Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers! Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

This month was rough for me. Major ups and downs. I have some big news that I’ve been working on which consumed a decent amount of my cooking time. Let’s just say I tried this challenge but failed, but at least you get a colourful picture to look at!

I have a tendency to create images for a blog post, create said blog post, get lost in wanting to write about the images, tell myself I’ll do it later and then later becomes tomorrow, tomorrow becomes next week and next thing I know is the post is so buried down with other posts that I completely forget about it. This is one of those blog posts. To combat my lack of self organization when it comes to writing for blog posts, I’ve started a notepad file labelled, ‘Blogs to Write’ so that everytime I start my computer up I remember that there are posts that need to be written and scheduled. It’s worked fairly well, that is, after delving in wordpress I realized I had missed a few blog posts and have since then added them to the notepad file. Thanks to that little notepad file, I can now finally cross this off my list, which feels oh so good.

When I was down in California in November Stacee, Brenna, Susanna, and Candice all went to Disneyland with me. I’m not sure why I went – I don’t like rides and my equilibrium is off which makes me dizzy. Oh and the fact that I dispise roller coasters which may have something to do with it.

I didn’t realize Space Mountain was a roller coaster. I just followed my American friends grabbed the ticket to come back later, went along my merry way. Came back skipped the line and it wasn’t until we stood there chatting that I decided that maybe I should ask what kind of ride Space Mountain is…. I do recall Stacee’s exact words to me were, “It’s kinda like a roller coaster *pause* No it IS a roller coaster” thanks …. I didn’t chicken out, I did go on it, but through the entire way I had my hea between my hands, teeth clenched and I swore under my breath “When will this ____ ride end?!”

What’s the difference between obsession and inspiration? One person’s collection can be another person’s source of creativity. Nick went to a university in Germany for his masters in Germanics and History and came back with a stack of roughly 50 different kinds of pub coasters he picked up pub crawling along the way. It sits neatly on a book shelf in his house and I wonder when he last went through them all. Not including the two he uses on his coffee table. Yet as silly as they are to some, they stand as a test to his personality.

I went through them one day I was there, laughing to myself as I did it, but as I delved deeper into the stack I realized just how much creative inspiration could come from a small piece of cardboard. Not just for the design – simple versus traditional, black and white or colourful. But inspiration on how a marketing company had to fit the brand in a small piece of cardboard. A coaster that a person at a pub would rarely look at.

What was one thing someone you knew collected that you thought was silly? Maybe you can find some inspiration in their collection.