avocado

I'm having a clean-out-the-crisper sandwich: Half an avocado, cucumbers, lettuce, and some nondescript white cheese. With Sriracha. It's actually pretty damn good.

Oh, honey...how completely awful of the Gods of Vices to screw around with you like that. And how completely awesome of you to throw it back in their faces. You all are quite an inspiration to me. I hope you all know the favor you're doing all of us by publicly exposing the rawness of your struggles, successes, and failures. I've no advice to give, as I've never had to quit anything so addictive as smoking. Nonetheless, just know that you have a little one-woman cheering section here in a little corner of Wisconsin that thinks of you often and wills you to succeed. On topic: I love applying food imagery to everyday life- makes everything more intersting. Using "raspberry-fool" to describe a color is brilliant.

My dad gets a HUGE corporate gift of Omaha Steaks about twice a year, and my parents have amassed so many that they had to buy a deep freeze. They like them, I'm indifferent. I do have to say, however, that their ham is the best I've ever had. Maybe I've never had truly great ham, but that OS ham is incredible to me.

When I was a kid, my all-time favorite was Kraft Dinner with a side of Hillshire Farms smoked sausage. I even requested it as my special brithday dinner...more than once. I still like it...mmmm, sodium!

OK, here's what I went through for these damn cupcakes: I tried a chocolate-sour cream frosting, and found it disgusting. But then again, I don't really like chocolate paired with anything tangy (chocolate cheesecake, for example), so I should have known. I tried to tone it down with some cream and powdered sugar, to no avail. Anyway, I ended up pitching that and going with a Donna Hay recipe for Chocolate Whipped Buttercream. It was four egg whites beaten with a cup of powdered sugar, then 2.5 sticks of butter beaten in, and 8 oz. of melted chocolate. I added a shot of Kahlua also. It was easy, pulled together in 10 minutes, and it was delicious. I highly recommend it. Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions!

Add my encouragement to the pile. Way to go! Awesome food, too. Even with the sluggish brains you all are talking about, it looks like your culinary skills haven't suffered. So, one question, Marlene: What does a Yorkshire pudding taste like? It looks delicious, but is it chewy? Crispy? Bread-y? I'm having trouble tasting it in my mind.

Oh my god. I don't know, maybe I have some kind of pork deficiency in my system causing latent cravings or something, but I think I'd rather have that for dinner tonight than just about anything I can think of.

I promised my friend birthday cupcakes. I'm a terrible baker, so I'm going to use boxed cake mix, but I want to make homemade frosting (because while boxed cake mix is tolerable, canned frosting is just nasty). She requested chocolate frosting. What I'm picturing is a frosting that can be piped in a fat spiral onto the cupcake using a pastry bag with no tip. So does anyone have a chocolate frosting recipe that can stand up to this, that I won't screw up? Thanks!

That coconut cake is gorgeous. I love the way it looks, snow white with the toasty brown coconut. I'm salivating. I really am.

Darcie, what a great start! Such enthusiasm and such great photos! I think I'm going to be glued to this blog for the whole week...

I love the idea of panna cotta...and I know it's kind of hackneyed, but passion fruit might be nice with it.

I second that.

OK, I have experienced the phenomenon of things needing more seasoning after freezing or refridgerating- like beans needing more salt the next day. But I had the opposite experience with some Mexican chocolate ice cream with cayenne and cinnamon that I made recently- it had a faint kick on the first day, but by the third day in the freezer it was overpoweringly, unpleasantly spicy. Explain THAT, you SSBs!

My last boyfriend was really into fitness and bodybuilding, and his kitchen contained only these things (he ate them in massive quantities, mind you, but only these things): Fat free yogurt (strawberry banana) Whole wheat bread Sliced deli turkey Fat-free "cheese" slices Eggs Chips with salsa (Tostito's brand only) Cheddar Goldfish Plain chicken breasts, grilled in the Foreman Oatmeal, plain Bananas Gatorade He lived a couple hours away, so when I went to see him, I was usually staying for a few days...I got pretty creative combining these things to make edible meals for myself. He thought a $30 steak was a ridiculous waste, and refused to even taste a glass of wine ("what's the point of drinking if you're not getting drunk?") The real deal-breaker, however, was the nickname he gave me when he learned just how deeply I love to cook and eat: "Fatty."

Ling, I love your recent pomegranate-seed garnish trend. The uniform little lines of them are just darling!

Despite the change of plans/change of title, you're still going to give us some "Tightwad Gourmand" tips and tricks, right? I could use 'em! Blog on, Ducky, I'm looking forward to it!

Cocoliquot is incredible. Small plates, while admittedly overdone, are good for low-income foodies such as myself. I can feel like I'm really doing it up even if my friends and I just order a bottle of wine and a dish apiece. I highly recommend the crispy confit duck leg. I also sampled the best cheese I've ever had: a Pecorino Toscano which was just explosive with flavor, hard, crumbly texture giving way to creamy finish. Perfect with the fig preserve that accompanied it. I'll be going back very soon.

I wouldn't mind if he called me "Sweetie" on the air. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Jewel actually said something like "I'm not very familiar with lamb....but I'm a big fan of mole sauce!" I gagged and changed the channel.

Lemon-vanilla frozen yogurt with dates. I'm still playing with the ice cream maker I got for Christmas; this has been my least favorite so far. It's just really....yogurty. The chewy frozen dates are nice though.

Avocados are probably my favorite thing in the whole world (see avatar, left). My favorite application is smeared on toast topped with thick-sliced pepper bacon. Salty/fatty, creamy/chewy/crunchy. Yee-ha.

My sister and I, in our teens and early twenties, spend alot of time together in our shared car. No matter what we were eating (and we were often eating), it was understood that the passenger feeds the driver:unwrapping, breaking off bites, dishing up spoonful- the passenger was responsible for her food and the driver's food. She was older, so she usually drove while I fed. I have fond memories of stopping at the 7-11 on the way home from highschool or at a convenience store on the long drive home from the far-away college we both went to. She would start up the car, and just a few hundred feet down the road she would stick her hand out to me, not looking at me or pausing in conversation, trusting that a morsel of food would be placed there for her to pop in her mouth; still talking, with her mouth full, she would stick her hand out for more. I miss those times in the car with her now that we live 1000 miles apart. She probably doesn't know how many bites of her food I've snuck while she was keeping her eyes on the road.

In college, my roommate and I used to come home from Saturday football games, all ready hungover from tailgating that morning, and collapse into bed to "sleep it off." Waking up around 9 p.m., we'd throw together some cooked pasta, frozen peas, a can of tuna, ranch dressing and shredded cheese to fortify ourselves for the second leg of the bender. I'm out of college now, but I still consider this the perfect mix of protein and carbs to have in your belly as a foundation for booze...

I got a chuckle out of this. Sounds like you don't take yourself too seriously, which must help keep you sane in your field. Love this thread- I'm a junkie for gossip about how the other half lives. Best of luck with your personal situation, it must indeed be taxing to deal with another family's drama on top of your own.

I adore this blog. For about three minutes in the beginning, I mourned the lack of pictures, but by this time I realize I didn't miss them at all. Well done, Marlena. P.S. My favorite part was when you referred to the green sheep as "poor little poppets."