Catherine Iino

I googled Pavesini and they seem to me to be very close to Savoiardi--i.e., dry, slightly sweet ladyfinger shaped biscuits. One site says "no fat added," and the package of Savoiardi in my cupboard has no fat in the ingredients. The point is, I think, that these dry biscuits really soak up the coffee mixture. Now, does anyone know whether cream of tartar is the same thing as tartaric acid? (for use in the homemade mascarpone recipes)

Sesame mayonnaise is a nice dressing for asparagus that doesn't turn it army green. (Is there still such a thing as army green, now that we fight our wars in the desert?) Caponata is yummy. A great, easy favorite of mine for like situations is a sweet/sour Chinese pickled cabbage. If that's not too much like salad, I'll be happy to give you the recipe.

Leviathan--What did you end up buying?

It sounds like we have quite a similar setup to yours. In the older (180 years) part of our house we have a kitchen that is continuous with a family room in a newer addition, on a slab. The kitchen is over basement and crawl space. When we redid the kitchen about 9 years ago, we wanted the floor to be continuous, not too thick, and made of something that could be laid over both wood subfloor and the concrete slab. We chose cork tile that consists of a sandwich of cork between some kind of backing and a thin layer of transparent vinyl over the top. Pros: I love the way it looks and feels. It hides dirt. It's soft. It's durable. Cons: Many of the tiles are coming up. They started coming up several years ago, but we haven't gotten around to replacing them. We may have to replace the whole floor. I think this is because moisture got it around the edges and expanded them. We had a flooring store install the tiles, but I think they were not familiar with the product and may not have done it right. Perhaps we should have put a layer of polyurethane over the tiles, as Pallee did, but they weren't supposed to need it with the vinyl layer. (The manufacturing technology may also have improved by now.) The bottom line is, cork, like wood, absorbs moisture and expands and contracts. Cork does fade significantly in the sun. That doesn't bother me too much, but it will make any replacements we do noticeable. In another house, we recently installed floating cork planks. (As I said, I love the way cork looks and feels.) They look good, but they haven't been in long enough for me to tell you much about how they last. I'm not sure how sensitive to moisture they will be either, but they are not in a kitchen. They are fairly thick, which worked fine in the rooms we put them in but would present problems in our kitchen/family room. I'll try to take photos and post them tomorrow.

Here's the odd thing. For years I was in the anti-cilantro group, and I bought into the theory that it was a genetic disposition. Yes, tasted like dirty dishwater to me. Then, a few years ago, I started to like it. I suddenly got it: the flavor made sense and became appealing. Now, I miss it when it's not there in the cuisines in which it's at home. That really surprises me, but I'm happy about it. (I wish my husband would have an olive epiphany. I keep telling him he should like olives: he likes strong flavors like anchovies and preserved black beans. So far, no luck.)

Andiesenji, I'm jealous of your Hobart, but I'm afraid we have to fit the new dishwasher in the conventional 2-ft, under-the-counter space of the old one. At the moment I'm thinking I'll go with the Kenmore recommended in Consumer Reports and hope they've improved it in the last dozen years. Has anyone had any experience with the LG appliances that Home Depot and others carry?

No, not savory . . . but maybe you could do an all-oatmeal dinner for April Fools Day. (Hey, I think I used to have a recipe for an oatmeal fool.)

Bumping this again because I'm about to replace my broken 9-year-old Asko. I loved the way the Asko worked, when it worked, but it broke down more than once, and getting it serviced is no mean feat where I am--also very expensive. Any recent thoughts on basic 24" dishwashers? The Asko was very quiet, used impressively little water for a load, and had nicelydesigned racks. But I'm not sure we need to go that high-end. Thanks in advance for any reports.

Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola--any blue cheese. It's really too bad. I keep looking for a cheese that has a similar amount of fat and tanginess, to substitute in recipes. I love all sorts of really stinky cheeses, but I just can't get past the moldy taste of the blues.

Now, that sounds quite good--seems to want to be stirred with a cinnamon stick more than a silver spoon.

I love Andiesenji and I love egullet. Where else could a foodgeek find fellow travelers who think that making your own vanilla extract is a no-brainer and then, after exploring half a dozen scientific questions, come up with this set of instructions? And feel compelled to follow them? And what on earth am I going to do with all this vanilla? By the way, my jars of Smirnoff are already a rich brown. I haven't opened them to take a whiff yet.

Also--I've discovered wine vinegar made from young, fruity wine is much better than the wine vinegar I've made from the remains of older, more tannic, more "sophisticated" wines we tend to drink.

Don't know how soon your meal is, but I copied down a recipe out of the NYTimes for an oatmeal- infused vodka. Haven't started it yet, but the idea is a hoot. Here's the gist: Oats and Honey Vodka Adapted from Blue Hill at Stone Barns 1 liter premium vodka 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats 1 cup mild honey Combine the vodka and oats in a glass jar with a tight lid. Put in a cool, dark place for 3 days, shaking thoroughly once each day. After 3 days, strain the vodka through cheesecloth and discard the oats. Let the residue settle for about 15 minutes; strain again. Repeat 5 or 6 times, using fresh cheesecloth each time, until the vodka is milky but not chalky (whatever that means). Add the honey and mix well. Smoother after 1 week in the refrigerator; best consumed within a month. Shake well before using. Serve over ice, if desired, garnished with a cinnamon stick.

When I was a little girl, helping my mother to bake, the whipped eggwhites looked so luscious and the vanilla smelled so heavenly--what disappointment, disillusionment even, to taste them (against my mother's warnings). Boy, there's a metaphor for you. I do hope our vanilla gets better with more age, and in context. Steve--good piece in the NYTimes today. We were without internet all morning (and there's no Times delivery around here during the week), so I just saw it. It's not easy to strike a reasonable note, as you did, on any topic these days.

Andiesenji says above that she starts her extract in everclear. I thought of doing that yesterday but decided to go with the vodka. I, too, noticed that both bottles of store-bought vanilla extract I have list sugar as an ingredient. I wondered whether they just use some caramelized sugar for color.

Okay--I got my beans, I got some 100 proof Smirnoff. I've put up two 16 oz bottles, one with 10 tahitian vanilla beans, the other with 10--I think--Madagascar. I cut each bean in four pieces and slit them. I'm not positive about the number of Madagascar beans because the beans, which I ordered from the Vanilla Products USA, came in bags of 10, according to the labels. When I was prepping the Tahitian beans, though, I realized there were actually 11, and I hadn't counted the Madagascar beans. (I had actually ordered 25 Madagascar beans from Vanilla Products and they sent 3 bags of 10. As I said above, this place seems too good to be true. The beans seemed very fresh and fragrant.) The Smirnoffs definitely smells better than the cheapo stuff I had around (Crown Russe and Wolfschmidts). Anyone have suggestions about what to do with that old stuff--thin paint, maybe? I hate throwing stuff out.

I absolutely agree about the garlic. Here in Connecticut, it's something you can plant in the fall and harvest halfway through the summer; it almost feels like a freebie. And you can't buy the scapes, which are delicious.

Ended up making tourtiere turnovers. They were Pythagorean triangles.

enurmi-- Nothing's wrong with it (except for the environmental impact of all those plastic bottles). It is certainly cheaper to get your water from a tap; maybe easier to turn on the faucet than going to the store. But you're right that it might not be better. I happen to have really good well water; I shouldn't generalize about that.

Not least: bottled water.

And brownies.

Cooked dried beans. It's far easier for me to have a bunch of dried ones in the pantry than a bunch of cans, and the canned ones aren't as good or satisfying to make. If you don't have time to slow cook them and you use the boil for a minute, let 'em sit for an hour, drain and simmer method, they're still better than the canned ones.

Pineapple tart in a pignoli crust?

Saw the headline and wondered what the National Rifle Association was putting on its "over" list--maybe quail, after Cheney's escapade last year.

Lobster with vanilla sauce was all the rage a bunch of years ago, and it is still a delicious combination.