Blogs We Love: My New Roots

It's not just the inventive recipes and the colorful, step-by-step photography that has us loving Sarah Britton's popular food blog, My New Roots. It's her conversational approach (she addresses readers like they're old friends, teaching them while sharing something special), her thoughtful selection of the healthiest ingredients, her Quinoa Spring Sushi, her whole darn life. Every recipe is a chance to share a story, in fact, and many of her dishes draw direct inspiration from her experiences. In a post for Orange Blossom Sesame Cake, her recollections rest easily alongside her ingredients:

"The highlights of my trip have now turned into the most recent highlight from my oven. The cake's orange blossom water and oranges were inspired, of course, by the miles and miles of citrus groves we passed (and one I actually got to indulge in); the sesame seeds that I bought from a little granny selling produce from her garden; the honey from the countless hives we saw; and the pistachios that I enjoyed in many pieces of baklava. So really, this is an orange-blossom-sesame-tahini-honey-pistachio cake, but that title wouldn't fit in the header."

The easy banter makes it easy to feel inspired. Of course we want to make Sexy Spring Rolls and Spring Spirit Polenta, we smile just saying their names. Plus, as a working holistic nutritionist, Sarah can tell us not only what we should eat, but why. In that polenta recipe, she extolls the virtues of carotenoid-packed cornmeal, explaing how they're powerful antioxidants that will protect us from free radicals. She also discusses the medicinal properities of wild leeks in an incredible post for Totally Wild Leek Pesto (it's the Totally we love most). 

All in all, in our often-meaty, frequently donut-obsessed, occasionally-unable-to-resist-processed-food lives, it's nice to have a reminder that eating good is simple, rewarding, and (above all) flippin' delicious.