MelissaH

For the dirt that goes on/in a Dirt Cake, we've had pretty good luck with oreos that have been buzzed in a food processor. But your dirt looks pretty good, too. MelissaH

I'm just glad to know I'm not the only fixie rider out there! MelissaH

A few years ago, I brought back 4 six-packs of beer plus a few bombers. Any more than that, and the bag would have been overweight. Plastic wrap was easier to find than bubble wrap. Each bottle got wrapped in plastic wrap as tightly as I could, both around the circumference AND top-to-bottom. Then, each bottle got slid into a sock, rolled up in a shirt, or otherwise padded. And finally, the bottles got packed in the bag, with more clothing around and between so that nothing could shift or otherwise move. Everything survived without a problem. MelissaH

Thanks for asking. I can't help with the recipe, but just ate the last of the really good stuff I brought home from Brooklyn and would like to make some of my own. MelissaH

My first thought was canola oil. I've had bottles of canola oil that start to smell fishy after relatively short periods of storage in a dark and cool cabinet. It didn't need to be heated to get that fishy smell. I won't buy canola oil anymore. MelissaH

Caramelized onions? With sauteed mushrooms? MelissaH

Ears perking up until that word "frequently". MelissaH

What mkayahara said. MelissaH

Is eating while you walk considered uncouth and just not done, as a general rule? MelissaH

Add me to the list of people who are no longer confused. MelissaH

I wish some of the whitefish made it to my part of New York. I know we see it on the rare occasions we shop in Buffalo, and also on the somewhat less rare occasions when we shop in Rochester. Alas, I've never seen whitefish sold in CNY, in any of my usual shopping grounds. MelissaH

Red cabbage juice is a classic pH indicator, and because it's edible, it's popular among teachers. As far as food that changes color when you blow on it due to a pH change, that sounds more far-fetched to me; you'd probably have better luck with something that's thermochromic, although I can't think of anything thermochromic that I'd want to eat, off the top of my head. MelissaH

My next-door neighbor serves sugar snaps tossed in sesame oil, sesame seeds, and salt as a finger food at every party during pea season. They fly off the plate. MelissaH

My grandmother appreciates her electric jar opener. No clue what kind of can opener she has, though. MelissaH

I'm of the opinion that gifts (of all kinds) are given without attached strings. Once I give the tomatoes to you, I no longer have any claim to them, so you may do with them as you please. I may give you a suggestion for how to best use the gift, but you are under no obligation to use it. MelissaH

Does the stuffed cabbage not get thoroughly cooked after the leaves are prepped? MelissaH

Don't forget about The Border Cookbook by Bill Jamison and Cheryl Jamison. As long as you don't require color photos of recipes in your cookbooks, it's great for the Texas/Mexico border area. For the northern USA, you might consider Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland by Beth Dooley and Lucia Watson. Second the recommendation for Everybody Eats Well in Belgium. As far as Dutch cooking, I can't think of anything better than Chufi's Dutch cooking thread. MelissaH

We used to leave the stick in its wrapper out on the counter. We saw kitty tongue marks on the top of the stick once too many times. Now, we have a glass cheapo covered butter dish for the one stick that stays out of the fridge and spreadable. MelissaH

When I was in grad school, the local ice creamery always had one weirdo flavor, to go with the more traditional vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, oreo, etc. type offerings. One day, the maverick flavor was Squid. I tried it. It was mostly sweet, with bits of squid added. I think I prefer my squid hot. MelissaH

It looks like you all had a terrific weekend. I wish I could have been there too, but I had two other places I needed to be. So I'll just look at the pictures, and live it through those. MelissaH

I usually start by copying the recipe, or printing a copy from the computer. I don't bring my cookbooks into the kitchen, and the act of writing down the recipe helps me remember what I need to do when. If it's something I find myself making again and again, I type it into the computer, and by that point I don't need a procedural reminder so much as a quantitative reminder. And then, I start my prep. I do tend to streamline somewhat: if the mushrooms and peppers get added at the same time, they go into the same bowl. If the onion gets chopped and the garlic only smashed, even if they get added to the pan at different times, I can put the garlic on top of the onions in the bowl. I make a point of dealing with raw meat and other potentially toxic substances last in the prep process, to minimize work surface contamination risks if someone else wanders by and snatches a piece of chopped raw pepper to snack on. I don't necessarily take the tops off cans, if I'm going to be adding the entire contents of the can, but if it's something that will need to be drained, rinsed, or otherwise processed, I make sure that also gets done ahead of time. At the very least, I put the can opener next to the can. As far as baking: I first get everything out of the cabinets or the fridge. This is especially true if something (butter, eggs, dairy) needs to be brought to room temperature. I certainly don't put each dry ingredient into its own separate bowl if they'll all get combined anyway; they just get measured into the same place. (The exception: if I'm working with a recipe that uses mass measurements for even things like baking powder, salt, and yeast, where I prefer to use a pocket scale rather than the larger model I use for "bigger" ingredients. For those, I'll use a very small bowl on the scale and then dump the measured ingredient into my big dry ingredient bowl. But I'll use the same small bowl for all those measurements.) Eggs get individually cracked into a small bowl and then added wherever they need to get; I have no problems using a small bowl that was used for something else (like maybe weighing small-scale ingredients). As soon as I'm done with an ingredient, it gets put back where it came. When I'm done, I shouldn't have anything left on the counter in front of me. I find that having things completely prepped and ready to go helps my sanity level tremendously. As other people have mentioned, it also eliminates the risk of discovering mid-dish that you're out of some critical ingredient (always a hazard when there are multiple cooks in the house). And in most cases, getting the prep (or mise, if you prefer) done before I start cooking) doesn't take significantly longer than doing it along the way. Because I get things done ahead of time, it frees me to concentrate more on the stove, which means I can cook more than one thing at a time if I need to, or read a few pages of a book, or unload and reload the dishwasher while the onion softens, or even just sit down for a moment. MelissaH

On the iPod dock, on the microwave, and an analog battery-powered clock on the wall. And also one that's part of a hang-around-your-neck timer, but that's less useful as a clock because it's more useful as a timer, and thus the readout is usually set to timer rather than clock. But probably my most-used kitchen clock is the one on my cell phone. MelissaH

This, to me, is exactly it. If one primary role of a parent is to model appropriate behavior, this is a perfect circumstance under which to do so. MelissaH

Most of my experience with coffeeshops is in Europe: France, Belgium, and (ahem) Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands. I tend to think of outdoor tables, for some reason. And tables where you can sit forever, and nobody will hassle you to hurry up and clear out. I certainly don't tend to think of cash registers. MelissaH

We've had good luck with this approach. MelissaH