Lindacakes

One cup of raspberries and one cup sugar. Mash raspberries into the sugar with a fork. Let it sit at least a day. Stir into yogurt or pour over ice cream or use it in a cocktail. Thank Edna Lewis.

Date bars. Date snowballs (Rice Krispies and molten dates, rolled in powdered sugar). Jam thumbprints. The fun graphic cookies you get by combining plain and chocolate dough (checkerboards).

Dolores Casella's Complete Vegetable Cookbook.

I for one am glad that perfume finally got a hit. I'm finding myself increasingly sensitive to it and when you dig in you find that perfume manufacturers aren't obligated to disclose what's in the fluid you are applying directly to your skin, right on the veins. Trade secret. Trade secrets that contain numerous known carcinogens. Perfumes are now engineered to project -- an attribute that comes at a chemical price -- so that the wearer isn't aware that she's punching everyone in her strike zone in the lungs. Him, too, since there's increasing advertising aimed at stirring male insecurity and thus spending. Everywhere, yes, but you can make choices about your exposure when you are aware of what's going on. Most people are clueless. Nice word, biopersistent. I can't believe how persistent microwave popcorn bags are . . . Getting harder and harder to find just plain popcorn.

I've pulled this information from a variety of obscure sources. I buy older books on fruit and preserving and pull the information from there. I don't have this one, but it seems that the Dover book on preserving has a good section.

Re: Cookie Butter. I think Biscoff is better. Smoother. Cookie Butter has a slightly gritty texture.

I was a fat child and I'd love that recipe if you care to share it.

I tried to capture my first food appearance (a cookie with an elaborate system of dough folding in Sicily) as a pen drawing on a napkin. It was so remarkable, I just had to capture it. And then I realized . . . wait . . . I can just take a picture . . . doh . . . then I started taking pictures of the food that matters to me -- pastry, cakes, cookies, remarkable decorating ideas, etc. I suppose someone might think I'm going to copy it (I'd rather try to improve upon it) and get hairy, but that's never been so, even in Paris. In Sardinia, I asked permission first, and then took a photo of every single one of dozens of cookies. And effusively complimented the baker. I suppose this is my way of documenting sugar of the world, and why not? These are artworks and deserve to be admired as much as the architecture. One of my sub-genres is decorating with candied fruit and nuts. I collect 'em all. Maybe I'll make trading cards . . .

Fresh local fish. Lake Erie perch, but not anymore. Trout for breakfast. Catfish and walleye, agreed. Mackerel, agreed. Skate. Even my parrot loves skate.

Try Villabate in Bensonhurst. Sicilian. Splendid.

A one pound bag of jelly beans, minus the black ones.

This would be so much more fun in a bar with drinks . . . I try to make as many consumption choices as I can aimed away from large corporations and into the hands of individuals. I realize that many efforts to change or control our destiny vis a vis corporations is spitting in the wind, but I do not believe it is possible for me to give up. I eat as much organic food as possible, about 95%. I avoid non-organic dairy products and non-organic eggs. The word organic, I suppose, should be in quotes, but let's say, humane to animals, hormone free, not genetically modified, no preservatives, no artificial colors, and no pesticides is preferable to the opposite. After reading one of these recently, I started to be more conscious of tomatoes in cans and started buying dried tomatoes and tomatoes in jars whenever possible. You can't win but you can try to play fair, I think.

I would recommend that you don't use software to capture your notes. I had a Palm Pilot and I loved it, I would prefer not to have left it behind. It had an excellent system for taking notes and I had a very extensive notebook in it. And then the hardware became obsolete and I had to upgrade. I gave it a great deal of thought and got an iPhone because I could synch what I had on the phone and what I had on my computer more easily. Prying all of my data out of the Palm Pilot was a nightmare I vow never to repeat. When I did, I spent several weekends straight through copying and pasting and organizing files into something I call a NOTEBOOK on my computer. It's just a set of files of Word docs. I moved all cooking and food-related notes out of there and into a behemoth I created called COOKBOOK. COOKBOOK is an amazing work of art, if I do say so myself. It has everything in it. Recipes, books I'm writing, research, articles I capture of the the Web, etc., etc. If I need something to be mobile from COOKBOOK, I copy it to my Outlook Notes which will synch with the iPhone. I love that I can cross file -- for instance, if I'm thinking of making a recipe, I just copy the file and paste it into the file of stuff I'm wanting to make now. I print recipes out and throw them away after I've used them -- I copied all of my personal handwritten recipes into the digital file. I can also search. It does everything recipe software does to organize. Why do such a nutty time-wasting thing? Because I read two stories on eGullet that gave me the willies: Person number one lost her recipes in a fire. Person number two had her recipes stolen by a burglar. (Yes! Can you imagine!) I don't care to loose mine, so COOKBOOK is backed up in my safe deposit.

I know this as a Date Snowball. Has no nuts or coconut and is rolled in powdered sugar. Known strictly as a Christmas cookie and the sight of one of my friends, laughing, with powdered sugar all down the front of her party clothes, is a fond one for me. I think people used to make date confections of various sorts more often than they do now -- it's an old fashioned taste, and one of my favorites. There is an enormous date discussion in the eGullet archives that includes, I believe, multiple recipes for date roll.

This thread has me hounding my own cupboards. This is the most recent: Fry thin apple slices in butter until cooked through. Throw in a couple of chopped dates and a handful of walnuts. Get this hot and then stir in a tablespoon of maple syrup. Serve with or without a dollop of yogurt or ice cream, if you have it.

So devilishly simple. Bananas Foster as party trick.

I am going to make this for dinner tonight.

Meanwhile, back in the jam post, I have learned about Trader Joe's cherry preserves, which I found a bit too sweet and not unlike candied cherries and I can't wait to try them with chocolate. I think it will make a very passable chocolate-covered-cherry-not. I bought a big, beautiful, cheap bag of imported foil covered chocolate eggs at Costco. Said eggs are hollow. I'm thinking: small hole. Insert cherries. Or: bite chocolate, spoon cherries into mouth, chew.

Hmmm . . . Chez Pim Bouquet des Fleurs Marmalade . . . must try . . . Black Cap = Black Raspberry . . . I tried Trader Joe's Cherry Preserves last night. I am thinking this is too sweet, but I would use this, drained, in place of candied cherries in a fruitcake.

Interestingly, Indian and Mexican food was mentioned. Ghee and lard.

Depending on how huge the batch . . . Immerse the cookie bowl in some warm water to bring the temperature up faster . . .

Keillor also makes a ginger marmelade, that's very appealing, will try that one, too . . .

Hero . . . another fairly common brand I haven't paid enough attention to. They don't use high fructose corn syrup and they have a new line called Delicia that has more fruit and less sugar. Also interesting flavors like red currant, quince, plum, rosehip and gooseberry . . . I'll give that a try. They don't seem to have seedless versions, though.

Thank you!

Interestingly, the regular Smuckers have high fructose corn syrup. The Simply Fruit and Orchard Finest do not. For some reason, it never dawned on me to try Trappist or St. Dalfour's -- I will right away. Thank you for all the suggestions.