Trishiad

Check out Trevor at www.terrifictours.com He's witty and knowledgable and will give you a great tour.

Oh, I love Bix. I enjoyed a wonderfully romantic meal there once.

be sure the plate is room temp, not cooler and work very quickly.

When I was at AUI we used the plates with tempered chocolate. 108 is too hot.

I'm with Jaymes. I have no idea when my fove year old first ate fast food. I will tell you this, he is way more interested in the toy and the dipping sauce than the rest of the items in the bag. We take turns deciding where we'll eat out. Sometimes he'll beg for chicken stars or cheesburgers (grilled cheese from InNOut) but other times he'll insist on Sushi or the local Michelin starred bistro. Kids these days have amazing palates and as long as they understand why fast food is a treat they'll be just fine.

Hey kids, I just saw an ad for a FREE sheeter on Craigs list. Anyone????

This Sebastopol girl needs to speak up for Sonoma County.....we have many many boutique wineries doing some great stuff. Here are just a few Hobo Cab Sebastopol Vineyards Syrah Dutton Estates Syrah and Pinot Lutea Pinot Hannah Bismark Ranch Sheldon does a great rose Hook and Ladder Christie has a really tropical chard that I find very interesting Iron Horse Balletto there are more. Please do not limit yourself and your patrons to Napa.

Boy will I second the being ignored while you're trying to give the specials or take a drink order. I will add to that: 1)Guests that put their dirty plates on clean tables next to them seconds after they've eaten their last bite. 2)Guests who hang big purses on the backs of chairs. 3)Longlegged guests who stretch out causing me to trip while I'm delivering their dinner. I just love having to apologize everytime I bring something to the table! 4) And my newest favorite pet peeve (really happened this weekend) Guests who flirt with and ask permission to kiss wedding ring adorned servers while sitting next to their spouses. 5) Guests who drape their arm over the chair next to them causing me to reach over the arm thereby touching my breasts to said arm. good thing I have a few days off

If it were me, on a dreary day like this, I'd head to Zachary's for a deep dish with pesto. Cash only.

The chef where I work makes a violet mustard with it to be served with the charcuterie plate. It's Yummy.

From Whole Foods I bought: Spectrum brand Organic Coconut Oil it is solid and white and in a glass jar with a golden lid. While the meltaways were nice, I thought they weren't creamy enough. I have a feeling many of the meltaways I've eaten in my life contained shortening.

Years ago I bought the cheaper sugar at the market, took it home, and made my usual batch of caramel. Same recipe I'd been using for quite a while, all the other ingredients were unchanged. The only change was from C&H to store brand and the caramels were hard, unyielding and a bit more sticky on the teeth.

I had to wear a chef's coat to class I took a couple of years ago and just couldn't take myself seriously in it. I changed the white buttons for sets of pink and orange and felt much more like my silly chocolate covered self. I also have a chocolate brown chef's coat I wear for deliveries and such.

Wow, what a lot of ingredients. Your recipe is a bit more complicated than any I use. I can tell you that my caramel cools for at least 24 hours before I slice it. Sometimes, if it's really hot or humid, I find that it doesn't set as hard as I would like and I do sometimes cook it 2-3 degrees farther to account for the weather. I think caramel likes a cool room temp for setting. Perhaps you could let it cool in the low humidity fridge before wrapping?

It would probably be well showcased in a savory recipe or even microplaned over a salad. Perhaps with red wine poached pears?

Sorry Kerry, I don't have a pizzelle iron. But those cookies sure look yummy.

Funny, one might say that my ass is made of cake.

Our pastry shop has a new online venture www.letthemmailcake.com they use this wording: We encourage advanced ordering to eliminate disappointment during holidays

John, I sent a package to London a couple of years ago. I alos used USPS priority and it took just under 3 WEEKS. So much for preservative free, fresh chocolates! No refund from the Postal Service either.

I always use the Three Cities of Spain recipe. It gets me invited back every time.

Tammy, they make little cello bags that would fit those bars just perfectly. I slip my bars in to a bag and seal with a little sticker. Sooooo much easier than all that frickin foil wrapping. Glerup has some

I too am irritated by the way my local baggers bag groceries. As I shop, I fill my cart in segments based on edible, cold, boxed, etc and lay it all out on the conveyor belt the same way. Why? Because it's easier to put away when I get home. Sometimes, I'm in a rush and don't have time to put it all away and it's great to know all the cold stuff is in one bag and be able to focus on that one bag. Those plastic bags are the worst. They're sloppy for packing and they slosh around in the back of the car. When I get home, I often have groceries spilled and strawberries tumbling. I recently did a little shopping research on reusable bags. So many cute ones but not so cheap. When you may need 7 bags at once you don't want to buy them at $30 a pop. I was so please when I saw the $1 bags at TJ's . I now have quite a collection of them. I keep 4 or 5 in the car and a bunch more in the house. Very useful, well shaped, and they seem to be pretty durable for an item priced at a buck.

Okay, so recently I made a reservation for 4 at a place which seats (at tables) probably 60ish. I wanted a 7 pm slot but was offered 6 or 8:30. Is this because dinner service begins at 6 and a 7 o'clock reservation would leave that table empty for the first hour of service? Does that mean that we were going to be allowed the table for 2.5 hours? Did they reserve it again at 8:30. What about a small resto which allows 1.5 to 2 hours per table and the table stays longer? There's no bar to wait in. The next party of 6 has arrived to find that their table is still occupied by a party who is meandering through their meal. What to do with folks who reserve for 2 and show up as 4 thinking it's no big deal? What to do if these things happen and you're a small and new resto really needing to make good impressions??? Is there a book on hostessing?

I've had some interesting experiences lately with regard to reservations, both those I was making to dine out and a few at the resto I work in. Are there any guidelines or even steadfast rules when it comes to: percentage of the resto that should be left for walk-ins? How long a party should be allowed their table? Are parties generally asked to wait at the bar until their entire party is ready to be seated? How late is late for a reservation? Should the hostess insist on reserving at the beginning of dinner service instead of accepting reservations for an hour into dinner service? any other advice or insight would be super.

I headed out to the much talked about West County Grill tonight with some of my mommy friends. This resto has gotten tons of press and created quite a buzz around town. It is on the square where Lucy's used to be. Rumor has it (the owner of Lucy's is an old collegue of mine) that Jonathan (ex-husband of Alice Waters) made an offer which couldn't be refused so Lucy's sold, closed, and was remodeled. It has been open a short time, maybe 2 months and is packed solid every weekend. Four of us dined, one pregnant and one not terribly hungry. I came in the side door and never noticed the hostess station. I exchanged many courtesy smiles with the abundant staff as I wandered into the dining room looking for my friends. One of my friends' was already seated, I joined her and my water glass was soon filled. Our other two friends joined us, one at a time, neither of them seated by a host. Our waiter offered us the opportunity for questions, we had a few, "what is a zinfandoodle?". We ordered a bottle and 2 glasses. Pregers asked for something passionfruity and virgin from the bar, number 4 asked for the cocktail menu. Menus here are just one page printed and presented as is, just off the printer. The wine list is sheets of paper on a clipboard. Honestly, I was surprised by the huge number of wines from elsewhere in a place called the West County Grill. To me the name is presumptuous, claiming that they represent the whole of Western Sonoma County. I found it difficult to find and choose a wine from Western Sonoma County but did indeed settle on the Zinfandoodle. It was quite inexpensive and very drinkable. The waiter described it as full bodied and ripe. To me, for Sebastopol, it was very earthy and not as fruit forward as is typical of this area. Again, we enjoyed it. I had intended to take photos but forgot my camera. Thought I'd smuggle out a menu but our little stash was sought out as the dining room filled. I'll do my best to recount: 2 Oysters from Washington. Kamamoto? They were tiny. I mean tiny. $3.50 each. The girls who ate them hardly noticed. Avocado and Grapefruit salad with Mache. This was a light pleasant salad. The grapefruit was just right. It was very simple and good. Gnocco and Proscuitto. This was a bed of thinly sliced proscuitto topped with 5 (I think) 1 by 1.5 inch rectangular pieces of fried dough. The dough reminded me of wonton which hadn't been rolled out enough. Maybe the plate wasn't passed to me soon enough but mine was chewy and not so yummy. $12 Next came a pizza stand and an oval pizza cooked in the old brick oven. I think they called this Pizza Bianco (I can't remember the price). It was a nicely crisp crust with Fontina, Proscuittto and Arugula. I noticed some Parmesan on the crust which was nice too. This might have been my favorite of the evening. The arugula was cooked on the pizza, not tossed on after cooking. The proscuitto added just the right amount of fat and salt and the crust was great. While I wouldn't want this as an entree, it was a great starter to share. Still hungry, we ordered their house chicken...It has someone's intials in the name but frankly I was having a hard time focussing on the reading of the menu. This place was really busy, with a staff of at least four hundred and fifty. Our table was very near the entrance to the open kitchen so I was watching all of the food leaving and all of the servers coming and going and I was starting to feel a bit frantic despite the wine. So, chicken, Baked? Half, on bone, nicely seasoned, skin still a bit fatty, fries, pretty good, not as well seasoned. The chicken was a bit thin and was hard to slice off the bone. It was a definite challenge to share. A single diner might have been inclined to use fingers or bring a piece directly to his mouth. It was good but nothing unusual or extraordinary about it. $19? Dessert, it's what I live for. Cardamom Creme Caramel: Served on a big oval plate, swimming in sauce was a round of creme caramel which, while the usual circumfrance, was terribly thin. It was less than 1/2 an inch thick. Yummy and drenched in cardamom syrup with fresh mango diced and banana sliced with 2 little pistachio shortbread cookies. The cookies had such substance compared to the creme. They were downright meaty. Made with salted butter, I'd guess. $7 Chocolate Coconut cake with Rum Anglaise: This was more of a napolean than a cake. Thin layers of semi-sweet chocolate with thin layers of crisp meringue with thick layers of coconut in some kind of binder ( honey? simple syrup?). Tasty, moist, not cake. $7 2 ordered decaf which was brought in a French press, cute. Apparently quite good, even pregers enjoyed some. Our server was great but seemed rushed even though they had a cast of thousands. I would be interested to know how many tables per server. While it was a fine meal, dollar for dollar, I'd rather be somewhere less hectic and more laid back in true "West County" style. Soon: K&L Bistro to see Karen and Lucas and Starlight Wine Bar to see Ted and Heather. Any other requests?