I love blogs that are complicated, that don't fit neatly into a little magazine-column slot by topic or focus, or that don't simplify life, or a concept, down to a little point like a too-sharp pencil. White on Rice Couple, Angry Black Woman, and Nyonya Food stood out to me this week as blogs that I love because of their breadth and complexity!

White on Rice Couple is a wife & husband mostly-food blog. I love how it's way more than recipes - it's a garden, kitchen, food, and travel blog, complete with cute photos of Diane and Todd on their motorcycle. Inspired by the concept of Victory Gardens, they explain how you can have your own garden even on a patio, or indoors. They analyze and think about food and travel and the things they do - in depth, but always in a way to where you can tell they have a great time. It's a blog full of deep enthusiasm!

Why “White On Rice Couple”?
Because it’s a fun term that describes us well. Todd was born on a cattle ranch in North Eastern Oregon and Diane was born in Da-Nang, Vietnam. Without taking ourselves too seriously or sounding corny, we do  enjoy each others company, companionship, love and friendship. In other words we stick together like “White On Rice”, inseparable.  Often times though, we’re literally taken as a sexual connotation and readers come to us hoping to find porno. To their pleasant surprise, they’re bombarded by food, our garden and our dogs. Bummer for them.
And yes, we like to ride free and fast too. But SAFE! Just don’t tell Diane’s mother.

I love how they're so outspoken, opinionated, and full of enthusiasm -- all with great writing. Read what Diane has to say about loving old objects... antique store or junk shop, how old objects are full of stories and secrets, family and history - the beautiful ways they hold ghosts.

The Angry Black Woman is a fantastic politics and culture blog. Its three writers, The Angry Black Woman, karnythia, and unusualmusic, keep up a high degree of awesome and passionate analysis as they take apart bigotry in the U.S. health care system, invite readers to help compile lists of Mindblowing Science Fiction by People of Color, or do high level roundups of racism in casting of Asian-American actors including but not at all limited to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Recently, I especially loved their posts for International Blog Against Racism Week; karnythia's We Have Feelings Too or The cost of Being a POC in Race Discussions, and The Angry Black Woman's Intersectionality,

You’ve seen us talk about it a lot as concerns feminism, and how mainstream feminists relate (or don’t relate) to women of color. How the issues that we face as people of color, as people of color from various cultural, ethnic and national backgrounds, AND as women are different to the ones faced by white women. They are related, but not always the same. We cannot divorce our gender from our race/ethnicity.

This is a blog whose continued existence heartens me daily. It stays complicated!

The comments on ABW are always interesting, instructive, and sometimes infuriating. The blog's writers have had to learn over the years how to be community moderators on very hot topics: racism and sexism in all their incarnations. To that end they present Required Reading and very clear rules for their commenters and for email feedback. It is really worth studying their techniques of community discourse.

On Nyonya Food, Bee Yinn Low passes on recipes that are her family tradition; Chinese or Peranakan cooking from the Malaysian Straits. She takes an in-depth look at individual ingredients like tamarind, and goes into detail about how to make Assam Laksa (Nyonya Noodles with Fish Broth. I like how each recipe has several photos in a little slide show, and all the family history Bee puts into her recipes.

With collaboration of my family members—aunt, sister, and sister-in-law—Nyonya food is a website dedicated to Nyonya cuisine, culture, and traditions. It’s also a place my family and I document all precious Nyonya recipes passed down from our late grandmother—recipes and foods that grace many family celebrations, festivities, occasions that so often conjure sweet and nostalgic memories. Nyonya food is a native cuisine of mine; it is the food of my childhood.

Growing up with my late grandmother—a fantastic Nyonya cook and famed kuih maker of her time—I savored many delicious Nyonya dishes and learned the ropes of making Nyonya food by spending a lot of times in my grandmother’s kitchen. I was introduced to traditional Nyonya kitchen utensils and tools such as batu giling (the stone slab used for grinding spices or “rempah“), wooden coconut grater, various Nyonya kuih molds, pots and pans. Nyonya recipes are also passed down to the women in my family as the cooking process is an intimate family affair where everyone contributes to the kitchen chores of prepping and cooking.

I'm constantly impressed by the depth and complexity of some of the food blogs out there in the blogosphere. The best ones are really about something - about our relationship to food and cooking, treating it as the important topic it is, echoing into all aspects of our daily lives, memory, and survival. Bee puts all that passion and thought into her posts - very inspiring - what are we creating, doing, making, as we cook? I'm thinking about it, though my own cultural insights from my childhood cuisine are mostly about World War II and women's liberation by way of canned food.

Here's a few more blogs from the network for your enjoyment!

* Teen Book Fanatics - A mom and her daughter read and review the same books, each in their own posts, with a focus on YA fantasy, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, manga, historical fiction, graphic novels, and science fiction! There is a summary post on each book. Then Diane and Leah give a brief opinion of the book.

* Moms of Faith is a blog and a community, with many resources for Christian homeschooling moms. Though I am not Christian I am interested in how a lot of strong communities of blogging women who don't just have a religious affiliation but who integrate their religion through all their lives and thought and writing. I translate it in my head to the way I personally feel about ethics and feminism.

* On To Be Thode, Stefany, who's been a stay at home mom and a nurse, writes about her life with 5 children. She's going back to school to become a Certified Nurse Midwife. Good luck Stefany!

* Living with Lindsay is a decor and home improvement blog with lots of photos!

* The Activity Mom documents all sorts of fun and inexpensive things to do with small children. I love it! I could mess around with muffin tins and clothespins all day long. No need for any sort of fancy electronics or a jillion dollars to entertain and educate a toddler!

* Adventures in Debt is good! If you've gone looking for financial advice and stories you may have noticed a lot of very generic "information" out there. This blog is about stories and opinions, strategies tried out & which ones are working out for her and her friends.

Thanks to all of y'all for making my job at BlogHer so much fun and writing blogs so good that I can end every paragraph with an exclamation point!