MelissaH

You're teasing me.

I often do this recipe with pecans, just because I like them better than walnuts. (Now you've all got me thinking that I might need to make a batch to top salad on Monday night, when we've invited friends to join us.) They get rave reviews from everyone, except the friend who tried to make them and somehow managed to burn them three times running. (I've never had that problem.) I like this recipe much much better than similar versions that contain egg white.

I wouldn't have had the car available yesterday anyway, thanks to husband's mid-morning dentist appointment. Oh well. The way this winter's going, you'll have other opportunities!

My friend and I ate dinner at Betty's the night we drove to Niagara for the last chocolate conference there! We enjoyed it tremendously, and the location worked well for us.

Nothing to add beyond what's already been said, except that King Arthur sells a powdered sugar that they claim is non-melting. I haven't tried it. Can you share the recipe?

I'm curious if the Silpat's added insulation compared to parchment might affect the spread.

I thought the TJ's version was OK, until I compared them with the Dare brand I'd brought home from Canada. The Canadian-branded version was better all the way around: better cracker texture, and far more maple flavor. If you have access to the "real" thing, don't bother with the TJ's cookies, unless you have an aversion to maple.

Now that yinz have all been playing for a while and I'm just getting started, which of the books do you find the most useful/reliable/valuable, especially with respect to the Instant Pot?

I've only ever used it in recipes that specifically call for it. I just did a quick search for baker's ammonia recipes on King Arthur Flour's website and found a cheese cracker recipe where the leavening is 1/2 teaspoon baking powder or 1/4 teaspoon baker's ammonia. There's another recipe for chocolate cookies that uses "1/2 teaspoon baker's ammonia, for best texture; or 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder". I could see where it would be really nice in the cheese crackers and other stuff that's meant to be crisp, because the reaction that gives baker's ammonia its leavening power does not give off any water (unlike baking soda or baking powder).

A link popped up on my Facebook feed to Yotam Ottolenghi's vegetarian Christmas meal, which may hold some possibilities for you. Nothing about it screams specifically Christmas to me (says this nonreligious Jew) but it looks delicious!

I spent three months last spring living in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, so when I saw the bottom picture I remembered a word I'd learned there: "Hair salon" potato chips? Ew! Then I clicked the link, and I still thought...ew!

Today I was back in Syracuse and visited my favorite remaining Asian market. They had a few kabocha squashes, the first I've seen in this area, so I snagged one. Has anyone ever cooked one by microwaving it whole? I was thinking I'd stab it with a knife a couple of times and then nuke away.

Is it too early to start looking for a roommate? The friend who came with me two years ago won't be able to make it this year.

For whatever reason, the electric pressure cookers have their "high" pressure which is lower than a stovetop pressure cooker. I don't know about other books, but the Great Big Pressure Cooker Cook Book by Mark Scarbrough and Bruce Weinstein actually gives separate timings for electric and traditional models, to compensate for this. In many cases, the electric time is a few minutes longer than the stovetop time.

Ours was wonderful. We celebrated with our next-door neighbors, as we have for the last few years. So it was the two of us, the two of them, their daughter and her husband and their 20-month-old children, and two friends who otherwise had nowhere else to go. One friend is a vegetarian, but the rest of us are omnivores. Between our collective efforts, we had turkey and gravy, a batch of stuffing with sausage, mashed potatoes, wine, roasted butternut squash, a salad with roasted brussels sprout and shallots, a batch of vegetarian cornbread stuffing, green beans with mustard-maple vinaigrette, brussels sprout/bacon/gruyere gratin, roasted cauliflower seasoned with garam masala, broccoli slaw with poppyseed dressing, and rolls. We nearly forgot to open the cranberry sauce my neighbor made and canned at the beginning of the month. And for dessert, sweet potato pie, apple pie, and pumpkin cake. Nobody went home hungry or empty-handed. Tomorrow, we'll eat leftovers and cook our own turkey; we plan to do the sous-vide breast treatment with the separately-cooked crispy skin from Serious Eats, and braise the legs in wine. The leftover green beans might get turned into a homemade riff on that casserole, with mushrooms and a can of yummy french-friend onions. We got the carcass from yesterday's turkey, so we can make soup, which might be my favorite part of the turkey. I love this time of year.

My town is pretty much white. Once you get into the county, away from the university, it gets whiter. (My husband and I joke that diversity means you have some friends who go to the Irish Catholic church, some who go to the Italian Catholic church, and some who go to the Polish Catholic church.) For anything else, I'm driving an hour to Syracuse (where, alas, my favorite Asian grocer closed over the summer) or an hour and a half to Rochester. Last time I was in Syracuse, I didn't have time to go to the Asian grocer. Last time I was in Rochester, I was on the other side of town from the Asian grocers I like there. I was surprised because in past years, kabocha squash has been readily available at the markets here.

You're on! Get the U.S. border folks to agree, and we have a deal!

I haven't seen them in three different Wegmans stores, my local supermarket or the supermarket in the next town south, the farm market, OR the nearest Trader Joe's. I'm beginning to draw the conclusion that people here must not know what to do with them, so nobody bothers stocking them.

Has anyone else had trouble finding kabocha squash this fall? I see all kinds of other squashes, with butternut (including the cute little single-serving size variant), acorn, and delicata being particularly prominent right now, but I can't find a kabocha to save my life this year!

Would the slow cooker do this trick, instead of the oven?

Rob, how well will this book work for those of us who don't live in or near California? My small town is not blessed with an abundance of greengrocers, fancy meat stores, ethnic markets, or anything else super-special. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't have a "peek inside" option for Gjelina.

Comments yes, ratings no. For all the reasons already stated, a rating without some reasons behind it is a meaningless number. That said, those who like to give ratings could certainly include one within their comments.

Kerry, you're making it sound like everyone who occasionally decides to do a little chocolate work should have one sitting around, plugged into an out-of-the-way nook in the kitchen, ready to go at the drop of a hat. Wouldnn't that be fun, and convenient too?

Yesterday, I noticed that one of the butternut squashes in the garage had a bad spot and another looked like it had a small breach in the skin. So I baked the two yesterday, and scooped out the flesh before I rushed off to a hockey game. I now need to figure out what to do with them. Soup would ordinarily be my go-to, but I definitely do NOT need any more squash soup in the freezer. I'm thinking I will eat some with butter and salt and maybe a little maple syrup with lunch today, and freeze the rest, unadulterated, in measured portions that will be easy to use in bread, souffle, or other things that call for squash (or sweet potato or canned pumpkin, for that matter).

I was surprised to see salt being sold in the dishwasher detergent aisle of a grocery store in Paris. My aunt, who lives there, explained to me that the water is notoriously hard, and all the dishwashers there have salt compartments for a built-in water softener. Before they were developed, dishwashers didn't last and didn't work well.