Hello, readers!

In preparation for my imminent departure for the noodle motherland across the Pacific, I thought I would get my new blog up and running while I still have reliable Internet access.

While I'm in China, I plan to blog about my travels, things I'm reading, people I'm meeting, and, of course, food. Let me know what you're excited to hear about and what you wish I'd stay away from! You can also read blog posts and articles I've found interesting by following me on google reader (just search for my name using "sharing settings" under the "people you follow" section).

There's unlikely to be an actual noodle of the day (NOTD) while I'm still in the States, but I thought it was appropriate to start things off with a very California noodle dish: orecchiette with rapini and goat cheese, from the this year's Saveur 100 (my second-favorite yearly issue of any magazine, after the NYT Magazine Year in Ideas).

Citrus fruit grows like weeds around here in the winter (I love you, California!), so I zested a Meyer lemon from a friend's lemon tree and added it to the pasta, which was tastier than this unflattering photo suggests:

Seriously, get your hands on some rapini and make this stuff. It's tasty and fast.

Also, if you have never had a watermelon radish, GO OUT AND GET ONE AND ROAST IT AND EAT IT RIGHT AWAY. I don't even like radishes, but I just did this and it was amazing--nutty and not at all spicy the way radishes normally are. I might bring a suitcase full of them with me to China.