Ottawa is anything but boring, and An Insider’s Guide to Canada’s Capital is the proof. Produced by a group of about 30 millennials led by multimedia co. Wingd‘s Zainab Muse, the book highlights the people, places and organizations that make the city an exciting, diverse and Instagram-worthy place to visit and live. Take a peek at the book trailer and tell me you don’t want to see more. … An Insider’s Guide to Canada’s Capital + Win a copy! #Ottawa2017
It’s been a fantastic year for cookbooks, and out just in time for holiday baking (and giving!) is The Sprinkles Baking Book: 100 Secret Recipes from Candace’s Kitchen by Candace Nelson. It’s the first cookbook from the investment baker turned pastry chef and founder of America’s first cupcakes-only bakery, Sprinkles. Inside are 50 cupcake recipes including customer favourites and new ones created for the book, as well as 50 other desserts (brownies and bars, pies and tarts, loaves and puddings and more). I want to try them all! But I started with two. … The Sprinkles Baking Book by Candace Nelson + Win a copy!
As I write, North Carolina chef, restaurateur and television personality, Vivian Howard, is ambling toward Atlanta, Georgia in a food truck, two and a half weeks into a nine-week book tour that will take her to more than 20 towns and cities across the southeast United States. Together with a small team, she’s serving up stories and dishes from her new (and first) cookbook, Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South. The book is a comprehensive record of modern Southern cooking that explores the history of North Carolina cuisine, catalogued by the ingredients that residents have cooked around for generations. … Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South by Vivian Howard + Win a signed copy!
The best recipes are made with a whole lot of love, and you can tell Ayesha Curry puts her heart into everything she makes. In her first cookbook, The Seasoned Life: Food, Family, Faith, and the Joy of Eating Well (released just this week), the 27-year-old self-taught cook of Jamaican-Chinese-Polish-African American heritage shares family favourites from her childhood in Toronto and North Carolina, along with new dishes inspired by restaurants in California where she and hubby NBA MVP Stephen Curry now live with their two young children. “Everything warm, everything delightful, and everything that is loved in my life somehow involves (and revolves around) food,” Ayesha writes. “I light up every time I get the blend of favours in a recipe just right, or when I achieve a perfect sear on a steak, or smell a batch of cookies baking. I always enjoy watching the faces of family and friends as they take that first bite.” I took a bite out of her book and mes amis, it was delicious! … The Seasoned Life: Food, Family, Faith, and the Joy of Eating Well by Ayesha Curry + Win a copy!
My kids may be well past the napping stage, but until we send them off with a suitcase and a bus ticket on their 18th birthdays, I’ll be relishing those pockets of time when they’re busy doing something on their own so I can get things done. Like get supper on the table. (Preferably something everyone will like.) Enter my new go-to: The I Heart Naptime Cookbook: More Than 100 Easy and Delicious Recipes to Make in Less Than One Hour by Jamielyn Nye. It just came out this week but I received an advance copy to try and every recipe I’ve made has been such a hit! I think you’re going to love it. … The I Heart Naptime Cookbook by Jamielyn Nye + A giveaway
They say good things come to all those who wait / And for Teagan White fans, it’s an important date! / The Barefoot Critters are back in their second book / With counting adventures and here’s a first look! … Counting with Barefoot Critters by Teagan White + A giveaway!
You don’t have to be a dog lover to appreciate Janet Hill’s charming first picture book, Miss Moon: Wise Words from a Dog Governess, but the sweet sentiments and darling illustrations in its pages might sway you in that direction. A brief introduction tells us Miss Moon cared for 67 dogs at her first placement on a small island off the coast of France, and here she is sharing her “twenty most important lessons for raising happy, healthy, well-manned pooches — and people.” And the pages that follow are no less than enchanting. … Miss Moon: Wise Words from a Dog Governess + A giveaway!
Lauren Conrad throws the parties that dreams (my dreams!) are made of: lavish, flower-filled fêtes that spare no expense with breathtaking decor, even prettier food, and a thoughtful consideration to every last detail. If that’s your ideal too, then you’ll love Lauren Conrad Celebrate, the new party-planning guide and pretty picture book from the former reality-TV star, designer and author. … Lauren Conrad Celebrate by Lauren Conrad
Grab a cup of tea and settle in for some major design inspo with today’s look at Ellie Tennant‘s second book, Chic Boutiquers at Home: Interiors Inspiration and Expert Advice from Creative Online Sellers. The UK-based interiors journalist takes us inside the homes of 12 designers, makers and curators known for their stylish online shops and shares a wealth of advice on how to set up your own. These are carefully curated, impeccably styled homes in New York, the Netherlands and the UK that still manage to be homey and warm, spaces designed for work, rest and play by entrepreneurs with style and substance. Show me to the guest room — I want to move in! … Chic Boutiquers At Home by Ellie Tennant
“No one goes there these days, it’s too crowded.” — Yogi Berra
If this Spring’s crop of veggie-centred cookbooks is any indication, it’s going to be a plant-iful year for home cooks and foodies looking for a generous side of inspiration with their greens. New to the bounty is The Love & Lemons Cookbook: An Apple-to-Zucchini Celebration of Impromptu Cooking, the much-anticipated release by blogger Jeanine Donofrio of the award-winning Love & Lemons blog. Inside are over 100 simple recipes organized around familiar fruits and veggies illustrated with fantastically fresh photographs and handsome graphic design. Jeanine wants readers to learn how to cook “backwards”, that is, build meals around what they already have on hand, rather than going to the store with a recipe list. The recipes and photos are there to inspire, to encourage cooks to put their own spin on things. And that they do.
It’s a fantastic year for plant-tastic cookbooks, and last week saw the debut of another: Whole Bowls: Complete Gluten-Free and Vegetarian Meals to Power Your Day by Allison Day, nutritionist, food stylist, photographer and creator of the award-winning blog Yummy Beet. These are wholesome, satisfying meals and desserts you can assemble as quickly or leisurely as time allows, preparing components in advance to have at the ready or building all at once like I did (and maybe nibbling as you go). Use Allison’s whole bowls formula to adapt the recipes to your taste and/or what you have on hand and discover the plant-iful pleasures to be had in a bowl brimming with flavour, colour and texture. … Whole Bowls by Allison Day + Win a copy!
I know there are a bajillion other blogs you could be reading right now besides mine, so when somebody tells you yours is one of their favourites and they’ve discovered all kinds of things from it, well it makes you feel pretty great. Thank you Paméla! B, and thanks to all of you making try small things part of your day. Quite a few of you like to craft and colour, either by yourself or with your kids, so I think Paint by Sticker (out just last week!) is something you’d really enjoy. Just like paint-by-number, each of the pictures is divided into spaces, only instead of colouring them in with paint you fill them with the corresponding sticker. There’s a version for kids too, but I thought my almost-nine-year-old daughter could totally tackle the more detailed grown-up version so we put that one to the test. … Create a masterpiece! Paint by Sticker + Win a copy!
