dianem

(Oh, and if people have recommended the Farm Boy brand to you -- I'm 99.9% sure their house brand is made by Green Table. It looks and tastes the same to me.)

For someone new to kimchi, I'd suggest the Green Table Organic. It's a Guelph-based brand carried at some Sobeys/Longos as well as smaller grocers and health food stores. It's quite light and fresh tasting, and a good place to start. Not sure who might carry it in your area but you can contact Green Table via their website to ask -- they have a store locator but it isn't working for me. For something a bit stronger/more pungent, Loblaws carries Wildbrine in their organic foods section. Both of these are vegan -- i.e. no fish sauce or shrimp paste.

A lot of them are, probably more than half. The biggest local taxi fleet's cars are orange with green on top and the next largest uses black with orange tops. But you see red, yellow and black as well.

My husband and I cook together quite often. This is a source of utter amazement to my parents and sibling, who have more traditional relationships (she cooks, he might grill) -- they stare as if we are circus animals. We have a tiny kitchen and it's a bit of a dance but we have had close to 20 years to get used to it. Typically he does the actual cooking, I do the prep. The opposite is true for baking. I do timing (he's hopeless at getting things to the table still warm, possibly because he does not mind cold food). I do most of the meal planning; it's just my nature. Sometimes he wants to make a specific dish and I just figure out what sides will work with it. It all works well, except if we leave a meal too late. If my blood sugar drops I'm not allowed to be around knives and am banished to the living room for everyone's safety.

Could just be an allergen elimination diet. I tested allergic to a very peculiar set of vegetables too -- peas, spinach, eggplant, peppers, and some others -- and when I first got the results I was asked to avoid everything for a while. Fortunately it turned out that there were only two or three foods that were really a problem for me, but without eliminating everything with a positive test and trying them one at a time, there was no way to tell which ones they were. Diane

I was uneducated before, too. I do not have a peanut allergy and do not know anyone who does, although I have a variety of fairly mild allergies myself, so I was a skeptic. My husband, who is a former medical researcher and always believed that parents overreacted, looked into it recently. This is what he found in the medical literature: even a small exposure to peanut can cause full-fledged anaphylaxis. The difference between peanut and most other allergies is that it is more likely to happen fast and hard. And even if you do all the right things -- use an epi-pen immediately and get the patient to the hospital right away -- sometimes people just die, and there is nothing anyone can do. That is apparently what is unusual about the peanut allergy. So yeah. Parents of peanut-allergic kids, and those who are allergic themselves, are paranoid. And yes, they are right to be so.

Oh, thanks for the warning! I've been tempted by the olive oil version for ages and almost bought it this week, but sweetness in mayo is unacceptable to me. I'll know to avoid it.

For Ontario, the obvious choice would be the butter tart. Mmm. Must find my butter tart recipe. d.

My weirdest experience was with a battery-powered peppermill with a headlight. No, really. My husband and I completely lost it. I mean, we laughed hysterically throughout the entire meal. We didn't mean to be rude, but it was just the funniest thing and every time our eyes met... well. It was hard to get the check. I think the waiters were embarrassed. For themselves or for us, we do not know, but it was a memorable meal. I have no idea what we ate, though.

"It's Fun to Fondue" by M. N. Thaler? That's hilarious. I don't have a copy at hand, but my father wrote and published that book. I think my parents still have the copper fondue pot that's featured on the cover of the first edition... I know nothing about monkeys, though. I still have my very first cookbook: Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cook Book. Still my go-to reference for "bunny salad" (place canned pear halves on lettuce leaves; add raisins for eyes, cinnamon candy for a nose, blanched almond halves for ears, and cottage cheese for a tail). Classic! d.

Perhaps someone took issue with the fact that he is an English-only bag. After all, packaging is supposed to be bilingual... d.

Okay, I admit it... we buy this stuff. Yes, it would be very easy to cook up a couple of chicken breasts and slice them and put them in the fridge. But in practice we just don't, and these make good snacks and a quick source of protein to add to salads and noodles to make a lunch. My husband and I go through a couple of bags a week. d.

That's true -- although it's not all of Atlantic Canada as far as I know, just the dozen or so stores in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This won't help chamekke, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if A Taste of Britain would make an effort to get pickled walnuts if they were requested. I have dealt with them in my (non-food-related) business, as they were trying to track down a product based on customer requests.

You didn't know because it isn't true. Dominion is part of A&P, along with Food Basics and Ultramart. d.

Sugar Pops became Corn Pops Sugar Smacks/Honey Smacks were always wheat. There has never been a sugar coated rice cereal ← Sure there has... I remember Puffa Puffa Rice very fondly. It was my favourite cereal. Only got to eat it at Grandma's, though... mom would never buy us sugar cereal. d.

I'm looking for all-beef gelatin. Any ideas where it might be found in the GTA?

You're doing the right thing, and it sounds like everything is going well. Perfection takes time to achieve, and you can expect to find some pellets here and there always -- accidents happen -- but bunny pellets are odorless and harmless. We keep a dustbuster on top of the cage for those times. Please pay for the pain medication. And for some to take home to give her in the days afterward. I'm assuming that your bunny is a female? Males are typically a bit less expensive, but it's the females who really need the operation (extremely high incidence of ovarian cancer). If your rabbit is actually male, you might wait and see, as he may calm down with age and no surgery. He's probably an adolescent and will settle a bit -- although if he starts to exhibit sexual behaviour you are probably stuck with neutering him anyway. I invite you to drop by ThePetsForums where I am the rabbit section leader, any time you want to vent. We can share our version of rabbit stew -- a lovely vegetarian meal you can enjoy WITH your bunny! Diane and Wilson, who says: Bunnies love banana!

My husband and I have lived with rabbits, cats and dogs. All creatures, including humans, vary in intelligence, but in general the rabbits are no dimmer than the cats or dogs. We have had at least one rabbit who was much brighter than our cats. Rabbit nails must be clipped. Rabbits can easily be litter trained, although you may need to have your rabbit neutered, as you would your cat or dog, in order to achieve the best behaviour (and to keep your rabbit from dying an early death from cancer). Rabbits will chew. They must, in order to keep their constantly growing teeth worn down. Rabbit homes need to be "bunny proofed," which mostly involves covering exposed wires and providing alternative chewables. Read the FAQs at the House Rabbit Society or buy a copy of the House Rabbit Handbook. If you are have questions or problems with your son's bunny, feel free to drop by The Pets Forums and ask in the Rabbits section. I'll be there. (And by the way, if your rabbit licked you, he was grooming you. It is social behaviour -- he's trying to be friends! See The Language of Lagomorphs for more about rabbit language and social behaviour.) Diane (and Wilson the house rabbit) Remember: Friends don't let friends eat friends.

Went out for lunch with a large group of friends from work and decided to try the Indian buffet place that had opened down the street. As we picked up our plates we saw a mouse. A very, very sick mouse. It staggered the length of the table, fell off the end, and vanished. Were they poisoning the mice? Did the mouse have a terrible, possibly contagious, illness? Or was this behaviour simply the result of nibbling on the buffet? We did not know. We did not care. We left. d.

Of course! I loved that stuff.

Kamasutra?

You're probably thinking of Grouchos. I've had some very fine burgers there. Even at their worst they are better than Hero. I had a very nice burger at HAL on Adelaide as well. Johnny's was a high-school hangout, which I loved at the time. Don't know if I still would! d.

Actually, it turns out that wasn't the case. When the final coroner's report was released, it stated that the girl also had severe asthma and in fact died of anoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to that condition. Not anaphylaxis due to the boyfriend's peanut butter sandwich at all. d.

Or black on red... what are they thinking? I have sometimes had to resort to the light from my cellphone screen to illuminate a menu. Now I carry a tiny flashlight on my keychain, and that works nicely also.