Alex

Good idea. A straight Google search showed it to be Kagoshima.

The hiragana at the top reads "[o]shima bas(u)", with that ostensibly kawaii (cute) whatever it is on the left acting as the "o". The hiragana at the bottom is "noriba" -- bus stop. The kanji in the middle is clearly a place name, but sad to say I've lost most of my kanji over the past 35 years.

Totoro and Nekobus! This is great! Here's our wind-up Totoro: And on my car: And on the other side of the car:

A sixth basic taste?

Michigan hosts four major food festivals and a cornucopia of minor (and amusing) ones. There's the National Morel Mushroom Festival (63 years!) ...the National Asparagus Festival (50 years) ...the National Cherry Festival (97 years!!) -- including, of course, a pit-spitting contest ...and the National Blueberry Festival (60 years) Then, of course, there's the Fungus Festival. Because what would a fungus festival be without golf?

"The Pumpkin Spice Latte Is Designed to Make You Feel Death" Full story in The Atlantic

That would be nice. I've yet to taste one that would be even shouting distance from "reasonably pleasant."

So does Ted's Bulletin, in the DC area. Ms Alex is a fan.

Please allow me to discourage you.

Our Costco just got in these outstanding Siete g-f Mexican wedding cookies. Target sells them, too, but even on sale they're way more expensive than Costco -- $4.49/4.5 oz vs $9.89/16 oz.

New to me, too, at least in the ready-made version. I don't eat Biscoff any more, but Ms Alex is a fan -- especially with a schmear of Soom dark chocolate tahini with sea salt. We get ours at Costco -- currently on sale for $3 off a box with four large sleeves, total weight 1 kg.

Fun article in the New York Times

I met him once, after he had left Citronelle. Very nice guy.

As gfweb said, the chosen focus of the brief and undoubtedly highly edited article was how Batali's behavior affected someone vis-a-vis their friendship -- which is a perfectly valid topic. I mean, what if you were in a situation in which you learned that a trusted friend had been doing similar things? Highly inappropriate behavior, whether or not it's deemed criminal, can affect a variety of victims, obviously with varying degrees of severity. How can you assume she's unsympathetic to the abused women when that topic wasn't even addressed in the article?

Goo Gone?

After nearly ten years! You should be nominated for sainthood, because you certainly have the patience of one. So if I'm really, really fond of texture like that for my ice cream, am I barking mad?

Very, very cool. On the leftmost bottom shelf, the book furthest right: is that Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts? That was my gateway drug, er, book to torte-making.

We do, indeed. One of these is tucked away in a drawer somewhere. There even was a picture of it on eG that I took back in 2003, shortly after I joined, but it disappeared after the infamous software changeover. And here's an apron that @maggiethecat made for us in 2004.

I have no idea per se. However, looking at the situation while wearing my logician's hat, and especially because it's MC, I have to assume there's a specific reason for those particular ingredients in those quantities. Do they say what that reason is? I'm guessing (but logically ^_^) that you've posted this question not just as an intellectual exercise but also because you don't routinely keep those ingredients in your kitchen and would rather not buy some just for this recipe. Either way, the more ingredients you omit, the less it becomes MC's version and the more it becomes kostbill's version. I'm also guessing, based on what I know about cooking in general, that the malt, for example, is designed to contribute to the intended flavor profile and not necessarily stand out on its own.

Wacky Recipe Testers

xkcd is an all-time favorite of mine

I agree. I suppose you could have tasted some of the bits before deciding what to do with them. However, if the thought of doing that induces even a moment's hesitation, then definitely ditch them.

From nerdsnacks.io

As is true for nearly every global problem, at its root is TMP -- Too Many People -- in combination with the same brain we had 50,000+ years ago, one with a default setting that's tribal and emotion-driven.