The Things We do for L O V E

 Since Valentines is right around the corner, I thought I'd bake for the special people in my life.  So yesterday I went to the book store in search of a dessert cookbook.  It was a hard decision, there are so many great ones out right now, but I settled on Miette.  It contains recipes from San Francisco's Pastry Shop Miette.  The cake on the cover sold me!  It's called the Tomboy cake.

 ...And then when I opened the cover the pages were scalloped. What a surprise! So pretty.

 Just looking at the beautiful pictures in the book, I can only imagine how amazing the shop would be and makes me want to travel a few thousand miles to visit.

As I mentioned before, I'm not a great baker, so I've chosen what appears to be some fairly easy recipes.  The Carrot Cupcakes...

 Chocolate Sable Cookies...

 And these amazing looking Fleur De Sel Caramels.

 These look tricky.

Wish me luck, I hope mine turn out like these!

Meet Some of my Books

 These books are so precious to me.  They show me foods and cooking techniques I didn't even know existed.  As the great Ruth Reichl writes in the introduction to the 2004 Gourmet Cookbook, "The fact that I had never seen a fresh coconut, much less a truffle , a duck or any kind of souffle, troubled me not at all; I liked knowing that such things were out in the world and that people were eating them.  It gave me hope that one day I too would have a chance to taste such exotic dishes."

I feel the same way.  I do love to cook, but I still have so much to learn, and it sure is fun to turn the pages of my books and see so many amazing dishes.  They inspire me to try things I never would have thought to cook.

 I really am more of a cook than a baker.  I just don't have the patience it takes to bake.  Not to mention the technique.  But these books have the most delicious looking sweets that my next challenge is to take on more baking. Seriously.

Gourmet weekends was a book I got a long time ago, it taught me how to put together meals.  I found the Saveur Cooks Authentic French Cookbook at Goodwill for a $1.00, yeah, winning!  The Martha's Entertaining book was supposed to be a gift for one of my sister's but I just couldn't part with it.  It was expensive, but after I applied my B&N club card and a discount coupon plus it was already 20% off, so it was super reasonable!  I had to keep it, shipping would have been a fortune anyway, ha!

Obsession

I'm obsessed with cookbooks.  I love them.  I've collected many.  And intend to collect more.
This blog explores all kinds of cookbooks and how they inspire me.