Kayakado

If you want to buy a vintage waffle iron or get one fixed - try this place http://www.toastercentral.com/index.htm Some of my favorite waffles are made with cornmeal and topped with cheese and chili or taco fixings.

chocolate fondue using homemade marshmallows to dip in the chocolate and roll in toppings

I have trouble passing up desserts, except when it comes to one of these fruit or veg cakes. Yuck! I dislike them so much I can't even imagine experimenting to find a more palatable, less-greasy version. everywhere I turn I am assaulted by these things. My aunt always brings one when she comes to visit. I toss it as soon as she leaves. They are a favorite at work for birthday cakes, so at least they are helping my diet. Another friend bakes them for all her friends. She has bought more than a dozen cases of bananas over the summer, but somehow I've managed to dodge this bullet, or should I say cannonball...

My current favorite is one from Jacque pepin's fast food my way cookbook. My mexican restaurant always includes a 1/2 cup of their fresh salsa in the bag when I take my leftovers home. I mix it with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and it makes a very tasty dressing.

I was on a stuffed jalapeno kick a few months ago. I stuffed some with a turkey, mushroom veg mixture, cream cheese shrimp roulade, cream cheese cheddar mixture, cheese and rice, duxelle, no recipes just combine a few things from the frig and stuff away and roast. I haven't made any but I have a friend who buys cases of the stuff and I mooch as many as I can since I can't get them locally but I love them! Bread and Butter Jalapenos - mixed with cream cheese or peanut butter as a spread for crackers or on celery.

Maybe the texture combined with the idea of mint flavor is what causes the association with chewing gum, try a plain version or something less suggestive of Doublemint.

After being gone from the area for almost 20 years, I am sure I couldn't direct you to any fresh baked goods purveyors. Look for farm stands along the way of what about the Green Dragon in Ephrata, is it open on Saturday? Isn't Lititiz the home of Wilbur Chocolates, inventors of the chocolate kiss aka Wilbur Buds? They had a really good chocolate bar that rivalled good European chocolate but they may have only made it for their centennial celebration when ever that was. Make your own pickled eggs. Hard boil and peel some eggs, a can of so of sliced beets or roast some fresh, a cup or two of apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper and pickling spices and, a little sugar and water - what ever mixture tastes good to you. Leave them in the frig for a day or two if you can wait that long and then start eating them. I brought a few to work with me this morning and my co-workers were appalled, only one was brave enough to try one and we decided it may be one of those foods you need to be introduced to at an early age.

You can ban transfats in NYC but whose going to hunt up all the new sources for transfat free foods that reataurants order from their suppliers? Sounds like a nightmare to me. Are they going to test all the food stuffs and ingredients coming in from other cities, states, and countries??? This is a prime example of legisltors instituting a new law that they have no idea how it would be enforced or if it could be enforced. It is just a huge waste of tax payers dollars = feel good laws!

Reading this is so funny, Duling-Kurtz was my cousin's house. I moved away long before it was sold and became a restaurant, but I have many fond memories of the times spent in and around the area. We raised hell as kids with nothing around to distract us except for swimming in the Blue Hole quarry in the summer. In those days we picked watercress from the creek for watercress sandwiches. I guess that wouldn't be safe anymore.

This thread brought back many memories of dishes I hadn't had in a long time. I grew up in Chester County. We went almost every monday to New Holland near Lancaster, PA to buy and sell horses and friday mornings meant a trip to the central market. We never left the market without corned beef, potato chips, fresh potato rolls and sandtarts for the ride home. As of 10pm last night, I have a large jar of eggs and beets pickling in the frig. I just don't know if I can wait for them to get really good before diggin in. My co-workers are horrified at the idea of pink/purple eggs, we will see how many they eat after tasting their first one.

Treat yourself to a couple of mini bundt or ring pans to hold the left overs or adjust your recipe to make less batter. If I make a larger cake and have leftover batter I can make small cakes for later or for box lunches. I got inspired by the cookbook small batch baking. Making cute single serving desserts for everyday dinners is perfect. As for sticking, my nordic bundt pans said to brush them with butter and refrigerate them until ready to use them. This seems to work better than greasing/flouring or using cake sprays and it doesn't leave a flour coating on the cake.

Potatoes exposed to light produce a bitter-tasting chemical called solanine, even fluorescent lighting at the supermarket can make them turn green. Solanine is toxic if consumed in large quantities or if consumed by those sensitive to it. It is recommended that the green sections be cut away and discarded before cooking, but often too much of the potato is involved, you'd have nothing left. Potatoes are supposed to be stored in the dark to prevent the formation of solanine. Some stores cover their potatos with a dark cloth to prevent exposure to light and the areas where root vegetables are sold are dimmer than the other veg sections..

Don't stop with fillings, flavored crepes are wonderful too. I try to keep some in the freezer to jazz up leftovers. Chives, lemon pepper, ginger, orange rum, basil, spinach, curry, all make wonderful crepe flavors to accent the fillings. I like the idea of the colors these ingredients lend to the crepes too. My first crepe pan was a Ron Popeil and it is till in use after thrity years. Check the local used book stores, there were hundreds of crepe cookery books published in the late 60s and early 70' that have some fun recipes in them. They make great inspirations for new combinations..

It is food safety issues in general, store policies, and the lack of education of the employees who handle the stuff.. I have a sensitivity to the alkaline in green potatoes - it makes me violently ill. The way potatoes are put out for purchase in most supermarkets is so bad, I have had to stop buying them at all. Caveat emptor.

I've never bought any Ikea pots and pans but I bought lots of other stuff linens, bowls, dishes, kitchen tools, utensils and furniture prior to 1989 all of which are still going strong. 1989 was the year I moved to an Ikea-less area. I miss it very much and the smaller stuff can't be purchased through the mail. As for quality, many of the baking dishes, bowls and things I bought have outlasted similar ones bought at WilliamsSonama and other places that are supposed to have decent quality stuff. My last purchase was a coffee table that was a duplicate of one sold at Pottery barn for $300 or $400 dollars, even with shipping it was under $150.

I love anything that can be computerized. I am in the throes right now of planning 6 roadside rest stops for an organized bike ride. We'll have about 600 riders, who ride varying distances (18, 30, 60, 80 and 100 miles) so each rest stop sees varying numbers of riders from 100 to 600. I've inventoried all the equipment for each location. I've got 6 bins of stuff like knives, untensils, cutting boards, TP, PT, soap, sanitzers, etc. What a PIA. I had to wash them all and the bins from a ride 6 months ago. Once we get a count of riders and their planned distances the food will be purchased and the food and serving implements like trays and bowls needed to serve that food and drink will be divided up according to how many riders each rest stop will service. It is a logistical challenge that would be awful without spreadsheets - lots of them!!!

Here is a website that offers a bunch of recipes that use almond flour for desserts. Their almond pound cake is a great base for a whole host of wonderful desserts. http://www.lowcarbluxury.com/lowcarb-desserts.html

Use the foil ones - they don't stick and they don't need to be sprayed. Don't forget to discard the paper liners that separate the foil ones before filling and baking. The foil ones should be available at any food store.

I knew a fellow student in art achool 20 years ago that scouted the supermarket dumpster for discarded food. He had grown up in Africa where his parents were missionaries. After Africa, he claimed the food was in no worse shape than what they bought in the market. He had a really hard time with this food being discarded after dealing with conditions in Africa. I also think he didn't have a lot of money to spend on food or anything else. This university was in upstate NY where it was cold or cool most of the year, so he wasn't dealing with heat or the accompanying bugs of warmer weather. Some of it was in factory sealed packages and that he shared with others in the studio.

I don't know if this will help and you probably don't have enough time, but several times per year I plan several camping meals for 14 or so people. I try to cook or pre-cook as much as possible and freeze it for transport. We don't have any refrigeration and have to rely exclusively on coolers. This is primitive tent camping - the kitchen is in the open air, tables are under a dining fly. Running water is 5ooyds away. The only stoves we have are 2 2-burner coleman propane or gas versions, a campfire and a large turkey boiling pot with industrial size propane burner. Everything we take has to be carried in a 1/2 mile or so and then carried back out. We have to carry the dirty pots, dishes and hot water 500 yds to a sink to wash them. The temps are usually 80's during the day and 70's at night. In the years we've been doing this no one has gotten sick from the food - only from drinking too much. We try to freeze as much as possible to keep it cold enough. We are also careful about layering foods in the coolers and some coolers are packed and not opened until the day that food is going to be used. Labeling the coolers is the best way to make this work. We also have to make sure the raccoons can't get our coolers open. I have even seen two raccoons working together and turning a cooler over and shaking it to get to its contents. We now use hasp locks with padlocks on all the coolers and food boxes. Luckily, we don't have to worry about bears. We use one support boat to bring camp chairs, the kitchen, coolers, food boxes, and mountain bikes with child trailers. The rest of the stuff is transported in kayaks or by foot on the ferry. Ususally day 1 is pasta, day 2 is low country boil, day 3 is fried turkey, and day 4 is stir fry using the leftover turkey, shrimp, potatoes with rice as a side dish. Lunches are self serve sandwiches, breakfast is eggs, bacon, pancakes, and cereal. I try to plan day one as a pasta meal, since we have to set up camp that day and don't have much time or energy left. I cook the pasta and bag it and then freeze it to reheat it later. I make the sauce and bag it and freeze it. I make meatballs, sausage and/or chicken chunks and bag them and freeze them. I also make garlic bread, wrap individual servings in double foil wrap, bag it and freeze it. At camp, I heat the sauce on the stoves then add the meats, once it is all hot, I put on the lid and keep it warm. I then heat the pasta water and reheat the pasta. It gets drained and then it gets served and the sauce ladled over it. While all this is going on, I hand someone a long pair of tongs and the garlic bread and let them put it in the campfire coals and turn it until it is hot and it gets transferred to the picnic table. The Turkey is transported frozen and thaws in the cooler until frying. Potatoes, white and sweet, are double foil wrapped, partially cooked ahead of time and frozen. The potatoes are reheated on the fire like the garlic bread was. If they aren't tended and turned often they burn. Any other veggies that are served are fresh. Low country boil (shrimp, potatoes, corn, onions, kielbasa) is day two and none of it ingredients are frozen, except maybe the kielbasa. The pot is drained and the contents are spilled onto the picnic tables which are covered with disposable table cloths. We have also done this for a group of 40 on 4 picnic tables. We had two large 10 gallon pots of food. No one left hungry. Stirfry - we have 2 large woks. None of the veggies for this are fozen but they are kept in a moderately cold cooler. All the wine is served at whatever ambient temps we are enjoying at the time. One of our participants makes much of the wine we drink and he brings that with him in large gallon bags. I hope this gives you some ideas. The turkey and the boil are the two most popular meals. Sometimes, we have fresh cauught fish or crabs to add to the table.

I often pull out kitchen drawers and put a cutting board on them to make a lower area for working with dough or to clamp my pasta maker on.

you can get really small led lights with small round batteries that might work. I've used small string of battery operated christmas lights for decorating which were purchased at the local craft craft store. In either case you'd need to hide the battery, wiring or both. I hid the batteries in the base of the decoration.

I admit I buy cookbooks based on the food porn quality or recipes accompanied by compelling narratives. I also like books that are standard size so I can read them in bed, some of the big coffee table books make this difficult. I also write comments in my cookbooks next to all the recipes I try. I love it when I buy a used cookbook and the previous owner has made notes. My pet peeves: poorly written and/or untested recipes fonts that are too small when it comes to fractions and I have to hunt up my glasses, I end up writing them in by hand so i can read them later Not including weight measurements - all my cookbooks end up having weights written in by me in parens. Bindings that won't lay flat and fall apart easily

OK, I don't know how accurate this info is but I remember something about, if the fish is gutted as soon as it is caught and before it dies the flesh should be worm-free. The worms live in the digestive tracks and only burrow into the fish's flesh when it dies. So if it is gutted right away or is iced quickly and sufficiently, the worms should be minimal or none at all. Based on this premise, I could see large commerical fisherman using ice too sparingly or letting fish die on deck before icing that make the presence of worms more likely. Does this sound plausible or accurate?

Most parasites in raw fish, used for sushi or sashimi, have no effect on humans. But there is the possibility of tapeworm, and it has been a small problem in Japan. The worm can grow to great lengths in the human digestive system, and steal enough nutrient to make the body thin. It can be treated easily by a doctor, and you won't get it from a cooked fish. I thought trichinosis was and old problem, not often seen in current generations of swine. My father, a vet, always claimed it was potentially present in beef, at lower incidences. ← My days of eating any raw fish ended when I read article published in the NYT (I think ) sometime in the mid-80's, that discussed the parasites in sushi and sashimi. It went into great detail about their activities in the human body and the treatments for them. I remember one bit that said something about these worms boring through the stomach lining and through the abdominal cavity walls to lodge in the epidermal layers of the skin and that these lumps were common among eaters of raw seafood. It then went on to describe the use of an endoscope and tweezers to find and remove parasites lodged in the stomach. Ugh!