A pick me up - pay it forward

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Megan over at My Baking Adventures.  She picked Tiramisu Cake for us to make this week.  I was kind of looking forward to it, because I've never made tiramisu in cake form or otherwise.  Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be, at least this weekend...  Last Thursday, I had the day off.  I spent part of my morning making a batch of Dorie's Chocolate Chunkers to share with a friend.  I'd forgotten how much chocolate goes into those things!  That evening, I turned the oven on to preheat--I was just going to throw in some frozen chicken strips for Jamie and me to eat for dinner (it was a long day...).  After a while, I realized I should check on the oven.  It had been more than long enough for it to be preheated.  Imagine my dismay when I opened the oven door and discovered that the oven was still completely cold!  

The scientist/engineer in me demanded that I try to figure out what the heck was wrong.  I have a gas oven & stovetop.  The burners worked just fine.  The broiler (mine is in the top of my oven) also worked.  There was definitely gas flowing.  Jamie and I figured it was most likely something with the igniter for the oven.  I called my friendly neighborhood appliance repair people Friday morning from work.  But they don't work weekends at all, and there was no way for one of us to be home Friday afternoon.  So the earliest I was able to schedule an appointment was Monday morning.  That left me with an entire weekend to cook with no oven.  It temporarily threw a wrench in my usual BYOB plans.  I eventually got the idea to try making flatbread on my griddle.  But that's a story for another post...

Anyway, the oven got fixed Monday morning.  As we suspected, the igniter was at fault.  It has now been replaced.  But not soon enough for me to have time to bake cake.  I did bake bread Monday evening (the dough was already in the fridge) and it seems like the oven is working much more efficiently than before.  I'm going to have to watch that until I get used to how it's different.  Since I don't have the same sort of pick-me-up as you'll find on the blogs of the other TWD bakers this week, I thought I'd go in a different direction...

Quite some time ago, I was the lucky winner of a giveaway from Margaret at Tea and Scones.  She offered the winner a choice of gift cards, and I had a hard time deciding between Williams-Sonoma and Sur la Table.  I ended up choosing Sur la Table, and had a great time shopping.  I swear, I can spend hours in that store, even if it's just window-shopping.  I finally came home with the items pictured above--a new 8" springform pan, two sturdy 8" regular cake pans, and a cool new spatula.  I had some old 8" pans, but they were all pretty cheap (in construction).  I've had lots of fun using all of my new toys.  Thanks, Margaret!

One of the only conditions of the giveaway was that at some point in the future I would "pay it forward" by offering a giveaway of my own.  Well, I'm finally getting around to doing that.  But in the process, I want to pick your brains a bit.  So here's how it's going to work...  To enter, leave a comment on this post, and tell me a couple of things:  First, what cookbook do you have that you absolutely love?  (like I need an excuse to add to my collection...)  And second, what cookbook are you just dying to own?  One lucky winner will receive a $25 gift card or gift certificate for the book seller of their choice (as long as I can reasonably manage to get my hands on one--otherwise, there's always Amazon).  You just have to agree to pay it forward in turn.  The deadline is 11:59pm CDT on Friday 5/8.  The winner will be chosen at random by my lovely assistants, Brianna and Gillian.  I look forward to hearing about your cookbook choices!