Thanks to my little sister who is just as obsessed with food blogs as I am, maybe more, I have recently started looking at tastespotting.com  I love the variety of recipes you find on there and the great way that it links to all these amazing blogs.  I find inspiration in the recipes and have always wondered how you manage to get your recipes on there.

Well I took the plunge a week or so ago and submitted my first recipes to the site.  It makes me want to create new and exciting things so that I have more recipes to submit, no one likes to read a blog where someone just used a recipes and didn’t try and make it their own.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find out that my recipe was rejected.  Not because of the recipe or the picture but because they thought that it was too negative.  I can understand that it wasn’t positive through out, but I didn’t feel it was negative.  I think it was realistic, not every recipe turns out.  That doesn’t mean that it is a bad recipe or that I am a bad cook it just means it might go better next time.  I would rather someone read my blog and see that you don’t have to be perfect to enjoy cooking.

Cookbooks have recently become an obsession.  The only problem I find with them is that they are expensive to buy and if you really only want a couple recipes out of them then you are stuck with a whole book you won’t use.  I like the idea of checking the books out because if I don’t end up liking them then it hasn’t cost me anything.

Recently Sean and I have started walking to our local library, mostly for the walk but also to browse.  Having never really used the library in the past I was surprised to find the cookbook section on a recent trip.  Although this might not be anything new to most people I was overjoyed at the sight of a huge row of every kind of cookbook I could imagine.

I started looking through the sections trying to narrow down which ones to take home with me that day.  Do I take a baking one since those are the recipes I have most recently been working on?  Or do I try and find the mexican cookbook some friends talked about that has a great mole recipe?  I am left with the plan to just start looking through the ones that catch my eye.

After a few minutes I have amassed a pile of books, probably too many to be taking home with me that day.  Sean finds me engrossed with the cookbooks and decides to set a limit on the number to take home that day, 3, one of which has to be the book he picked.  How in the world am I going to pick just two books to take home with me?

My first pick was The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz which I had just seen on a blog earlier that day and was going to go buy next time I was in the states.  Since I am not only trying to perfect my wasabi ice cream but also expand my collection of ice cream recipes I knew this one would get used.

The other book I had to take home with me that day was Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen.  I have been obsessed with mole sauce for quite a few years, trying any recipe I can find, but they never seem to be just what I am looking for.  I am hoping this book can finally give me a recipe to add to my permanant file.

Sean’s pick from the library was The British Columbia Seasonal Cookbook which looks like a fun cookbook of ideas for more seasonal cooking here in Vancouver.

I couldn’t resist getting more cookbooks and have already gone back to get Baking Illustrated which was recommended by my older sister.  I am excited to start working my way through that huge book.

I have yet to use all of them but hope to start trying out the recipes very soon.  I look forward to more trips to the library and all the fun recipes to be created.