It's a mag, mag, world

I love magazines. There is something about their shiny covers and flickable pages that makes them so satisfying to read.

Books, of course, will always be my first love but magazines come a close second. It's a love affair that goes a long way back.

The first magazine I can remember reading was Bunty. It was the most perfect magazine for a seven year old reading fanatic such as myself, filled as it was with stories about boarding schools and girl detectives. I so wanted to be like the girls in the stories I read. To share in their adventures, to solve crimes and to have midnight feasts while trying not to be caught by the headmistress. It all sounded so wonderful.

As I got older other magazines came and went. There was My Guy and Oh Boy and Tiger Beat but the best of them all was Jackie, it was the ultimate teen girl mag and throughout my teens I followed this magazine with a dedication that only a teenage girl can have as each week I eagerly waited for the latest issue to arrive only to devour its contents within a few hours.

Now days my reading taste has changed a little but when a shiny new magazine hits my hands I still get that same thrill. They are to me, glossy, bite size pieces of joy.

So here's to magazines. Long may they live and continue.

SciFiNow : the premier sci-fi fantasy horror & cult TV magazine

It probably comes as no surprise that I include this title as one of my favourites. After all the latest issue has Dean and Sam, the boys from Supernatural on its cover (sign...) which is reason enough to read it.

It is though a bloody good magazine, filled with articles about all the latest in the world of sci-fi, from Supernatural to Promenthus to interviews with writers such as George R. R. Martin.

Now go away while I study this magazine with the intensity it deserves.

Writing magazine
A recent discovery for me and one that I am enjoying immensely.

If you're into writing and books and reading then I recommend that you read this as it will open you to all kinds of aspects of the written world from how to write a good crime novel to publishing your own e-book to where authors get their ideas from.

It's fascinating stuff.

Good reading : the magazine for book lovers

Another magazine aimed at those who love everything about books and reading. Being an Australian publication it has a slightly more local flavour and is filled with lots of reviews of upcoming books.

If you're anything like me, you'll come away with an ever increasing list of books that you'll want to read.

Empire

Empire has been around awhile, since 1989 in fact. That it's survived when so many other magazines have fallen under the blade is probably a testament to how good it is.

Like Sci-Fi Now this is a mag that I look forward to and read from cover to cover. No skimming articles here, instead I work my way through each and every little tidbit, often with a pen by my side so that I can take note of any movie that I decide that I just have to see. As you can imagine this list, like my book list, can get pretty long, actually make that really long...

Who do you think you are? magazine.

As you probably know from my last post I've been doing my family tree for some time now and like all family treers (okay so it's not a real word) I need all the help I can get in how to find that elusive and sneaky relative who refuses to be found.

Family history has become big business in the last few years and Who Do You Think You Are has been partially responsible for the sudden interest in finding one's ancestors.

Tying in with the show is the magazine which contains much more than what is shown on screen. There are Q & A sections, book reviews, hints and tips on where to go next; the amount of detail that is covered is endless.

BBC Good Food.

Now, though I'm not much of a cook I am a bit of foodie. In fact I love food; the smells, the colours, the taste, it's tantalising stuff.

I love looking through foodie books and magazines too. Everything always looks so perfect, so eatable, that it makes me wish that I could cook just so I could try some of the amazing recipes that are featured.

My favourite foodie magazine is this one, with its brightly filled pages and meals that make my mouth water. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Update on NY resolutions #1

Well, I've managed to achieve one of my new year's resolutions already - learn to cook a proper curry from scratch. In fact, I managed it twice in the last month.

Using Curry Easy, I started out easy with a mushroom & chickpea curry. I got hold of the spices, followed the recipe, was patient with the cooking time, and voila, it worked! And it was tasty and easy to prepare, so much so that I even prepared it again for friends. And I even managed to cook the basmati rice to perfection - patience is the key.

I've got my eye on a tasty looking potato & pea curry next. Have you got any favourites that you'd recommend I try out?

Vegetarian cookbooks to be inspired by

A friend recently tweeted that she needed some advice as she had unexpected vegetarian dinner guests arriving. I was a little puzzled. Surely cooking vegetarian isn't *that* hard, or indeed that unusual, these days.

Perhaps all she really needed was a little inspiration from some new(ish) vegetarian cookbooks, such as :

Meat free Monday Cookbook by Paul, Stella & Mary McCartney. Following on from the campaign to get people in the UK to not eat meat at least one day per week, this cookbook has a whole year's worth of delicious "meat free Monday" menus (from breakfast to pudding).

Plenty and Ottolenghi: the cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi, based on Ottolenghi's new vegetarian columns in The Guardian as well as loads of recipes from the London Ottolenghi restaurants.

Rowan Bishop's Vegetarian Kitchen by Rowan Bishop, a New Zealander who has been writing about vegetarian cooking for ages, and has filled this new book with fantastic favourites as well as plenty of new dishes.

So next time you need some vegetarian inspiration, or perhaps you want to try something new, or even be prepared for those unexpected dinner guests, take a look at the vegetarian cooking section (start browsing from 641.5636 in the nonfiction section at your nearest library).