Special K

My mom does that. She says it keeps her teeth from being stained.

Kayb, you can design my kitchen any time! I only wish I had a spare/junk room to sacrifice - I'd do it in a minute. All of your suggestions are wonderful.

Readiing the "Kitchen Injuries" thread reminded me, I read this article in the paper last month about mustard for burns. Haven't had the opportunity(?) to try it yet, but I've got the mustard handy! http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2011/01/10/cold-yellow-mustard-relieves-burn/

Thank you.

After seeing the review in today's New York Times, I want Anna Ciezadlo's Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War.

Another vote for the death of a refrigerator. We thought it had died earlier this year, but the guy who came out soldered together a make-shift replacement part. Maybe it won't last!

Oh, yeah. And to hear it, you have to bend down reeeeeal close, so you get the full effect of inhaling that delicious aroma ...

This reminds me of the Alton Brown episode "The Muffin Method Man:" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-D7zwa1vUk at the very end.

So he is: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/a-food-manifesto-for-the-future/

So Robbie, what brand is it?

Let's see if I can do this:

Believe it or not, chopping onions. I have found the technique that works for me. And I love that last moment in the kitchen at night, when the place is spotless and the dishwasher is running. Today's meals turned out well and were appreciated. Tomorrow's are planned and will be good. I look around, see that all is well in "my office," and turn out the lights. Another good day.

Oh, Badiane, me too! I call them "snacks," and I freely admit that about every fifth or sixth book I read is a snack, usually on the bus, where I leave them when I've finished. A close cousin to the culinary mystery is the holiday mystery, and it usually contains a lot about food, too. The only culinary mystery author I can't read is Cecile Lamalle - good enough plots, interesting characters and situations, but then out of the blue she'll just throw in some really offensive and vulgar profanity, and I can't for the life of me understand why. Without that language I'd recommend the books to the high school librarian where I work, but with it, no way. Anyway, I'm going to look for "Town in a Lobster Stew" today, thanks! Does this series include recipes, as a lot of culinary myseries do?

... in fact I'd rather own a copy. Ah, well, they can't deliver to my address. But I do sincerely thank you both anyway.

Thanks. I don't seem to be able to read it online after all, and in fact I'd rather own a copy. eGullet to the rescue again!

Oh. My. God. Yes! That's it! Thank you so much - you are AWESOME! I haven't figured out how to read it yet online, but I'm working on it.

Ooh, it's hard to decide! I've been in this small kitchen for 13 years now, and I've had to think long and hard about what could stay and what had to go. Then over the last couple of years all of the original appliances (ALL of them) died out and were replaced by what I really wanted, so now I'm very happy with the whole kitchen. I love the new dishwasher, range, refrigerator, and microwave; I love the new coffee/tea maker and the new water fizzer; I am deeply attached to both my stand mixer and my food processor and all of my good knives, cookware, etc., but I have to say that the most beloved item in the room has got to be the small but extremely useful wall-mounted pot rack that takes up very little room but which is LOADED with stuff and which frees up so much cabinet space. It's practical and I just like the looks of it. It's hung over a matching baker's rack which I use to house a (small) part of my cookbook collection. I'll try to remember to photograph it tonight.

Sadly, no. I was just trying to find How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, by Buwei Yang Chao, having read about it in Jason Epstein's Eating. No luck. There's a used one on Amazon for over $1,000, though!

I just finished Eating by Jason Epstein. Lovely - read it in one sitting.

Katie Lee? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/magazine/14Lee-t.html?pagewanted=all

I hate this practice. I have had things go wrong many times - once the server even argued with me, insisting that I didn't order X, I ordered Y, and that she remembered it clearly! I can't remember what X and Y were, but I know that I would never have ordered Y. Never went back to that restaurant, either. I think it's just mean for managers to expect servers to have total recall.

Two more recently: Pig: King of the Southern Table by James Villas and Pork and Sons by Stephane Reynaud. Love 'em both.

Okra or Brussels sprouts. I keep trying them both, in different recipes, and I keep not liking them, despite how everyone tells me how delicious they are if cooked right. Really, I think that if you have to disguise a food to make it palatable, you might as well just not eat it. And okra and Brussels sprouts are just not palatable to me. I feel much better now!

I am reading Bill Bryson's "At Home." It's a vast collection of facts and mini-history lessons, not the kind of book you (or I, anyway) can really read straight through, but I think that the chapters on "The Kitchen," "The Scullery and Larder," and "The Dining Room" would interest most eGulleteers.