[Meat Hunger]

Absolutely. And the meat has to be rare and salty. A very high quality prime rib sliced thinly is best, but even a hamburger will do.

[Eataly]

I found it pleasantly disappointing.

There was a lot to like, there are some beautiful products. I bought a torrone for the wrapper, which I scanned and then saved. The torrone was excellent, but over sweet. I would have loved to have had some charcuterie, but the crowds were sickening. I personally cannot imagine myself seated at a table in the middle of an overpriced grocery store with people pushing past my table on their way to buy a bag of pasta from a precious display shelf of one kind of pasta, all lined up as though it were the Only Pasta.

Hence the pleasantness. Eataly will siphon off a certain element, and the rest of us can enjoy the increased peace at our favorite, quiet, local spots.

[Using Seafood from a Can]

Once every couple of years I want to replicate my mom's Good Friday meal: salmon loaf. I buy a can of salmon for this purpose. I want one now.

I buy the canned crab from Costco and use it to make lemon crab salad sandwiches from the Martha Stewart Hors D'oeuvres Handbook, but only in the summer.

My brother still gives me a tin of sardines in my stocking at Christmas, replicating my father's behavior from childhood. I eat those, but I'm not sure I'd buy one on my own.

You didn't mention jars -- I like my tuna tuna belly in the jar with olive oil, imported from Italy.

The very best canned seafood, however, is canned wahoo. Easily purchaseable in Hawaii, and you have to know a Hawaiian to get your hands on some.

[The McRib is back!]

I had my first McRib yesterday, I'd missed them the first times around entirely, since I don't eat at McDonalds unless I'm on a road trip.

I liked it. I thought it was mighty tasty. I assume it's pork parts held together with meat glue and covered with sickly sweet sauce to hide its ugliness. You can kind of see inside without washing the sauce off, and what you see asks you to look out the car window instead, over at the crows that are eating castoff french fries.

You kind of have to hand it to them with the advertising thing, if they got me to actually turn around on the highway and buy one to try it. And I can't for the life of me figure out why because I'm also the sort of person who will do exactly the opposite of what everyone else does . . .

[Cutesy Place for an High Tea?]

With an eight year old, you want to go to Alice's Tea Cup. Without a child, you don't want to set foot in there.

[Olives In Desserts]

At the restaurant Ciya in Istanbul I had candied olives, along with other unusual candied non-fruits.

[The Fruitcake Topic]

It's not particularly difficult to glace your own fruit, but it is time consuming.

I want to know more about that pastry coffin above and why the fruit is so firm and not gelatinous . . .

[White foods only please]

Isn't cheesecake kind of yellow?

What about a Pavlova?

[Worse, Much Worse, Than You Remember: Acquired Distastes]

I think it's a combination of cultivating a better, adult palate and the food getting worse. The "quality" of packaged food is really appalling. It's probably all a cardboard base with a flavor packet cooked up in Elizabeth, New Jersey sprinkled on top.

One thing I used to like was Kraft Old English cheese, which was considered an adult food when we were kids and reserved for my mother once-in-a-while and I liked it. I don't think they make it any more, but it doesn't matter because by the end of it's production life it tasted rank.

[Favorite cooking aromas?]

Gingerbread.

[What's the Skankiest Part of Your Kitchen?]

My kitchen floor is frequently very unpleasant. Why clean it when it's going to get dirty again?

No one here has mentioned the inside of the oven. I don't like to look in there.

[Kitchenaid Stand Mixers]

The pasta roller is superb. Very well made and does an excellent job. It will roll any dough you want -- such as cannoli dough.

I was going to say dog biscuits, too, but I'll add this: if you want to make your own paper, it makes an excellent beater.

[Cooking to Honor Julia Child]

Thanks for the reminder.

Since I'm counting my Weight Watchers points, it won't be the roquefort quiche, but I wish it was. Very much.

[Home Made Ice Cream (2002–2012)]

Reminds me of a scene in Mother with Debbie Reynolds and Albert Brooks.

She takes a year old carton of ice cream out of the freezer and then removes the "protective coating" of ice . . .

[Simple How to Use Decorating Tubes]

Thank you so much, Lisa, this looks like exactly the sort of thing I am looking for.

Any recommendations on solid simple decorating books also welcome. People seem to like the Toba Garrett book, based on my searching of eGullet.

Although I enjoy eating a mass of icing flowers better than the next person, I just need clean simple ideas for decorating various creations.

Thanks again, that little book looks terrific.

[Simple How to Use Decorating Tubes]

I have The Wilton Way of Cake Decorating, Volume 3, The Uses of Tubes.

My intention was to have a simple reference for how to use tubes to get different effects now and again. I'm not going into business decorating wedding cakes.

The cakes in here look like my grandmother's underwear.

Can anyone recommend a simple, straightforward this-is-the-effect-you-can-get-with-this-tube book?

Thank you very much!

[Favorite Food and Drink Apps]

I have these:

Zagat

Open Table

Sushipedia

iBartender

How to Cook Everything

But the one I find absolutely indispensible and use every day is Weight Watchers. I don't know how anyone ever lost a pound without it.

[Emeril Lagasse's BAM meals]

Oh, I think we hate Rachel Ray more.

If Emeril comes up with a tasty can of crawfish etouffee, I'll open it.

[Orange Flower Water]

Here's a link to a nice little bit on the uses of Orange Flower Water by Sally Schneider by way of The Splendid Table:

Orange Flower Water

[Culinary Confession: Where are you shirking?]

I'm picturing coconut hairshirts . . .

[Once-is-Enough Kitchen Feats]

From my perspective, what's special about that picture is the thought bubbles I put over the heads:

That bastard is bound and gagged and can't hurt us anymore.

[Culinary Confession: Where are you shirking?]

Some godforsaken part of me still buys and uses Goya beans even though I regularly order and have on hand Rancho Gordo beans and Russ Parson's method for no soak beans is copied into no less than three cookbooks (the digital archive, the arty archive, the quick reference archive).

It's so quick . . .

I have been known to let an eggplant rot on enough occasions to call it a Habit. Despite my intelligence and my cookbook collection I still Fear Eggplants.

I commit the sin of sloth regarding my food processor. I hate cleaning it. I do have the mixer and the processor cleverly conveyed on an attractive computer printer cart so they scoot about the kitchen, look good, and are easy to use. But -- I hate cleaning it.

[Making Tortillas at Home]

I would really like to learn how to make tortillas that I saw made in Mexico. I've never had anything like them before or since. They had no resemblance to the thin wafers made either with corn or flour.

I had them in a very touristy hotel near Chichen Itza. The sort of place with a big open air dining room. Some kids were practicing dancing with beer bottles on their heads with their dance teacher for the evening's performance. For lunch there was a buffet with various hot stews to put in the tortillas.

There was a woman sitting down making and cooking tortillas. She had a bowl of corn dough and she formed balls, which she flattened out and then passed from hand to hand, stretching them. The resultant tortilla was small and relatively thick. The patty was slapped onto the wall of a hot wok-like pot, so that there were about six of these cooking at once. You waited for them to cook, she put as many as you wanted on your plate, and then you were free to eat until you exploded.

Which was quite easy to do, because they were moist and corny tasting, with some burnt areas that added extra flavor, and the pork stew was superb. One right after another.

[Organizing That Messed-Up Liquor Cabinet]

Dudes, really, this is an opportunity for someone to go into business with the Acme Mini Rolling Bar.

Which will spawn the Acme Maxi Stationary Bar.

[Food as a Healing Force after Divorce/Death]

I was awake at 3:00 in the morning trying to be with my grief when I turned on the T.V. and saw an old rerun of Julia Child. For me, it was connecting with a talent I'd had from childhood and never taken seriously. I have been obsessed ever since, although less so than before. The entire researching, shopping, cooking, eating, researching, shopping, baking, eating cycle fascinated me and there wasn't an aspect I wasn't fascinated in.

I've always found baking to be very meditative and calming. I enjoyed being able to create happiness for myself and my friends and have a focus.