LT Wong

I'm spending a couple of days in Madrid next month, and would like to find out if there are any things - ingredients, cooking utensils, paraphernalia - that I should buy while I am there, and where these can be purchased. I known of jamon, olive oils. Thanks.

Frogprincesse, How's the Drunken Botanist and the Cocktail Lab? They're in my "Future Purchase" category. I have the Zuni Cafe book, and love it.

I love lemonade and make it every week now that the hot weather is upon us. As highlighted by others, sugar is the best for the clear taste of lemon as other sweeteners like honey add different flavours to it. I make a sugar syrup and deliberately make the lemonade less sweet, but let others add more syrup if they want it sweeter. I also keep lemon and lime slices and mint handy for people who want them.

I made this matcha butter cake with adzuki beans. I really need to improve its look - the beans look like some growth on the crust. Looks aside, it tasted good enough for me to want to do it again.

John, thanks for a great list - all so true. 10) "Hot dogs are good for you" I've uttered this one myself in an effort to get my wife off my back for complaining that I eat too many double Italian Hot Dogs. I tried to tell her they are a healthy, well balanced meal containing bread, meat, vegetables, and potatoes. She wasn't having it. I have the same problem with my mom about eating too many hot dogs so I made my own. No complaints after that.

mukki Thanks. If you do anything from it, would love to hear your experiences.

One of my favourite versions is egg salad with chopped-up hard boiled eggs, freshly ground black pepper, some wasabi, Heinz salad cream (a generous amount) between two slices of lightly toasted sandwich bread.

I added 18 last month after browsing through various online bookstores. I have a question for those with too many cookbooks - how do you keep track of which book has recipes that you like to do again? I used to jot down in a (paper) notebook recipes from books that I have tried that I like to add to my Can-Do-Again list, but am finding that it's easier to record it in my laptop for easier search and retrieval purposes. I'm interested to learn how others do it so that I can perhaps learn a better way.

Thanks for the recommendations. Fix the Pumps sounds like another great book to add to my collection. I already have Sandor Katz's first book - Wild Fermentation - when it first came out.. Is his latest very different from the first one (2003 publication)?

I'm looking for a book on homemade sodas and drinks, and couldn't find any threads on non-alcoholic ones in the forum. I did some browsing on Amazon, and narrowed down to these four. Can anyone who have these books share their opinions on them - Homemade Soda by Andrew Schloss Make Your Own Soda by Anton Nocito Artisan Soda Workshop by Andrea Lynn Homemade Root Beer, Soda and Pop by Stephen Cresswell Any comments, suggestions or recommendations are welcomed. Thanks.

Can anyone who has this book share his or her opinion of it : Crackers and Dips - More than 50 handmade snacks by Ivy Manning? Thanks.

Drewman, thanks for the tip on overwhipped cream. I've always thought it unsalvageable.

I want to refer you to this Taiwanese video that does put to bed some of the usual advice on a gentle folding of the flour in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DYUwSDCHNPg My personal method is to use (like DianaM) a whisk to fold in the flour. I whisk the flour rather vigorously at the top and then do a gentle fold of the top batter all the way down. This repeated a couple of times until the flour is used up.

I have Florence Lin's book, and I love it. Made the jiao zhi (fried dumplings) and it is my go-to recipe for both the wrapper skin and filling. I am not at home so don't have access to the book, but I also found a (obscure) recipe for panfried yam pancakes that I ate and thoroughly enjoyed at a restaurant, the owners of which are hanging up their woks unfortunately. There are many other recipes that I have marked down that I want to try, but so many books, recipes and so little time to do them all. It is definitely worthwhile having in your collection.

There are various dips that we use at home with calamansi. One is with pounded fresh red chillies, sugar, salt and calamansi juice. Another uses dark soy sauce (use the premium slightly sweeter variety), crushed or chopped garlic and calamansi juice. The rind of the calamansi is also great over salads, and is a typical ingredient in a south-east asian salad known as rojak. Although not quite the right species, I've also preserved it with salt, something that my late grandmother does. We lay it out on trays to sun them, and they're kept in jars with more salt. Each time, we have a sore throat, she crushes two of them in hot water and makes us drink the delicious salty, sour drink.