Mary of One Perfect Bite and some other women food bloggers (including myself) are blogging our way through the 50 Women Game Changers In Food published by Gourmet in May ’11. Some of the women on the list you will know, others you may not, but either way, this will be a great 50 week journey to learn more about these women that inspire the way we think about food today.

Please visit Mary at One Perfect Bite, Val at More Than Burnt Toast, Joanne at Eats Well With Others, Taryn at Have Kitchen Will Feed, Susan at The Spice Garden, Claudia at A Seasonal Cook In Turkey, Heather at Girlichef, Jeanette at Jeanette’s Healthy Living, Katie at Making Michael Poland Proud, Kathleen at Bake Away With Me, Sue at The View From Great Island, Barbara at Moveable Feasts, and Amy at Beloved Green for their tributes to these 50 women.

Soupe de Courge à la Vanille

As we dive into the part of the list that consists of our fellow food bloggers, we have so many different recipes to choose from. This week, we meet (or for most of us, revisit) Clotilde Dusoulier, of Chocolate & Zucchini. With a name like Dusolulier, she has to be cool. A Parisian food writer that started blogging in 2003, she now has a popular food blog where she not only posts recipes but tools and restaurant experiences. She also has a cookbook of the same name, Chocolate & Zucchini:Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen and Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris.

Much like my blog, it’s a quirky name for a blog don’t ya think? A little from her blog about how she came up with the name:

Why Chocolate & Zucchini?

“It is a good metaphor for my cooking style: the zucchini illustrates my focus on healthy and natural eating: fresh produce, artisan goods, and a preference for organic and local ingredients. And the chocolate represents my decidedly marked taste for baking in general, and chocolate, glorious chocolate in particular.

Although I didn’t initially think about it, I later discovered that the two ingredients make quite the happy couple, in both sweet and savory recipes.“

I like butternut squash. In fact, I like it a lot. It’s a good thing too since I had three meals center around it last week. This was one of them. Butternut Squash and Vanilla Soup. Paired with a nice crusty bread, this soup is perfect. The underlying sweetness that comes naturally in the butternut squash pairs well with the notes of the vanilla. I think I went somewhere when I ate this. I realized I really didn’t when I was scraping the bottom of the bowl. Thank you for this simple soup Clotilde. Just 30 minutes and a few ingredients won me over. Thank you.

Wonderful as is, I did make a a second batch this week and added a little brown sugar and Cardamom. Lovely.

In The Spotlight: Clotilde Dusoulier

Clotilde Dusoulier is the 30-year-old Parisienne behind the award-winning food blog Chocolate & Zucchini. Born and raised in Paris, she discovered her passion for food while working in California as a software engineer. She started her blog in 2003 and its success has allowed her to start a career as a full-time food writer. She is the author of the cookbook Chocolate & Zucchini (Broadway Books, 2007) and of Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris (Broadway Books, 2008), a book on Paris restaurants and food shops. She has also helped edit I Know How to Cook (Phaidon, 2009), the newly translated bible of French home cooking. She lives in Montmartre. You can also follow her on Twitter @clotildenet.

This Recipe Linked To Some of These Blog Hops:
{Sun} Recipe Swap Sundays {Mon} Made By You Mondays, Recipe Sharing Monday {Tues} Totally Tasty Tuesdays, Tip Me Tuesdays {Wed} These Chicks Cooked {Thurs} Full Plate Thursday {Fri} Fresh Food Fridays, Friday Potluck