April 2022 Cookbook of the Month - Voting

Thanks to everyone who participated in the nominations for the April COTM. We had a very healthy nomination process, and I appreciate each and every one of you.

Our nominees for April will be SIMPLE THAI FOOD (8 nominations), LAND OF FISH AND RICE (7 nominations), and MAMUSHKA (7 nominations).

Here is how the voting will work (and CHers, please pay attention): I will create a comment on this topic for each nominee. To vote, click the “like” button at the lower right (the knife & fork symbol). You may only vote for one book! If you change your mind within 1 day of voting, you can just click the symbol again to “unlike” and click on another option. However, after one day, you will need to make a post to request your vote be changed. Please tag me in that post (just type @ and my username).

We also ask that you not reply directly to the comments used for ballots. If you want to discuss the books, or change your vote, please reply directly to this topic.

Please vote with the intention of cooking along and reporting if the book you chose is selected as COTM.

Voting will close on March 23, at 12 noon EDT.

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To vote for SIMPLE THAI FOOD, by Leela Punyaratabandhu, click the knife and fork icon on the lower right of this comment. Please do not reply to this comment.

10 Likes

To vote for LAND OF FISH AND RICE, by Fuchsia Dunlop, click the knife and fork icon on the lower right of this comment. Please do not reply to this comment.

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To vote for MAMUSHKA, by Olia Hercules, click the knife and fork icon to the lower right of this comment. Please do not reply to this comment.

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An issue was brought up by @articshark about Mamushka. I kept Mamushka in the voting because it did have as many nominations as Land of Fish and Rice. But I think it is worth considering that the book might be difficult to acquire for those who don’t already have it. It is sold out on Amazon with no date for return. There are no used copies. And it is either not available or there is a waiting list at libraries. The author does have other books out, which are available, “Summer Kitchens” and “Kaukasis”. I would suggest that we try again next month with Mamushka, or if it’s still not readily available, try one of the other books by the same author.

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There is still the ebook on sale. It’s a complicated issue, as Ukraine is a hot subject. I think this book will have a big chance of winning.

Of course, if someone that is already around since a few days, asked me privately for the recipe or a certain page, I can do a screen capture, I’ve the ebook. But not to ppl that just signed up to get a free book.

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@naf, good point. We do have some people who don’t like cooking from ebooks, though, so that’s a consideration for them. Unrelated, but can you edit the post to correct the voting end date to be March instead of July? I do not know what kind of brain fart happened for me to type July, but that I did. When I click the edit icon, it gives me the edit history (since I already edited once) and isn’t letting me edit again.

The ebook is $11.99. I don’t really care for ebooks but I buy lots when they are bargains. $11.99 is not a bargain to me.

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Actually you can edit as much as you want, but within an hour.

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It’s also sold out at Barnes and Noble. Most secondary market resellers. Well, except the few who are grifting off the tragedy to mark up their books to $500+.

Anyway, it’s a no brainer to choose Simple Thai Food and hope the publisher gets a clue and runs a new printing.

Also, thanks Mel for doing this AND the work of moving COTM over. Now, if we could people to agree to moving DOTM over… that would be great. The CH website is doing funky things for me already as they get ready to shut down. And we have exactly 2 days or so to do this thing. But looking through the various threads there are like 3 people who vocally support moving DOTM over. So…

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$17.59 Cdn plus 13% sales tax for Ontarian cooks, 15 % sales tax in NB, PEI, NFLD, slightly lower sales tax in AB & SK!

The kindle version of Mamushka is now $1.99 in the U.S. Don’t know how long this deal will last. I’m not changing my vote because I really want to cook Thai food, but went ahead and bought it so I can cook along if it wins.

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Thanks for the heads up! I just bought Mamushka on kindle. I’m not going to change my vote, but would now happily cook along with Mamushka too.

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I don’t even own a Kindle :slight_smile: Just letting ppl know. :slight_smile: I’ll post Olia’s Guardian recipe link, which includes a number of her recipes that are online.

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Thanks @Phoenikia, I think that its important to support Ukraine now anyway that we can.

I have Simple Thai Food and also Coconut Lagoon that someone recommended on CH.

Sad story his restaurant burned down (ETA. sorry severe fire damage inside the building not burned down) so just purchased a copy to support Joe Thottungal a Canadian Chef.
P.S.
The building is intact for Coconut Lagoon. The fire broke out in the appartment upstairs and the damage is extensive inside the restaurant. Coconut Lagoon will be temporarily closed for some time.

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Thanks for the tip, just bought Mamushka on kindle. But like you, I’m sticking with my original vote.

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I don’t own a kindle, either, I just use the app on my phone or tablet.

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@articshark , if we had gotten a good consensus from DOTM folks, I would have done the work to bring it over. Still might. BUT… there is a Dish of the Quarter here, and I wonder if that might be good enough? @biondanonima has mentioned we could shift it to monthly if there is enough interest from former CH DOTMers, so that’s a possibility for the future, and if we do that, I’ll certainly volunteer to help with the coordinating, as I did on CH. But I also look back at many DOTMs, and a lot of people just won’t want to make that many versions of the same dish in one month. I went crazy on lasagne and did 8 versions in one month, but that is not really something I want to repeat. I did 6 biryani in one month. But most of the time, we might get more people doing multiple variations of a dish if they had a longer time to do it. Yeah, I know the threads stay open, but once the thread is out of the limelight, people aren’t really going to the effort. Anyway, that reasoning, plus the lack of consensus amongst the DOTMers is why I haven’t acted on DOTM so far. We should definitely get involved in the DOTQ here, and there is also a Cuisine of the Quarter, which I think could be a lot of fun.

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I saw that, @MelMM . And it’s cool. I think I single-handedly cooked most of the gumbos when it was gumbo month. And I think you are right and there might be more participation if the time frame was longer.

I’m good with anything. I think I was just missing some of the continuity as we migrate over completely.

I actually didn’t put up a DOTQ nomination thread yet because I wanted to wait and see if there was enough interest/activity to switch to monthly - perhaps we should try the quarterly version this quarter and see how it goes. @articshark, can you tag the DOTM fans here so we make sure they are aware of DOTQ?