As a gastro-bibliophile, I feel fortunate to have a bookshelf built directly into the kitchen wall. I’ve got to have my reference materials close at hands when sweating over a hot stove, and it’s nice to have a place to organize my tomes without consuming any precious counter space.

My only complaint, however, is that the shelf is just too small. It’s a bit of a ridiculous complaint, I know. If I actually had the shelf space to house my full collection of culinary texts, my kitchen would more closely resemble a study than a cookery, but it’s always a pain when I have to pare the kitchen library down to the bare essentials that’ll fit into the space.

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My name is Tricia, and I'm a magazine addict.

I admit it.

I have to keep a pretty tight rein on my urge to subscribe, so I have pretty high standards there. A publication has to wow me every time if I'm going to lock myself in.

But during a trip to the bookstore — or even down the grocery checkout aisle — the temptation can be just to much to resist.

Beautiful covers on home-, food- and lifestyle-centric magazines can pull me in almost every time.

But once I get them home, and excitedly peruse the contents within, I'm often with left with unfulfilled expectations.

That's where this week's book comes in.

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Getting out the door quietly should be the easiest part of my morning routine, but my complete lack of fashion sense causes me to fail this objective time and again. Because I have next to zero confidence in my wardrobe decisions, I constantly have to stir my snoozing spouse to weigh in on such perplexing quandaries as, “Can I wear this belt with these socks?” or, “Is it okay to wear a striped shirt with this sweater?” I’m sure it’s aggravating, but I have a perpetual fear of arriving at work in a mismatched ensemble that’d make Emmett Kelly blush.

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No, they're not the ghosts of carrots past. They're parsnips!

This week's ingredient could be in the running for one of the most underappreciated items in the produce section.

Like their cousin the carrot, parsnips shine in both sweet and savory settings. They certainly are one of things that have quite a strong fall feel, but they can be a year-round addition to the table.

When the fall and winter holidays roll around, however, I'm always reminded of my love for parsnips. The pale, sweetly earthy root veggies always seem to pop up on my Thanksgiving menus.

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Rice Cooking by Robin Howe.

In other parts of the world, rice is a diet mainstay. I think I could certainly be happy with that kind of diet. I love the stuff.

And I'm not talking the over-dressed, over-salted stuff you find on the grocery stores, presented by friendly faces with names like Uncle Ben.

I'm talking about freshly steamed, fragrant, snowy mounds of the stuff.

And that's why I picked this week's cookbook — Rice Cooking by Robin Howe — from the shelf at an antique store or flea market I've since forgotten.

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No, we're not that good. These are the real thing. (Courtesy of Creative Commons)

For me, the days and even weeks following Halloween are a series of sweet surprises, each one striped in orange, yellow and white. Yup, candy corn is probably the most iconic of autumnal treats, and for the three weeks before and after October 31st it’s hard to get away from (not that you’d want to).

Yes, like freeloading grains of sand after a beach bash, candy corn have a habit of popping up in the most unlikely of places and well after the party’s over. Don’t get me wrong. I love it. That last sweet morsel desperately clinging to the bottom of your plastic jack-o-lantern? That errant wedge hiding behind the coasters? They’re all fair game, and each one provides a small, unexpected bit of pleasure in the ever-shortening days of November. But, as we all know, even the simplest pleasures cannot last forever.

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We're always looking for something new to try, so when we come across an appealing idea or recipe, we'll tuck it away for a weekend, when we often spend a little extra time cooking together.

Last Sunday, though, was an end to a long week, so we were both thinking pizza. (I wanted takeout, Steve was thinking frozen.)

But then we remembered we had some homemade tomato sauce in the freezer, from a summer surplus of tomatoes in a family member's garden. And that got us to thinking. Why buy a pizza when we could just throw together our own?

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Banana leaves are big, beautiful, fragrant things. You'll probably have to get them at an international grocery or special store. Sometimes they can be found fresh, but we used frozen ones and they worked beautifully. They add a unique smokiness to the dish, but tinfoil will stand in for the the job of steaming the pork in this dish if you can't get banana leaves.

For some time now, I’ve been interested in the idea of cooking in an “earth oven.” Also known as pit roasting, it’s a process that’s been around since the dawn of man but has recently enjoyed a bit of notoriety thanks to those travelogue/cooking shows that are so prevalent on cable.

You’ve surely seen it before. One of the big celebrity chefs heads out to some remote Pacific island or South American locale and partakes of a feast prepared right there in the dirt.

It’s labor intensive, primal and, most importantly, supercool. The only problem is that I imagine the neighborhood association would probably have something to say about a gargantuan, smoking hole in my front yard.

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Thanks for the reminder, National Pork Board!

Tricia and I work opposite shifts.

I wake up at 5:30 in the morning, get ready for work, we say our groggy goodbyes and I don’t see her again until dinner. After dinner, we part and don’t meet again until our next early morning encounter.

It’s a maddening cycle that continues through the work week, with an all too short respite on the weekends.

For this reason, we always try to make the most of that dinner hour. That’s our time, and we both work hard to keep others from intruding upon it.

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A cookbook focusing on the cuisine of a particular country or region is always a gamble. With a quick perusal, the flavor combinations that represent a far-off land are always seductive, but the question always remains as to how practical the recipes are. Are they able to be adapted to your weekly dinner routine, or is the book destined to produce a “one off” meal and retire to the boneyard of discarded culinary tomes?

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