Today I’m starting a new series, which I hope you will enjoy. Five for Friday will provide you with a round up of things happening here on Delicieux, books I’m reading, events I’ve attended, things I’m loving and other bits and pieces. A little glimpse into my life if you will.

KitchenAid Give Away

In case you didn’t read the announcement on my Facebook and Twitter pages, I’d like to congratulate a very lucky Talia M who won the KitchenAid Stand Mixer give away!!  Talia was the lucky and somewhat shocked winner selected from 11,050 entries. Yes, you read that correctly, 11,050 entries! I shouldn’t be surprised though, everyone loves KitchenAid, especially when they come in so many beautiful colours. Thank you so much to everyone who entered.

Congratulations again Talia. Enjoy your new KitchenAid Stand Mixer. By the way, Talia selected the Apple Green colour, which you can see above.

Reading

Ever feel like time just disappears? Honestly, sometimes I don’t know where the 24hrs in my day go because it just seems to be gobbled up in no time. You get all the necessities done but there just doesn’t feel time for much else. One of the things I haven’t had a lot of time for lately is reading. And my list of books to read, and review, seems to be ever increasing.

Hardie Grant sent me French Food Safari a few weeks ago and I can’t wait to sit down and read it cover to cover. France is at the top of the list of places I want to visit as ever since I can remember I’ve been obsessed with all things French. Seeing all the beautiful photos and hearing the stories of my parents recent trip to France has only increased that yearning to visit France. Hopefully I’ll get there one day soon, but in the mean time I can vicariously live the French life thanks French Food Safari.

Another gorgeous book I’ve been sent to review is The Sweet Life by Kate Bracks  from Random House.  As a sweet tooth I’m sure I will have a lot of fun cooking from this.

I was sent At Home On The Range by Bloomsbury and it reminds me of the type of cookbook my Nan would have cooked from when she was my age. Elizabeth Gilbert, best known for her best selling book Eat, Pray, Love, stumbled across a box of books while moving home which contained a book called At Home On The Range by her great-grandmother, Margeret Yardley Potter. Not having read the book before Gilbert soon fell in love with her great-grandmothers style of sharing recipes with witty comments such as “And if you can resist cutting off a big warm piece and spreading it thickly with butter, you’re not the girl I think” when explaining how to make the perfect loaf of bread. While it’s not usually the type of book I would purchase myself, I’m usually drawn to books with beautiful photography, I’m looking forward to taking a trip back in time and reading this.

I recently purchased Eleven Madison Park. Eleven Madison Park is the book by Eleven Madison Park restaurant which is located, you guessed it, in New York. In fact, on our holiday in New York last year I’d hoped to dine at Eleven Madison Park, but sadly we just ran out of time. It’s definitely on the list for our next visit though. The book tells the story of a team that wanted to create a innovative dining experience in New York. It’s filled with amazing photography, beautiful food and an utterly inspiring story. If you are looking for a beautiful coffee table book this definitely fits the bill.

So tell me, what cookbooks have you purchased recently?

Noosa Food and Wine Festival

In May I attended the Noosa Food and Wine Festival.  The event runs over 3 days and includes lots of demonstrations from well known celebrity chefs and is a great chance to try new foods and wine.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed was seeing the number of Tasmanian producers at the event. Having grown up in Tasmania I have a soft spot for Tasmanian food and wine, but even without that I have to say the food and wine coming out of Tasmania is amazing.

Whilst at the show I picked up a number of products, but one of my favourite things was this cute shoe spoon rest  that my fiance bought for me.

 

Paprika

I’m always stumbling across delicious recipes, and once upon I time I used to bookmark them in my web browser, however, it made finding a particular recipe quite difficult. Then one day I stumbled across the Paprika app for my iPad and it was a revelation. Paprika enables you to download recipes from any website and save them in your recipe database. Your database can be searched by course, ingredient or keyword. In addition to you can put together weekly meal plans and even your grocery list.  Paprika is available on Mac, iPad and iPhone.

How do you store your favourite recipes? Do you use an app, bookmarking service or a good old fashioned recipe folder?

Crocs

It’s perhaps unsurprising that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and one of the things that is essential when spending time in the kitchen is comfy shoes. Even more important, if you are accident prone like me, and have in the past slipped over in the kitchen and dislocated your knee, is non slip shoes.

Despite my love of heels, and not owning ANY flat shoes, when Troy and I went to the US last year I realised I had to bite the bullet and buy some comfortable shoes for walking and forget about how they looked. In the search for some comfortable shoes I ended up stumbling across a pair of black flat Crocs that are a little like ballet flats. Never in a million years did I think I’d buy a pair of Crocs, let alone flat shoes, and while they are not the most attractive shoes, they were a necessary evil. And after walking around Las Vegas and New York in them, and wearing them in the kitchen, I can attest to how amazingly comfy they are. No wonder chefs wear them. If you spend a lot of time on your feet in the kitchen they are definitely worth checking out.

Are comfortable shoes a necessity for you in the kitchen? What do you wear?