Kouign Aman

Hi Katie. My name is Kouign Aman and I am an addict. I also like Costco or TJ's frozen gyoza.

Congratulations! This one could be an easypeasy upholstery job if you have a staple gun. Buy the pointed staples. Make the seat a box, with removable lid (the part you sit on). Apply padding, lay fabric over the padding, staple to bottom of lid. You can do something similar to the side of the box that will touch your lower legs, or you could paint/varnish/whatever that. For the back rest - ditto: apply padding, lay fabric over padding, stretch and staple to back of the seat. Then attach that to the framework. If you want the back of the back covered, thats a bit trickier, requiring careful folding at the top, and stapling the bottom to the underside of the back. Travertine - yum, how pretty that would look.

Whew! I caught up in time to say "Thanks!". Stove top mac'n'cheese, rhubarb pie (no strawberries), etc. I am now STARVING. Good luck with the rest of the kitchen in getting all the details fixed just so.

Ya hate it so much, make real lemonade for them to buy.

Oh hell, any bacon (including streaky), any white bread, any butter, and its good. Improvements to all or any of the above can make it better, but its damn hard to make a bad one. I love the precise cooking times and temps, without precise slice thickness.

Well yes, that is why cooking is fun, and none of those dishes you list take very long to make. I'd not 'saturate' during the preparation of any of them. I'm thinking of meals when I'm in the kitchen for 3 hours or more. Its not just smell, at least for me. Its all the little tastes along the way as well, and the feel and the look... so in fact all the surprise is gone. And as Busboy notes, that's not always a bad thing!

Im glad Im not the only one! This happens to me only with meals that take a long time to prepare, so the sensory saturation idea makes sense to me. I've stepped outside and refreshed my nose, and then stepped back into the powerful smells, and sometimes I've HATED them & had to air out the entire house. I've served several dinner party meals where I filled up on rolls and butter. I knew everything on the table was good, from tasting it and adjusting seasoning as I went along, I was hungry, but I was done with the food I'd cooked. It did make a nice warm lunch the next day. Fortunately it doesnt happen every time. Its disconcerting to be cooking, thinking oh no this stinks, and have someone walk in and say wow that smells good. But its much better than having it happen the other way around! editted to fix typos

We've got polished granite. We don't cut on it for the sake of our knives, but we've put hot pots on it, slid things across it, etc and never a scratch do we see. Ours is very dark and I'm wiping it constantly not because it shows dirt, but because it doesnt*. So I can't tell if its clean, so I get paranoid. * I have to get to a low angle to see spots, crumbs etc easily.

In a red-hot minute, for 3 dinners a week.

I wonder if there is a similar protein in artichokes. Everything seems to taste sweet after eating them, especially after eating the bottoms. Fascinating. And that's a diabolical idea for the dessert contest! editted to add: I'd like to know more about why the FDA didn't license this stuff. There is at least one mis-statement in the "Sweet Lime" article. The author claims "Glycoproteins are known to be completely innocent of any toxicity and are readily metabolized by the body." Just as a reality check - ricin is a naturally produced glycoprotein rather famous for its very high degree of toxicity; its very nasty and poisonous indeed.

My folk's trifle. They messed with Vincent Price. I dont mess with their version. My dad's cheesecake, which HE messes with recently, but I dont. No change has been an improvement. Apparently it came via a co-worker, who got it off the Philly creamcheese box some 35 or so years ago. The RumBall Recipe. I got it at a potluck. As said by others - no need to mess with perfection.

Yum, malted milk eggs. What an undertaking - to blog and reload the kitchen at the same time, while whooping the ass of the GC. Good luck all round!

Now I wanna throw a party, invite y'all, and hand out grading sheets afterwards. You may keep or remove your shoes, as often as you like. You may wander anywhere the doors/gates arent closed. I will clear the table and do a bit of cleanup, so I have room to deliver more food/drink. You may spill red wine on the pale carpet. You will not be the first nor even the 10th. I will spend too much time in the kitchen, fussing, because I like to fuss. Someone will open the sliding door because its too hot. Someone else will freeze. The coat closet is free access. I have many to lend. And when the end of the party has come, even if not all the guests have figured it out, I will start cleaning up as discretely as possible in the kitchen (loading dishwasher, rinsing and soaking, putting away food, etc). You are welcome to take a seat and chat as I do. If you are still here by then, you're probably some kinda family anyway (by choice if not by birth/marriage). You may have a pillow and blanket for the asking. If its late, one of us will walk you to your car. If you are parked far away, one of us will most likely go get your car. I hope I remember hummingbirdkiss's way of handling the over-imbibers. Excellent! So, you are all invited, date and time TBD, probably mid-July. Its nice here in mid-July. Please remember to take a minute or two and fill out the evaluation as you leave. If you forget, it will be pre-addressed and stamped, so you can drop it in the nearest postbox when you find it. Format will be buffet as we can only seat 14 max and they'd better be VERY good friends. <editted to correct bad proofreading...sigh> <editted again, to add: one of the perks of staying late and taking that chatty seat is to help me finish off all the little bits of good things, and that last bottle of wine, and hey how about a glass of this liqueur / port whathaveyou thats open...>

How dare you. ( ) (Almost forgot to add my laugh. How dare *I*. ) ← Oooh baby, I dare!

Thing is, when I pay for a "nice" "high-end" meal, I want to relax and enjoy it. If I'm full-time monitoring my kid's behaviour, then I cant. If I'm leaping up to take the kid to the porch to blow off steam, I'm losing the flow of the meal. Since not full-time monitoring my kid's behaviour makes it likely that folks at other tables cant relax and enjoy their meals, I cant have the kid present and not monitor. Therefore the kid stays home on these occasions, which makes my life easier, if more expensive.

I've always frozen braised meat and its fine afterward. Then again, I braise mine til it shreds, so the cooking process has already done a lot of 'damage' to the structure. Anything that stays too long in the freezer will get freezerburn. Ick. And ziplocs impose a flavor over time too. Very ick.

Clotted cream is supposed to be simple to make - slow oven, shallow pan, many hours of evaporation. I have not tried this. Pille, those eggs and arrangement are so pretty! I will be copying you, and thank you!

Chufi, maybe you can use clotted cream next time, which is stiffer? Our menu changed on Saturday. We ended up with: pot roast with onions, carrots, in red wine steamed asparagus in butter steamed artichokes with lemon butter scalloped potatoes If there was a theme, it was butter. flower-patterned sugar cookies chocolate coated orange slices chocolate-dipped strawberries (the chocolate did something very weird the first time I tried melting it. Not the seizing due to water drops that I've seen before. The second try behaved much better). Such an easy, do-ahead meal. Happy dance!

Aint that the truth! If its out, its for use and the risk of loss has previously been deemed acceptable. I cant imagine holding my breath for fear a guest would break something I used to serve their meal. That does mean some folks get to use glasses that other folks dont.... its all part of "know your friends/family".

I hear ya. The biggest thing we do is remind ourselves why we are entertaining. Its all about having fun with friends. We can get caught up in the 'management' of it easily otherwise. Also, if anyone offers to help near the end, we let em. I've had some of my best conversations over a sink full of soapy water, or covering leftovers. For those who wont commit, they get a call and if at the end of it its still vague*, we announce, 'We're so sorry you wont be able to attend, as we were very much looking forward to your company. We'll see you next time'. For this solution, we give thanks to Miss Manners. * and it matters. For barbecues, its not an issue for us. For sitdown dinners, it is. The late arrivals thing got somewhat easier with the advent of the munchkin. Now we can start serving ~ on time, because everything 'is built around her schedule'. She takes the blame so graciously too . But its none-the-less crazymaking. We've had the entire family show up 15 min after we planned to put the food on the table (ie 45 min late). We manage it, but it stresses us. Large gifts and flowers - I hand the giftee a vase and send them to the bathroom to get water for the flowers. We put the flowers on the piano (blessed be the cork pad) and everyone is happy. Food gifts tho, we havent figured out how to handle. The fridge is generally stuffed to capacity at the start of a party (dinner or otherwise). These kinda put us in a spin - no matter how we try to anticipate, its always the size and shape we have no space for! And as much as we love to have that fresh loaf of banana bread (fresh from your oven) in the morning, I have no place to put it while it cools. This is when I regret having a cabinet over the fridge. The top of the fridge was GREAT for that kind of temporary storage. Shoes - my friend just meets people at the door and says please leave your shoes here, thanks. and waits while the guests de-shoe. I had one friend who'd get exuberant after half a glass of anything (soda, wine, whatever) and start laughing and thumping both her feet down on the floor really hard (a version of slapping ner sides, I guess). I never figured out what to do about that. We'd explain about the neighbor, but 10 min later she'd forget. Cleanup is cleanup. Its worse the next morning. Bless the dishwasher. One of the nice perks of a freestanding home is being able to run the vacuum cleaner as soon as the last guest leaves.

I love the idea of the seafood pot pie, and have never thought of roasting an artichoke. I think you used the leaves perfectly. Steam - dip - snack. Thanks for sharing the game.

I can taste the difference made in my coffee by the different sugars. It is a nice option when drinking coffee. "Sugar-in-the-Raw" is one of our splurges. I think its equivalent to turbinado. I'd love to try demerara in the coffee sometime - havent seen it. Brown sugar doesnt work. Its nice to have different sugar to sprinkle on things as a finisher - the larger crystals for a texture and burst of sweet, as well as for the sparkle. Maple sugar goes well on sugar cookies.

Roast chicken Asparagus Carrot rings scalloped potatoes artichokes if I see nice ones in the store (seems early but somewhere I read they are available) Dessert will be easter baskets. We shall all 'liberate' bits from the basket of the smallest member of the gathering, who is the only one who will have an easter basket. Unless the husband prevails on me to make icecream...hmmmmm

Kisses backatcha, dahling. I have to go label forks at Olive Garden so the progeny can practice their table manners. We bring our own fish forks, naturally. Also fish knives, and all those other dahling little victorian sillinesses. Cocoa cups, anyone?

I know a woman who, as a young child (<6 yr old), was so well behaved in restaurants that she was invited back to visit the kitchen in several restaurants both in Britain (in the 60's when kids did NOT go to restaurants in Britain) and in the US. Her parents were frequently complimented on her good manners. (I have these stories from her parents.) On a short vacation trip to France, they decided to eat in a local casual restaurant for dinner one night, and ordered crab. The crabs came, each cut in half across the shell, each quite large on the plate, and bright red. This completed freaked the girl who began crying and could not be hushed or consoled until her crab was removed. Apparently it terrified her. Every kid has a bad day, and sometimes there isnt much that can be done. The parents could and did take her out til she calmed, and then brought her back in when it would all begin again, until finally they gave up on the crab and had it removed. But they were on vacation and had to eat somewhere. Leaving at the first sign of tears was less of an option than it usually is. And of course, the restaurant staff was offended by the behavior of the American child. C'est la vie. PS she likes crab now.