I am trying to push myself in the baking department. I try and write my own recipes most of the time. But when it comes to baking I am still solidly "an adapter". I mean recipe adapter. Which may sound a bit like a confession and maybe it is.

You see, I'm at the International Food Bloggers Conference (IFBC) in Santa Monica, California this weekend. It's one of those meet, greet, sit, talk and eat events I do quite a bit of. There are always opportunities to learn and grow our blogs at these things too. One of the directions I would like to grow is in recipe writing. So I sat in on a panel discussion of the subject with Dianne Jacob, Amelia Saltsman, and Martha Holmberg.They're pros, they write cookbooks.

But I couldn't help feeling that the way they look at recipe development for print, and the mission of so many of us who share recipes and a passion for food online, may be radically different. I mean, intellectually I know their point is correct. If it's not original to me and my blog, does it have value? But I wonder, can't I share something by merely passing along a recipe I've had success with? Or do I need to bring the same level of print journalism standards to every morsel and tidbit I present on these pages? I don't know. I suspect not.

According to Mark Bittman: "Pesto, which means, “paste,” is usually associated with some combination of basil, garlic, Parmesan and pine nuts. But pesto can be made from any number of ingredients: walnuts, sun-dried tomatoes, arugula, you name it. If you can blitz it in a food processor with olive oil, it can be pesto."

Which is sage advice this time of year. Because quite frankly basil is only good enough to be the star ingredient in something as wonderful as pesto when it is grown, outside in the sun when the weather is hot.

I grow the stuff in pots on the patio. I get it going here in California in March. I impatiently and selectively trim a few precious leaves in the spring, not wanting to hinder the plants growth. When done right, by summer I have plenty of basil so my pestos can be whipped up in a flash and a whirl. I don't mind heavy harvesting because basil pops back so quickly when it is in its prime.

Then fall rolls in and I start getting stingy again, thinking I can stretch the growing season. But it’s a fool’s errand. My basil is dying and will get black and slimy within the next few weeks. I need to man up, go out there and whack it all down in final blaze of pesto glory.

I asked Andy from Wind Attack to handle this month's cookbook review for me. He is one of my co-hosts at The Table Set so I know firsthand how knowledgable he is about cooking. The book I chose for him was Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, a London restaurant chef. I just knew the moment I received this book that it belonged in Andy's hands. GREG

When Greg asked me to do a guest post on a new cookbook it wasn't hard to say yes.

“It's so you!” he said as he handed me the book.

I held the book in my hands, hard bound, yet soft to the touch. On first glace what appeared to be roasted eggplants with fresh mozzarella, roasted tomatoes and herbs, the cover image seduced me instantly.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this wasn't my first experience with this cookbook. A few months earlier, I was visiting another blog friend in San Francisco. She works for the publisher of this book, and had an advance copy on her shelf. During my visit, she cooked one of the recipes for me: Bánh xeo, vegetable-stuffed Vietnamese rice pancakes!

It was only later as I browsed the recipes inside that I remembered this dish and that I realized that my eyes mistook me. The cover image was in fact roasted eggplants with buttermilk sauce and pomegranate.