Today, we're going to take a break in our regularly scheduled blog to pat ourselves on the back. Just this week, we've reached a monumental milestone - we now have over 100,000 online recipes!  Of those, almost 10,000 were added by our members  using the Bookmarklet feature (thank you, thank you); over 10,000 are from cookbooks; and 33,000 are from magazines.

By the way, If any of you don't know about the bookmarklet feature, which is a great way to add favorite recipes from the net to your EYB library, here's a written explanation of how to use one. Or, if you prefer visual instruction,  here's an explanation in a brief video.

And, of course, we'd be totally remiss if we didn't applaud all our members for supporting us while we reached this milestone and encouraging us to keep going. Today 100,000; tomorrow the world! 

We have a site redesign released today. We have dropped the left navigation - all links are now from the tabs across the top.  This has allowed us to increase the size of the images of book covers and recipes.  There is now also a images view for books and recipes - read more in our Help topic. You access the images view at the top of the search page - the view options are from left to right - condensed view, standard view, images view.

There are now Help tips on each page.  You can close these if you wish - any time you want to reopen a tip, click the ? next to the page header.  We have also redesigned our Help section.  It is now much easier to find answers to your questions,  We will also be adding instruction videos over the next week.

You will notice a couple of new icons on the books and recipe listings.

You will be familiar with the first three - ratings stars, speech bubble for notes & reviews, heads for number of Bookshelves. The next one is for Bookmarks - click this to add a bookmark and to create a new bookmark. The final icon is a TV screen - a new feature of videos for books and recipes.  These will be added in coming months - wherever you see this icon, click it and you will see a demonstration by the book or recipe creator.

Finally, an improvement to shopping lists is that you can remove individual recipes from the shopping list.  We plan to do a lot more work on the shopping lists and meal planning functions.

Let us know what you think of the changes - and as always, make requests for other new features you would like to see in the Forum, Give us your feedback.

Today we'd like to take a time out and brag just a little. We're especially proud that The Times (London) has included EYB as one of the top 50 best global food websites. If you have a Times subscription, you can view the entire article here, but if you don't, we wanted to let you read the nice things they had to say about us:

"Sitting at work, planning to cook tonight, without access to your home cookbook shelf? This site has an index of more than 800,000 recipes from the most popular cookbooks. You tell it which books you own and it will provide a searchable index of all the recipes, providing the book titles and all the ingredients needed, but leaving you to look up the recipe in your own copy of the book."

It would have been nice if they had mentioned that we also do the same for over 60 blogs (growing all the time) and over 30 magazines (ditto) - 80,000 online recipes -  but we'll be more than happy to accept the kudos.

And since we're on the subject, If you'd like to see a complete list of our indexed blogs and magazines, check out this copy of our recent newsletter - they're all listed in the right-hand column. And remember - you don't have to add the whole site to your bookshelf; you can add individual recipes.

We promise we'll be back tomorrow with our usual content - in fact we'll pose a little question in advance. Do you know what "flexitarianism" is? Tune in and find out.

At EYB we're always tweaking things to make members' experiences more enjoyable. We've just released a new version that includes a few changes:

• Improved pagination - search results are now shown in pages - a feature that many members have requested.
• Increase speed when displaying search results. To achieve this we have removed 'search as you type'. You now have to press the enter/return key or click the search button to display results.

We hope you like these improvements - and, as always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions. Email us at info@eatyourbooks.com

In a recent blog, we posted Food52's top 10 essential cookbooks. The posting inspired us to look at our own site and statistics. However, we ranked cookbooks by authors, looking at how many of our members owned a cookbook by a certain author. Here are the lists and our comments (links are to the authors' pages in the EYB library):

EYB's top 20:

1. Jamie Oliver
2. Cook's Illustrated Magazine
3. Time-Life Books
4. Julia Child
5. Ina Garten
6. Nigella Lawson
7. Mark Bittman
8. Donna Hay
9. Sheila Lukins
10. Martha Stewart
11. Julee Rosso
12. Nigel Slater
13. Simone Beck 
14. Delia Smith
15. Alice Waters
16. Jacques Pépin
17. Irma and Marion Rombauer Becker
18. Deborah Madison
19. Marcella Hazan
20. Dorie Greenspan

We've noted that two different approaches were used to achieve our top 20 (some approaches do overlap). First, some authors are represented because they have produced a large number of interesting cookbooks, and our members own several by the author. Among the most productive, Time-Life (199 books), Cook's Illustrated (79), Oliver (23), Hay (47), Stewart (39). Bittman (33), Slater (22), Smith (48)  and Pépin (47). Of course other authors are more prolific than some of this group, but our community doesn't own their books in the same quantity. Rachael Ray, for example, has 25 books represented in our ownership list, but only ranks 29th.

A second approach is to produce a blockbuster that appeals to a savvy audience. Simone Beck is here largely because she's a co-author of Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking, (Julia herself has 25 books represented, but The Art is by far the most-owned). Rombauer Becker is, of course, the author (with her mother on the earlier versions) of The Joy of Cooking. And it seems lots of you own one of the Silver Palate cookbooks (Rosso and Lukins).

Finally, we were pleased that we do have international representation. England is represented by Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Nigel Slater and Delia Smith while Australia contributes their domestic queen, Donna Hay. 

Comparing our list to Food52's list of 10 essential cookbooks admittedly is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. Food52's list considers book quality, whereas our list reflects authors' popularity, but we still found a few interesting comparative points. Here's Food52's list (links are to the books' pages at EYB):

1. Joy of Cooking  by Irma S. Rombauer 
2. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck
3. How to Cook Everything  by Mark Bittman
4. The Silver Palate by Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso
5. The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters
6. The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
7. The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser
8. Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi
9. Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan
10. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

First, it's interesting that the only British author on the Food52 list, Yotam Ottolenghi, isn't represented in our top 20 (he comes in 64th in our list).

Second, our two top authors, Jamie Oliver and Cook's Illustrated aren't represented in this list. Of course, both those authors/author groups have a number of books so members' choices could be spread about, whereas Food 52's top two books, Joy of Cooking and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, are really the one main book by those authors.

We'd love to hear your comments on either list. And also be sure to check out the new mobile version of EYB. The mobile version makes it easier to access your book and recipe search results when you're out and about. And it's so simple to use - next time you access Eat Your Books on your phone, the mobile version will automatically load in a readable format. We're very proud of it, and hope you'll enjoy it. For more information, check out our blog on the subject.

We are delighted to announce our new mobile phone version. It's so simple to use - next time you access Eat Your Books on your phone, the mobile version will automatically load in a readable format.

The mobile version makes it easier to access your book and recipe search results when you're out and about. We will continue to enhance this version, and welcome feedback from you as you try it out.

To make it as simple as possible some features have been left out, but you can browse to the full EYB if you need to access those.

Look up Your Books
Next time you're standing in the bookstore trying to decide what your next cookbook purchase is going to be - look it up in the EYB Library to see if it's indexed and what other EYB members think of it.

Some of us will also find it useful as a reminder to check if we already own the book!

 Check Your Recipes

Next time you're standing in the store trying to decide what to make for dinner, look up a recipe in your cookbooks. Enter the meal you'd like to cook, select one and check for other ingredients you'll need to prepare it.

Or just enter lots of ingredients that appeal and see what recipes you have that use them.

You can filter your recipes using your own Bookmarks.

Find New Online Recipes

Filter your recipe search using the online recipe filter and click through to the original source to get the full recipe. Use the 54,000 online recipes in the Library.

Remember that you don't need to be signed in to use this feature.   So if you haven't become a full EYB member yet try searching these recipes. Once you see the great recipes from cookbooks, magazines and the best recipes on the internet - you'll never Google again!

If you would like to reach EYB in just one click, like you do for an app on your phone, then do the following on an iPhone. On Safari click the Share icon to the left of the Bookmarks icon. Click Add to Homescreen. Adjust the name e.g. change it to EYB. 

You can find more information about using the Mobile Version in the How To Help section 

You will have noticed a new look to Eat Your Books when you signed in today.  We have done a bit of a reorg and we hope you like it.   Your Home page will now feed you the latest news on books, recipes, authors and what's happening in the food world.  The latest blog items will feature on your Home page, just click through to the Blog page to see the full article.   You can subscribe to the blog feed that will be updated several times a week by clicking on the RSS feed in the top right hand corner of this blog page.

As Notes are added to Recipes and Books by members they will be shown on the Home page - just click on the title to find out more about the book or recipe.   The same for Reviews - which all have links to the full review on the website they originate from.

There are so many items being added to Eat Your Books daily - we wanted to make it easier to keep track of the latest books, magazines and recipes being indexed.   All the recipes shown have online links, so just click on the image to see more details if it appeals.

Another new feature, requested by members, is that you can sort Books and Recipes in a new way - by Buzz.  This means you can see those that have the most Notes, Reviews and Ratings.

This contest is now closed. Congratulations to Melanie who wins the cookbook and to Monica B, Katya and Maryanne who are joining us at the IACP Culinary Expo. Can you all please email us at info@eatyourbooks.com with your email addresses.

Come and Join us in New York!  This year's IACP conference is in New York, with some great food celebrities confirmed to attend.  

The nominations for the 2012 IACP Cookbooks Awards are published and the winners will be announced on April 2nd.  Eat Your Books is the sponsor of the General Cookbook award and we will be happy to hand the award to either Molly Stevens, Jacques Pépin or John Besh who are the nominees. 

On Sunday, April 1, as part of the conference, there is a Culinary Expo with over 100 exhibitors and a Book and Blog Festival which is expected to be the largest gathering of cookbook authors, bloggers, editors and publishers in North America. Eat Your Books has 5 tickets to give away to this event, so if you're in the area and would like to attend (and meet Jane and Fiona), enter our IACP competition.

• Tell us who you think should win the Cookbook of the Year from the 2012 nominations.  It can be any book on this list.
• An alternate prize if you're not in NYC is your choice of IACP nominated books (excluding Modernist Cuisine!)
• Mention in your comment if you are only entering for the cookbook prize.

We'll let the winners know by March 16th.  

Few people source their recipes from just one place. We're spoilt for choice these days with great cookbooks, enticing magazines, those wonderful recipes friends pass on to us, and who hasn't seen a recipe on a website that they'd love to cook one day. Keeping track of all your recipes from all these sources is now possible - you can have them all on your EYB Bookshelf.

We have just launched the EYB Bookmarket, which will help you organize and find online recipes. You'll find it on your Home page and it's a very simple process to install it on your Favorites Toolbar. Just drag and drop it!

Once installed you click on it every time you see a recipe that you'd like to add to your Bookshelf. Once saved, the Recipe will be added to your Bookshelf and the EYB Library for other members to access.

We bring across as much information as we can, including an image if possible. Every website has different formats, so this varies from one to another.

The more complete and accurate you are with your indexing the more useful it is to you and other members. For more information see How do I add a Recipe from a food website to my Bookshelf?

*  We do exclude links to recipe aggregator sites; sites accessed only through membership and home cook recipes sites.  If you're not able to add a recipe from one of these sites, using the Bookmarklet, you can still add details of the recipe using the Personal Recipes feature.

As well as personal recipe indexing - we've added a few more features that we hope you'll enjoy.

EYB has become a lot more colorful with the addition of images for your online recipes.  If you're using the "online recipes" filter you'll see images for the recipes and when you're in the details page you can zoom out to a larger image.   In case you're wondering why we don't have images for all recipes on EYB - copyright issues make this impossible, as would the logistics of sourcing and loading them.

We now have over 400 magazines in the EYB Library, most are either indexed or will be soon.  We've made it much simpler to add your magazine collection to your Bookshelf.   Now you can use the date range option to select your magazines. If you subscribe to a magazine you can select the option to have each new month automatically added to your Bookshelf.  

With more magazines and blogs being added from different countries, we thought it would be useful to be able to select books, magazines and blogs from a country you're most interested in.  On the Filter bar you'll see a new filter called "Countries".