saskanuck

This is a simply gorgeous blog. I'd like to frame some of the dessert pictures and put them in my kitchen. Thank you for showing us your world. Really amazing.

I've just gone through all the pages of your blog, Wendy, and all I can say is WOW! Your work is amazing. Beautiful stuff.

I've never had a kitchen fire, probably because fire scares the ever-living hell out of me. So I'm extremely careful. But when I was a teenager, my mom caught a pot of oil on fire. Flames were shooting 3 feet up out of that pot, and thank God there were no cupboards or anything else over that stove. My mom stood there yelling as I grabbed a box of salt and extinguished the flames. It took a lot of work to scrub the black soot off the wall and get all of the salt out of the stove, but my mom did that if I recall correctly. She was just happy that I reacted quickly, because she panicked and didn't know what the hell to do. My mom also boiled a pot of eggs so dry that they exploded. We only found small bits and pieces of shell and egg. Where the rest of the eggs went, God only knows. I think they vaporized.

torakris, your children are adorable and the blog is very interesting, as usual. I also love the pictures of the cherry blossoms.

I find sriracha very hot, hotter than Tabasco. I like it in small doses, but I'm a wimp when it comes to very hot spicy foods. My husband uses it on everything, especially as a dip for the aforementioned tater tots, chicken strips, french fries, you name it. We also have the Huy Fong chili garlic sauce in a jar, and it's even hotter than the sriracha. For wimps like me, I wish there was a sriracha sauce with all the garlicky taste, but less of the heat. You definitely build up a tolerance for the hot stuff, because when I met my husband, he ate nothing spicy. Now even the hottest sauces don't faze him. My 10 year old seems to be following in his dad's footsteps, because he rolled a dab of wasabi around his mouth the other day and didn't find it that spicy at all.

We cook every day too, although Monday nights are usually just grilled sandwiches or frozen pizza because the kids have Scouts night. Last night it was frozen thin-crust Dr. Oetker spinach pizza (these are pretty damned good for a quick meal). Sunday dinner: roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas Saturday dinner: homemade slow-cooked chili, garlic bread from a good bakery Friday dinner: grilled garlic/lime chicken, white rice, steamed broccoli And of course, a mixed drink or a glass of wine is standard with the above.

We tapped our hard cooked eggs together at Easter when I was a kid; it was some kind of German tradition according to my parents. We also snapped the wishbone, and whoever got the biggest piece would have their wish come true. My youngest son came home with a verse that says "sing at the table, whistle in bed, the devil will get you when you're dead". I have no idea where he got this from, probably from some kid at school. I don't throw salt over my shoulder when I spill it, and neither did my mom. I don't recall any other superstitions we had about food when I was a kid.

In Canada, the best grapefruit soda is "Our Compliments", IGA's store brand. It's very tangy and has a real grapefruit taste. It beats the President's choice grapefruit soda by a mile. Theirs is too sweet and artificial-tasting. My husband says that the diet version is also good; I don't know about this, because I don't do artificial sweeteners. It's also low in sodium and has no caffeine, which is great because my husband needs to limit both. And it makes a good mixer for vodka or rum when out at the cottage.

I like all herbs and spices, but tarragon, thyme, and mint need to be used in moderation, lest they overpower the dish. I love fresh cilantro, and so does my husband. It has that fresh green scent and taste about it that reminds me of summer.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to eat Cool Whip at all, but I would have likely told her to put it out for whoever wanted some. That stuff is an abomination. A favorite snack in my workplace is to take 2 low-fat cookies, sandwich low-fat cool whip between them and freeze. Voila, instant ice-cream sandwich. Or not. I wouldn't even taste one, and they thought I was nuts. I'll be quiet now. Cool Whip is one of my pet peeves.

We sanitize our home wine making supplies with sodium metabisulfite, and boy, do the sinks shine after we're finished. I'm sure it does a good job of cleaning out all the gunk in the pipes too. You really don't want to get that stuff on your hands. I use hot water and dishwashing soap to clean my kitchen, and sometimes use those kitchen Lysol wipes on my counter after cutting up chicken and meat. The only antibacterial soap I have in the house is the soap in the main bathroom for my grubby little boys to use after they've been at school and daycare all day. I don't take any unnecessary chances with food safety, but I don't use bleach in my kitchen either. I think it's much too harsh and aggravates my hand eczema like you wouldn't believe. I just got back from a Scout troop sleepover where the standard dishwashing routine includes using bleach in both the washing water and rinsing water for the dishes. I didn't bring rubber gloves and my hands are an absolute mess. It'll take weeks for them to clear up now. One thing I don't understand is why scented bleach wouldn't work the same way as regular bleach. Guess I'll be buying the regular kind from now on, not that it makes a lot of difference anyway.

Today: water crackers with good tuna in olive oil for lunch, followed by a piece of really excellent bittersweet chocolate and a cup of Earl Grey Vanilla tea with honey.

Marinara sauce, spicy chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, baby spinach leaves, roasted garlic and mozzarella/cheddar on top. Mmm.

My husband will never again stick a wooden spoon in the running blender while making margaritas, to dislodge a stuck ice cube. Mmm. Fibre-filled frozen margaritas. We had to throw the whole goddamned thing out. What a waste of good tequila and lime juice.

I'm sure the crinkly green cucumber shaped vegetables are bitter melon, but I don't know what the pear shaped green ones are. And I just put that picture on my computer as the background. I hope you don't mind, Monica, but it's a breath of summer in the middle of the winter. We've had temperatures hovering around -30C during the day here, so anything that speaks of warmth is up my alley right now.

torakris, that's the recipe I want to try as well. I'm not sure how long it would be before the lemons can be eaten, but I'd say a month or so. You do rinse the lemons off before using them, and only use the peel from what I've read. I don't think I have enough lemons to fill my entire olive jar and have enough left to squeeze juice from, so I'm going to make a smaller jar to start and see what happens. I'm sure yours are fine without being submerged all the way, although you probably should do that now.

You just gave me a cool idea. I have a clean, interestingly-shaped empty olive jar, a bag of lemons, and a bunch of kosher salt I need to use up. Guess what I'll be making? I don't know what they taste like, but lemons and salt are always good to me. The plastic bag idea is something I would never have thought of either.

I am just so pleased to find this thread. I've been looking for soup recipes to make this winter as soup is something I haven't made a lot of. I am trying to expand my cooking repertoire, and this sounds like a good place to start, because I love soup. Of course the eGulleteers would come up with the best sounding recipes I've seen anywhere. It's going to be a long, cold winter here, and soup will be just the ticket for keeping warm. I don't know if I'll have the time to make a new soup every weekend, but I'm going to be lurking around here and trying quite a few of the recipes, avgolemono being one of the first. Again, many thanks for starting this thread, maggie.

What lovely pictures and descriptions of India. The pictures of the fresh produce are a gift during this cold winter we're having. And I have to agree that the aloo tikki burger sounds like something I'd really like. Your cousin is just simply beautiful. That picture looks like one out of a magazine.

7-year-old Balderson cheddar. MMMMMmmmmm.

I didn't get many things food-wise this Christmas, but I did get one big thing - a white KitchenAid mixer! I've been wanting one forever.

OK, the orange Metamucil on frozen yogurt just made me spit wasabi peas all over my keyboard. I can't even imagine what that would look (and taste!) like. Speaking of bugs in food, my MIL (yes, the one of the hamburger soup above), served us some bastardized version of shepherd's pie once. To go with it, she put the green can of parmesan cheese on the table. In my attempts to get something to eat, I sprinkled on some of the parmesan. Now that stuff is vile at best, but it is not dark brown in color, no matter what. I surreptitiously peeked at the can's bottom, and the expiry date had passed almost 3 years prior. I whispered to my husband not to use any, but he didn't hear me, and when he upended the can, a small black beetle fell out. I'd had it, and when his mom sat down, I pointed out the date on the can, and showed her the beetle. She sneered at me, pushed the beetle on the floor, and proceeded to sprinkle the cheese on her own food. The piece de resistance was when she also gave her dogs some of the same meal that she had served us, on a couple of dinner plates. Alpo or ground beef? The jury is still out on that one. I went to bed hungry that night. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the can of cheese went back into the cupboard, not the trash bin.

Before eating the infamous leftovers meal at my in-laws (see the Floored thread if you like), my husband got a couple orders of extra-large fries at the McDonald's so that we could have something to eat before we went over there. It's pretty damned bad when the best thing you can find to eat before going to someone's place is McDonald's fries. But they did fill up the gap, thank goodness, because the only thing I ate there was the romaine lettuce with caesar dressing that I put together. When we used to stay at my MIL's, I brought food that could be left in our bedroom and snacked on before or after meals, because I could never eat enough of whatever she served, it was too disgusting. Her favorite soup is this: about a gallon of water, a pound of ground beef, a package of lipton's chicken noodle soup, and one onion, all boiled together for an hour or two and served. The meat is not browned, degreased, or anything. It looked like the bad result of too much drinking the night before.

My mistake, Toliver. I should have mentioned that the likeness to cough syrup was mentioned on another internet forum that I frequent, not this one. I was expecting more of a wham! cinnamon flavour, and I'm glad that the spicy flavor is subtle. Black Mountain Dew does not appeal to me at all, but I don't like any of the incarnations of Mountain Dew anyway, not even the original.

I'm trying a bottle of this right now. It's not too bad, actually, and it does seem to be less sweet than the regular Pepsi. I don't mind vanilla Pepsi, either, and I think the spiced Pepsi might go well with rum for a holiday drink. The spices are subtle and interesting. It is strange to see red Pepsi, however. I think we'll be buying some of this over the holidays just for something different. I was expecting it to be sweet and cough-syrup like from some of the reviews I've seen, but it's pretty damned good.