Cook Eat Fret

Claudia Young is a born-and-bred New Yorker living in Nashville who started her blog, cook eat FRET, on a whim. The story involves scallops. Young wanted a perfect sear on her bivalves and went online searching for instructions. She found a blog that she says “explained both beautifully and precisely” the process, step-by-step. She thought: “I want one!” Scallops forgotten, Young Googled “How to start a blog…” and almost three years in she’s still going, posting her latest cooking and food adventures a few times a month.

Young is not shy with her opinions about anything -- especially the town where she’s lived and worked for the past 16 years. She grew up in a house where “What’s for dinner?” was the topic of lunch conversation and admits frustration that Nashvillians are generally easily satisfied with food she'd consider mediocre. Even finding certain staple pantry ingredients, she says, can be a challenge. She’s taken solace online, where she cooks and blogs about what she can't find in town and mail orders many ingredients, such as the sheep’s milk ricotta in a luscious Malloreddus with Sheep’s Milk Ricotta and Bottarga. Speaking of bottarga, it is Young's current obsession and the focus of many posts, including one with ridiculously simple instructions for a zippy spaghetti with garlic, lemon juice and parsley (above). She writes in a Dear Diary style that’s fun to read. Of her osso bucco, she says: “Freakin unreal. Did I just make this? Yes? High Five!”

There is nothing stylized about Young or her blog, and that is the main draw. She says that she's been called a food snob, but it doesn't faze her. She somehow exudes confidence and earthiness at the same time, and her food is a reflection of the excitement she experiences when she cooks, tastes and, we're guessing, lives.