MelissaH

The Cherry Bombe Cookbook is currently $2.99.

My stainless fridge has non-magnetic doors, but the sides are magnetic. So we have things stuck to the non-visible side that we want to make sure we keep around but that nobody else needs to see: receipts, repair people phone numbers, and the like. The visible side is reserved for things that we want to display: thank you notes, a special photo or two, and magnets that were gifts. In the latter category falls our newest set of magnets, from my MIL: cat butts!

We're starting to have a little bit of an issue with our BSO XL's buttons, in that they don't do what they're supposed to do all the time. Hit the on button, and it turns the convection on or off. Hit the convection button, and it changes from F to C and vice versa. A little care when pushing the buttons has worked for us, so far.

Those look like marvelous brownies. I'll have to try making them myself, to see how they compare to my normal recipe.

The Campari tomatoes are regularly available near me at Wegmans. But this week, they didn't look as good as the little grape tomatoes, so I got those instead. (Admittedly, I don't plan to try and use them on sandwiches.)

I love this stuff, and think it might just be my favorite hot sauce ever.

And I wish I had an Ethiopian restaurant to (re)visit.

I checked the manual, which says, "Caution should be exercised when using pans and dishes constructed of materials other than metal. If using ceramic or glass pans or dishes it is important that they are oven safe to prevent cracking." This old Pyrex pan is of an age to be the good stuff. I appreciate your warnings, and someday I may get bitten by it, but for now, it seems to work for us. As far as air circulation, there's definitely enough room at the front and back for air to circulate freely. We might not get full circulation on the sides, as there's not a huge gap (like maybe half an inch on each side), but again, we haven't had any issues.

What I do: save a paper towel roll. Slit it open down the side. Use it as a cradle for your cookie dough cylinder in the fridge, to keep it from developing a flat side while it firms up. Then, when you slice the cylinder into cookies, roll the cylinder about an eighth to a quarter turn after each cut, so the same side doesn't constantly get pushed on. Or instead of making a cylinder, make a square prism, with sides that are supposed to be flat. You still need to turn the dough after each cut so your squares don't get squooshed into rectangles, though.

We have a sliiiiiightly smaller pyrex pan (maybe 8 by 12?) that does fit into our BSO. It's not enough smaller to be a problem in cooking things designed for a 9 by 13 pan, but it's smaller enough to fit. Ours is old, but I think they're still available.

Because a map only tells you so much: is this an easy restaurant to get to, assuming you're coming into Ottawa via the 416?

Rolling on the floor and peeing my pants?

I did. And I was sorry. (I think they're gluten-free, and free of a lot of other things as well. If you eat that way, you might enjoy them. I tried a couple and passed the box on to a young friend with celiac disease.)

We wound up doing a "stuffed" pork tenderloin recipe from the latest Fine Cooking (December 2017, maybe?), in which the pork tenderloin itself is the stuffing, and the "stuffing" (a fairly ordinary bread/dried apricot/seasoning mixture) goes outside of that, and then the whole thing has an outer coating of prosciutto. You make it by laying out a big piece of plastic wrap, shingling slices of prosciutto on that, spreading chilled stuffing over the prosciutto, and then placing the tenderloin near one end and rolling. The roll gets chilled, and then the whole thing gets roasted on a rack, with a glaze added towards the end. It was delicious. We also had microwave-in-the-bag green beans, SV carrots that I cooked the night before and then we finished on the spot by concentrating in a frying pan, bread, cheeses, and the charlotte royale from the same issue of Fine Cooking. It all went over delightfully well. And better yet, we even got home before the snow started!

Um...did someone call me? I think I might hear my mother calling me....

I have no problem with the blue. I wouldn't mind red or black either. What I would mind is a high price tag, in any color.

And I got a follow-up email saying the next printing is expected to ship in April.

The only times I've ever cooked with purchased water were when we lived in Belgium for three months, and discovered that the tap water was so hard that lentils wouldn't soften if you tried to cook them in it. I suspect that the cookbook authors that are specifically calling for purchased water are hedging their bets against hard tap water. Everywhere else I've lived, it hasn't been a problem. I wouldn't try to cook with distilled water. It tastes yucky.

Is it shameful for me to admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when all of these last four books are ones I've sprung for (on sale, natch) already, so I don't need to get them?

Your photo reminds me of the super-dense rye bread that's served in ultrathin slices alongside snert (pea soup) in the Netherlands.

I emailed the sweet@tenspeed.com address to ask about the replacement. The autobot replied: What I don't know is when this message was written, and therefore whether "early next year" refers to early 2018, or early 2019!

Sweet. The newest one, which isn't on crazy-good sale today.

Add me to the cardamom parade!

I'm not a drinker, and I like a sip or two of a French 75.

Cenk Sonmeszoy's The Artful Baker is $2.99 for Kindle (US Prime). I've enjoyed baking from this book tremendously, and find his recipes clearly written and easy to follow.