Cusina

I'm a rabbit user. Bought our current one at Target for $20 during the holiday season and it works very well, the only issue being that it will sometimes poke through a shorter cork. Beware of those which have a plastic collar for holding the neck of the bottle. They will break eventually. I bought one of those air canister cork poppers too. Horrible!! It sprayed wine all over me and my kitchen. Fortunately it was a Riesling rather than a red. The wine left in the bottle was literally carbonated and ruined. When I returned the opener the woman refused to believe my story, saying it was their best opener. In hindsight I'm just glad the bottle itself didn't explode. Was a huge mess though. Never again.

chow guy, those ARE great stories I can just picture the collective gasp when the lamb hit the floor and you banging your head against a locked elevator door. hehehe.

Oh, and speaking of physical activity, orgasm often. Makes you feel alive again.

He sucks. What a jerk. Has the other partner been the same, or is there more support there? I can imagine losing two at once would be awful. So, girlfriend, onward. I'm with the crowd that wants you to get moving. How about kick boxing? I took up Tai Chi recently after a completely different kind of disappointment and it really is doing the trick. Something physical that requires a lot of focus was the key for me. On the food front, I go for creamy stuff. Yogurt and fruit, ice cream with warm chocolate cookie hunks. Milkshakes. Good mac and cheese, chowders. Though, like Mayhaw said. Good breakfast is soothing too. I also like these Chocolate Toffee Cookies when I get the urge to bake. Very goey and delicious.

Bah. So Genuis walks by, looks at Kitching, nods, says to itself, "There's that idjit." bwahahaha! Jin, you cracked me up. None of his stuff appeals. Strawberry dessert on a toothbrush? gack I love ribeye. He needs to spend some time in Texas.

Hear, hear!! Cheers!

I just hate it when the dishwasher doesn't get loaded well and the dishes are all grimy when they come out. I'm kind of particular about that detail. Also towel dry each dish before I put it away so it doesn't watermark my walnut cabinets. And I wash my hands a lot too. The combination of mother's ways and having worked in a hospital laboratory setting got me in the habit of running for the sink many times during the day. Otherwise, most of my serious habits went out the window when I had kids. Childus interruptus will foil even the deepest set ways. Maybe when both of the little dictators are in school all day long I'll be able to get fussy again.

Excellent! Thank you! I'm actually throwing a baby shower. I know, I know, I promise to steer the mom-to-be toward the other punch bowl! This is a very close knit bunch of girls. We do a spa weekend/slumber party every year and this year, there are two pregs to celebrate. Our baby showers are usually strewn with pink balloons decorated as big boobs so anything goes.

Aw, gee, I hate it what that happens. Find something, good, make it a regular habit and they take it away. I wonder if it has something to do with the wicked viruses that have made the rounds this year? Soft surfaces like those can't be cleaned off as well.

I give up, but the sad thing is that these would, in addition to being pretty icky, require a lot of effort. At least the cowboy sandwiches could be pawned off as lack of budget and time. A plaquemine reminds me of something really ugly you would find during a trip to the dentist, yish.

Lady T, I don't suppose you would share that champange punch recipe, pretty please?? Well, my first drunk isn't nearly as um, colorful as some of these. No harleys involved. We went to the local touristy winery shop for the purchase thinking they wouldn't be carding very vigilantly. They could have cared less that I was 16. It was my girlfriend Jen's birthday, she was sleeping over and my parents were out for the evening. She and I polished off three bottles of wine (most of it mixed with SPRITE, blech!), laughed a LOT and passed out by 11:00. I think my parents knew what the deal was, but didn't say a word. Later on in life they confessed that they knew all, but felt like it was a hell of a lot safer for us to learn that lesson at home than to sneak off with the car and a few boys somewhere. Definitely the case.

My rib joint of choice in Chicagoland was always Robinsons. It's been a long time since I've had them but remember that I liked them better than Carsons. In my former career I spent my days interviewing cancer patients about their quality of life for a large study. One woman I will never forget had me captivated in her hospital room while she described to me the rib feasts she would make for her fellow church members. The half oil barrel filled with coals, her secret sauce (gosh darn it, she wouldn't tell me the secret, though I tried!), the cornbread, slaw, greens and potatoes. She was just the sweetest woman; beautiful in spirit like you don't meet very often. God and gratitude and cooking were one for her. I left work that day absolutely famished and we hit Robinsons on the way home. Not as good as hers would have been I'm sure, but they did the trick!

deeply perfect is right!

Perhaps the gravy makes them slide down one's throat fast enough to avoid the actual chewing .. and is, therefore, a blessing in disguise? I found this hilarious too. Here are the two reviews for that recipe. The second one just cracks me up in a master of the obvious kind of way. And they still gave it three stars! A cook on 9/11/2003 OMG, these are so good, with bacon being like my favorite food, I can't think of anything better than these bacon bars. I highly suggest dipping them in gravy. A cook on 10/23/2002 went together easy, but I did not like the taste of the bacon and orange tang together

I have never actually seen Ina on TV, but I like her books. Her recipes are well written, reliable and tasty. And the pictures are just gorgeous. Her outrageous brownies alone are worthy of some sort of shrine. How can you go wrong with 2 pounds of chocolate and 1 pound of butter in a pan of brownies?

Funny, I just read about this practice in "The Secret Life of Bees". Had never heard of it before. I guess it isn't just fiction. Do you "drink" the peanuts at the end or just leave them in the bottle?

Yes, but only young'uns fried or hidden in something like a gumbo. (I love how most of us can not possibly keep a response to just one word.)

This is someone else using my kitchen not vice versa but, anyhow... One of our babysitters, a local college student, prepared a dish in my kitchen for her wine course. (Yes a real class, they do a pairing dinner and presentation.) She, of course, is used to college life, dorm food and toaster cooking and was pretty wowed by my stove, knives, pans etc... I'm sure her dish was the only one in the class that was made in a $200 pan. She made a pork tenderloin with a wine marinade/sauce that came out really well. She promised us leftovers, but her professor told her she was under no circumstances taking those home! Anything that good was his to keep I guess. She gave me a whole new look at how great my kitchen really is. And I have to add that my kitchen wasn't even close to being this cool before I discovered eGullet.

Anything that is above 5 or so on the heat scale is out of bounds for me. I do like spicy stuff, just have a limit.

My sinuses thank you all for this thread. I'll be having lots of ginger tea with honey and soup, both chicken and hot and sour. Anyone have good relief ideas for coughing? Mine is coming in painful bursts. Thankfully I think the worst is over. Maybelline, I'm sorry to hear your story. Hope you keep on the mend.

Blue Cheese Creamed Spinach with Pancetta Serves 4 as Side. This is a popular side at our place. It serves four moderately, 2 generously. 4 slices of pancetta 1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped 1 T pine nuts 3 oz cream cheese 2 oz blue cheese or similar 1/2 tsp salt 6 oz baby spinach, washed and patted dry In a large, heavy frying pan cook pancetta till crisp but not brown. Remove pancetta from pan, reserve. Add onion to pancetta fat in pan, saute until transparent. Add pine nuts, salt and cheeses. Stir a bit, 1-2 minutes, then add spinach. Stir untill spinach is wilted and chese is completely melted. Serve immediately, topped with reserved pancetta slices. Keywords: Easy, Vegetables, Side ( RG870 )

Blue Cheese Creamed Spinach with Pancetta Serves 4 as Side. This is a popular side at our place. It serves four moderately, 2 generously. 4 slices of pancetta 1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped 1 T pine nuts 3 oz cream cheese 2 oz blue cheese or similar 1/2 tsp salt 6 oz baby spinach, washed and patted dry In a large, heavy frying pan cook pancetta till crisp but not brown. Remove pancetta from pan, reserve. Add onion to pancetta fat in pan, saute until transparent. Add pine nuts, salt and cheeses. Stir a bit, 1-2 minutes, then add spinach. Stir untill spinach is wilted and chese is completely melted. Serve immediately, topped with reserved pancetta slices. Keywords: Easy, Vegetables, Side ( RG870 )

How about tang pie? We need a little hurling clickable smilie.

Then again, my most stubborn jar ever was a jar of nature's best blueberry and pear baby food. It became a party trick at our house. Which burly man could open the jar? Which technique would do the job? We tried everything short of a blow torch and I finally threw the damn thing out. It was just not meant to be. I have girly girl hands. I face this battle all the time. The combo of the rubberband off the asparagus, hot water and kinfe bashing works in all but the most extreme cases.

What exactly do you have to work with in that crock pot? Please start your own thread Beto and bring us along on the journey. I want to hear about building the solar oven too. Do an in the field blog for us.