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I second Carolyn's advice. I'm still a Good Cook member, but it really isn't worth the hassle. I get better deals from Jessica's Biscuit, half.com and other online sites. I have the first two books. I use Great Cakes often and everything is always a hit with friends and co-workers. The recipes are more for everyday baking rather than elaborate restaurant-style cakes. I find the Friberg book occassionally useful, but there are better books for home bakers. The Cook's Illustrated book may also be of some use although likely to be boring and uninspiring. Two books not on your list that I highly recommend are Baking with Julia and Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking.

I noticed a family with several children playing the "sample game" at Sam's last weekend. The goal is, of course, to see which child can spot the sample tables first and each must loudly yell, "Mommy, there's samples!" In the meantime, Mommy turns beet red and I head the opposite direction to avoid the traffic jam.

I see absolutely nothing weird about these sandwiches. Those are the sandwiches of my youth. My mom makes the best chicken-potato salad sandwiches and I still like leftover cold spaghetti (w/ sauce) between two slices of whole wheat bread. Fried Spam sandwiches with mayo was also a regular. I also make leftover frittata into sandwiches. Can't think of any oh-so-wrong sandwiches at the moment.

The gastroflex comment gave me a bit of a giggle. These silicone pans are also a disconcerting red. The canneles aren't bad. Not anywhere as good as the ones made my nightscotsman, but good enough to eat several at a time.

Inspired by nightscotsman, I've been eating mini canneles the last two nights. Williams-Sonoma had a sale on their gastroflex canneles molds and I also used the recipe from the W-S website. The middles didn't get cooked quite all the way through and each deflated a bit, but not bad for a first attempt.

Made the challah this weekend. I mixed and braided on Sunday, fridge overnight and baked Monday. I did all the kneading in my mixer and that worked really well. All ingredients were at room temp or warmed. I started with 1lb 4 oz of KA bread flour and added about an additional 2 cups while kneading, so I think I ended up with more flour than the original recipe. It was still a very soft, silky, slightly sticky dough. My initial rise took over 2 hours, but my house tends to be on the cool side. The recipe made 2 huge, beautiful loaves although mine were a bit too "European" brown (I was doing laundry at the same time and forgot). Nonetheless, the one I tasted has a creamy, slightly sweet flavour. The texture isn't too spongy and the crumb strands are very long with good amounts of space in between if that makes any sense . I brought one loaf to a ill friend who hasn't had much of an appetite and she ate a good 1/4. Definitely a success! P.S. Didn't take a pic because couldn't find digital camera, but I'll make a couple of more loaves this week. Same ill friend is moving to NJ and I'm putting together a road trip basket.

Going by what I cooked this cold weekend: bean soups, congee, bread (preferably dense, whole wheats)

A trip home is never without a visit to Yaohan and I've had the bibimbop the last three times. They do a very good job for a fast food place. One order is a bit too large for me, but you have to eat it all to get to the crunchy bits of rice at the bottom, or at least that's my excuse.

I love soup for breakfast on cold winter days. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any place where I live that serves soup before 11AM and I've been too lazy to cook my own.

I was lighting a gas grill on a breezy day last September. I heard a loud whoosh, managed to dodge the huge flame except for some of my then long hair. I had my hair trimmed the next day, but the smell remained. I ended up cutting my hair VERY short two weeks later. I no longer have to worry about burning my hair, getting stuck in the mixer (poor Nessa), or getting hair in my food while cooking or eating.

I think I've made the challah recipe before, but I have no problems making it again. I have lots of eggs, flour and butter from all the holiday sales. Plus, my friends love sweet, rich breads.

I'm in. I need the little bit of motivation to bake more regularly. The Atkins people at work will just have to suffer.

I brought corn and winter squash with bacon (Alex's recipe in eGRA) last Thursday and the reception was mixed. Those who tried my dish went back for seconds and asked for the recipe. Those who couldn't say squash without wrinkling up their faces missed out. This dish is very attractive and works well in potlucks. The one dish that disappeared quickly was a hash brown casserole (frozen hash browns, grated cheese from a plastic bag, sour cream and probably some kind of canned soup). A little potluck envy, but I don't mind too much anymore.

I haven't been to a Carl's Jr. for over a decade and Hardees in about a year, but I just looked on the Carl's website and the menu seems slightly larger than Hardees. I don't recall Hardees having baked potatoes or chili burgers; otherwise, the items just have different names (eg. Carl's sourdough bacon cheeseburger = Hardee's frisco burger). The smiley star logo is the same.

Freshly-picked Calhoun County (IL) white peaches and nectarines. The season never seems to last long enough to satisfy me.

Carl's Jr. = Hardee's Rally's = Checkers

They have loads of items other than coffee - cd's, chocolate, coffee mugs, boxes of Tazo tea, mints, etc. It's been interesting reading your blog. I'm also single and am always curious to see how other singles eat. I've been eating Hoppin' John with kale for the last three days because I cooked too much. I also made a wild mushroom ragu for this week, but that's currently in the freezer along with half a baguette that was also baked on Sunday. Tip about bread: it tastes better frozen then defrosted rather than just sitting in the fridge. If it's sliced, just take out as many slices as you need for the day. If it's unsliced, slice into desired sizes prior to freezing. Just make sure to wrap the bread well (freezer bag, remove excess air with straw).

1) Egg McMuffin - only fast food offering for which I will go out of my way and eat regularly (once a month) 2) Rally's Spicy Chicken 3) Rally burger Rally's is much cheaper than all the other chains around here, but the burgers are usually juicier, more flavourful and the veggies are fresher.

I like the soups made with pork neck bones, winter melon and those seasoning packets with all sorts of seeds. It was probably some sort of medicinal soup because my Cantonese friends' parents were all into that. I also crave Ma-Po tofu, fish-flavoured eggplant and claypot chicken with lily buds around this time of the year.

Both of these have been mentioned, but I had both last night and remembered why I rarely eat store-bought bread and regular grocery store butter: freshly baked, homemade baguettes with Beurre D'Isigny. I am so impressed that I can now find excellent butter in my own town. Chocolate is another area where it's hard to swallow Hershey's after you've tasted real chocolate. I think my first experience with good chocolate was with Callebaut over 15 years ago.

Excellent blog. Thank you Kristin and Helen. I've learned lots from this blog and jackal's. The next blogger is going to have an awful tough time; the last three (beginning with Ronnie) have been truly memorable.

I've had bear a couple of times while growing up in northern British Columbia. My mom cooked it Filipino adobo-style: vinegar, soy sauce, lots of garlic and bay leaf. However, that didn't mask the rancid fat taste and there was definitely way more fat than meat. I have nothing against fat, but bear fat isn't anything like lardo.

My cravings started last week: bacon, potato chips, greasy burgers and smoked oysters. The first two aren't too strange for me, but I've never bought canned smoked oysters in my whole life. I've eaten two tins in the last 5 days. I've also been drinking litres and litres of water. The oddest thing this week is that sweets have no appeal and I'm usually a sugar addict. This was fortuitous as I was able to give away more cookies than usual.

My mom calls it "goto" (sp?) which I think just translates to tripe. I've never made it myself, but I know it involves cooking the tripe until tender and adding the cooked tripe to the cooked basic filipino rice porridge (saute garlic and onions then add rice and broth). I'm a little sketchy on whether my mom uses the "broth" from the tripe or if she uses chicken broth. I'll ask next time I talk to her. This is then served with chopped scallions, fried garlic and fish sauce with each diner selecting their fave combination of toppings. My idea of comfort food. This thread is making me miss home even more.

Love tripe, but I've never cooked it at home. The tripe I find in the markets around here don't look very clean in comparison to those I've seen in Vancouver stores (pure white and ready to add to any dish). My favourite pho is also tripe and tendon. I love kare kare and there are very few things that are more soothing to me than filipino-style congee with tripe. I'm also the one who eats all the tripe from a Chinese cold plate.