant recommendations -- you fill out a form and she'll email you, apparently. The past two weeks' worth of newsletters have offered a combination of Bay Area food news and reviews -- Couleur Cafe, the new-ish venture from Potrero Hill's restaurant mafia helmed by Jocelyn Bulow (Chez Maman, Chez Papa, Baraka), gets props, as does Bar Crudo. Marcia is upfront about the fact that her reviews aren't anonymous, a rather controversial stance in the food reviewing world. In response, she says "if you have a problem with my non-anonymous perspective, then don't read my newsletter. 'Nuff said." OK then. You decide.

That's all. I'm going back to bed, where it's warm.