I haven’t been around here much lately, what with assorted professional responsibilities and Chocolatier 2 and all. It will probably stay that way through March. In the meantime, here are some things I’ve been reading lately, in case I’m not doing my part to keep words in front of your pupils.

* My China, Kylie Kwong. Through stunning color photos, Australian TV host Kwong takes us on an encyclopedic tour of her collection of antique ceramic tableware. Actually, the premise is great–Kwong, who doesn’t speak Chinese, travels around China convincing people to let her cook in their kitchen. The kitchens are everything from a street stall to a lavish resort kitchen. There’s also history and recipes.

* Mouth Wide Open, John Thorne. Everything by Thorne is good, including this new book. What I like about Thorne, aside from his singleminded focus on food, is that he is the smartest person writing about food in English, but he never makes you feel like a smart person is talking down to you. It’s more like, wow, I get to apprentice myself to this guy for a few hours and learn a bit of his trade.

* The Best International Recipe. The subtitle to this one, I believe, is “Foreign recipes we didn’t screw around with too much.”

* ChopTalk: The Gourmet Food and Travel Blog. Gourmet as in the magazine. This was only brought to my attention recently, and there are a lot of talented people (Francis Lam, Julia Langbein, Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, and Fuchsia Dunlop, just to name a few) writing for it. Updated daily, which is more than you can say for *some* blogs.