Lex Culinaria

Recipe Collection Meme

I was tagged by Kalyn's Kitchen for this recipe collection meme. It's fascinating to see how other people get to the end product that appreas on their blogs. Some rely heavily on cookbooks, others browse the web exclusively...I gather that most are somewhere in the middle. I used to be a compulsive cookbook purchaser but in recent years I've been reformed by the bounty of the web.

I buy quite a few cooking magazines and look through them for pictures of stuff that makes me drool. I also do a lot of my recipe research online - both through recipe websites bt also through restaurant menus available online. I guess I use the photos and one-line menu descriptions as a base for what I'm going to cook and then work out from there how I'm going to do it.

Where do you obtain the recipes you prepare?

They really are a sort of mish mash. I find photos or menus descriptions I like, work out how I'm going to make it and then google around to see if I can find something similar as a starting point. Sometimes I just pull an idea out of the air and go for it. A great recent example is the prawn agnolotti I made. I had a few ingredients in my cupboard I wanted to use so I just pulled the recipe out of my head. Other than the pasta dough. Which, If I've got access to the French Laundry's basic pasta dough recipe...well I'm not going to argue with that.

How often do you cook a new recipe?

I make three or four new recipes a week, usually at the weekend, because during the week, I've got very little time to cook - we generally eat out or eat leftovers or something simple like spaghetti bolognese.

Where do you store your favourite recipes?

On my blog. In my head. In my "recipe box" on Epicurious. In Word. On pieces of paper that look like this...

How large is your recipe pile? Is it organized? How?

It's kind of hard to organise so many different sources, so I don't. Luckily I have a shocking good memory. Lists on sticky notes, lists in Word Pad.

What is the oldest recipe in your to try pile?

I don't really have a to try pile. I just make whatever I feel like at the time. OOOOhh wait. I've been meaning to make Molly's chocolate scones for bloody ever!

Are you really ever going to make all those recipes in your to try pile?
See above.

Do you follow a recipe exactly or modify as you go?

Always modify. Sometime I'd really like to trey a recipe as written just so I can say I have.

What is one new recipe that you're scared to try?

Puff pastry. Sounds like way too much work. I have the attention span of a gnat.

Tag at least one new food blogger for this meme ("new" as in only blogging a few months)

Hooked On Heat's been around for just about 6 months now, but In my books that's still fairly new. I love Indian food, so if you do too, head on over.

Tag at least one food blogger you visit regularly but never interacted with:

I'm pretty sure every site I visit regularly I comment on. I'm not really the lurking type.

Tag at least one food blogger you constantly visit and leave comments:

Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness. She constantly dispenses happiness to me. Also Bea at La Tartine Gourmand, because I love everything about her blog...it's absolutely compelling - top notch photos, great food choices, gorgeous sounding recipes.

Tag anyone else you want:

Clare at Eat Stuff

Rachel at Fresh Appraoch Cooking

Moira at Who Wants Seconds

Beacuse I really dig these three sweet, sweet girls and haven't been good at dropping by their blogs lately because I am a slack tart, and I miss them & their blogs. And I'd really love to know more about them and so would you!

Meme of Sevens...

...with bonus picture of the cutest cat in the whole of Western Canada...

I've been tagged by Tania of Candied Quince for the Seven Meme, for whom it was a first meme. If you'd like to know a little bit more about what a meme is, just click here.

7 Things to Do Before I Die:

1. Write a book.
2. Help as many other people as possible.
3. live to work instead of working to live.
4. Buy a chunk of heaven on Vancouver Island, Tasmania or by the Andaman Sea.
5. Have a donkey as cute as Dan.
6. Become a better person.
7. Spend the time to get really good at yoga (well, as good as my gimpy shoulders will let me).

7 Things I Cannot Do:

1. Sit still for more than 5 minutes.
2. Understand how some people can be so rude.
3. Imagine life without my husband.
4. Accept that it's 'part of life' for people to be hungry or homeless.
5. Stomach Ralph Klein.
6. Bear to return things I've bought.
7. Stomach John Howard.

7 Things that Attracted Me to Blogging:

(actually, this is more a list of things that keep me blogging rather than the initial reasons that started me blogging - which, I think is more enlightening)

1. It allows me an outlet for my modest amount of creativity.
2. The interaction with other food bloggers - some of whom I've learned a great deal from.
3. The kick in the arse to step outside my kitchen comfort zone.
4. The inspriation to refine my cooking and photography skills.
5. The flexibility of the medium - I can engage in my hobby when it suits me.
6. It's an easy way to communicate with akll sorts of people I wouldn't have the means to connect with individually.
7. A ready-made community that shares my interests and laughs at my stupid jokes.

7 Things I Say Most Often:

1. “I can't help you if won't tell me what's wrong.” (to cat)
2. “Who loves his mummy?” (to cat)
3. “I'll just be five minutes.” (to husband)
4. “Why did they cancel Earth 2?” (to self)
5. “I miss Melbourne.” (to self)
6. “At least it's a dry cold.” (to anyone who cares to comment on the fact that, climactically speaking, my choice to move from Melbourne to Edmonton is, at best, baffling.)
7. “Where's Fish-Fish?” (to cat)

7 Books I Love:

1. A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
2. Village of the Small Houses by Ian Fergusson
3. Mao's Last Dancer by Lee Cunxin
4. The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
5. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
6. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
7. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

7 Movies I Watch Over and Over:

1. “Bridget Jones' Diary”
2. “Apocalypse Now”
3. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone”
4. “Pirates of the Caribbean”
5. “Fargo”
6. “Cinderella Man”
7. “the Matrix”

7 Bloggers I’m Tagging:

I seem to have caught the tail end of this one, so I'll just leave it open.