Hand to Mouth is the food diary of two young women, N and B, who live in two of the world’s most expensive cities and cook constantly, mostly for the pleasure it gives but also for the ends it helps meet.
Who and What 
N, the American, lives in New York City. She works for the syndication division of a newspaper and writes intermittent food columns for a women’s magazine.
She has been known to stand in grocery store aisles staring hollowly at Perigord truffles and undulating rotisserie chickens in a pathetic Charlie Bucket-type way. Although people have always jawed at her about New York impolitesse, it’s only on occasion that she gets shoved aside while gaping.
B, the Canadian, lives in London, where she attends graduate school and works as an ESL teacher and penniless campaign officer for an anti-poverty charity.
She is fond of gazing into the windows of prestigious restaurants like a modern day little match-girl, dreaming of one day being welcomed inside. In the meantime, she contents herself with being dryly dismissed by head-waiters carrying whiffs of culinary mastery, and by cooking what she can, when she can.
The Backstory
B and N met in 2005, when they were teaching English in Seoul, South Korea. They quickly bonded over many things, chief among which were a love of discovering new foods and a similarly-sized outsize affection for tracking down (or recreating) beloved meals from home. Each left Seoul eventually, but they kept in touch through correspondences that chiefly centered around food — or travel as a conduit to try new food.
After B visited N in the summer of 2007, they devised this website as a way of keeping in touch and swapping recipes — after all, each was down and out in New York and London respectively, and that meant twice as many ideas for economical yet epicure-friendly table fare.
Questions?
E-mail thehandandthemouth@gmail.com.
A Note on Images and Content:
Copyright 2008, N. and B.
So please, don’t steal. Intellectual/creative larceny is not even slightly cool. If you want to use photos you see on the site, ask us. We won’t bite unless bitten first.
