Kris

geoduck, curry powder and cheesecake.

I once had brunch at a restaurant where one of the featured items was a Frosted Flakes french toast. The challah bread was dipped in the batter, then coated on both sides with crushed frosted flakes cereal and cooked. It was pretty tasty.

Well unfortunately we can no longer refer to a PINT of Haagen Dazs... The pint size has been downsized to a 14 ounce. The 32 ounce carton has been downsized to a 28 ounce: http://www.haagendazs.com/company/cartons.aspx Ben & Jerry's has been attacking Haagen Dazs for this change: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/888612/B...maller-cartons/

Well unfortunately we can no longer refer to a PINT of Haagen Dazs. The company recently downsized to 14 ounces per carton. The 32 ounce size has downsized to 28 ounces: http://www.haagendazs.com/company/cartons.aspx

Daisy is going to have a new cooking show...this time it's on the Food Network and will be called Viva Daisy! It's supposed to start in January.

Nothing says soul food to me than a plate of fried chicken, potato salad and collard greens.

Yes, because some jars of spaghetti sauce are actually down to 24 ounces. They started with a full 32 oz. jar. Then they sneakily downsized to 28 oz. Then 26 oz. and now some are actually down to 24. It's going to get to the point where they won't be able to downsize anymore. It would be ridiculous to have a 10 ounce jar on the shelves. But maybe some corporate genius would actually try it.

Thanks for pointing this out since it is another annoying aspect of sneaky product downsizing. Within the last week, I noticed two more products that have been downsized: Skippy Peanut Butter 18 ounce is now 16.3 ounces. Tropicana Orange Juice 3 liter container is now 89 ounces.

Does anyone have any idea when new episodes of Daisy Cooks will be on the air?

This is one of my biggest pet peeves in life. Seriously. I've been railing against downsizing for years. And these companies have become so sneaky at doing it - most customers don't even realize when it's been done. Paper towels, tissues, tomato products (canned & jarred), breakfast cereals, yogurt, ready made pudding, orange juice (in the carafe), mayonnaise, etc. It's just ridiculous already. I've written and called many a company to complain once I see that they've downsized a product. But all you get are platitudes and corporate speak (e.g. "we've now conformed to industry standard" or "surveys have shown that consumers prefer a 6 oz. size rather than an 8 oz. size"). In some cases they'll send you a coupon for a discount off the downsized product. Whoopee. I think it's a deceptive and sneaky practice. I would prefer to pay a few cents more for the same amount of product. Especially when the size of the product affects my recipes, like so many of you have stated above.

This is what makes it special for me too - the fact that you can't get them all the time, only during the holiday season. Although I have to admit that I usually save two pasteles in my freezer for summertime eating. Then after those two are gone, I only have a few more months left until it's pasteles time again.

I love collard greens and when I make them, I simmer them with hamhocks, a little bit of diced onion, cider vinegar, red pepper flakes, a bit of sugar, salt & pepper. Delicious!

My favorite GSC is the Samoa. My husband's favorite is the Do-Si-Do.

At my sister's suggestion, I tried McD's sausage & egg biscuit with cheese. It's very good. I still like the McMuffin better, but I was surprised at how good the texture of the biscuit was.

Pasteles are a Puerto Rican version of a tamale, typically made with banana leaves, roast pork (pernil) seasoned with annatto, adobo, olives and other seasonings, and a "masa" (dough) made with green bananas and yautia (a root vegetable). Pasteles are popular during the Christmas season and are a very labor intensive item to make. In many families, they set aside a day where scores, if not a few hundred of them are made to be frozen and given away/sold - assembly line with numerous members of the family contributing to the activity. My mom and I love pasteles and I always buy a dozen or two from a Puerto Rican co-worker (whose family engages in the pasteles making marathon every year). My mom had a Puerto Rican father, but she never learned or participated in this tradition. It's something I wish we had a connection to though.

I love to entertain for my friends and family, but I don't do so as often as I would like. Mr. Kris and I live in a medium sized NYC apartment, so we don't have THAT much room. But it's not shoebox sized either. Our most recent party was during the Christmas season. I have a few policies when it comes to entertaining: 1. I want my guests to feel welcome, relaxed and have fun. 2. I generally entertain buffet style because I don't have the room for a sit down dinner for more than 8 people. Plus, buffet style encourages more mingling. 3. I don't worry about clean up until the guests leave. 4. There must be an overabundance of food and drink. Mr. Kris and I have hardwood floors in the apartment, so we don't worry about guests wearing shoes. If you focus on being a gracious host for your guests and keep them well fed (with a combination of home cooked foods and some bought items), that should make entertaining more entertaining.

The only time I double dip is when I'm sharing a communal snack/dip/meal with hubby. That's it.

This is another one of my favorites. Served with a broiled porterhouse steak and mashed potatoes, it just doesn't get much better than that.

Homemade egg salad on homemade white bread. So simple, yet so delicious. And I keep the egg salad VERY basic - warm hard boiled eggs, salt, freshly ground pepper & mayo. YUM.

I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly. When you cook for someone, it's a gesture that displays love, affection, comfort, caring and consideration. It does seem that men get more credit & praise when they cook (and particularly if the meal is tasty and/or intricate) and a lot of women may find that sexy. I suppose this is because home cooking has primarily been the domain of women, so it's not as special or sexy when a woman prepares a meal vs. when a man prepares it. Conversely speaking, I get lots of praise from men because of my knowledge of football. When I wear my football jerseys, men come up to me in the supermarket and the deli and start talking to me about various football games, players, etc. My uncles and brother-in-law were surprised, then pleased as hell about my knowledge of the game when we watched the big game together at my uncle's Superbowl party. You see, most of the women in my family have little to no sports knowledge or interest at all. So (at least according to my male relatives), a woman who knows about sports is a sexy woman indeed. I said all that to say that it's my thought that when a person of one gender displays knowledge, talent or interest in a domain that is primarily associated with the other gender, it's deemed more special or praiseworthy.

HSN stopped selling his cookware/kitchen accessories line once they found out about all of his lies: http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2008/2/21/326532.html

Since I ran out of a few varieties, I made some more Lemon spritz, chocolate florentine sandwiches, peanut blossoms (my favorite this year) and rainbows. I also added a spritz butter cookie sandwiched with preserves, one end dipped in chocolate. I currently have the dough for Ling's Chocolate Toffee cookies chilling in the fridge too. Once my oven is free (I have a ham in there right now), I'll bake those. I've just been on a cookie baking spurt lately. And I'm making two sweet potato cheesecakes - one I'll give to my sister and one I'll keep.

Skippy Creamy. I don't like natural food/health food store peanut butter. And I don't like crunchy varieties anymore (even though I did as a kid).

I'm going to be the lone dissenter here...I prefer KFC's original recipe over Popeye's chicken. I find Popeye's breading to be too hard and crunchy and the seasoning too salty & spicy. *ducking to avoid a KFC biscuit from hitting my head*

This year I made 11 varieties of cookies: Cocoa rum balls Pecan tassies Rainbow cookies Gingerbread boys and girls Chocolate cherry spritz Lemon spritz (shaped like Christmas trees) Italian Fig Cookies Peanut Blossoms Chocolate florentine sandwiches Raspberry jam thumbprints Cranberry pistaschio biscotti (with one end dipped in white chocolate) I packed them up in personalized window boxes I had printed up. Then I gave them out as party favors (along with personalized packets of hot cocoa mix) to my Christmas party guests this past weekend. They were well received. Next year I'm looking forward to trying a few new favorites, such as Ling's chocolate toffee cookies.