C# XML ToList inside ToList

Question

I have the following C# code and I have no idea why it's not working (I'm getting a NullReferenceException error). If I define Recipe as new List() everything starts working OK.

foreach (XElement element in document.Descendants("vegetables"))
        {
            VegetablesList = (
                from vegetables in element.Elements()
                select new FoodItem()
                {
                    Name = (vegetables.Element("name") == null) ? null : vegetables.Element("name").Value.ToString(),
                    Bcg = (vegetables.Element("bcg") == null) ? null : vegetables.Element("bcg").Value.ToString(),
                    Info = (vegetables.Element("info") == null) ? null : vegetables.Element("info").Value.ToString(),
                    Recipes = (
                        from recipes in element.Element("recipes").Elements()
                        select new Recipe()
                        {
                            Name = (recipes.Element("name") == null) ? null : recipes.Element("name").Value.ToString(),
                            Text = (recipes.Element("text") == null) ? null : recipes.Element("text").Value.ToString()
                        }
                    ).ToList()
                }
            ).ToList();
            VegetablesListBox.ItemsSource = VegetablesList;
        }

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

My guess is that element.Element("recipes") returns null, which means that the recipes element does not exist for that iteration.