Guest Post: Aven Ellis in Bookland

Today I am very happy to welcome Aven Ellis to my blog. Aven is the author of amazing stories like Connectivity, Waiting for Prince Harry or Surviving the Rachel and a lovely friend of mine. Now, she is going to talk about her own Bookland, the place where she gets lost in her books and travel far far away. Aven, all yours:



Aven in Bookland (Cookbook Land, that is.)

When the lovely Alba first asked me to write a post on my idea of a visit to my favorite novel, I immediately knew what I wanted to write about, but I didn’t want to visit a novel...

I wanted to visit my cookbook collection.

I know, as an author you were expecting me to tell you what novels I’d love to live in, but cooking is a huge passion of mine. I cook almost every single day. I devour recipes on Pinterest, in magazines, blog sites but I love nothing more than finding a treasured cookbook, one with recipes I will use over and over, ones with sticky pages from being splattered on, one that helps me cook well for my family and provide healthy meals for my table. 
I’m obsessed with them. Whenever I see one of my favorite chefs has a new cookbook out, I get super geeked out and preorder it immediately. So who are my preorders, no questions asked? Bobby Flay. I have found multiple recipes out of each cookbook of his that are incredible. I also love Giada De Laurentiis. Her cookbooks are beautiful, and again, I always find something delicious to make in them.

What are my favorite cookbooks, the ones I can’t live without and are my Holy Grail of cookbooks? Both books by Gwyneth Paltrow: My Father’s Daughter and It’s All Good. They are full of healthy foods, interesting flavors, and the recipes are easy to make. I love her soups-her tomato soup is perfection, and so is her butternut squash soup, her gazpacho...okay I’ll stop there but I’m a huge fan of these books.

 Since I’ve tried to cut back on grains, Danielle Walker’s Against All Grain is a huge player in my weekly menu planning. In fact, we’re having her flank steak this week. The barbecue sauce is incredible, as are her salad recipes. 

And I can’t leave out Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite is full of delicious-and healthy-recipes. Another favorite Gordon book is Gordon Ramsay’s Home Cooking: Everything You Need to know to make Fabulous Food. This one is worth it for the smoky pork sliders with barbecue sauce alone.
I also have inherited cookbooks from my grandmother Addie, who loved to entertain and cook. She did something super handy in them-she put notes on top if the recipe was V.G (Very good) or V.G for Company . Other recipes got a check mark and an O.K next to it. And my favorites-the ones that got a big NO. One that did get a V.G-and I kid you not, this is the name-was “Better than Robert Redford Cake.” How funny is that? 
So there’s my journey through cookbook land. These books are my passion, and I love spending time with them. There’s a reason why MK in Connectivity loved cooking, Kylie in Waiting for Prince Harry loved baking, and Kenley is a Confection Consultant in The Definition of Icing. It’s a way of extending my cooking passion into my writing. And I’m sure you’ll be seeing more characters cooking in my pages very soon.
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Thank you Aven for sharing your own Cookbookland with us! Who wouldn't want to get lost in some of these amazing recipes too? 

You can connect with Aven on Twitter and on Facebook

And Aven's new book, The Definition of Icing is out next week. If you loved Waiting for Prince Harry (if you haven't read it yet, I don't know what you are waiting for), then you'll love this one too as the Dallas Demons are back! 

Blurb: Kenley Hunter finally has everything sorted out. Fresh from studying chocolate making in Europe, she'sgambling everything on her new business, Confection Consultations.

All Kenley wants in life is people to take her seriously, to see the person on the inside rather than the blonde beauty on the outside. While pursuing her passion of chocolate, Kenley discovered people seek her knowledge. They see past the exterior and fall for the chocolate delights in front of them.

So with work as her focus, Kenley is ready to start her career in Dallas. Men are out of her recipe, because she fears that once they get past her looks, they’ll be disappointed in what they find. Kenley decides she's all about the chocolate now.

Or is she?

Because a chance meeting with new Dallas Demon hockey star Nate Johansson might change everything. Sent to Dallas in a blockbuster trade, Nate is somewhere he doesn't want to be, for reasons that have caused him heartbreak on multiple levels. Nate knows he will never trust a woman again after what happened to him in Minnesota.

But when he meets a woman with an intriguing name and a passion for chocolate, Nate isn't so sure about

his theory. And he might just learn a definition of icing other than the one used in hockey with Kenley as his guide... 



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2 comentaris

  1. Thank you so much for having me guest post, Alba! xo

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    1. A pleasure having you! I loved reading your post, looking forward to The Definition of Icing now! xx

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