onehsancare

I make a slightly-stronger-than-usual pot of tea in my glass pitcher, remove the leaves fairly soon, pop the whole thing in the refrigerator. I've usually got more than one pitcher going at a time, so there's always enough cold tea to satisfy. I've been enjoying our house standard, 2:1 Constant Comment:Lemon Lift (both Bigelow brand).

My absolute favorite is cappuccino. Buttered popcorn is an offense against nature. The sours and watermelon are pretty much tied, but pear often sneaks in and I say, "Oh, yeah--I forgot about those." (Don't get me started on the sardine? mackeral? that a loving nephew slipped to me!) Edited to add: While the peanut butter alone isn't all that great, peanut butter and chocolate make a really nice peanut butter cup.

There are always lines at McDonald's.

The top of my list has always been Cafe Zenon. The original owners recently sold it to some Californians without restaurant experience. I haven't been there since the transition was complete (the sellers stayed for a couple of months to help). Excelsior Cafe Soriah (has a nice bar and a lovely courtyard) Do not be seduced by the "on the river" ambiance of either Valley River Inn or the McMenamin's North Bank--you'd be better off eating at one of the above and then going for a walk on the river.

RLB recommends a Cuisinart Power Strainer, an attachment to the food processor. These have not been made for years. I remember deciding (when they were available) that I didn't want to spend the $x (? $30?) on one. About two years ago, after MUCH frustration with trying to strain raspberries, I got on eBay and bought a power strainer. (And, it also needs the "power juicer" to be able to work.) The juicer wasn't bad--maybe $25. The power strainer was about $83. Even though I'm embarrassed by how much I spent, I adore it. Made strawberry puree on Sunday in under five minutes, completely strained.

A demo thread is a GREAT idea. I just wanted to share this family bit--in my family of origin, whipped cream was just whipped cream. I married a man with two sons, and we've added another to the mix, and they all expect vanilla and sugar in whipped cream. Our solution: whipped cream is whipped cream, and WIMP cream is doctored up. Funny, the guys don't enjoy the phrase as much as we do!

Thanks, Wendy. I'll definitely skip the sieve step next time! I'm not sure I understand, though--if the homeground nut flour should pass through a sieve, why would the purchased flour be exempt from that requirement?

So, does this look right? Wedding Cake Base Duncan Hines white cake mix 1 cup self-rising flour 1 cup super-fine sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp of almond extract 1 cup of sour cream 3 egg whites 1 egg a little salt 2T oil 1 1/3 c. water

Was there/is there a plan for compiling all of the comments and all of the variations discussed in that thread to come up with a single The Best? (After reading the thread, I can see that it's not going to be easy!)

Although a bit more than a big soft PB cookie, I think these sound divine. I made these Awesome Blowouts for the office today, and they got many compliments. (I made the the Herme chocolate sparklers last week, which were extremely well received. The consensus today was that the Blowouts were more exciting, but the Sparklers were more sophisticated.)

Black licorice!! (Now, I truly cannot stop until it is all gone.) I agree that Mom's original presentations had a lot to do with my likes and dislikes. Asparagus, for example. Frozen asparagus cooked until it's mush is a completely different food from fresh steamed asparagus. Salmon! When we moved to Oregon from New York, one of our first dinners out was to have salmon. I was sure that I despised salmon, and ordered something else. (Could the dislike have come from having overcooked canned salmon patties at least two Fridays a month? Hmmm. ) Now, of course, it's wonderful. Brussels sprouts never moved off the hate list, though!

Sparklers and Hazelnut Dacquoise today--great reviews from the recipients, but I'm not quite happy with the results. (A complicating factor is that I don't eat sweets, so all of the feedback I get is second-hand.) So, Sparklers. I have never had a hole in the middle of formed cookies before, but being warned about it seems to have jinxed me. Not a big deal, but not the perfect cookies in the book or Patrick's photos. Brushing with yolk and then rolling in crystal sugar was not as successful as I'd hoped--that only a small amount of yolk would dissolve the crystal sugar was a surprise, but less wasn't doing the job of cementing the sugar to the cookie. I froze about half the batch, so I'll try again later--any suggestions will be welcomed! Dacquoise: Rave reviews with much "mmm mmm'ing" so I'm pretty confident that the end result was at least a B+ (but I want an A+!). I started with some toasted hazelnut and almond flours I'd gotten from King Arthurs. Ran them through the Cuisinart with the sugar, as suggested, but never got them to the consistency of flour. Started to push through strainer, but without much luck. Given the time constraints, I abandoned the straining in favor of moving forward with the whole recipe. The meringue had really deflated by the time I got to the second disk. It didn't seem to affect the enjoyment of the dessert, but I'd been anticipating a little more height. Peeling hazelnuts. My DH picked up some roasted hazelnuts for me. About 1/3 of the nuts were peeled, so I toasted 2/3 c. of those. At the same time, I thought I'd try the "boil with baking soda" method to get the skin off some of the others. Warning: use a bigger pot than you expect to need--there was some significant boil-over, leaving a lovely white deposit baked to the burner. The process worked fine for getting the skins off, so I toasted them for a while to get a good comparison. Word from the family is that the boiled ones were disgusting--soggy, and not nut-like. Will experiment with the "toasting and rubbing" method, although previous attempts with pistachios don't give me much hope. No photos, but I don't think I'm ready for prime time yet, anyway!

Have you checked out the "Help Me Design a Dessert Bar" thread? It's full of good ideas for finger desserts. (If I were technically competent, at this point I'd have a hyperlink for you to choose. I'm not.)

Or Elephant's, downtown.

In Eugene: Cafe Zenon (quick! before the old owners stop helping the transition to the Californians with no restaurant experience) Excelsior Cafe Soriah (has a nice bar and a lovely courtyard) Do not be seduced by the "on the river" ambiance of either Valley River Inn or the McMenamin's North Bank--you'd be better off eating at one of the above and then going for a walk on the river.

"Fat is Flavor," as a friend of mine says. I remember my mom teaching me about pie dough, and she must have given me some instruction otherwise about cookies and cakes (I conclude that because I was making both without supervision at a fairly young age). The mom of my childhood was unadventurous; after I left home, though, she started to care more about what we ate and try newer things. (I don't think there's a cause and effect here!) I think her only culinary gift was my love for feeding people good food. If company came over, she was invested in making the best dinner possible--I try to do that every time I cook.

I've made a commitment to my co-worker with rhubarb plants--if she brings me rhubarb, I'll bring in a rhubarb treat. So far this week, I've made a rhubarb cake (twice) and rhubarb strudel. Both were received very well. Let me know if you want the recipes.

There's a bee cake in the Cake Bible, but I can't remember the components. I've also seen (maybe even in the above recipe) directions for using bubblewrap to make indentations, so a cake will resemble a honeycomb. It looked really fun. I'll try to find where I saw it.

Pickled beets and bleu cheese dressing. Yum.

I was frustrated by searching, too, but I think I've figured out how to get what I want: I start with the "Search" botton at the very top of the eGullet screen. That gets you to the search function with more options. One of the options is "Show results as posts." Toggle that, and you'll get just the posts in which your search terms actually appear, not the entire thread which may contain only one post you want.