Looks a little different around here, doesn’t it? Welcome to the new Thyme Bombe, everyone!

I know I’ve been gone for a while, but it’s because I’ve been working on some things behind the scenes for the last few months that are just now ready to come to light – the first of which you’re seeing now. This isn’t just a facelift though, there are some other changes happening to this site that I hope you’ll be just as excited about as I am.

Firstly, from here on I’ll be focusing mostly on recipe creation. Not every post will be a recipe, but all posts will be very focused on food and less focused on personal stories and day-to-day life. I want to continue sharing my personal goings-on with all of you, but from now on those things will be shared when they are relevant to the food I’m sharing too.

Next, I want to start providing you with more informative, quality content. No more pictures of some random dinner I threw together last night. I want to delve into the history of different foods, the origin of exotic ingredients, and how these things can fit into your life and your own style of cooking.

And finally, I want to present all of this to you with stunning photos of beautiful food. I have learned a lot about photography in the last year, and while I have a long way to go before I feel like I really have a grip on it, I am definitely a stronger photographer now than I was at this blog’s beginning. From now on, dimly lit photos snapped without much thought or care simply won’t make the cut.

I imagine it’ll take some time before I figure out exactly what belongs on this blog and what doesn’t, so I hope you’ll be patient with me as I work through it, but hopefully what you’ll see in the coming months is a movement toward a better blog with more interesting and beautiful content. I really think you’re gonna like it.

And stay tuned in the following days for another big announcement that has been over a year in the making! If you’ve been reading that long, you may be able to guess what it is…

Last night’s blogger dinner at Rosebud was just awesome. The 6 of us came in expecting a simple 5 course vegetarian tasting menu that turned into a 3 hour 10 course veggie explosion with flowing booze and riotous laughter.

The bloggies…

From left to right: Laura and myself in front; Lee, Stacy, Corinne, and Heather in back. (Thanks to Lee for this pic!)

Laura approached chef Ron Eyester to prepare a vegetarian tasting dinner for us in his very meat-centric restaurant Rosebud. We were delighted to hear that he was actually really excited by the challenge!

He started us off with something none of us were expecting, a veggie cocktail!

It was tomato vodka, pickled cucumber, and soda with the springiest little baby heirloom tomatoes. I was really expecting this to be savory like a bloody mary, but it was sweet! So interesting to have the flavor of tomato in a sweet drink, it really made the tomato taste like the fruit it really is.

First up was a play on pate, pink-eyed pea pate with pickled radishes on crispy toast. As as someone who loves to eat split pea soup on toast, this was fantastic.

Then just as we were talking about how refreshing a good caprese salad is in the summertime, this gorgeous bowl of spicy tomato broth with a thick piece of buttery mozzarella topped with apricots came out! Perfect timing.

And since tomatoes are really hitting their peak, the next course was a sliced heirloom crimson tomato with sriracha pineapple and fresh parsley. Very refreshing.

And then the only flop of the night, a potato soup with a broccoli puree pool and soft boiled farm egg, sprinkled with dehydrated cheddar. I was so excited for this but it was crazy levels of salty. Chef Ron knew it too and apologized with a free bottle of off-the-menu wine! Can’t argue with that.

I’m not a wine person though so I ordered a Sazerac instead. Rye whiskey, bitters, and a citrus twist. Very boozy and very good.

At this point, we were all thinking it was about to wrap up and dessert would be out soon, so when this enormous plate of curried brussels sprouts with shaved carrots and crispy won tons came out smelling like an aromatic asian street-food cart, we were stunned.

This was the favorite dish of the night for most, and while I loved it, I was completely enamored with what came next.

Mac. And. Cheese.

I was painfully full and yet still managed to finish every bite of this lusciously creamy goat’s milk mac and cheese with young cauliflower, dinosaur kale, and crispy Ritz. This is the kind of food that makes you gain 10 pounds just looking at it, but it was so worth it!

At this point, we all had that kind of glazed over-fed look on our faces, and then out comes this little beauty. Tempura eggplant over red curry tomato sauce and topped with file beans, feta, and olives.

Apparently these file beans are only in season for a few short weeks before they’re gone again. They were wonderful, somewhere in between a green bean and a wax bean, sweet and snappy. The eggplant was loved by even the eggplant-haters in the room.

Dessert yet? Nope.

What looks like a risotto is actually leek and oyster mushroom rice grits in a tomato vegetable broth and topped with a charred baby leek.

This was incredible, and if it had come earlier in the meal I would have downed it in three bites, but with how painfully full I was I could only manage to graze on it. Chef Ron told us that he used nearly 20 pounds of leeks to make just our 6 portions! They had been cooking down all day.  I felt so bad to not be able to finish this little labor-of-love.

Then finally came the first of 2 dessert courses, bleu cheese and blueberries with a port-balsamic reduction. So good together and the reduction was nice and sweet.

And the finale, spiced bruleed peaches over salted caramel ice cream.

I don’t know how I found room for this but somehow I managed.

Chef Ron offered us all some small-batch bourbon to go with our dessert. Being a serious whiskey girl, this thrilled me. The sweet caramel notes in the bourbon were brought out by the sweeter caramel ice cream. Fantastic pairing and I’m so impressed that Chef Ron didn’t hesitate to serve straight bourbon to a group of 6 veggie-eating girls. 😉

The whole experience was phenomenal. We all felt really special being doted on in our little private back-room sanctuary for this epic veggie feast, or “veggie jam” as Chef Ron called it.

Thanks Laura for organizing and thanks girls for the fun company!

You know what I love about blogging? Bloggers!

It is so much fun to meet the people behind the blogs in person, and it’s easy because everyone kind of feels like they already know each other. And of course, we all have something in common that we can talk about!

The group met up at 5 Seasons in Sandy Springs. I was so happy that nearly everyone started out by enthusiastically ordering beer. I got a scotch ale that they were having for a limited time. It was really tasty, very roasty with some coffee and chocolate flavors.

The turkey burger was great, not dry and crumbly like so many bird burgers are. Didn’t love the sweet potato fries, they were too soft and had soaked up a lot of oil. They were pretty good dipped in the cranberry sauce intended for my burger though.

I was soooo hungry…

Our waiter dropped off a huge mug of free beer. He plopped it down right in front of Lee who already had a beer of her own. Of course I offered to “help” her with it, can’t pass up a free beer, right? 😉

Amazingly, we didn’t talk too much about blogging. Everyone was very open and sweet, so we got to learn a great deal about each other over the course of the evening.

From left to right: Myself, Lee, Sarena, Tina, Laura, Kristy, Stacy, Laura, and Laura.  Yes, three Lauras, we are children of the 80’s after all.

If you’re ever in Atlanta hit us up!