MelissaH

I'll check it out. Cheesy onion sounds fab.

One Belgian friend swears by Dandoy brand. They have their own stores. I'm still working on the special Belgian supermarket brand.

You're making me quite homesick with all your photos. Noses! We learned about them in Gent from the cart selling them in front of the Tierentijn mustard shop. (You can actually see the shop in the BBC video, with its green facade. Awesome mustard, and something we always bring home.) One classic use for the purple ones is to sweeten your tea, we were told. I kinda liked that, although a whole nose was a bit much for me, so I made two cups at once and used one nose for the two cups. Looks like you found a Delhaize, which is our favorite of the Belgian supermarket chains. The square bottle of their store-brand speculoos spice mix is awesome. I use it in place of plain cinnamon in almost everything that calls for cinnamon...or at least I did till I ran out. :-( While you're in Belgium, you might also look for brands of speculoos other than Lotus (the ones known in North America as Biscoff) in the supermarket. There's one brand that's super-good, only available in Belgium, and I can't remember the name of it. Stay tuned.

Is your A World of Breads the one by Dolores Casella? That was one of my mom's go-to bread books. I was thrilled to find my own copy at a library sale last winter in Vermont. Ironically, the only recipe I've ever used from it is the waffle recipe, which is still the one I use when I didn't think ahead to start yeast waffle batter. But I really should explore the rest of the book.

If you enjoy Luisa Weiss's writing style, you may also enjoy her memoir , in which she basically finds her way home to Berlin. It's not on sale right now, but I enjoyed it.

Could you please add me as a maybe? I'll be able to confirm early in December.

This sounds similar to the Serious Eats pressure cooker corn soup, which adds tarragon stems and bay leaves to the pressure cooker (pick them out before blending) and then the tarragon leaves to the finished soup. It's heavenly, and strictly seasonal for us.

My mom doesn't particularly like pumpkin pie, so we never had it when I was growing up. (Squash with dinner, yes. Pumpkin pie/bread/whatever, no.) I still don't quite get pumpkin pie myself, although if it's put in front of me I'll eat it. I feel like I should try making BraveTart's pumpkin pie, which starts with homemade sweetened condensed milk and butternut squash. Rick Bayless also has a terrific and easy recipe for roasted butternut squash soup with apple and chipotle, which I suspect would work equally well with other roastable squashes. Everyone here loooooves when I make the Trader Joe's pumpkin bread mix, in mini muffins, with a couple of big handfuls of chocolate chips stirred into the batter. I'd love to figure out how to make something like this myself, as easily as opening the box.

Another new discount, one I've been hoping would happen: Luisa Weiss, Classic German Baking ($1.99).

I've never eaten a kugel with cheese. My mom's recipe is similar to Shain's, but without the nuts, and using cornflake crumbs for crunch. We also separate the eggs, and fold in the beaten whites at the end. The inclusion of raisins (not soaked in wine) or other dried fruit is a hot topic of discussion in our family; we generally include chopped dried apricots because none of us hates them.

Which probably means I'll never get to eat one, unless they become so troublesome in the United States that someone hires Fuchsia to create a market for them here.

I was just listening to a Special Sauce podcast where Ed Levine (of Serious Eats fame) was talking to Fuchsia Dunlop, and she was talking about hairy crabs! Now I know what they look like.

When it was first announced, I thought about it. And then I realized that everything I thought I would do in the 3 quart could also be done in the 6 quart. Between it and my stovetop Fagor, I don't have any need for a tiny pressure cooker. Good job, Anna!

Is anyone else anxiously awaiting tomorrow, to see what the cheap October deals will be? (AKA if you're still thinking about some of the deals mentioned upthread, be aware that they might go poof at midnight!)

Reminds me of a grabber my grandma gave me, for sugar cubes. I think I've seen similar devices to pick olives out of a jar.

We typically just drop the individual chiles with sauce onto a sheet of waxed paper or parchment, and freeze flat. Once they're frozen, the paper gets folded up and tucked into a ziplock bag for future use. They thaw quickly.

Amsterdam's always interesting with students. The one saving grace is that these are university students, therefore considered to be responsible adults, and thus any trouble they get into is their own responsibility!

This might be a discussion for a different topic, but as an editor, I view assessing the reasonableness of the prep time (if one is given) as part of my job. And you're absolutely right about the reason why! I suspect our IP may get a workout tomorrow. Two of the six burners on our range are currently out of commission because they wouldn't disassemble and instead broke when my wonderful husband tried to clean things a couple of weekends ago, while I was at a conference. (One of those two wouldn't ignite properly, hence the need for a cleaning in the first place.) The parts for the repair have arrived, and will be installed tomorrow late afternoon. Which means that any dinner prep must be done without the range, meaning dinner will be raw, or cooked on the sandwich press or waffle iron, in the microwave, using the electric kettle, on the induction burner that could get hauled upstairs, or in the IP. (Outdoors, on either the grill or the propane stove, is not realistic given the rain-all-day forecast.)

I can't believe nobody's said anything yet, but I love your mustard holder dish!

Last weekend I ran into the mocha and cookie butter variations on sale, so I grabbed one of each. I haven't opened the cookie butter ones to try yet. I'm avoiding opening the mocha ones because I know they won't last long once I do!

I'll find out in December whether I'm going to be able to make it, or if I'll once again be shepherding students through Amsterdam during that weekend.

I'm not enabling, but I love the lemon ones.

I've done pizza on traditional dough topped with figs and either blue or goat cheese. For many, this is a perfect dessert, especially with a drizzle of honey added after it comes out of the oven.

Would it be cheaper to pay a slave human to help you do the job, even accounting for the inevitable shrinkage of your product?

When we freeze stock, we almost always boil it to concentrate it. That way, it takes up less freezer space, and it's simple to add water to restore whatever consistency or strength you need.