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That looks really lovely. I made an upside down cake yesterday too, but mine was with pears and gingerebread. No picture but this is the link. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/upside-down-pear-gingerbread-cake/ It was well received.

When we did the charcuterie cups for my daughter's wedding (I ended up doing them for my other daughtere's wedding too,) I got some beer flats from the liquor store, turned them upside down and my husband used an xacto knife to cut X's in the bottom that we pushed the cups into to transport them from our basement fridge to tent in our back yard.

She used Crystal shot glasses. At a dollar store I can imagine that you could pick up some glass shot glasses pretty cheap.

That's it. I'm moving to SoCal and will be your housemate. I could live on salad. We have it 2 out of 3 nights...I mean nothing else besides salads of all kinds. They don't look as good as @blue_dolphin's but I love them.

It sounds delicious.

Another salad based on the roasted vegetable salad matrix from Good Things. Roasted cauliflower, roll-cut carrots and chickpeas on a bed of baby kale with pickled onions, dressed with the tahini sbagliato dressing and a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds. The first time I used this dressing, I found it overly garlicky, surely due to my use of a huge garlic clove, but happily that flavor didn’t intensify and the roasted vegetable salad stood up to it just fine.

Mushroom, zucchini, and chile Poblano tacos with chorizo. Yogurt cream sauce with white onion, garlic, serrano chiles, thyme, and Mexican oregano.

Have you read Samin Nosrat’s book, Salt Fat Acid Heat (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)? The first 4 chapters span 200 pages and are the most accessible intro to cooking that I know of. The book also has recipes but those first chapters are the most valuable, in my opinion. That section of the book ends with this cartoon that may help you focus on the specific areas you want to explore AFTER you’ve taken the time to read the background.

You may have already looked at this and found it wanting, but for learning to improvise, Michael Ruhlman's "Ratio" come to mind. We had a discussion about the book when it was published that you can see here:

It sounds lovely to me! If your hostess is expecting platters of shared appetizers, this might not be what she had in mind but I think it’s much more interesting than those Costco shrimp cocktail platters that I avoid like the plague!

Caneles. A few too many cul-blancs (white asses), but overall satisfied.

I also thought about pickled green beans or carrots, too. I would take the cocktail sauce in a jar, take all other components in baggies and put them together at the hostess's house. I'd never be able to juggle all those little cups. And I just checked and I have exactly the right size plastic cups for them. And pretty sure I've got some fancy cocktail picks unless they are packed. But that's easy to pick up.

@Maison Rustique Thank You

A while back someone made and brought almost exactly the same thing that you are describing to a party that I attended. It was an impressive presentation and very well received. As I remember it, it had a cocktail pic with two pickled onions instead of olives. She had had a problem transporting it and brought extra supplies in case some of them spilled which they had.

I'm invited to a "Galentine's" dinner this year. I asked the hostess what to bring. She said it would be nice if I brought "shrimp cocktail or whatever appetizer you want". Since there are around a dozen people attending, I think I'd have to take out a loan if I actually made shrimp cocktails for everyone. Here's what I'm thinking--please shoot me down or add ideas: Marinate and cook shrimp in bloody mary mix and vodka. Take small glasses (bigger than shot glasses but not much), put in doctored cocktail sauce, a skewered shrimp, pickled asparagus spear and couple of skewered olives. So, it isn't a drink and has more than just a decent sized shrimp, but isn't nearly as expensive as making a full-size shrimp cocktail for each person. Does it sound too small?

Today's bake. 9 mini baguettes. Started a sourdough last night and left it on the counter until 3:00 AM this morning. I used one of the mini "scapings" in the jar starters. I fed what was left in the jar again and left it on the counter overnight as well and it had more than doubled overnight. I started another dough this morning for Matt, for pizza and fed another jar of scrapings. Will have two starters that will get used in two batches of dough tonight. One will get left out to bake in the morning and the other will go into the fridge for a longer cold fermentation.

I won this as a door prize at a holiday party last night. Looks interesting, doesn't it? I don't think I've ever had nitrogenated coffee before. I'll report on it later, somewhere, when I get around to trying it. It's a bit cool right now for me to get excited about deliberately chilled coffee. (I confess: my 3rd cuppa of the morning often gets cold before I finish it. 😀 )

Gimme an example of a recipe you don’t understand.

That for months 👆 Freezer for years …

I have a butter crock and if the butter doesn't get used, it goes off - usually the thin smears up the side of the crock, or when the crock is mostly empty. New butter I divide into smaller pieces, wrap in parchment, then the original foil. Then put the butter into a ziplock, remove some air, then into the freezer. This lasts a very long time.

I find it lasts forever in the fridge with no special care other than the wrapper it came in

I always just saved butter in the freezer - if wrapped in foil and then plastic, it lasts practically forever that way. Some smells can go through plastic, which is why the foil wrap is important. @Smithy I wouldn't worry about the surface drying out - once the plastic (or foil) comes in contact, no more moisture will leave. Leaving it uncovered will have it dry out much faster. Anyway, if I were to save it in a vacuum bag, I would use a mylar one which would have the benefits of foil and plastic all in one. Otherwise, I think a completely sufficient method would be to wrap in foil then put in a ziplock bag and get rid of excess air via displacement.

If you do, please let us know what you eventually find out. I'm mystified too.

Would it perhaps dry the surface of the butter as air (and moisture) are pulled out during the sealing? One way to find out!

I think part of what you're looking for comes with experience, which just takes lots of practice. Also, I think it makes a difference if you cook a certain style of food all the time (like from a certain region), or if you're constantly bouncing around - not that there's anything wrong with that. But, for me, when I started making a certain type of food over and over, certain things started jumping out, so now, if I watch a video showing someone making a new to me dish, I understand what they're doing right away - even if it's in a language I don't understand, I don't need captions anymore. Also, I think that one thing to keep in mind is that, for centuries, most cooks had no understanding of the "why" of recipes - they just did as they were taught and didn't think much about it. This was true of professionals - journeymen cooks learned from their masters and then continued the tradition, as well as home cooks - a daughter learning from her mother who did things the same way her mother and then her mother did.... It's only relatively recently where a select few people have to started to ask "why" and then, after learning, change their method from what was always "this is the way" to something different.