Pebs

Aunt Jemima's Pancake House. I remember thinking that the little silver dollar pancakes were the best thing on the planet when I was five. And the big heavy set lady dressed like Aunt Jemima scared the bejezzus out of me. Cindy

I will never again heat up Cognac that I intend to flambe a dish with in a tea kettle with a wooden handle. (or any tea kettle for that matter) While my family looked on from the family room on Christmas Eve, I basically gave them an impromptu flame thrower demonstration. Thank God the flame went out before the wooden handle could be burnt off.

I can lots of things. Red beets, golden beets, pickles, corn relish, zuchinni pickles, heirloom tomatoes that I grow, pears in brandy, pickled peppers, dilled garlic green beans, fruit preserves and more. My two favorites are roasted tomatoe soup and yellow pear tomotoes (I grow pear shaped cherry tomatoe plants that produce gazillions of these little yelow tomatoes) perserved in vodka and Bloody Mary spices. They are great in Martini's and Bloody Marys. It's definately not your grandma's canning recipe.

To throw another perspective into this mix, you might be surprised how lucrative a crackdown on these restaurants can be. I'm the finance director for a small city with a huge tourism base, and therefore we have many restaurants. Our police department frequently checks for the sale of both cigarettes and alchohol to minors. Even in our better restaurants. When caught, a restaurant can either lose their liquor license for 30 days, thus losing most of their business to their competitors, or they can pay a few thousand dollars to get it back. We've helped finance a few squad cars this way. After all, if your a cop, how hard is it to take your wife to dinner for the purpose of paying attention? Pebs

I will eat more varieties of fish and wild game. I will make the most of what I have in my kitchen cabinet, refrigerator and freezer including all the venison my farm friends keep giving me. I will find more than 5 morels. I will learn to make terrines that don't taste and look like meat blobs floating in clear jello. This year I will try sushi (ok... don't yell, I live in a small town in the midwest and I'm afraid. I will taste truffles. I will use the zuchinni and yellow squash I grow before they are the size of baseball bats. I will give more impromptu dinner parties for smaller groups of good friends, since those always end up being the of best times. I will stop feeling inferior for not being able to afford to go to all the fabulous restaurants I read about here, as it inspires me to learn to make what I cannot afford to order out. My kid will learn to appreciate the fact that I scraped and saved to send her to culinary school, ( something I always wished I could do ) now that she is earning a good reputation in our community for knowing her way around commercial kitchens. At least I can dream. I will teach my friends not to be afraid to invite me to dinner because they aren't foodies like I am and don't make bread cornocopias with appetizers spilling out of them like I do just for grins. Hot dogs and beer will make me happy as long as I'm in great company. I will read more books like "You Can't See Paris From Here" and be inspired by the people that can fullfill their dreams by doing what they love. Pebs