HungryC

I wondered if something was afoot with LU, as the Pim, Petit Ecolier, and a few other of their cookies appeared this summer in my rural, southern chain supermarket. Nothing gets on those shelves without payment or other consideration, so I figured that either the distributor changed, or the ownership changed.

Cheese straws/crackers are great for late-night munching. Homemade granola bars (or loose granola) is nice & can be relatively healthy (depending on your recipe). If she's on a campus meal plan, you might send her a bottle of hot sauce or her favorite condiment in a small size: campus food can be dreadfully bland. ETA: single-serving packets of Grey Poupon, Gulden's, etc. were like gold to us in dorm days.

Yeasted, malted belgian waffles, with maple syrup & pecans. In a landslide, by a mile. Mix the dough the night before, rest in the fridge. Easy-peasy, esp if you have the kiddos make their OWN waffles. Pancakes & french toast are a dead heat for second, though my french toast requires stale New Orleans style french bread (not always on hand, so the ease of preparation edge goes to pancakes).

Perhaps chiles affect people in different ways, and certainly different chiles cause "burn" in different parts of the mouth/throat. I know from personal experience that capsaicin is a powerful decongestant--I have nasal, lung, and eye reactions from especially hot foods. Heck, you can buy capsaicin nasal decongestant spray at natural remedy/health food stores.

Pressed KL juice doesn't taste much diff from persian lime juice, to me. And the bumpy little things aren't especially juicy. The really aromatic stuff is in the peel & leaves; trying using the peels for an infusion, or maybe candying the peels to use as a garnish. KLs have a decidedly assertive, lemony aroma--too much, and it brings to mind Lysol lemon floor cleaner.

So will it become a web-only entity? Seems like far too valuable a brand to fade into oblivion. I can't say that I liked the recent trend toward photo-heavy, idealized party scenes: boring as hell, with too little writing about the food and too many pics of lovely people dining outdoors, or by the lake, or in a Parisian apartment, etc. My subscription would have lapsed long ago, except for the $12 annual rate. I'm still subscribing to Saveur, but it's substantially less interesting than in the early years.

In the bins pictured, why would you need a floor? Just curious. In my soggy climate, that floor would just rot away in a couple of months. Plus, the floor prevents interaction with the good stuff already in the soil (worms, microorganisms, friendly buggies). My pile is literally a pile, or more of a heap, about 4' deep by 10' wide. It is tucked into the back corner of my fenced yard, using the existing wire fencing as two sides. The third side is hardware cloth held up by a metal stake. The front side is open, with a raised bottom edge made of branches, sticks, and leftover concrete edging, with an apron of spare bricks laid on the ground in front (keeps your shoes relatively clean). I put lawn trimmings, water oak leaves (live oak leaves take forever to break down), kitchen veggie scraps, and any/all garden waste. At this time of year, my grass is still growing wildly, and the oaks are dropping leaves like mad. So the contents of my lawnmower bag are a nice, chopped green/brown mix. I do toss stale bread on top from time to time, as well as leftover cooked plain rice, but the birds scarf those up long before any decay sets in. I wish I had the energy to turn the whole pile 3-4 times a year! It's too big, and I'm too lazy. I'm entranced by the revolving-barrel composter...do these things really work?

I just bought a 10" Forschner serrated bread knife, and I can get very thin slices using it. I have a sort-of solution for you: I hand-cut even slices using my cooling rack's spaces as a cutting guide. The wires are about 3/4" apart, so you can align your knife with the spaces and get nice, even slices. It's not high speed, but it does work.

Not a full service restaurant, but the most welcome sight to this traveler's eyes: the Tazza D'Oro coffeebar in the international terminal at FCO (Rome).

I'd probably buy a couple dozen glass ramekins at the restaurant supply house and do individual ones that don't need to be unmolded. Ramekins will run $1.50 or less, and you can certainly find other uses for them. Or if you want disposable, you can find those at the same place. I've used foil ones, paper bakeable ones, and paper non-bakeable souffle cups to hold various things. The paper ones come in plain & fancy versions.

Use a waxy potato (red skinned, for example) rather than the floury russets. The additional starch in the potatoes will help to solidify the texture. Yukon golds are more starchy than russets, but not as starchy as red potatoes. If you don't like the texture of waxy potatoes, try using part russet and part red skinned.

I define "white bread" as a non-whole-wheat (obviously) yeasted sandwich loaf, baked in an oblong loaf pan, usually with a rounded top that crowns over the baking pan; perhaps less obviously, it is close-grained & sturdy enough to slice, with a relatively thin, soft crust, but a tender crumb. To have those qualities, it is an enriched loaf--some ingredient (eggs, DMS or milk, buttermilk, butter, olive oil, other fats, etc) serves to tenderize the loaf and extends the shelf life (retards staling). I'd put enriched, U.S. style, braided "italian bread" (the soft kind with sesame seeds on top) as a species of white bread, too; for me, the definition is about texture.

Glad you liked the DMS white bread. It keeps nicely. Flavorwise, the buttermilk variation of that same recipe is delicious; it's just that I never have buttermilk on hand. Whereas, dry milk keeps forever in an airtight container in the fridge. My favorite sandwich slicing loaf, nutrition/fat be damned, is the "poor man's brioche" from Bread Baker's Apprentice. It makes divine toast and even better grilled ham n cheese.

I wonder if the Large eggs are fresher simply due to higher turnover? I buy only Large size, because US baking recipes are calibrated on Large eggs. I'd imagine that most home bakers do the same. I never buy (ETA extra)-large or jumbo, but I will buy small if making devilled eggs for a party.

MT makes an important point about the type of smoker. I'm not soaking wood to go into my Big Green Egg because I have extremely precise airflow control, and a round firebox that burns down, then out. I can distribute chunks in the hardwood lump so that I get smoke when I want it: lots or little at the beginning, or evenly throughout the cook, etc. Wet chips or chunks, intermixed with lump charcoal in a BGE, don't do much other than interfere with the even burning of the lump. If you're using briquettes & compressed wood pucks, well, you're on your own

Home remedy #1: honey, lemon, bourbon & hot water Home remedy #2: Peychaud's bitters & beef bouillion, sipped from a coffee mug

Like John, I don't bother with soaking, or (very often) with chips (I'm smoking/grilling on a Big Green Egg). Chunks are less fussy and produce more smoke over a longer period of time. I will use unsoaked chips from time to time for a little smoke flavor on a quick cook (like grilled burgers). See these ribs cooked for 5 hrs at 225, with three or four pool-ball sized hickory chunks.

The jet nozzle on my garden hose is far more powerful than the little sink sprayer: take the sieve outside and give it a good, thorough hosing from the reverse side. Works like a charm to dislodge particles from mesh.

See, I've been trying to justify a Sumeet, but couldn't convince myself that I needed another bulky item in my kitchen. But now you tell me that it's dishwasher safe! Sold, sold, sold...

Just my 2 cents, but for just 25 people, you have quite a variety of items (at least 12, by my count). If you really want things to feel/look VIP, perhaps you should skip a couple of items and concentrate on the presentation (thus using the time/expense you saved by scaling down the number) of your remaining items. Upgrade the quality/variety of cheeses, serve with a pile of toasted walnuts and some honey, or some more of that olive/fig tapenade. You seem to have a mediterranean focus (crostini, olives, tapenade, gougeres, spinach squares), so why include coconut-crusted chicken? Or pineapple? And swap the swiss cheese for fontina & pecorino in the potato gratins...maybe a grilled or broiled chicken skewer alla diavolo or brushed with pesto would feel a little more italian/provencal/mediterranean.

Has anybody grown peas during the fall? Just wondering how well they fared in the humid, coastal south...seems like pea plants are pretty cool-weather tolerant, but I dunno if they'll flower & set pods. I'm gonna try it and see.

Would you please tell me where you got the cup? Is the cup microwavable? The cup is not microwavable--as I mentioned before, I use hot water out of a botted water dispenser. I bought the cup at Red Blossom Teaon Grant Ave. in San Francisco's Chinatown (a wonderful place to buy & taste teas, BTW). You can buy an infuser cup onlinefrom Red Blossom. I like the kind with a lid, as you can use it as a coaster for the infuser part while you're drinking.

Never had a Pyrex dish shatter--borosilicate glass is way harder to scratch than plain ol' glass. I have seen the nasty results of Corningware's delamination---a bazillion needle-sharp shards. I used a Corningware bowl to feed my outdoor cat, and his enthusiastic eating moved the bowl quite a bit on the rough, concrete patio. One day, I dumped in the kibble, and kapow--it just shredded. Scared the hell out of me & kitty. He wouldn't eat out of a bowl at all for a few days!

Tasso is a real boost to a chicken or duck gumbo (wild duck, I mean), but I don't use it much with seafood. I prefer a quality smoked ham (less spice) or more lightly smoked & spiced sausage with shrimp, crab, and/or oysters (though tasso & oysters are goo-oood together in other ways).

I keep loose tea & standard bagged tea in my desk drawer. The loose tea gets brewed in a two-part infuser cup (if it is chunky) or placed into a fold-over bag (if fine). I use the hot water dispenser on the office spring-water cooler--it is set at the perfect temperature (to me--hell, I don't know what temp it is, I just know that it's drinkable very soon after dispensing...not too hot).