MelissaH

My dual fuel GE Monogram is 12 years old. It has electronic igniters, electronic fan, and (of course) electric oven. But it looks like newer versions have added more electronics.

Rubs involve spices. Isn't that why you're getting a spice rack,

I think this would make a marvelous Twinkie filling.

I just checked again. It's still showing as $2.99 for me.

Everything I Want to Eat: Sqirl and the New California Cooking is currently $2.99 (US, Prime). If you've been wondering about it, here's a cheap opportunity.

Don't underestimate the distances, in terms of drive time. We had two weeks in Newfoundland, and it was barely enough time for us to see the Avalon Peninsula (including St. John's), Fogo Island, and Twillingate. (I second Doyle Sansone & Sons, BTW.) If you only have about three weeks for the trip, which will presumably include the time it will take to drive and ferry there, it sounds like you might be trying to squeeze in too much for one trip. We were warned by a native that it is NOT wise to drive after dark there, and he was absolutely right!

My parents have LP. They use it for their stove (GE Monogram) and the boiler that heats their house, as well as to power the emergency generator. For the first year, they rented tanks that were above ground. After that, they bought their own tanks and had them buried. They need enough capacity to get from about November until May, as when it snows, the tanks are not easy to access and the road in can be impassible for trucks. If the avalanche runs, it can be impassible for everyone (hence the generator, as the power lines are not buried). They live in SW Colorado, a couple of miles up the mountain from a town with about 750 year-round residents. But even if they were in town, they'd still need LP, as there are no natural gas lines anywhere in the county. Electricity is more expensive than LP there.

Those of you who are cooking Wegmans corned beef: Did you do anything special to the meat? Reseal it without the liquid? Soak it first in something else? What about that little spice packet: Toss it? Add it to the bag?

Wegmans, yes. But the nearest one of those is a 45 minute drive from here. The one supermarket in town, not so much, unless you want something like potato wedges or deli salads.

I like 4. But if you want to wait and do mine later, that's fine.

@Anna N's comment about a rotisserie chicken brings to mind something we'd done a while ago, mainly for some of the university students who know that we cook and have expressed an interest in learning more but lack both time and resources. Although roasting a chicken certainly isn't difficult, it becomes tricky when you share your kitchen with others and the oven is dubious. So we came up with a list of a bunch of things that you could do for dinner, starting with leftover cooked chicken—which could easily be a rotisserie chicken, as well as boneless skinless breast meat that you cook yourself—or even pork tenderloin, which is often about the same price and taste as boneless skinless chicken breasts. Among the things we came up with: soup (you can actually use the picked rotisserie carcass to make a quick stock, and throw in the skin for the flavoring and salt), salad (green salad with chicken meat added OR cold chicken salad with mayo), gussied-up cheapo ramen, pasta, pizza, as a sandwich mixed with BBQ sauce on a bun, taco/fajita/nacho/quesadilla filling, and more. I wonder when someone commercial will jump on the idea of putting together stuff to go with a rotisserie chicken and selling it as a meal kit.

These look like just the sort of thing you could blitz to a powder in a spice grinder and use as a natural red food coloring, say, for a red velvet cake. (And who's going to complain about a little extra fiber in dessert?)

I don't care for Sonic's food, as everything seems to be too salty and greasy for my taste. But the drinks—not so much this time of year, when temps are still mostly in the 20s (°F), it seems, but in the summer? One of my guilty pleasures is to head down to the Sonic not far from the rink where I play hockey once a week, and get something cold and sweet for the ride home. It hits the spot after working my tail off for an hour and a half!

@ProfessionalHobbit, I think it's safe to say that you are not in Bittman's target audience for that book. Nonetheless, if you can get past his titles for things, does it really matter what you call something, as long as you enjoy what you make? And if you don't like something, once you have the experience to specify what you don't like (NOT "This isn't adobo because the ratios are all wrong!" but rather "Hey, this chicken braised in soy sauce tastes OK, but I think I'd like it better if it had more vinegar and less soy sauce!"), you can change it, and make notes in your cookbook about how you changed it and why. And when you're ready to move on to something more advanced, you can look up other recipes for a particular dish, and figure out for yourself how Bittman's is different and whether you like his version or someone else's better. For an absolute beginner, HTCE isn't a bad starting point, because it explains techniques reasonably well. Many cuisine-specific cookbooks can't say that. If you're new to the kitchen, and still need someone to tell you that it's OK to flip something when it's browned on one side even if the ten minutes specified in the recipe aren't yet up, you really need a Cookbooks 101 text rather than something that jumps in at the graduate level.

You might consider using organic powdered sugar for this. Stella Parks (BraveTart) enlightened me that the organic version uses tapioca starch rather than cornstarch, which is less gritty on the tongue and generally better for uncooked applications.

That sounds like something Serious Eats did with sweet potatoes. For those of you who homebrew, it's kind of like what happens when you mash your grain in the beermaking process.

That said, if it's easier, I'd be happy to wait.

That's beautiful, and I don't even like rhubarb!

If enough dipping bowls exist, I'd like one too. (If it's easier, maybe @patris and I can meet up another time on this side of the border for the exchange?)

Did I miss the hotel details somewhere way back?

Elizabeth Prueitt is gluten-intolerant. Even though that might not be widely known, I'm surprised that those who market her book didn't choose to advertise that this book goes down that path, as there are many who would buy it simply because it's a book with GF recipes. A good friend has celiac disease, and has chosen to keep her house and her daughters free of gluten. Because her celiac wasn't diagnosed until she was in her mid-thirties, she wound up with a laundry list of other food intolerances, including soy, dairy, and eggs. We visited a couple of months ago, and she made a delectable coffee cake from an old family recipe, using a butter substitute that she can eat, flax-based egg substitute, and King Arthur's GF flour. If I hadn't known it was free of all the good stuff, I wouldn't have known anything was different, at least on the day it was baked.

Where does one buy sour grapes? (Do I need to duck when the answers come in?)

Does Aldi have good corned beef? And is it less expensive than supermarket CB in your area?

It's gorgeous. How critical are the lemon slices on top? Would the cake be less good without them? (Looks like a perfect place to use the slices sold at Trader Joe's, to me!)

No master classes for me, but I plan to be at the workshop, and my husband will join us all for dinner.