Pam R

Back in the 80's I went to school with a girl whose mother threw the best birthday parties. The parties were usually thrown in the basement 'party room' which had a floor made up of squares that lit up as we danced. Anyhow, she used to bake these for us - and I loved them. Thought they were the coolest. Yours look fantastic.

I realize that your event is long over, but I was just emailed a price list from Qualita Paper today and they have disposable, oven and microwavable Creme Brulee containers - with lids available. Of course, I can't find the item on their website, but if anybody needs it, they have them. I'll be adding some to my order.

For medium or rare, I go for the rib chops (as Swisskaese mentioned, it's hard to get a varierty of kosher lamb cuts, so somebody may be able to provide another good cut for you). Always go for '1st cut' chops - less 'gaminess' by far. My favorite (and easy) way to do them is grill them. I usually have a homemade salad dressing in my fridge that I use to marinate the chops. Fresh garlic, salt and black pepper, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, splash of red wine vinegar and some oregano. Toss them around in the morning before work and grill them briefly when I get home. Second prep. of lamb in my house is shanks (this is not a rare dish). Salt and pepper and browned in olive oil. Add red wine, tomato paste, fresh garlic, fresh sprigs of thyme, salt, pepper. Simmer on very low for a couple of hours until the meat falls off the bone. Add a beurre manie (flour/butter or margarine paste) to thicken slightly. I usually make this a complete dinner by adding some mushrooms, carrots and pearl onions about halfway through the cooking. Lamb is also good with sweet/fruit. Last week I slow cooked lamb with sweet potatoes, squash, onions, apricots and raisins, cinnamon and ginger. You can do so much with it!

I think it is just you . I think Lactaid seems thinner to me... and sweeter. I always assumed it was because the sugar is broken down in Lactaid. Have you tried using the drops rather than the pills? I find the pills are hit-and-miss and don't like relying on them. For some reason I've never tried the drops - but if Lactaid is more expensive than other milk, it may be worth trying them. I avoid this issue by not consuming much milk

Hmm... I emailed them a few months ago. The problem with this company is that they told me I needed to order a min. of $1000 worth of boards every 1-2 months. That's a hell of a lot of boards. But they do seem to have some of the boards I'm looking for. I emailed a couple of the other companies last night - we'll see about shipping to Canada.

I would say bagel every time - unless we're talking a blueberry, apple cinnamon or raisin bagel. Pheh. It's a shandeh un a charpeh.

It could be . That could be why my search hasn't turned up anything. Thanks so much for all of the ideas, links and numbers. I'm going to check all of them out and see what I can do. In a couple of hours you've all helped me get much further than I got on my own in a couple of weeks. Thanks!

I've been on a search for a while for the small rounds that individual desserts are sold on. I don't know if I'm calling them the wrong thing when I search... but I just can't find them. I'm talking about the thin boards that have a little flap on the side for lifting them. The cheesecakes and cakes are all mini - averaging 4". I've checked with all of my local baking and paper suppliers - none of them have them. I'm at a loss - I re-open in a couple of weeks and would like something for these desserts to go on in the showcases. I've seen them in other cities, anybody have any sources? Thanks, Pam

I spent the weekend in North Dakota and Northern Minnesota. What I noticed is that brown sugar was actually on sale in a few of the grocery stores I went into. I also noticed that the two sugar plants I passed by had their usual mountains of sugar beets piled up in rows, with trucks overflowing with beets following me on the highways. If I knew how to extract the sugar myself, I could have had a years supply just with the beets that had fallen off the trucks and were on the sides of the road. I honestly have no idea what the difference between white granulated sugar from beets vs. from cane is. I assume that almost all of the (white) sugar I get in these parts is from the beet.

Melissa, I have sukkah envy! What a beautiful holiday table - Chag Sameach.

Love it. Kosher lamb was almost non-existant where I live. My whole family loves it and after a 6 week vacation in Australia, we started bringing it in to sell in our store. We sell quite a bit, but really, we just bring it in so that we can have it when we want it. eta: I just pulled out a pound of ground lamb to stuff a butternut squash with tomorrow night - thanks Michelle!

Care to share the recipe, Pam?!? Those are two (ok, 3, if you count coffee cake) of my favorite things! ← I'm happy to - but I left my little notebook at work yesterday morning (my time management sucks and I had to get a newspaper article in by last night - things got forgotten!) I'm out of town for the weekend - but I'll post or PM it to you when I get back. I'm very impressed with it - sat on the kitchen counter and we all nibbled on it for a few days - stayed moist the whole time.

Wow... that's a little more than the $300 ours cost when we were liscensed. But then, I believe you Americans can actually make money on your alcohol sales. I also just came across your thread. It's great to see how well thought out your plan was - and unfortunate to see the delays you are faced with. We just relocated our business this summer. We sold our building that housed 6000 square feet - including a restaurant, huge catering kitchen and a ton of offices and storage. We've moved into a new 2500 foot location. No real restaurant - jsut a few tables for people who want to eat something from our showcases. The place we moved into had been a food store with a small kitchen - so we weren't going from scratch, but it still took months to get things done. We thought we'd be up and running by late August or early September, but our kitchen wasn't operational until a week and a half ago. The health department wouldn't let us use our kitchen until October 3rd (even though we moved our business and weren't a new business). What's my point? It's SO frustrating! You may be ready to see some action, but you have to wait for so many other people to get their jobs done. Don't be embarrassed - it happens. You'll get up and running and you'll be the only one to remember how late it happened. I have customers that come in every week or so, and I keep saying 'just another week or two'. Two months later, they're still coming in. Just have faith. I can't wait to see some pictures of the restaurant once it's done. The drawings look great and from what everybody says it sounds like it's a great location for your idea. We have a couple of these restaurants here - they're lots of fun to go to - but the locations aren't great so I don't go. Good luck!

Maybe you can call these people up and see if they have any leftover AFTER the holiday. You know, like the way the grocery stores blow-out Passover ingredients after it's over. Shana Tova!

This should be good.

I don't find them all that 'winey' in flavour... similar though less fruity than a swedish berry... Quite common around here - not something I'd really miss if I couldn't get them.

Oy!

I agree. After baking two pies the other day - one fresh, one canned - but otherwise exactly the same - I liked the fresh one more.

I've been through all the pages of that thread and can't find anybody who actually used the agar. (I could have missed it though). I have some agar now and will try the recipe when I get a chance.

Break the fast in our family has always been dairy. As a child, arriving at my grandparent's house straight from synagogue (they lived across the street so we were lucky to get home quickly) we were always welcomed by the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. Along with the coffee there was always an assortment of baked goods. Everything was homemade by Baba. My favorite goodie was a blueberry bun - a sweet yeast dough surrounding blue or saskatoon berries. Once the cousins had arrived from other synagogues, we all sat down to dinner. ALWAYS starting with soup. I call the soup 'Baba's Break-the-Fast Soup". Though nobody ever got any recipes from her, we have all tried to duplicate it. It was milky and contained many of the fresh vegetables from her back-yard garden. Beans, peas, mushrroms, potatoes, onions, etc. It had those thin egg noodles, maybe a few dried beans and fresh dill. It's often made by whichever family member is hosting. The rest of the meal usually consisted of a cheese kugel - we don't know from these cream cheese kugels you all talk about. Ours are made from cottage cheese, a bissle sour cream maybe. Served with bowls of sour cream and frozen strawberries that you heaped on top. The rest of the meal varied - sometimes a lasagna, sometimes 'bar mitzvah fish', occasionally salmon, perhaps a blintz or knish or kreple. Always a tossed salad. Last year we had teriyaki seabass . Tasty, but not traditional. This year we're going to my cousin's house. He and his wife have only been married a few years but they've hosted once before. And they follow with the family tradition. Though their sweet baked goods won't be homemade - they will greet us, along with coffee, when we walk into their house. His wife is a wonderful cook and I'm sure there will be an assortment of delicious dishes. Whenever she hosts us, I offer to bring something. She always refuses, prefering that my immediate family come as guests and not have to do any work for the evening. I think I may bring a pumpkin/cranberry coffee cake though.

I've roasted another sugar pumpkin. Neither the one I did the other night or the one today needed to have water drained off. I've baked a pie and a pumpkin/cranberry coffee cake with the fresh pumpkin (cooking now) and I have a pie in the oven now with canned pumpkin to compare. The fillings for the two weren't all that different - the fresh pumpkin was a little looser (just a little) and a little lighter in colour. Taste test once they're both cooled.

I don't know what type of veg. she is... but if she's still eating fish, she can have kosher marshmallows - they're made with fish gelatin. It is true that reg. ones contain animal gelatin. A couple of OK brands are Bloom's, Bloomies and Granny's.

The odd thing about that, is for the last two years I was looking for pumpkins late summer/early fall and couldn't find any. This year they've been available for over a month in all of the grocery stores. Maybe this is another one of those things I can make money on by loading up the Jeep and heading south... I also like pumpkin muffins - must buy another pumpkin and come up with a recipe.

I roasted a small pumpkin last night - I was going to try a pie today but had to put it off until tomorrow. Cut the thing in half, cleaned it out and roasted at 350 for about an hour - skin peeled right off. Other than that, I've only used it in soup or cut up and roasted as a side.

We caramelize 50 lb. sacks of chopped (not sliced) onions ALL the time at work. They cook for hours. Then they are either used right away or divided into freezer bags and pulled out to make: potato filling for blintzes, knishes or perogies; chopped liver (these should be fried in shmaltz though); kasha; soup; appetizers (like galettes). Almost all things are better with deeply caramelized chopped onions. It's not just for slices!