Alex

Aw, heck. Just stick a little Italian flag on it and you're good to go. Or use an orange gel instead of strawberry, and white chocolate dyed green for your caviar, and it's even patriotic Italian.

In The Guardian: "Taste the screen: the enduring appeal of food movies"

Lamb shanks (local, certified organic), osso buco-style Risotto alla Milanese (local marrow and stock) 2004 Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino Locally made peppermint patties (dark chocolate-covered peppermint fondant, sprinkled with crystallized mint)

Ooh, could you expound on how you use it on your cooktop?

Definitely a blooper; the recipe omitted the step "Remove your pants."

You'll be vac-packing them, yes? If so, the beans will be fine for at least six months. (Although from the sound of it, they'll be long gone by then.)

Serious Eats' Halal Cart-Style Chicken and Rice With White Sauce

I'm guessing there's an oversupply at the moment. Regular ones are 69 cents by me, small ones 49 cents. Or maybe it's targeted to the guacamole-making, Super Bowl-watching demographic.

Cool. Mont Bar was already on my short list. I'll check out Bar Mut. And I was planning to make a reservation at Disfrutar but, perhaps not surprisingly, they were already fully booked. I considered its sibling Compartir, but I was turned off by multiple posts mentioning poor service, plus their system doesn't offer a reservation for one. ETA: Bar Mut is just 1 km from my Airbnb! Its name, I assume, comes from "vermut" (vermouth). And speaking of which, I'll be doing a vermouth tasting and crafting -- which includes a 250 ml bottle of my own concoction. However, across the street and under the same ownership, is Entrepanes Diaz, which actually sounds more interesting (and less tourist-oriented) to me.

Anyone? Anyone? Granted that "best of" guides are subjective (and sometimes are just marketing tools), but still I'm excited that the #3 pizzeria in the world (#1 in Europe minus Italy) and the #10 pizzeria in Europe are easy walking distance from my Airbnb. Here's the website. I was planning to eat just one major meal a day, but I can already see that plan starting to go up in (aromatic) smoke.

Has anyone seen The Taste of Things? It hasn't made it to Grand Rapids yet.

Great decision coming here, Emma. As you might have noticed already, there's an overwhelming amount of information around here, and the search engine isn't always the most user-friendly. If you hang around long enough, though, you'll get your bearings. One feature that a lot of new members miss, I think, is "The Fridge," at the bottom of the main forums page. Of special interest to you, perhaps, might be the eGullet Culinary Institute and the Diary of a Cooking School Student. As you probably know, there's a plethora of books and stories about the social sciences behind food. One that came immediately to mind was Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky, who's also written books about onions, oysters, cod, salmon, and milk. And FWIW, here are some quotes from M.F.K. Fisher. By "recipe conversion test," do you mean scaling up or down the number of servings, or doing a metric/English conversion? My slightly (Ms. Alex would say "more than slightly") warped brain started thinking about questions like "convert this conventional lasagna recipe into a deconstructed version," but I suspect that's beyond the scope of the competition.

Thanks. Ms. Alex's order has already been placed: one each of raspberry jam, lemon curd, chocolate custard, and caramelized honey. Also available at that bakery are prune, rum custard, guava cream cheese, and pistachio rose.

Good timing, what with Fat Tuesday/Paczki Day coming up next week.

I'll be taking a one-week solo trip to Barcelona next month, so I'm looking for recommendations that could help me either trim or reinforce my already too-long short list. I'll be staying in Dreta de L'Eixample, within a 2 km walk to an astounding variety of of restaurants and markets. The subway and train also are options, but I'd prefer to walk. Moltes grácies.

The only one I could speak to semi-directly is Succotash; I've been only to the one in DC. Still, it's well-rated and it's right in National Harbor. You also have good options in nearby Alexandria if you're willing to drive (not sure about the parking situation, but you'd probably have to pay) or, even better (but more expensive), take the ferry from the Harbor to Old Town, then walk or hop on the trolley. I'd recommend Nasime or Vermillion. There's also the venerable Taverna Cretekou, but I've never been there. And if you get to Alexandria early, you can visit the Torpedo Factory Arts Center (it closes at 6), which is right by the ferry landing.

You're undoubtedly are deserving of the award. And when you do, we'll put together an eG delegation in Chicago to cheer you on.

I looked at the website, and it sounded like a great idea. Unfortunately, most of the reviews of the app said that it was extremely buggy, and that it continually pestered the user for a paid upgrade. It sounds like your experience has been different.

I don't have that information per se, but two places come to mind that might be able to provide you with leads: Kitchen Arts & Letters (a bookstore in New York City) and the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive at the University of Michigan.

That's great! I'd love to know whether it's genuine or photohopped.

Tonight we tried a Rao's frozen pizza. Not bad, not great. On the back of the box, the instructions specified, "Remove pizza from plastic wrap and remove cardboard." I suppose some folks need to be told that. It continued, "...Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until the cheese is fully melted. Pizza will be hot." Ah, thank you, legal team.

Not much here in Michigan. My nearby supermarket was briefly out of celery and was running short on mushrooms, but that's about it, at least as far as I saw. The market was indeed more crowded than usual pre-storm, but it didn't look like there was a major run on any products. We're pretty blasé up here about big storms. A pandemic, on the other hand...

Welcome to eGullet. It sounds like you'll be right at home here. Might your screen name relate to Toonces the Driving Cat?

For this medical context, I also agree. Disambiguation is good.