Impulse Items: To Buy or Not To Buy?

Yay! I can check off 2 out of the 5 things on my To-Do List! 1) I "Dysoned" the floor, so now it's all spic-and-span, and 2) I went to Costco to buy bottled water and TP. Now can one EVER leave a store like Costco with ONLY the stuff you went in there to buy? Of course not, silly. That's the whole fun of places like Costco--the impulse buys. Today's impulse buy was a copy of Food Network host Giada De Laurentis's new cookbook, Everyday Italian.

I happen to like her show for its simplicity and "hip-ness", if you will. Plus, I've actually tried a few of her recipes from the show with much success. Upon first glance, the book seemed like it exactly what I was looking for--a lot of basic recipes for sauces, pastas, meats and deserts. So I was a bit disappointed when I got the book home and realized that the recipes in the book were the SAME EXACT recipes that you can get off the Food Network site! Today's deathmatch , therefore, is Everyday Italian, the book VS. Everyday Italian, recipes via FoodNetwork.com.

Everyday Italian, the book
Pros:
-Recipes are organized together in one nice little book.
-Pictures.

Cons:
-Pictures. Funny thing, there aren't that many actual pictures of FOOD in this book. There are more pictures of Giada herself, which is not much of a good thing, especially because she's got one of the biggest heads I've seen in my life.

Price: $17.99 at Costco, $30 from any regular retailer

Everyday Italian, recipes via the FoodNetwork.com
Pros:
-Can be easily accessed anytime off the web
-No pictures (of Giada, anyways)

Cons:
-Have to print them out on separate pieces of paper

Price: Free. Well, minimal $ when you factor in the cost of paper and printer toner. But TOTALLY free if you do it from the office.

And the winner is... (Drumroll please...)
Everyday Italian, recipes via the FoodNetwork.com! By a landslide. Now I have to go back to Costco sometime this week to get my $17.99 back.