I used to be a book pack-rat (a bookrat?), but after five moves in five years, I got tired of packing and unpacking boxes of books I would probably never read again and donated a bunch before I moved to Japan. My LA Public Library addiction has helped curb my book hoarding habit, but there are still a lot of books -- especially thrift store paperbacks, once my kryptonite -- taking up space that could be occupied by books I really love and want to read over and over again.

So I was excited to find out about Powell's Books online book-selling system. You go to their site, enter the ISBNs of all the books you want to get rid of and get a credit offer for the books they are interested in. If you accept the offer, you can print out a postage-paid shipping label, box up the books and send them to Powell's for free. After they receive the books and make sure they're in decent condition, the credit is applied to your account and you can buy a book or two that you really want.

Not surprisingly, I got kind of a nerdy thrill from entering all the ISBNs and finding out which books they actually wanted. It was sometimes a surprise. In general all the paperbacks purchased for college lit or film classes were a yes. The novels I was obsessed with when I was 15 (the non-Weetzie Bat books by Francesca Lia Block, anything by Douglas Coupland) were an unfortunate no. But I managed to rack up a $17 credit with thirteen books I didn't mind never seeing again and bought myself a book I could curl up with every night: Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours.

It's a beautiful book with incredible full-color photos. I left it open on the couch the day I got it and returned to find Rob flipping through the pictures. He turned to me and said, "My god. THIS BOOK." A rave review if ever I've heard one. I wanted to make something right away, but because I didn't feel like going to the grocery store, the inaugural recipe had to use only the ingredients I had on hand and had to have the potential to knock my socks off -- the Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake was perfect. With two sticks of butter and eat-from-the-spoon-good chocolate sour cream frosting, how could it not be?

Now...how to turn my boxes of old clothes in the garage into some sort of fruit pie....