prasantrin

Brattleboro is a great little town for a small town. It's a wee bit more "international" than much of VT because of the grad school there. I loved Amy's--at least I think it was called Amy's. It's a little French-type bakery in the middle of town. They had a great chicken salad sandwich. I actually didn't care much for most of the "ethnic" food in Brattleboro. I guess it was good for the area, but it really wasn't very good. The exception was a little Indian restaurant located in a motel away from downtown. I'll have to look up the name. The Co-op is great. You'll be able to get some very nice cheese there, and probably meats, too. I couldn't cook (lived on campus), so I didn't look much at the meat section. I'm off to class, but will try to write more later.

Ummm...it's the lighting...ya, that's it...it's the lighting... I think it still looks pretty good. I'd eat it! I made cranberry banana bran muffins, and some korova cookie dough with chocolate-coated orange and/or lemon rind. I'm supposed to make another batch of plain korova cookies (I never add the chopped chocolate), but I'm waiting for my butter to soften (I used the butter intended for the plain korovas for the muffins--priorities, doncha know!). I will bake the cookies sometime soon. Perhaps I'll bake a few tonight, then freeze the remaining dough for future cookie cravings. I ate a muffin fresh out of the oven with some butter. Mmmmmm... eta picture--the yellowish stuff in the middle is melted butter, and red stuff are dried cranberries. Sorry for the bad lighting.

I saw that at Tokyu Hands in Shinsaibashi yesterday. It was pretty, but looked cheaply made. And with the way it was built, it seemed it would take forever to crank out enough soba for even one person. But it really was pretty!

I just found the Assumption Abbey ones yesterday! I wish I had found them earlier. In an email my mother sent me yesterday, she mentioned that she had always wanted to try the Gethsemani ones. They were mentioned in an article years ago about the best fruitcakes. Oh well, next year! She also said that the article (which she has since lost) mentioned 2 or 3 others made by monks, but also one made by a nunnery in the US. I've been searching, and there are a lot of monks that make fruitcakes, but can't find any nuns. Does anyone know of a nunnery that makes fruitcake? It's good to know I'm not the only one who has been dissed by the Carribean black cakes folks. I was taking it personally!

I just noticed your question today. I use Now You're Cooking. It has an import function, where you just paste in a recipe. You then have to go through the recipe and highlight different areas, but fast and easy (ex. highlight the title, then click on the "Title" tab, highlight the ingredients and click on the "Ingredients" tab, etc.--each component will be highlighted in a different colour, so when the recipe is imported into the database, it will automatically be separated into the different areas. The recipe should be written in standard recipe form, though--Title, ingredient list, method, though it doesn't necessarily have to be in that order, as once you do the highlighting, the program automatically detects which is which. One problem I noticed is when I paste in recipes written by someone else is that sometimes people add a lot of notes next to individual ingredients. Those notes, if highlighted, will be added to recipe, but since the number of characters for each ingredient is limited, they sometimes get cut. But once the recipe has been imported, you can go through and edit as you wish, so you can add or delete lines, so it's just a hassle, not really a problem. It's a bit confusing to explain, but if you go to the Screen Shots page of their website and click on "screen import (any recipe text format)", you can see a screen shot of the import function. It might make my explanation a bit clearer---or not. If you do go with Now You're Cooking, get the option with lifetime upgrades. It's only $5 more, and it's worth it. I lost my registration code and forgot about the program, but after 8 or more years, I wrote to them asking if I could get my code. They gave it to me, and I got the newest version (which is much much better than the first version).

Are those caramel chocolate brownies? They look great! Were they from a mix from Zingerman's, or from a recipe? Off to search the web--but is it "Buenos Aries" or "Buenos Aires"? ETA: I did a search on "Buenos aires brownies", and what should I find? Your blog! What a great idea--swirling in dulce de leche. That's so much easier than doing the caramel thing! I've got a can of dulce de leche waiting to be used, so this is going on my list of projects!

I have an idea to help you sell out even faster (if that's your goal)! Put a sign up that says how many burgers you'll have. Like, "To ensure a top quality product, we limit our sales to 400 burgers per day." If people know your output is limited, they'll arrive even earlier to make sure they get what they want. This is for now, of course. Once you open your B&M store, I think some products can be limited, but burgers should not.

How wonderful! I love the second picture best, because her hair is a bit disheveled and she looks a wee bit tired, but her eyes and her smile show just how ecstatic she was about preparing the meal. Did you help her at all, or did she do everything herself? That was quite a meal for a 10-year old. I certainly am not 10, and I don't even think I would make all that!

Would it be so hard to estimate? If the range of prices is $14-35, then assume the average is $21. Then assume apps and desserts are 1/2-2/3. Beverages (alcoholic) are maybe 1/3. So if two people are dining, and are ordering 2 entrees, one app, one dessert, and 2 beverages, then assume you need about $80. Up it to $100, and you'll probably be fine for the night. Adjust up or down according to how many apps, desserts, or beverages you usually order. If you overestimate, great. If you underestimate, at least you'll know you only have $100 (or whatever amount you come up with) to spend, so you can adjust your ordering accordingly. Regardless, if Mandina's is the same or related to the Mandina's in Baton Rouge, they have a website online with their complete menu. I like paying with cash. I live in Japan, which was pretty much a cash-based society until very recently (when I was here 10 years ago, it was almost impossible to pay with things by credit card). The only reason I use credit cards here is for the points, but I have no problem carrying around several hundreds of dollars (in the yen equivalent, of course), or even more than $1000. Then again, this is Japan, and even if I lost a wallet full of cash, it would probably be returned to me with all the cash intact.

That was speedy! Great! It's my project for tomorrow, instead of marking papers and cleaning my apartment! What better way to spread out the deliciousness of one product, by incorporating it into the deliciousness of another! I'll have to make two or three batches, though--one plain, one with the orange, and one with the lemon! Poor me!

I was thinking of making some Korova cookies, and I have some dark chocolate-coated candied lemon and orange peel. Do you think it would work well with the cookies if I chopped it up a bit? It's quite good on its own (from Leonidas), but if I continue eating it on its own, it'll be gone in about half an hour. I'm trying to spread out its deliciousness.

Then clearly you would not be welcome at that bar, anyway! Though I think you should all walk in with your laptops and open them up, just to see what would happen.

I was looking at their blog (only two posts there), and their grand opening was Oct. 27. I almost wish I lived in New Jersey!

Now that would be a slide show I would want to see! I just remembered that another friend brought her laptop to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant last summer. She wanted to show my mother and me some pictures of stuff she entered in the MN State Fair. No one asked her to turn it off (it was a very casual place), but we got a lot of weird looks. At Al's Breakfast (in MSP), a guy was sort of told to put away his laptop, but he didn't, and he didn't get kicked out. But the staff did let him know that if anything got spilled on it, they wouldn't take any responsiblity for the damage.

To me, there's not much difference between how I behave in my role as a guest in a restaurant setting or a home setting. But I do realize other people think paying for something should give them more leeway in how they behave. I had a friend who always cleaned out her purse at restaurants, and left the garbage for the waitstaff to clean up. She'd never have done that in my home (she might have cleaned out her purse, but she'd have thrown out the garbage herself), but in a restaurant it was OK since "that's what they're paid to do" (clean up after the patrons). I actually did have a dinner party where one of the couples brought their laptop over. And they used it, but not while we were actually eating. (They wanted to show us some pictures, and they made us sit through a slideshow of hundreds and hundreds of them.) (They used to also bring their cellphones, and actually use them during the meal. I finally put up a cute sign at the entrance of my home saying, "Please turn your cell phones off," but they didn't. That was the last time they were invited to my home for a meal. This should be another topic...)

I still don't see why it would even be considered a "profound lack of hospitality" to have asked him to stop using his laptop, and find it amazing that it would be considered so. In this case, Chris was the guest, and Mike was the host. While Miss Manners may tell you that a host's primary role is to make his guest feel comfortable, I think even she would say there are limits. If the guest is doing something that makes the host uncomfortable (to argue if using a laptop should make some feel uncomfortable is pointless, as fact is, it made the host in this case feel uncomfortable), then the host should have the right to ask him to stop as soon as possible. If I am your guest, and you are my host, should I be allowed to act as I please, regardless of your comfort? If I light up a joint (or even just a plain old cigarette), you can certainly tell me to put it out if you don't like it. But with your argument, since it's already lit, I should be allowed to finish it, and if you refuse to let me, then you are being inhospitable. Quite honestly, if a guest behaved in a way that made me feel uncomfortable, I would let the action continue if the guest refused to stop, even after I made my discomfort clear. I would not make a fuss, or kick the person out (reminder--Chris was not kicked out in any way--he made the choice to leave). However, that guest would never be my guest again.

I'm curious about the speed oven. This is the kind of oven that cooks things more quickly, right? Had you ever tried items made in a speed oven before? I'm very curious to know what they're like--if there is any difference in quality between speed oven items and conventional oven (convection or not) items. I'm so jealous of your appliances--and the rest of your kitchen. It looks beautiful!

My mother has received the first batch of fruitcake from Claxton, and she has already opened one of the cakes and eaten quite a bit of it. I'm waiting for a more detailed report, as so far, all I've been told is that the cakes use margarine, but the alcohol adds a nice flavour to the cake. She says the cake is not as good as the ones my aunt sends, which I think are from Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Oregon. According to tracking, the Collins Street one should be delivered shortly. Hopefully she won't be too fruitcaked out by the time it arrives, since it sounds like she has already eaten much of a 1-lb cake. Who am I kidding? She'll never be fruitcaked out! eta: Here's what she writes: She writes clayton, but it should be claxton. I had ordered the dark fruitcake for her, because she prefers dark (I think).

I don't remember it being mentioned before, but is there an "ideal" order to eating sushi? Like when you drink wines, you progress from whites to reds. When you eat sushi, should you go from white-fleshed fish to fattier fish? Where would the sweet-ish ones (like uni, hotate) fit in? Would they be eaten at the end of a meal?

You've probably seen it. In Canada the most common brand is Kikkoman. It looks like this, and can be found in most Japanese or Chinese grocery stores. At least in Winnipeg, it can. I don't know if they sell the same product in Japan, though. It's basically just another dashi/mirin/soy sauce combo, maybe with some sugar, too.

Man! Had I known that was there, I'd have gone when I took the TOEFL test in Sakai last year. Sakai is such a PITA for me to get to, so it would have been the perfect chance!

The situation is quite different. The amount of inconvenience caused to your wife by not knowing the policy and having to immediately conform to it would have been greatly different from that caused to Chris had he immediately conformed to the bar's policy. It would have been much more difficult for your wife to have just "put away" your son. She would have had to leave immediately had she been told from the outset of her appointment than no children were allowed, unless she could have gotten someone to pick him up (which would have resulted in a delay in the appointment, and possibly a cancellation, anyway, if the manicurist were booked with back-to-back appointments). In Chris' case, he merely had to put away the computer. Would that really have been such a hardship? To further Chris' analogy to school policies, at my school, if a student brings a forbidden item to school, we tell them it's against school policy and not to bring it again. But we also take the item away immediately, and return it to them at the end of the day. We don't let them continue using the forbidden item just because they have it there, anyway.

I missed this reply till now! So tell us what you really think of your Cuisinart! What's good about it? What's bad? If you've ever had a KitchenAid, which do you prefer and why? I came back to this topic because Fine Cooking just did a review on the Cuisinart stand mixer. In terms of performance, they seemed to like it.

Hello?!?!??!?! As a graduate of that bastion of touchy-feely-ness, SIT, that would be a purple pen, and a roller-ball one, at that, so no squeakiness to be found! (Though you can hear sighs of annoyance whenever I read a particularly bad composition, and I do spread out rather obnoxiously, since my papers are all printed on B4-sized paper.) I looked at that article you linked to about the owner, and he sort of looks like the Brattleboro, VT-type, so I can kind of see where his "no laptop" policy might be coming from. I don't remember if you mentioned, but will you be returning to the bar someday, sans laptop? And did you at least finish your drink?

I kind of liked the vanilla bean kitkat, but my favourite white chocolate-based kitkat is still cafe latte. I wish they'd bring that one back! I have a cookies and milk (not cream) kitkat in my desk that my co-worker gave me (she also gave me the vanilla bean one). We like to share kitkat and Tirol discoveries. I've not tried the cookies and milk one, yet, but will share my experience when I do. I also have an Uji Matcha torokeru (plus two kanji I can't read, but the second is the same "zawa" as the "zawa" in "Takanazawa" in Tochigi-ken) KitKat. I had high hopes for it--it's made with dark chocolate, and the matcha is in the middle. Unfortunately, it kind of sucks, and you can barely taste the matcha. It also comes in apple flavour, but I didn't buy it. It was kind of expensive, too, and comes in a really nice box. eta: I just asked a co-worker, and the kanji after torokeru means "luxury" but I can't remember what the word was (the reading of the second kanji wasn't "zawa", though). And upon reading more closely, it also has anko in it. Whatever...it still sucked, and was a waste of Y150.