The Kitchn has an article that may strongly resound with our members - 6 Ways to Manage Your Cookbook Addiction. Their description of what defines a cookbook addict may strike a chord with some of our members: "Perhaps it's because while you have more cookbooks then you will ever be able to cook recipes from, you cannot stop yourself from adding to your collection. Or maybe there are teetering piles of cookbooks all over your house, surrounding the bed, on a little stool near the bathtub, stacked up next to the couch. It is almost impossible for you to not buy the latest release by a favorite author, even if there's not much new going on there and you can never, never walk past the cookbook section in the bookstore without stopping and losing half a day in the stacks. These are all signs that you may have a situation on your hands."

Of couse, unlike serious addictions (drugs, gambling, etc.) this addiction is one that isn't really unhealthy - as long as it's not financially draining or forces you to sleep in the garage due to space concerns. In fact, to us the word "addict" really doesn't work. The word ignores the fact there are many benefits to cookbook ownership - not least that home-cooked meals are now acknowledged as a crucial part of a healthy lifestyle. And cookbooks are not just to cook from - they can provide hours of reading enjoyment. But this article does have some good advice on how to approach a fondness for cookbooks rationally.

First, though, if you're a member of EYB you've already taken the most important step - making sure you can access all those recipes so you actually use the books. In fact, an EYB membership is the best way to approach two of the suggestions listed in this article - explore your archives and weed out any books that just don't work anymore. 

So what are the other suggestions? Fuller explanations are in the article, but three interesting ones are: 

• Use the library
• Avoid Amazon
• Start a cookbook club with your friends

And what about buying new cookbooks? The article goes on to give advice on how to choose new cookbooks wisely. There are several good approaches here as well, we especially liked the one that reads: "Rule of thumb: If you casually pick up a cookbook to browse but find you're still reading it 10 minutes later, then you may just want to bring this one home with you."

Feel free to contribute any ideas you have. And we want to thank those members who added comments to the the Kitchn article strongly endorsing an EYB membership as an invaluable resource to help with many, if not all, of these suggestions.

Photo courtesy of the Kitchn

With Mother's Day fast receding into the rear-view mirror, I thought it would be interesting to look more closely at a phenomenon which seems to be especially noticeable this year:  cookbooks by those whose parents are better-known than they are.

April brought Old-School Comfort Food, by Alex Guarnaschelli - the daughter of Maria Guarnaschelli, the cookbook editor (most famously of the controversial 1997 Joy of Cooking).  Having established herself as an executive chef (restaurants Butter and The Darby) and TV food personality, the younger Guarnaschelli produced a cookbook with none of the flaws of restaurant cookbooks: although the recipes are mostly not new, the book itself is accessible, direct, nicely-produced, and - perhaps unsurprisingly - well-edited.

Also last month came Daphne Oz's Relish: an Adventure in Food, Style, and Everyday Fun.  Oz - the daughter of the famous Dr. Oz - is a cohost of "The Chew" on ABC - is making a bid for lifestyle gurudom.  So her recipes (there aren't that many of them) focus on easy food - pasta, salads, grains - and are interspersed with tips on applying your mascara, developing a fitness routine, and how to tell a "confidant" from an "acquaintance".

Perhaps the most striking of all is the just-published Batali Bros. Cookbook, a slender tome the size of a picture book, written by Mario Batali's Benno (16) and Leo (14).  The latter and greater half of the book are recipes by the big M himself - the abundant, authentic-spirited Italian fare we're used to seeing from him.  The first half, however, is entirely written by the sons, and the recipes are no more than what most might think their teens up to handling: French toast, scrambled eggs, meatballs, pasta.  They're written with charm ("Though the best meatballs are in italy, these will come very close.")- and indeed, that these boys chose to write a cookbook at all is disarming.  But if their father weren't who he is, it's hard to imagine the book would have been published.

With the exception of this last case, children of celebrities generally mention their parents as little as possible, clearly hoping to be judged on their own merits, their recipes, their talents.  (A sentiment I can understand.  When I was an academic book editor, I never wanted anyone to think my position came from my dad's status as an art publisher.  And he never mentioned to anyone that his dad was at one time the premier of China.  In neither case did our fathers have anything to do with launching our careers, other than providing a stable middle-class upbringing.)

Nevertheless, these books provide a fascinating glimpse of how parents' career choices can affect their kids'- and maybe, possibly, down the line, be eclipsed by them.  

NPR's The Salt recently revealed that the British have developed quite a passion for baking. In Why Britain Has Gone Mad About Baking, they announced "In the last year alone, some 9 million Britons have taken up baking, according to market research firm Mintel. Indeed, the home-baking market grew a whopping 84 percent between 2007 and 2012, according to Mintel. Increases included sales of all baking-related products, from flour to decorating items, baking tins, mixers, even cake stands."

Attributable to the financial crisis, which "has encouraged the nation to stay at home, finding low-cost leisure activities," this passion has found several outlets.  The outlet we found most fascinating was cake clubs. According to NPR, "Over the past three years,  cake clubs like Hill's have been growing in popularity in the U.K. The concept is similar to a book club - except with cake. Often there's a theme: new recipes only, international or other mandates. Hill, who created her Clandestine Cake Club in 2011 (there are now 168 chapters in the U.K. alone), likes to build excitement by keeping meeting spots secret until the last possible moment."

Our congratulations to our friends across the Atlantic who have found a constructive and tasty way to deal with adversity. And you can see the index for the Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook here.  Bake on...

We were remiss earlier that we didn't acknowledge the winners of the Munchie Awards. As explained by Braiser, which published the results, these awards were created by Andrew Zimmern (most famous for his show, Bizarre Foods). "Zimmern and a panel of 26 experts (chefs, journalists, and media personalities alike) compile a list of nominees in each culinary category which are then open to a public vote."

You can check out the entire list at Braiser's article, but here are the winners of the Taste Makers award (they also announce Tasty Bites and Delicious Destinations - both geographic awards):

TERRIFIC TASTEMAKERS

• Best Food Reality TV Show:  Chopped (Food Network)
• Best Food TV Personality: Alton Brown, Good Eats (Food Network)
• Best Food Magazine: Cooking Light (Time, Inc.)
• Best Food Blog or Site: Serious Eats
• Best New Cookbook: Bouchon Bakery, Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel (Artisan)
• Best Food Podcast or Radio Show: NPR: Food (NPR)
• Best Chef: Hugh Acheson, Empire State South, Atlanta

Our congratulations to the winners and, most especially, the voters. Excellent choices, everyone...

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! 

Discussing chocolate is always appropriate, but never more so than approaching Mother's Day. So here's a shout out to The Daily Meal's article, Truth Behind 4 Chocolate Myths. By busting these myths, they produce even more reasons than you may already have for eating chocolate. Check out the article for the full details, here is a synopsis:

"Myth #1: Chocolate is bad for you
Eaten in moderation, chocolate can be good for you. Flavanols - antioxidants that have been linked to heart health - aren't just found in tea and red wine. Chocolate has them too, along with dietary fiber and assorted minerals.

Myth #2: Chocolate is an aphrodisiac
Chocolate stands alongside oysters and asparagus as an alleged agent of sexual arousal. [We're not so sure about this - but a gift of chocolate never hurts the mood.]

Myth #3: Chocolate causes acne
Even though mom said it for years, chocolate does not cause acne. 

Myth #4: Chocolate is loaded with caffeine
Unless you're consuming it in large quantities, chocolate isn't likely to keep you up at night. Milk chocolate has about 12 milligrams of caffeine per serving, with dark chocolate clocking in at 20 milligrams to 40 milligrams per serving. To put that in perspective, an 8-ounce cup of coffee contains anywhere from 65 milligrams to 120 milligrams of caffeine."

Of course it's certainly no myth or secret that chocolate is the base for some of our best desserts and beverages, but don't forget chocolate can make an appearance in savory dishes. As a gentle reminder, and for another way to consume this latest health food, check out these online recipes for Mexican mole sauce featuring chocolate.

And don't forget to also continue to check out our Mother's Day Pinterest page for more great Mother's Day ideas and recipes.

Photo courtesy of The Daily Meal

No less an authority than the Wall Street Journal has chosen to crown hummus as the new king of the snacks. In their online article, Hummus is Conquering America, they discuss how the growing demand for hummus is encouraging farmers to trade transplanting tobacco for chickpeas. Apparently the chickpea harvest has been concentrated in the Northwest, which creates a diversity of climate issue,  and now the large hummus producers (e.g. Pepsi which partially owns Sabra, and Kraft which owns Athenos) are encouraging Southern farmers to add chickpeas to their crop list.

Sales of hummus in the market are skyrocketing; up 11% from a year ago and up 25% from two years ago. And certainly the fact that a low fat, high protein snack item is popular is nothing to sneeze at - any consumption is a good thing. But perhaps this is a classic example where, since it doesn't take much more effort to make hummus at home than buy it at the grocery store, we can do a little preaching and encourage people to take a look at these online hummus recipes from the EYB Library, sorted by buzz. In particular, we noted that this hummus recipe from the prize-winning cookbook Jerusalem (which has 8 pages devoted to hummus) is the favorite.

Or, since we assume that many of our members already make their own hummus, please share your favorites. A fresh batch might make for an unusual, but highly appreciated, Mother's Day gift.

You know those "suggested menus" offered by many cookbooks?  Where they tell you what goes with what, from starters to salads to mains to sides to sweets, and what wine you should serve with what?  And often they have a picture to go with it - of the whole beautiful spread, sometimes being elegantly nibbled by an octet of attractive people whose clothes are conspicuously cooking-stain-free? You know, those menus?

Maybe it's just that I'm a cantankerous old mule, but: I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.  Here's an example of a menu in Heather Christo's Generous Table, which was published approximately 5 minutes ago:

• Cauliflower soup
• Asparagus Walnut Pesto Linguini
• Halibut en Papillote
• Lemon Tart with an Almond Shortbread Crust
• Coconut Sorbet 

Now let me be clear - I have nothing against Heather Christo or these really quite-delicious-looking recipes.  I just don't like having someone put them together for me.  When I see a previously-composed menu, I feel:

• Exhausted: Even though I'm not afraid of making multi-course meals, somehow seeing somebody else's menu all tied up in pink ribbons only emphasizes for me the amount of work it's going to take to pull it off, especially because it's usually printed across from some posh-looking table setting which itself took an hour to set up.
• Like a Groupie: I can totally understand worshipping a cookbook author so fervently that I want to cook every recipe in their book.  But do I honestly want to reproduce, bite for bite, the very menu that was served to that author's lucky friends, knowing that even if I pull it off, it can only aspire  to be being as good as the original?
• Resentful : Who has time to plot and plan a five-course meal?! (OK, in point of fact, five course meals- or at any rate, five-dish meals happen pretty regularly when my friends get together.  But we all pitch in, is the point, so that even if half of us are stuck late at soccer practice or drama rehearsal, stuff will get made and shared.)
• Uncreative :  Maybe I want to follow a few recipes to the letter.  But isn't it my job to figure out what goes with what, and what's right for the occasion and my guests and the time of year? With 128,788 recipes at my fingertips, isn't it the least I can do to pick and choose what we're going to eat?

Needless to say, feeling pressured by the menus in a cookbook that  I may have received for free in the first place is, as my son would say, a First World Problem. And after all,nothing's stopping me from cherry-picking any recipe I like from anywhere and putting as little or as much effort as I like into it.    But I can't help but wonder if there are better souls than I - less neurotic, more ambitious, less easily distracted - who follow those menus to the letter, never losing their good humor in the process.

If you know one, let me know - and tell me when to show up for dinner.  I'll be there, contributing a bunch of flowers, and nothing else.   

Mother's Day is approaching, and what mother wouldn't want the ultimate chocolate dessert - the "Big Mac of Dessert?" Mark Bittman has bestowed this title on Jean-Georges Vongerichten's molten chocolate cake - the original lava cake that has spawned so many offspring. But Vongertichten produces over 1,000/day, so if you want to go to the master, this is the one to choose. And to help everyone make it, the Braiser has provided this helpful NY Times video to show you exactly how to make it. 

But if cake doesn't fit the occasion,  check out our EYB's special Mother's Day Pinterest board which currently has 109 pins to recipes from savory to dessert to beverages to brunch.

It's fun to both acknowledge and applaud novel approaches to old methods, and a new cookbook coming out in October does just that. Rather than writing out the recipe, this cookbook, (Picture Cook: A Graphic Cookbook by Katie Shelly),  presents the recipes as infographics - line drawings that show the recipe being made.

The idea behind this approach is explained in this article from Taxi,  Brilliantly Illustrated Cookbook Shows Recipes As Infographics:

"Knowing how tedious it can be to wade through text-heavy recipes, Shelly's illustrated instructions keep words to a minimal, and instead, use simple drawings and arrows to bring their messages across...If you are a visual learner, you would appreciate the charming drawings in this unusual cookbook, which would allow you to pick up complicated dishes at a glance."

We're actually not sure how useful this is, but it's possible that these instructions may well appeal to a new group of potential cooks - and anything that entices people into the kitchen is a good thing. Below are two more examples - check out this site for more.

Illustrations from katieshelly.com