Foodie Finds, Recipes & CookBooks
“S mairg a ni tarcuis air biadh,” translates to “he who has contempt for food is a fool.” – Scottish saying!
Living on island without a good bookstore or three is one of the small downfalls if one likes to keep up with the newest, trendiest cookbooks. To overcome this, I joined others who love to cook on social media.
Belonging to various cookbook clubs and chat rooms is a wonderful thing if you have a Kindle. With a bookcase of more than 1000 cookbooks, (from the smallest acquired as a student to the latest ‘in’ cookbooks) I simply cannot continue to buy hard copies anymore, so my tablet and Kindle come to the rescue.
I also found that “have tablet can subscribe” means I can easily be on top of any new culinary magazines world-wide. My favourite magazines are Delicious (both the UK and the Australian versions); Olive; Waitrose; Woman’s Weekly (Australian) and Donna Hay! I can dip into any other magazines whenever I want to. I would prefer to feel/smell/see any book but second best on Kindle and tablet is working out just fine.
The cookbook clubs/chatrooms I really enjoy are those that suggest a book each month. Members then cook their way through the books posting pictures of what they have served their family or guests along with a short review.
I fall down heavily here, I don’t feel I cook from the monthly books often enough – I just have so many cookbooks to cook from and old favourite recipes I return to. Generally, though, during busy weeknights I just put together quick meals of what I have in the fridge using inspiration from the “standbys” like pickled calamari, preserved lemon, cucumber relish, various jams and chutneys. Truth-be-told I used to feel guilty I was not taking part in “cooking the book” more often during the month. I’m over that now.
Along with all the interesting finds at our international supermakets and the recipes using unusual ingredients in all the cookbooks, life sometimes seems to be one big party – and that is OK!