MelissaH

I think my invitation must've gotten lost in the mail! 😉 JUST KIDDING. Looks like you're going to have a great day there. And I'm going to have a great day here, first watching our university women's hockey team play their last game of 2019 and then playing my own game later tonight. And I assume I'll see you both in May at the chocolate workshop?

And in NY, *no* wine in supermarkets at all! 😪

@Shelby, how long does it take to get the guts and tenderloins out of a deer, as you posted the photos of doing earlier? What more still needs to get done, and how long does that take?

Not really, other than possibly purchasing an heirloom yogurt starter online. Or playing with the amount of starter and/or fermentation temperatures. And making sure that you reheat the milk you're using enough to kill off anything lurking, if it's been opened before you make it into yogurt.

What was the original source of the starter for your homemade yogurt? Since they're alive, they can change based on their environment (think like sourdough starters). It might be that your culture has evolved to the point where you might be better off replacing it with a new starter.

I'd think you'd take them out before the final rise. I know a lot of people who will actually remove the dough from their breadmaker at that point, and shape the dough in a regular loaf pan and bake it in their regular oven.

I actually quite enjoy wrapping myself in a blanket with a bowl of ice cream or an ice cream sandwich. When the thermostat is set at 62 ºF, things don't melt as fast as when the room is hot during the summer.

I am looking at these popsicles when my area is under a winter storm warning, with 9 inches/22 cm of snow predicted before tomorrow morning. Are popsicles a year-round food for those of you who live in places where it doesn't snow?

Because bananas aren't food and they're just there for show?

Those are beautiful. Even if they don't taste like anything much, I bet it's fun to watch them unfurl, if you have a transparent teapot.

This is definitely NOT a Kindle Single. The hardback version was at my local indie bookstore a few months back.

But I thought the TJ's maple cookies were a poor imitation of the Dare brand version, lacking significantly in maple flavor. Next time I'd go straight to the real thing.

@Anna N, over on Serious Eats, Bravetart (Stella Parks) is an advocate of using coconut oil (either refined or virgin, depending on whether you want to taste coconut) 1:1 to replace shortening. It's always worked for me, and might be worth a gingersnap experiment.

That has become my go-to snickerdoodle recipe.

That is one gorgeous rooster.

If that's what I paid for, I think I'd do better off packing a cooler with my own lunch!

Does VIA include meals as part of a regular service, is it limited to those riding in first class, or do you have to buy separately like you do on most airlines anymore?

Thanks for the info. The shop card I'd use. The rest, not so much. Sounds like, at least for the way we shop, we're better off at Wegmans!

Syracuse got a Costco a few years back, in a part of town I didn't frequent. I visited with once friends who had a membership (but have since moved across the country), because I was curious. At the time, I had a membership to BJs, one location of which was in a part of town I visit regularly; later that year, BJs raised their price on the kitty litter we use, which negated any savings so we let the membership drop. Fast forward to now, and BJs sends me offers for a free 3-month membership every fall. I usually make the time to redeem the offer, and in the three months, I still rarely find anything that's either better or more economical for our family to buy, so I don't bother re-upping when the three months are up. But the other thing that's happened is that I picked up a once-a-week teaching gig, and driving home from there gets me very close to the Costco. But as I remember, Costco doesn't even let you in the door without a membership card, so I have no way to check it out and see how what it carries meshes with our current needs. Which begs the question: Do those of you who are members ever get lure-a-friend deals? I'd still like to check it out, maybe try one of the famous rotisserie chickens, and see what all the fuss is.

A wide-mouth bottle would be fine for home use, but a nightmare for restaurants, where people could eat off their spoon and then stick it into the ketchup bottle. Easier for them to have consistent packaging. I myself like the squeeze bottles.

I might be more inclined to do so, if they made it easier to figure out from their website what the different kinds of memberships get you. As best as I can tell, a magazine subscription of either the paper or the electronic version only gets you access to the issues you subscribe to, and that includes electronic access to the recipes and reviews in your issues for 4 months after they come out. You can't get at anything older than that on line, but of course you own the magazines that you subscribed for. I think if you do an online membership, you get access to everything on the website, but only for the period that your membership is active. And you can do a subscription that's both magazine and website, to get the magazines (presumably permanently) and the website access to everything.

True, the iPad is not the same as an online subscription. But if an online subscription (with a dummy email address) is enough to get access to back issues, that might be enough to push me over the edge.

Does an online subscription get you access to back issue articles and recipes? (Although I might need to make a special email address to use only for that purpose.)

My husband did a little research when ours went wonky and the buttons didn't do what they were supposed to, and was able to order and install a replacement control panel. That did the trick!

My husband's family pickle recipe uses leaves from an unsprayed cherry tree.