Betts

Time to find an occasion to bring it out - anniversary, baby?, something, anything and invite friends and relatives - have a good meal, serve the cake as a renewal of wedding day memories. If you really need to, just save a slice until the inevitable day when the freezer fails and all is lost to the thaw.

I buy the Roland chocolate mini cups - very tasty, good snap, and kosher and have done well by Croc'in a Belgian company. I buy the neutral coupelle and make mini quiche - no soggy bottoms, and mini butter tarts. The mini butter tarts were a novel item for Minnesotans . Check out http://www.croc-in.com . If I had enough demand I would buy the sweet version just for mini desserts.

This is the sort of thing I do often. The last "tea" I did had this menu...for 17 people and it was a light meal but there was really enough for 20 2 dz Sun dried tomato and chicken tartlettes ( finely chopped chicken, chp SD tomatoes, Alfredo sauce, parmesan and a bit of egg to bind in a mini muffin sized pie crust) .. none left 2 dz Miniature quiche Lorraine - half remained 2 dz of each Sandwiches - smoked salmon on wheat with lemon shallot butter, curried egg and cashew on white, cucumber on wheat with herb cream cheese a few of each remained 2dz chocolate dipped strawberries 2 dz mini scones ( 2" ) w/ currants/ Devon cream/ jam Madeleines 3dz - hostess loves these so I make a lot mini lemon bars - 1 recipe cut into 1" pieces petits four - 2 dz hostess purchased her own As far as the ladies mid morning lunch - they will eat very little. 3 - 4 very small pieces per person all the tiers combined will be enough. The memorial - 2-3 small sweets per person will be more than sufficient

My bet is blintz souffle rather than a strata. And it is a winner - the blintzes just melt into the rich custard.

Great topic. I love the ginger snap dough from "Joy of Cooking", unbaked shortbread and peanut butter cookie dough. Don't you think that the more refined cookies have tastier dough but things like oatmeal cookies are less satisfactory right out of the bowl.

Bread pudding from any leftover rolls or sandwich bread and add fruit, nuts or a sauce. You are buying wholesale - right?

He was a tippler you say.. Now I'm really impressed with the knifemanship he would frequently show off. GG oozed as much as the butter but he is and was truly an original.

I am so glad that I stumbled onto this thread tonight. My husband and another couple are heading to Kauai in November and I'll print Wabi's recommendations. Coconuts sounds great. Is there "street food" ? Thank you to all who reported in.

For the absolute simplest, what about a decent Chinese restaurant or market that does duck? If the restaurant is a possibility in your area, find out when they do the ducks - I've found the weekends to be best. Give that boy a hug. If he were nearby, I'd take him for a duck tasting - it's one of the tastiest foods. three year olds are so cool - too bad they go to school and learn to be less adventurous from classmates.

I can see an addiction to the 365 sourdough crackers looming.

It isn't that Gourmet's recipes don't work; it's sometimes the case that the amount of effort involved doesn't lead to a sufficiently tasty experience. Photography suckers me in too often. Cooking light has some worthwhile items and the occasional gem and I finally chose between F&W and Bon Appetit. I kept F&W. Pam Anderson's recipes in the WEEKEND section of the paper are great. She works on a concept and her stuff always turns out right. But of course she did time at CI and it shows. Lastly - one wouldn't think of Consumer's Reports for recipes but when they publish one it is perfect. Usually the theme is " why buy ... when you can make a better version easily at home". Their BBQ sauce is the best.

I make this for customers all the time and have found that Dutch process is not as good as plain old Hershey's and the cake keeps amazingly well. The recipe has bounced around every church supper, picnic and kid centered event and then bounced right into recipe immortality - it's on page 932 of The Joy of Cooking.

Shirley Corriher 's book Cookwise has a a great discussion of the differences in brioche- yeasty vs cakey and she got her techniques for each from Roland Messnier. Her recipe has an astounding quantity of butter and after gaining 5# trying to get it right I've decided to just buy the brioches. However they are never as good as hers. My favorite is a light yeasty style with raisins and a bit of candied orange. Perfect with a latte or tea.

I adore creme caramel and am tired of creme brulee not to mention the numerous times I have been served vanilla pudding that had been torched and passed off as the real thing. The best creme caramel I ever had was at a hotel in London Ontario in the middle of a storm and hockey tournament. There was practically no one in the dining room but the waiter was really working it. When we ordered the creme caramel he swanned over and topped it with whipped cream and a generous pour of Tia Maria. He got a great tip and I have a great memory.

Oh my goodness - I've gorged myself on this wonderful blog in one sitting and I need a cookie. Wonderful job Wendy.

It's calories in vs calories out that determines weight gain or loss not when they are consumed. That said, those midnight noshes are not usually fruits and vegetables or other low caloric density foods. As far as reflux goes - stay away from big meals especially fatty ones 2-3 hours before bedtime but a small fat free nibble can help. Interestingly, when I was a hospital dietitian every diabetic got a night snack, usually 2 graham cracker squares and a glass of skim milk or saltines and 1 oz of cheese. And if they needed to add calories it was a good opportunity to add another meal.

Credentials - dietitian, 2 kids, more than competent cook. For your sanity and for the long term benefit of your children do not succumb to the short order insanity. This is just a variant of other controlling behavior and it is learned behavior. Since you are an experienced mother, you can recognize the behavior in someone else's kid but can be blinded by your own darlings. Also they can really get you when you are the most defenseless. I used to do the "good mother speech"... goes like I want to do a good job as your mom and that means giving you healthy food and helping you learn to like lots of different kinds of things so that you grow up strong, healthy and smart. If I give you the things I know are not good for you then I am being a bad mom and you don't want a bad mom do you? Manipulative ? you bettcha but very necessary especially with teens when the battlefield widens beyond the dinner table. Can you imagine your grandmother cooking multiple meals? I think that this happens because we have easy access to convenience food, convenience cooking( microwaves etc) and the desire to please our children rather than teaching them. Dinner time is more than designated caloric intake period - it is face to face time, a shared food time and if you are continually jumping up to make something then it takes away from the social context of the meal. What I did - there was 1 meal, no snacking for 90 minutes before dinner. A hungry child is much more receptive to food. Taste everything but no whining and I did not make a fuss or beg them to eat. The surest way to create long term food issues is to beg and plead and insist about food. If they were not hungry they could just sit and talk - no leaving the table early, running around and no TV during meals. Children will not starve if they miss the occasional meal. During a growth spurt they eat much more than the interim periods. I tended to cook simple meals, put the sauces on the side and frequently did 2 vegetables. Raw veggies and dip count as the veg component many night . It has taken 20 years but my kids know the basics of table manners - not a sure thing these days - have a sense of adventure about food, especially when traveling and enjoy a good restaurant. And I won't pretend getting there was easy.

At one point I had partial bottles of both, and a few of us did a comparison tasting. Dave's had a richer, fuller flavor but Rudolph's is darned good. I make my own sauce from an old Consumer Report's article and if I add a tiny pinch of five spice powder it is amazingly close to Rudolph's. Rudolph's is my favorite rib joint mainly because they serve them naked ( no sauce ).

I puree basil, add a few drops of lemon juice and then add olive oil or butter and freeze it in the smallest Ziplock containers - the ones about the size of a babyfood jar. They thaw very quickly, are great for pasta, soup, garlic bread etc.

The ribs are just fine and the classic "rich and sassy" sauce holds up well in comparison tastings. The sampler served on a garbage can lid is great for a tableful of people. Dave is a local success story in Minn and he well deserves it - humble beginnings, vision, bankruptcies, business rebirths and true grit. Kind of reminds one of Dave Thomas of Wendy's fame. The days of the long waits for Dave's BBQ seem to be over at least at my local spot. As the chain got bigger, the sizzle seemed to get diluted and now the whole experience is a little dispirited. The best experience is getting the meats "to go" and having great sides( especially fresh sweet corn) at home.

Thank you all for the FLL dining tips. We ate at Johnny V the first night and it was certainly a stand out experience. The dining room has a serene minimalist quality saved from being stuffy by a hyperkinetic waiter calling himself Donny V who deftly upsold the appetizer and would have done more if my husband hadn't had to put in a few hours of work after dinner. We had a tiny and intense smoked tomato soup as the amuse followed by a butter sauteed prawn appetizer with micro bitter greens and a citrus vinaigrette/ lime oil dressing. My husband had the barbeque spiced salmon with potato-spinach gratin and asparagus ( V shaped) and I had the "Duck, duck, duck" a triple treat for me with a seared rare breast with a dark fruited demi glace, a leg quarted confit and a foie gras bread pudding - crisp fried parsnip V as garnish. There was a fine selection of wine by the glass - see previous comment about post prandial work situation- but both of us had generous glasses of wine matched to the entrees. Unfortunately, I never remember what wine I drink. There is the biggest cheese menu that I have seen outside of Picholine in NYC and I was sorely tempted and I didn't even think about dessert. I had lunch the next day at the Protege Cafe at the Fl Culinary Institute and it was a fried tuna roll with greens and a spicy asian dressing consisting mostly of sweet chili sauce. A tasty lunch in a lovely dining room that is a major cut above the culinary school DRms here in Minn. Our last restaurant dinner was at a Cuban/Mexican place called Vilas (?) near the hotel in what appeared to be a Chi-chi's in a previous life. Cuban food is rare in Minn and I had the ropa vieja. It was simple, tasty and appeared to be homemade. I don't have any standard to judge it by by other than cookbook accounts but it was deeply flavored by long slow cooking and was a satisfactory messy plateful. And lastly, an uncle treated us to his homemade porketta - a boneless pork butt, stuffed with whole garlic cloves and fennel seeds, slowly roasted, rested and then thickly sliced and served with ziti and his red sauce. Every bit as fine an experience as any restaurant. It was good that we stored up the fine dining in Ft lauderdale because we spent the last 4 days in Port Charlotte on the west side and the state of dining there is truly awful.

There is much less meat and more emphasis on fruits and vegetables. Portions are much smaller The wine is much better quality.

Are you going with him? It could be the same meeting since my husband is also an engineer - he actually spends a at least a few days a month in NJ ( Picatinny ).

I marinate the fillets in: the juice of 1 lemon, 1 TB salt, 2 Tb brown sugar and a little dill ( fresh if you have it but dried is acceptable) for half an hour or so. Bake, grill, broil to desired doneness. Serve with a mustard sauce that is mayonaise enhanced with mustard and dill. This has been a staple in my house since I got the recipe 30 years ago from an article in a Detroit newspaper about the salmon served at Joe Muer's Restaurant. Joe had a very fine seafood place in Detroit.