Another Reason to Love Etsy

Have you been to Etsy? If not, you need to take some time to have a look. It's like a clearinghouse for all things retro-handmade-antique-quirky-fun. Make a cup of tea and find a relaxing chair first, because once you get started you'll be browsing for hours.

I admit to only buying 2 things from Etsy, but not for lack of wanting - more a lack of funds. The first thing I bought was an adorable Wonder Pets cape for Ian's Christmas a couple years ago. It was handmade with love by another mom and something I wasn't able to find anywhere else.

I also found something else wonderful and it came in the mail yesterday:

I spied this at Sassydoggs' shop and fell in love with it immediately. I have my own family cookbook that I write recipes in to save for my kids, but it had started to look rather pathetic and it wasn't quite what I'd been looking for anyway. Enter this little gem. The cover is an oilcloth of sorts and it's never been used even though it was made in 1964. I also appreciate that the seller and I have so much in common, both having fathers who sold antiques and both having a desire to reuse and recycle. A perfect match, really.

My next feat will be to find more filler paper in that size, which I know I can do at any local stationery store, but the real feat is to find old paper, slightly yellowed at the corners and ready to fit in with the retro feel of the book.

Book Review: Table Talk

Every so often a cookbook comes along that captures my attention, keeps me reading until the very last page and leaves me feeling as though the author were a close friend. Table Talk by Carol McManus, owner of Espresso Love on Martha's Vineyard, is one such cookbook.

Once I picked this book up I was not able to put it down until I read it from cover to cover. I holed myself up in a comfortable spot and devoured it in a single hour. I was up and making Presidential Muffins before the book was fully closed and thinking about our next meal together as a family. I was inspired to do exactly what this book intends to inspire: sit us all down at table and enjoy one another without feeling like I needed a rest after making dinner.

The recipes in this book range from special to everyday and each one is something even a novice cook can pull off. The best part is that each recipe is tried and true and designed to make a parent's life in the kitchen easier so that more time can be spent with their family. Being a mother to 5 children and a grandmother to boot, Carol McManus knows what she's talking about. She urges us all to slow down and spend some time at the dinner table with our respective families. I can personally attest to the fact that eating together bonds people like no other activity. Children do better in every aspect of their lives and we as parents are afforded the chance to do something we feel rewarded in accomplishing. It really takes far less effort than you think and Table Talk is a most wonderful tool to help us

Broken down into six delicious chapters and eighty glorious recipes, this is a book you will turn to again and again. You can buy your copy of Table Talk at TableTalkCookbook.com and Amazon.

Earth Bound Farm Cookbook Winner!

We have our winner for the Earthbound Farm Food to Live By cookbook - reader growingupartists will be receiving a copy of this fantastic book. Congrats to you and thanks to everyone who entered!

Create My Cookbook is Not Like the Other Guys

How many times have you said to yourself, "I need to get all these family recipes into a book"? I know I've said it numerous times over the years. I'm heading into the "I should turn this blog into a cookbook" stage and I've checked out the web for sites that help with that sort of thing, but I've never really been satisfied with what I found out there. The bindings weren't right, I couldn't customize my cover, the layout changed if I wanted to choose more than one binding ... the list goes on.

Create My Cookbook is the perfect solution to all of those problems; and more. This site was developed with both the creation of the cookbook and its use in mind. Here are just a few of the things that make Create My Cookbook worth a look:

1. The covers are fully customizable. Choose your own photo or one of the many in stock and you're on your way to a completely unique look. Who wants a family cookbook that looks just like the one you bought from the church down the street?

2. There are multiple binding styles to choose from and you can have the same book printed in more than one binding without losing the integrity of the layout. That's a huge plus when Aunt Mabel insists that spiral bound is the only way to go, but Cousin Phyllis has to have hardback. This way you really can please everyone.

3. Collaboration! Now you can write a book with a family member or two. You know how it goes, Grandma catches wind of a family cookbook being written and she has to be Editor-in-Chief. Now she can join in and help with it without having to stop by for a visit. She can stay home in her rocking chair with her laptop and add recipe after recipe to the new family tome.

4. These recipes are YOURS, not something you pulled from a list of recipes in a database that everyone has added to. Nobody wants a recipe for Hilda's Apple pie when there's no Hilda in the family!

5. This is software developed expressly for cookbooks. Drag and drop is the name of the game and it doesn't get any easier. After all, Uncle Ed isn't too good with a keyboard and this will enable even the most technologically challenged person to create a real cookbook.

6. Add your own photos. These can be the whole gang eating like there's no tomorrow at the family reunion, or the professional-looking photos you've taken for your blog. There's no limit to creativity here.

7. Dedication. Yes, there's a customizable dedication page. Everyone who deserves such an honor can be proudly acknowledged on this page - even if it adds up to 123 people. This is where Grandma gets her name in print, even if she didn't collaborate.

8. Play before you pay. Upload those photos, type in those recipes, move it all around and make sure you love it before you purchase it. Sign up, look it over and don't pay one red penny until you're sold. They won't email you daily asking why you didn't purchase yet. They're nice like that. I promise.

Now, if that isn't enough to make you head on over to CreateMyCookbook.com and check things out, I may be able to bribe you with cookies. Let me know.

Veggie Wednesday: Flavorful India Cookbook

I don't make Indian cuisine often, but once I started reading Flavorful India: Treasured Recipes from a Gujarati Family by Priti Chitnis Gress, however, I couldn't wait to get out to the grocery to search for ingredients and hurry back home to start cooking.

Gujarat (a western Indian state) is largely known for vegetarian dishes, and although we didn't make any of those (we made Tandoori Chicken, Cocktail-Size Meat Samosas and Sweet Dough Balls with Coconut) the dishes we did make were perfect. My very-hard-to-please husband loved the tandoori and the dough balls; something I thought he would turn his nose up at, and the kids ate the samosas as I was cooking them so there weren't many left once we sat down to dinner. I'm confident that the vegetarian dishes would elicit the same response, and we'll be making them to test that theory.

I love that each recipe has a story to it, and the sections on cookware and utensils, spices and Indian ingredients are priceless. This is Indian food at its most uncomplicated. It's homey, delicious and fitted for the Northern American kitchen. There isn't one recipe that is too difficult for a novice cook to handle.

While not a comprehensive compilation of Gujarati recipes, Flavorful India is at once personal, informative and basic, drawing from Priti's own family traditions; the perfect addition to any kitchen, but most especially the vegetarian home.

Find your copies:

Softcover at Hippocrene Books
Hardcover at Amazon

Also check out, Hippocrene Cooks, a blog with entries from the many Hippocrene cookbook authors, including Priti Chitnis Gress!