TasteBook and Insignia Fitness Triple Giveaway

I have here today a package for the cook AND a package for the fitness fiend in your life. Or maybe they're the same person--who knows?

At any rate, first things first. I've got a really fun item from TasteBook.com, a website that allows you to create your own cook book. You don't have to be a tech genius to figure it out, you simply go to TasteBook.com and register for a free account then you decide which recipes you'd like to include in your personal hardbound cook book.

There are several options, you can search through their files supplied by Epicurous--the company that brings you Bon Apetit and Gourmet magazines--and use their recipes, already formatted. Or you can type in your own, complete with your own pictures. Or you can select one of their pre-made sets of recipes on a theme.

I heard about TasteBook months ago and was dying to see how it worked, I chose to use my own recipes that I've published here at Scribbit and copied, pasted and uploaded 100 of my favorites straight from my web pages.

It worked well, although a couple of times when I went to the website to work on the project I had problems with the entered information being saved in the fields. If I previewed a recipe then came back to edit or save it sometimes the information in the fields I'd just entered would be empty which made for some irritation. With 100 recipes to enter a little glitch like that made things frustrating but it could have been just a tremor in the Force, a glitch in the Matrix, something that was a one-time problem--who knows?

Anyway, I got my book this week and was completely satisfied with the results, it looks so professional! TasteBook formats the whole thing for you and uses some of their stock photos for things like the cover and the dividers but my own photos printed nicely--even those of a lower resolution which I had worried about. The hardbound binder has lovely pictures and the pages are thick and sturdy. There are sections such as "meat and poultry," "drinks and appetizers," and "fish and seafood" just as in a regular cook book.

If you're interested in this cool way to have a cook book where every recipe is one you actually will use--and each recipe has a picture, an absolute must for me--then this is a nice way to go.

You can select up to 100 recipes to be included in your binder for a total cost of $34.95 plus shipping which isn't cheap but it's not too bad if you consider what a cook book at the book store might cost you--and especially considering you're more likely to use all the recipes in your custom made cook book.

What struck me too is that this is a nice way to combine family heirloom recipes (you could include family pictures with the recipes rather than food shots--there aren't rules on this you know).

SO . . . I have here a double treat. I've put together 100 of my own recipes from Scribbit into a prototype book that I'm going to give away as one prize, then Tastebook.com has also offered a random winner a shot at making their own TasteBook free of charage.

If any of you who don't win would be interested in purchasing your own copy of Recipes from Scribbit I'll be making it available for purchase at no markup, just $34.95 plus shipping straight from TasteBook.com. It has almost all of the recipes you've seen here over the past two years and has some of my very favorite recipes in the world. If you'd like to purchase one please leave a comment in the message field of the entry form and I'll get with you on the details.

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And now the gift for the fitness expert in your life comes from Best Buy who has put together the Insignia Fitness package which includes:

• An Insignia 2GB MP3 player can store up to 500 songs
  
• A $10 Best Buy Digital Music Store download card for your workout playlist
• An Init armband to keep the Insignia MP3 player securely fastened
• A Water bottle
  

So you have a chance at one of three prizes this week. If you have a strong preference as to which you'd like, leave me a message to that effect in the entry form and I'll do my best to make everyone happy.

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Megret at Muses of Megret is the winner of yesterday's book Growing up Green by Deidre Imus. I've got more books to tackle on Sunday so don't despair if you'd like to get your hands on one of them.

Here's how to win:

Before 12 am Monday go to the giveaway entry form on this page and enter your name and email. I will pick one of the names at random, contact the winner via their email and publish the winner's first name and home town in next Tuesday's post. See the bottom of the entry form for more details.

This giveaway is open to all readers so good luck!

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