Looking for inspiration (in predictable places)

Between cooking and travel, I will always chose travel. I can be happy with a nice piece of black bread and a simple coffee, but if I don't travel for one month, or one week went away without I discovered some nice corner in my city, I am sad and lacking the necessary energy to survive the daily chores. Thus, I try to focus for the moment on my travels, with a modest creativity in the kitchen. However, wherever I go I keep an eye for the food products and local cuisine and as much as the time allows me, I will do my best to share some of the recipes and local insights about food and eating habits that I learn about during my travels. 

My problems in the last days are a relative lack of inspiration. I do have a couple of books to read and review, I have some new recipes that I tested lately, but because of the summer and holiday mood, I don't succeed to spend too much time in the kitchen. And my ideas of salads are as regular as possible, without creating anything outstanding. 

What you can do in such cases, when the cooking inspiration left you? Very often, I do make a tour of my favourite food bloggers. As I am on Twitter, I have access to lots of ideas and good food writing. When I want to leave my computer and get out in the real world, I am reading carefully the menus of the restaurants that I pass by. I am interested especially in the Vegetarian/Asian options. My latest passion is the Vietnamese cuisine: my first encounter was not extremely pleasant, as I did not enjoyed too much carrots in the veggie spring rolls, or some of the tofu combinations. However, I was invited recently to taste a coconut milk+peanuts+rice+tofu+beans+carrots+lemongrass and I loved the taste and the fine combination of vegetables. The spices were  As most Vietnamese restaurants I've seen are not exactly Vietnamese, the cooks being mostly from China, maybe I should pack and visit Vietnam for a real flavour of the local cuisine. And, most probably, when I am out of inspiration, I should consider taking more cooking classes or watching more food videos. For now, writing again on the blog was enough to boost my creativity for the next days.

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