In a Cooking Mood :)

We're having rain for the 4th day straight here in the Granite State. (Not that I'm complaining . . . we need it, and I'm just thankful that we don't live in a hurricane-battered part of the U.S.!) But anyway, rainy days affect me in various ways at different times. Sometimes they make me sleepy. Sometimes energetic (rarely, though!). Sometimes in a mood to cook. Today it's been a little of all three. :) I ended up falling asleep as I was trying to have my quiet time in Bible study and prayer while Sam was napping. I finally decided to just lie down and probably slept for a good 1 1/2-2 hours, almost as long as Sam did! I felt a lot more energetic after that. Before my nap, though, I did a couple loads of laundry and put away a bunch of stuff in the bedroom, so that was my energy-for-housework phase. And reading Erin's blog today put me in a cooking mood--be sure to read her post about homemade French bread! I may even work up enough energy to try it today!

I think my cooking mood is more of a thinking rather than a doing one today, though . . . I just keep thinking of recipes to post here on my blog. And I also want to recommend a cookbook! This is another cool book that my brother-in-law gave me for Christmas last year. It's called The New Best Recipe, and is published by the editors of Cook's Illustrated. (As a side note, I've looked at issues of both Cook's Illustrated, and their new mag, Cook's Country, and both are fabulous! They contain so much information--I mean, these people are serious about cooking! :) And I love how they test both food products and kitchen equipment to find the best of the best.) Anyway, back to The New Best Recipe . . . this book is packed with 1,000 recipes that have all been tested and re-tested many times to come up with the "best" one. It's also got a lot of good basic information in it about cooking. For example, today I was going to use an avocado for the first time ever, so that's where I turned to find out about cutting it open and pitting it. This book reminds me of a cookbook that Tib gave to Betsy in Maud Hart Lovelace's book Betsy's Wedding. (I'm loosely quoting here, not being sure where the book is right now!) "It practically says, 'Take an egg and break it.' It's for people like Betsy, who might otherwise think the egg went in, shell and all."

Anyway, if you want one gigantic, jam-packed cookbook that's also a fun read, this is the one to get!