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InterCourses... An Aphrodesiac Cookbook. A Valentine's gift from the man of the house, three years ago. I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't even cracked it open since he gave it to me. There's probably some good stuff in there... and maybe after... I can't go into a Ross/TJ Maxx/Marshall's without walking out with a $4 cookbook. They've done so much for me... America's Best Cooking (Landol's). This is an odd name for this cookbook, considering that all of the measurements are metric, and the pictured food looks repulsive. Lots of cheese sauces and anchovies. I should just chuck that one. Ultimate Recipes, Low-Fat. Riiiiight. I don't know what I was thinking. I must have had $4 burning a hole in my pocket. I should've just taken that $4 to the snack bar and gotten some nachos and a slurpie.

Mmm... Northside. That is a tasty burger. If you don't mind slumming a little bit, you can head over to Louie's or The Windsor Pub for a pretty good one. That Windsor Burger is a thing of beauty.

Is custard hard to make? I make a mean custard, and the fact that I've made it from scratch is usually enought to impress... since those guys at Jell-o do it so gooood. LOL. But yeah, banana cream pie with hommade custard seems to be my calling. Chicken... any manner. If you want it juicy, I'm your girl. I can hard boil an egg like nobody's business. No green rings. I sneer at your green rings and crumbly yolks.

Holy crap... I can't believe I forgot to mention Swenson's. Swenson's Drive In. Gally Boy. Go!! Right now... Go!!! There are locations in Akron, Canton, and Broadview Hts. (South of Cleveland).

I don't get up to Cleveland very often, so Nancy will have to steer you around that area... If you're in the Stark/Summit/Portage/Mahoning/Trumbull county area, I'm your girl. If your looking for local specialities, my first suggestion would be to check out the "chicken houses" in Barberton, just SW of Akron. Bring some Lipitor... it's crumb coated and fried in lard. Make sure you get a side of "hot rice". Mmm mmm!! There are several places to get it in Barberton, but Belgrade Gardens seems to be the best. Sushi? Maybe? Cuyahoga Falls. Golden Dragon. Sit at the bar and shoot the breeze with Chai while he serves you some of the best sushi anywhere. I dream of his Chaipus octopus salad. Warning! He'll try to ply you with alcohol... beware the Chaiquila! Upscale? Ken Stewart for steak, Piatto for Italian. I had the veal chop with gorgonzola mashers and greens two weekends ago at Piatto, and I haven't stopped raving about it yet. Gorgeous. Pizza is hotly contested... you'll get a million suggestions. Mine? If you're anywhere near Youngstown, check out Wedgewood Pizza. We drive almost 100 miles, round trip, once a month for it and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm just rambling now... sorry. I love eating here!

Oo oo!! What's on your agenda so far? There are some real treasures in NE Ohio...

My mother calls my daughter 'Tater, or Sweet 'Tater, and her father's mother calls her Sweet Pea. I call her Monkey Britches. I don't know why.

I can tell you what I DON'T miss... my mom used to buy these horrible home made molded "chocolate" confections from a local woman. Rabbit heads on sticks, waxy chicks, mouth-coating egg shapes. Blah! What is that stuff, anyway? BTW... I look forward to having one Cadbury Creme Egg every year.

When you planned your wedding meal, how much of a factor was your concern about the appropriateness of the choices for your guests? So much so that we're having rigatoni... my family don't like no fancy food.

Coleslaw. I just don't like it. That's about it... oh, beets and pickled eggs. Ick.

- Waiters who touch me I am always put off when this happens, even more so when they touch my husband! I don't like the waiters that squat down next to you!! What's up with that?!

Damn you all!!! I've been on the weed wagon for over 4 years, and you're making me want to jump right off... right into the grocery store! The ex and I used to get high on Sundays (we tried to be responsible pot heads) and I'd set to making grilled sandwiches. Good bread, good butter, melty cheese, stone ground mustard, and what ever meat looked good. Awww maaaaannn!! I wanna sandwich!! Oh, and some of those Flaky Flix cookies, made by Mother's (I think), but I'd have to go back west for those. Hm... maybe the ex will mail me a package. If we had extra cash, I'd make him take me to Jack Shrimp and we'd burn in the parking lot. You've never seen anything as intense as two stoners, a bowl of peel and eat shrimp, spicy broth, and a basket of bread 'n butter. Oh, and the other think that made me consider buying a pack of Jokers is the new Take 5 candy bar! Oh my god! Stoners never had it so good!

Bennigan's (the chain) still serves one, a very good one in that. Although, it is the heaviest most dense sandwhich I think I have ever encountered.... I mean, a deep fried ham sandwich with sugar and jam, wow... ← What's not to like about a french toast sandwich?!?! When I lived in SoCal, I would always hit the Katella Deli when I was feeling naughty and needed some deep fried goodness. I've had a couple since then, but none have been as good as that Katella Deli version.

I will never again ask the man of the house to do the dishes. He's not helpless, but I think he thinks that if he does a crappy enough job, he'll never have to do it again. He's already been banned from loading the dishwasher, but I thought he could be trusted to hand wash the stuff that can't go in there. Picture it... ask him to do the dishes, go upstairs to take a nice hot shower, halfway through said shower remember that your prized 40-year-old cast aluminum skillet is down there unprotected. Nooooooo!!! Wet, soapy, hysterical, towel flapping in the wind, running downstairs screaming, "Don't wash my pan! Don't wash my pan!!!" There he is, god bless him, with my skillet in one hand and the Barkeepers Friend in the other. Luckily, he had only scrubbed at the outside of it. After I got cleaned up, I gave him a lesson in skillet maintenance... he was giving me that look that boys give their mothers at Sears when they have to go shopping for slacks. Eyes rolling all over the place.

I love it, too! I used to just camp out by that stuff at family christmas parties and the like. You know what? I think I'll make some tonight! lol ← I've already sent the man of the house to the grocery store for supplies... he's just as excited as I am!!

My mom was a great cook, and she did a lot with a very limited budget and a large family, but her idea of Italian food has almost ruined it for me. She made them all... spaghetti, ravioli, lasagna, etc.... from scratch, but she always put green peppers in her sauce. Ugh. When the man of the house asks if I "wanna go get some Italian", I have to talk myself down... "Your mother is not making it. There will not be any green peppers in there, unless you ask for them." Mmmm... cube steak. I never minded the cubed steak, and I still make them for my family. My local market actally makes cubed pork! Tasty!

Ohhh. I love it. LOVE IT!!! It's alive and well here in the heartland. God bless my mother... if you invite her to any function, she'll come armed with a batch, and a back up batch. Around the holidays, she might also have a cheese ball (cream cheese, green olives, sharp cheddar, horseradish... all rolled into a ball and covered in walnuts.) and a box of Wheat Thins stashed somewhere.

I love Lidia. LOVE HER! She presents everthing in a very "you can do this, and I don't want to hear you say that you can't" kind of way, and her food always looks wonderful.

That spicy buffalo sauce is pretty addictive. I can't say that I love it, but I can't stop eating it once I've started. I have to say that I miss the dark meat, they're just not the same... not bad, but different... but then again, I don't really eat the McNugget since I found the nuggets that they have at Wendy's. Now those are some tasty little nuggets.

Please elaborate. It can't be the dead tree stumps that do it. ← [/q "Magic" mushrooms, I've been told, are grown in manure and straw.

I am floored by some people's food phobias. I had an obnoxious ex (who hasn't) that I made the mistake of telling how some (SOME!) mushrooms are cultivated. I'll be damned if he didn't ban mushrooms from our home. He would literally gag when he saw them after that, no matter that he'd been happily eating them for 25+ years. I had to get my fungi fixes out of his sight!

I hate to sound like a hater, but I think that the only beer that I absolutely cannot tolerate is Sierra Nevada. (Shudder) It does seems to have a fierce following tho'. The folks that I know that do love it will spend hours trying to convince me that I really do like the taste of pine sap. I'm gonna have to defend the Shiner Bock tho'... I took my first real trip to Texas this past spring (you know, aside from 3 hour layovers and driving through the state on my way to Cali), and my future in-laws introduced me to it. It's on my Christmas list this year.

I have always had good luck with their soups, but their sandwiches have been kind of a let down, especially for the price. I can go down to a deli and get a far superior sandwich for much less... altho' the deli doesn't usually have the eye candy walking around that Panera does. LOL. Anyway... what really bugs me about Panera, and other sandwich chains (Quizno's... gr.), is that they have to put some kind of nauseating sauce on everything! Chipotle sauce, sundried tomato ale mustard (?!), creamy cucumber sauce, bold gorgonzola roasted red pepper sauce! I know, some people dig on the sauce. I don't, and when you (kindly, politely) ask them to leave it off, there's usually some kind of reaction from the kid at the register, like I'm putting them out by not eating their funk sauce! I guess I'm just trying to say that I don't mind paying $4.00 for their soup.

Damn... I've been out of the loop for a month and I missed the Tater Tot Thread!!! I love, love, love them. Here in NE Ohio we have a drive-in hamburger chain called Swenson's that has them on the menu and I love them for it. There's also a legendary local joint (Mike's Place, for the KSU alumni) that serves them in a bucket. Beautiful. I really like them at breakfast tho'... a lot. I make over-easy eggs and then dip the tots in the yolks. Mmmm.

But as long as you save the potato water to help thicken the gravy (it's only now that I understand why this is -- I'd always thought it was for flavor!), and use a few drops of Kitchen Bouquet, I'll be helping myself to plenty of the gravy! Oh my gosh!! I thought that Kitchen Bouquet was my dirty little secret!!!