Bean Bible gives you
information and help for all
things to do with beans.
Bean recipes, baked beans,
bean soup, bean facts,
anything and everything
about beans! It's all here.
We know beans about
beans.
How To Break In as a Mystery Shopper by Richard O. Mann Ever want to work as mystery shopper? Let a veteran of over 500 secret shops explain how you find shopping companies, sign up, and get assignments. Get paid to eat out, stay in hotels, and shop in almost every kind of store. It's fun! This no-nonsense, level-headed guide spells out the process for you. (This immediately downloadable e-book written by your friendly Bean Bible editor, Rich Mann, is part of the dynamite Dream Jobs To Go series.)
Are you an avid reader? If so, you may want to click on this little item to check out a way to get lots of cool used paperback books by trading with other readers through the Internet. It's a fun way to get plenty of great reading material inexpensively. Then, after you do that, come back and we'll take about beans like you all came here to do....
AVID READERS UNITE!
Do you love to read? Do you find yourself wishing you had more money to buy more books to satisfy your reading habit? (I do!)
There's good news today! Help is available for people like us. It's the PaperBack Swap website at PaperBackSwap.com.
A Little Bit about How It Works
First, calm your fears. It's free (for now). There is no cost to sign up and start trading books.
Members list their books online on the PBS (no, not that PBS, I mean PaperBack Swap) website by merely typing in the ISBN number from the book. Answer a few questions with simple clicks, and the book is listed.
Other members browse the books listed (they're over 1.5 million books listed as I type this) by category or author, or maybe they search for specific titles. When they find a book they want, they request it. The person who listed the book mails it to them. What could be easier?
OK, there are still questions in your mind. You may be thinking, "Wait a minute; not so fast there. Isn't wrapping and mailing time-consuming, difficult, and expensive?" Nope. The club's site helps you print a mailing wrapper on regular paper, and then shows you how to wrap the book in it using a little good tape. It takes maybe two minutes. The club tells you how much postage is required. Since we mail by the US Post Office's Media Mail rate, most books cost $2.13 to mail.
You pay the postage on books you mail. Buy a few stamps to keep on hand, and you don't even need to go the Post Office to mail your books. You can also now--with a credit card--print the actual postage right on the wrapper!
Yes, But How Do I Get Books?
I'm glad you asked. When you list your first ten books, the club gives you two book credits. You are then free to request any two books your heart desires. After the initial two, you get a book credit every time some requests one of your books. If you've got a lot of good books lying around your house, and--and this was a big one for me at first--you can stand to part with them (I have a collector's mentality), you won't have any trouble building up credits. There are LOTS of members who want books of all kinds.
So, the bottom line is that each book you ship out costs $2.13 and entitles you to request a free book from someone else. I don't know anywhere else you can get high quality books for two bucks any time you want them. (You can also get low quality books, if your tastes run to that sort of thing.)
Other Features Abound
The folks running the club are clever fellows indeed. They've thought up a zillion neat ideas and have implemented many of them. The club has, for example, wish lists. If the book you want isn't currently available, put it on your Wish List. When a copy comes up and it's your turn, they tell you, and you order it. (On one extremely popular new book, I am currently number 163 of 602 waiting for a copy. I think I'll buy that one at Wal-Mart, then ship it out to another anxious PBSer when I've read it.)
The club also lists hardcover books, books on audiotape, and books on CD. They treat hardcovers as if they were paperbacks, so don't list them unless you're willing to trade them for a paperback. Audiobooks on tapes or CD trade for two credits each. My wife and I love to listen to audiobooks in the car. They are so expensive to buy and the public library's supply is very limited, so we have rejoiced in the ability to get lots of new tapes easily and inexpensively.
What You Should Do--Right Now
If you've read this far, you're probably a reader. If you are, now is the time to join PBS. How to do that? Easy....
Click on any of the graphics in the body of this article. Even this one. You'll be whisked off to PBS to explore to your heart's content. Have fun!
And, just in case you need one more opportunity, here's one last banner you can click. (I thought maybe another color scheme would catch your eye....)
Bookmark the Bean Bible today. New recipes or articles nearly every day!
The Bean Book Roy F. Guste, Jr., former proprietor of Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans and noted cookbook author, has put together this wonderful collection of recipes for bean dishes from around the world. Everything you can imagine is in here; the variety of recipes is amazing. It includes "light" versions and a full nutritional analysis of each recipe. How does Bourbon and Black Bean Pie sound? Highly recommended by Bean Bible!
Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with your Slow Cooker We usually feature bean cookbooks here, but this superb slow cooker (crock pot) cookbook has at least a hundred great bean recipes in it! My wife brought it home and I'm sold on it. The "Bean Main Dishes" section alone has 53 recipes. Recipes are short, simple, tasty, and don't use weird ingredients that you don't already have. And, while I'm excited about the bean recipes (the Sausage Bean Quickie will be the first one we try), the rest of the recipes also look wonderful. The cover says it's a "National #1 bestselling cookbook!" I believe it. Highly recommended by Bean Bible!
Easy Beans: Fast and Delicious Bean, Pea, and Lentil Recipes, Second Editon Now in a new and improved second edition, this easy-to-use and highly popular cookbook makes cooking with beans as easy as it can possibly be. No soaking beans, no complex recipes with wild, improbable ingredients. The book lives up to its promise of easy, tasty, fun recipes. Highly recommended by Bean Bible!
