SuzySushi

Sure! You just need to adjust the baking time. Baking time for a recipe for cheesecake made in muffin tins (lined with paper or foil liners, using a wafer cookie on the bottom as the crust) is 25 minutes @ 325F.

I donn't know whether to be impressed or appalled! I'm glad my daughter wasn't watching over my shoulder when I clicked the link!!!

Reminds me of the time my husband went to a potluck party when I was home with the flu. He said the only thing to eat was potato chips!

In Honolulu, the ladies who lunch do so at Alan Wong's Pineapple Room in Macy's (formerly Liberty House -- definitely a "ladies who lunch" emporium), Mariposa in Neiman Marcus, or the café in the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

In my professional capacity (and I'm still going to post under my pseudonym), I can tell you that the reason supermarkets like Safeway (which owns Vons) are turning to "lifestyle stores" is that they're losing market share to value retailers like Wal-Mart on the one side and natural and specialty food chains like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's on the other. They're looking for a magic formula that will attract and keep more shoppers. Will the magic formula be more prepared food? I don't know. It's too early to tell. They've tried the new formula in only a small percentage of their stores so far, spent a small fortune remodeling, and I haven't seen store-comp sales. Taking off my professional hat and speaking personally, I'm watching this trend with great interest. One of the Safeway stores on Oahu (at the other end of the island from me, unfortunately) has been remodeled into a "lifestyle" store, as has a branch of an independent supermarket chain near my home. Personally, I like the new format because it emphasizes a wider selection of fresh produce and fresh breads. There's also a much better selection of fancy cheeses and other "exotic" foods that used to be hard to get here (a small Indian foods section, for instance). In adding more service, the stores will also special-order products for consumers, the cashiers thank you by name (always last name), and they offer carry-out service to your car. On the other hand, I wonder whether the lifestyle format is just an excuse to upscale the stores, and whether they're risking losing their core shoppers by going too upscale. (Safeway has one foot on either side, however, in still running its weekly 10/$10 specials.) Your thoughts?

Hmmm... maybe post your question in the Japan forum and someone there will know more about it. Sounds like an interesting product!

My strategy is to place extra herbs (esp. rosemary sprigs) on the platters and let the food shine! The other day I saw a particularly appealing photo of a turkey platter garnished with whole baby carrots ("real" baby carrots with their tops -- not cut carrots) and whole sage leaves. The baby carrots are rarely available here, but I'll strive for this.

Not really. The skins slip off easily after they're cooked (except for russet potatoes).

You have the luxury of being able to say that because you have a very common name. What about those of us who have very unusual names, who can be all too easily traced by your garden variety of nut? (Said as someone who once hosted a message board under my real name and received some very scary emails that were sent directly to my home email address -- not the link in the message board.)

Now he looks like a man who loves his job! I vote for French, for the same reason as Safran.

I have a recipe for a molded cranberry salad that I've made on and off for the past 20 years. It came from a friend whose mother was a Southern belle. I never knew it to be a Southern dish: I just thought it was very 1950s! It's somewhat different from the dish you describe as it doesn't contain a whole orange and the cranberries are left raw. You could always halve the recipe for a smaller group. Molded Cranberry Salad Serves 8-12 2 envelopes gelatin 1/2 cup water 2 cups cranberry juice 1 12-ounce package cranberries, ground 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 20-ounce can juice-pack crushed pineapple 2 11-ounce cans mandarin oranges, drained 1-1/2 cups chopped celery 1 cup chopped walnuts Soften gelatin in water, then heat gently to dissolve. Add cranberry juice and mix well. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into a mold or glass bowl. Chill until set. Unmold if desired.

What Ah Leung said, except... Dim Sum by Rhoda Yee uses a dough mde with 4 cups cooked mashed taro (about 2 pounds raw), 2 t salt, 1 t sugar, 1/4 t white pepper, 1/4 t 5-spice powder, and 7-8 tablespoons potato flour (mixed in last). Ruth Law's dim sum book uses 1 pound taro, 3 T lard, 3/4 cup cornstarch, 1 T sugar, 1/2 t salt, dash 5-spice powder; add boiling water if needed to make a smooth dough. The ingredients list in Wei Chuan's dim sum book is confusing. They use wheat starch dissolved in boiling water, and the photo of the finished product looks smooth.

Sounds like you had a bad batch; probably they had been stored improperly. Cook them like red ("new") potatoes in their jackets just until tender (test with a toothpick or knifetip, then peel if desired and mash. They have a naturally buttery flavor so don't require much in the way of seasoning; they're divine, though with garlic and/or goat cheese.

Dejah, What you describe is pretty common on dim sum menus in Honolulu -- only it's never called by that name! It's essentially a variation of deep-fried taro "footballs" (which usually are stuffed with pork and black mushrooms), but they wrap the taro paste around a whole shrimp. The taro paste contains lard and cornstarch, and it fries up to a crispy, flaky crust. Both items are among my family's favorite dim sum!

When you're in Kyoto, be sure to try Yatsuhashi senbei, a traditional Kyoto specialty. They're thin cookies made of rice flour flavored with cinnamon. The fresh ("nama") ones are usually folded and filled like turnovers. The dry ones are shaped like curved roof tiles and make a great souvenier. I'm not even sure of the name of the most famous brand, but its homepage can be seen at Yatsuhashi. You can even tour a cookie factory and try your hand at making them.

Different colors and types of miso have different flavors. The "white" (actually yellow) misos tend to be lighter/sweeter in flavor and less salty, while the red ones are heartier and dark brown miso is the heartiest of all. Misos are generally interchangeable depending on your taste preference. Some people mix several types to get just the flavor they want. Besides using in soup, miso (usually diluted with mirin- a syrupy rice "wine" - and sugar) is also used as a glaze for broiled foods such as fish or sliced eggplant. It can also be mixed into salad dressings for an East-West touch. Try mixing with mustard, too, as a dip.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This really looks delicious! I'll have to pick up some chili bean sauce. Which brand do you recommend?

My cupboard has never been bare, thank the spirits, but last night's dinner for three was a "clean out the freezer" combination of odds and ends of leftovers in plastic containers: some pasta sauce with clams and green olives (??? -- I don't even remember making that dinner), another pasta sauce with eggplant and mushrooms, frozen leftover "naked" whole-wheat spaghetti, frozen leftover rigatoni, four small breakfast sausages, and a previously grilled hamburger crumbled into the sauces, all sprinkled with some grated Parmesan cheese. Not bad, all things considered!!!

What every kitchen needs! Speaking of toasters, Andie, you're probably the person to ask. Maybe the bread was different back then, or nostalgia is playing a part, but going back to my childhood, my grandmother made the best toast, not reproducable in today's toasters, in an electric toaster that was an A-frame shape. It had two flip-down chrome doors and toasted one side of the bread at a time. Have you happened to see a modern version of the same (or a stovetop version) in your Internet travels?

I agree with munchymom and therese about wanting to preserve my personal anonymity on a public message board. I also feel anonymity is important at eGullet to distinguish between my professional persona (as a market researcher/analyst writing about the food industry) and my private opinions. If there's any hint of a conflict of interest, I either avoid posting in that topic, or state my professional capacity up front.

Fifi... I'm glad you bumped up the thread! I hadn't seen it the first time around (before my eG time) and have found a few gadgets to put on my Christmas wish-list as well as some to send to friends as gifts. (And I never realized that simple items like microplanes, toaster bags, and silicone pastry brushes could be so life-changing!)

Duh!!! The soda in colas comes from sodium.

I rarely eat in a moving car, although I always have bottled water handy and occasionally another beverage like iced tea. Most interesting meal I've ever eaten in a moving car, however, was unagi don, a Japanese dish of grilled eel over rice. My husband was driving, and I fed him his share with chopsticks as we sped along the highway to an appointment. (Some people have sex while driving... we eat unagi!

I have the Safeway brochure and you forgot the most important part of preparation: 1-2 to days before cooking, clean your oven to prevent smoking of burned-on grease. From the response I'm seeing here on eGullet, I think I'll skip the 2-hour turkey and use my usual method! It sounds like any time saved, I'd use up cleaning my oven before AND after roasting the turkey!

Dried fruit (mango, apricots, raisins -- depending on what I have in the house) as a keep-up-my-energy snack. Frozen sliced bread, straight out of the freezer (I can hold it with one hand while typing with the other). Cheese. Turkey slices, eaten as I stand at the refrigerator. Cookies.