I’m still on a total high having attended last night’s spectacular London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. It was certainly the most amazing show I have ever seen, with an electrifying atmosphere in the brand new Olympic stadium. I spent the first part of the ceremony tweeting like crazy with excitement and then luckily, my phone battery died, which meant I was able to concentrate properly! A funny highlight of the evening was spotting Heston Blumenthal and asking him for a photo (costing my husband an expensive a pint of lager as he knocked it to take the snap!) and later, doing the same to Downton Abbey’s Mr Bates whilst queuing for the train home. We ate traditional British ‘fish and chips’ (MSC haddock, tick) and sipped (Fair Trade, tick) rosé, whilst singing, dancing and shouting at the tops of our voices. Arriving home at 4am, this morning I am a little worse for wear. As I headed to my beautiful new bookshelf to look for my favourite ‘Saturday Pancakes’ recipe from Leon Baking and Puddings Book 3, I was reminded of Dom’s Random Recipe challenge over at Belleau Kitchen, which this month was to simply share a photo of our cookbooks and tell a little story. So here we are…
This happens to be our newest piece of furniture and I love it. Up until last week, growing piles of cookbooks were scattered around the kitchen or in wicker baskets all over the house. It’s wonderful to finally have most of my favourite culinary tomes in one neat place. It also encouraged me to have a mini de-clutter and take a couple of my older and lesser used book to a local charity shop. My dream is to one day have floor to ceiling book shelves piled high with an eclectic mix of cookery books, inspired by the books I saw at Diana Henry’s house housing over 4,000 of her cook books! Whilst I’m no where near that number yet, my collection is growing, never more so than having become a food blogger.
What is particularly amazing is that recent additions to my cook book collection include books written by fellow food bloggers and friends, such as Vanessa Kimbell’s Prepped, Sarah Trivuncic’s Bake Me I’m Yours Sweet Bitesize Bakes and Nick Coffer’s My Daddy Cooks book. I regularly turn to these books for what have become some of my favourite recipes and I’ll be reviewing Sarah’s books shortly here, too.
One of my most used book is defintely Leon Baking and Puddings, although there are a couple of Nigella books giving it a run for its money and I also regularly cook from my Polish cookery books and anything by Diana Henry. Right now, I’m off to whip up some of those tasty Saturday Pancakes to soak up some of the….left over atmosphere of the Olympic Opening ceremony!
How many cook books do you own? Which ones are your favourite ones?!