Friday, April 17, 2009

Moving to wordpress

I have decided to move to wordpress.
I absolutely love blogger but some things have compelled me to move over to wordpress:

1. Widgets: You can't beat wordpress in term of how easy they make it to widgetize your blog.


2. Monitoring stats: who needs feedburner when you can monitor your stats right off the dashboard?


3. More formatting tools: there are so many formatting tools on wordpress like the strike through, underline, copying from word with formatting etc etc.


4. Easier to attach multimedia: Its super easy to attach images and multimedia with user friendly buttons.

5. Permalink: the page permalink gets displayed as soon as I create a new post. That makes it so easy to link up if needed.


6. Pages: OMG I LOVE this feature. You can add separate pages like about, FAQ and you don't need to get into the complications of editing you web page html to get people to get the right blog post on clicking the buttons! LOVE IT.


7. Easier post HTML editing: I always have a problem on blogger when I try to add my own HTML. I tend to forget to close the tags and that's a pain... scanning through the entire document to get there. But no such prob with wp.. you can use the "close tags" option.

8. Polls: I know that even blogger allows you to add polls but the wordpress polls option is waaayy easier and better to operate.


9. Recent activity: The dashboard displays all your recent activity which is so cool.


10. Easy publishing settings: This is another really cool feature. you can easily set you publishing settings like invisible, draft, scheduled. Its much easier when its in a drop down.


11. Easy switching from one blog to another: If you have multiple blogs, you can easily switchover with a drop down menu.


12. Move around tools: You can easily move around any tools around your dashboard just the way you want it. You can even remove any tools that you don't care about. you can enlarge, and shrink the size of your tool boxes.


13. Brief page: you can set up a brief home page where readers can read the first few lines of each post and in case they want to read more they can do so by clicking on it. Though I wouldn't want to do this myself, its nice to know that such a feature exists.


14. Smileys: OK so I use a lot of them. when I exported my blog onto wordpress I found them all emoted! woo hoo :D (see, wont happen here!!)


14. Selecting categories: It's easier to select categories on wordpress by just placing a check mark on the ones you want for the current post. Easy right?


15. Hyperlinking: When hyperlinking on wordpress you can even decide if you want the URL to open in a new page, or the same page etc. It's nice to know that I am allowed decide that.


16. My messed up blog name!: My blogger url is
http://gourmandindemand.blogspot.com but my blog name is one of a grind. WHY the confusion? so I decided to register my new blog as




So as you can see, I'm moving this blog over to wordpress because it gives me more control over my blogging which is great. I still love blogger but sometimes you've just got to move to something in which you perceive superior value and that's exactly what I see in wordpress. I am a die hard fan of Google and all google services- google search, gmail, chrome, earth, docs and everything else. But wordpress is just the better blogging platform. (gosh look at me getting all senti!!)

I decided that this is a good time to do it becasue this blog is kind of new.

Thanks for following my blog! Please subscribe to my NEW blog @ wordpress http://oneofagrind.wordpress.com ! thanks cya on wp!


oh and btw you can still email me at oneofagrind@gmail.com :D

Friday, April 10, 2009

Almond Green Tea Cupcakes from Baked

As I had mentioned in my last post, I bought two new books one of them being "Baked: New Frontiers in baking"

I was dying to try out something from that book and here I am! I made the almond and green tea cupcakes (page 76)

I always feel that baking cakes/cupcakes is something you should save for when you have a crowd. It's fun when you can watch other people enjoy what you have cooked. So I got the perfect chance. I catered :P for my mothers tea party. Well a party would be an exaggeration, it was more like a little gossip over tea.

Anyways I made the cupcakes and OMG they were fab!

DSC03046

I followed the recipe to the tee and its a good thing I did.

The frosting was a dream.. green tea powder made like a pastry cream first and then ends up as butter cream frosting.. the guests were guessing what went in it.. 'pistachios' is where the guessing stopped.

DSC03038


Lets zoom in to see the frosting... mmmm

I still have a bit of the frosting in my refrigerator and I have discovered the pleasures of licking bits of it off my fingers.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Two new cookbooks!

I love ordering books online. It always feels like my birthday again! happily opening gifts, even though I know what they are.

I ordered two books online:

Book No 1:

Ben and Jerry's homemade ice-cream and dessert book!! wow you can't go wrong when its written by Ben and Jerry themselves! Its kind of an old book since its first print came out in 1987, but who cares! its still gr8.

DSC03080


Book No 2:

OMG I LURVE this BOOK!!

It's called "Baked: New frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito"
Wow! these guys have a cafe in NYC and they serve these delectable delights! Oh how I would LOVE to visit their cafe!!

DSC03078

I cant wait to try something out from both the books! ahh I am so happy!probably happier than what was on my birthday.