Name: Isabelle Boucher
Blog name and URL: Crumb: A Food Blog (http://www.crumbblog.com)
Where were you born? Montreal
Where are you living now? Toronto
How did you decide on your blog name? My original blog name was Good Food, Good Wine and a Bad Girl, which I borrowed from one of my favourite quotes by Ogden Nash. I felt like I’d outgrown that name when I moved over to my own domain, though, so I started looking around for a short, catchy sort of name. “Crumb” came up in a conversation with a friend, and it just kind of stuck… especially when I found out the domain was available!
What do you blog about? I tend to write about whatever I happen to be cooking in my own kitchen at that moment in time.
It’s definitely a reflection of my personal food philosophy… I’m a big fan of seasonal foods and unprocessed ingredients, so most of my recipes are inspired by seasonal flavours and made from scratch. I guess if I had to label it, I’d call it “modern home cooking”.
What post are you most proud of and why? My favourite is one of my posts for the Foodbuzz Project Food Blog Challenge, where I packed up a Brazilian-inspired meal to share with my grandmother at her nursing home.
My grandmother cooked most of the meals at home when I was growing up, and taught me almost everything I know about being a good cook. It was nice to be able to turn the tables after all those years and feed her a great home-cooked meal.
Which post do you wish received more love and why? I wish my Butternut Squash Casserole had gotten a little more love – it did get a little traffic back when I first published it, but it didn’t get that second life on Pinterest that some of my other old posts did.
It’s a great seasonal recipe for fall, and I like to think the pistachio crumble makes it a little more sophisticated than the usual rustic squash dishes. Plus it works well with sweet potatoes, too.
Which post’s success surprised you and why? I’m flabbergasted at how many times my Killer Artichoke Bread post has been pinned on Pinterest – almost 80,000 repins to date, and counting.
I guess that just goes to show that gooey cheesy artichoke dip and toasty bread is an irresistible combination. (Oddly enough, my Hot Artichoke Dip hasn’t been nearly as popular, even though it’s made with bacon. Go figure.)
What is one (non-kitchen) gadget you can’t live without? My iPhone. I’d be lost without it – I use it to check my email, post on Twitter, take photos, play games, keep to-do lists, find my way around town, track new restaurants I want to try… and I sometimes even use it as a phone. 🙂
What is one kitchen gadget you can’t live without? My microplane zester. I might cry if it ever breaks on me...I use it almost daily!
Favourite food, care to share a recipe? I tend to like just about everything, so I don’t really have a favourite food. I do love me some dim sum, though – give me an assortment of steamed dumplings and an order of black pepper shortribs, and I’m a happy camper.
What else should we know about you that may or not be in your “About Me” page? I’m pretty kickass at Pictionary.
What makes your blog unique? I develop almost all of my recipes on my own, so I’d like to think they’re pretty unique (or, at least, a little different from someone else’s version of the same dish).
Even when I adapt recipes from other sources, I do my best to put my own spin on things whenever possible. I like to “make it my own”, as they say on American Idol. 🙂
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