Porthos

Nice looking haul.

I found the recipe I was referring to: Irish Drunken Cake, found on www.eatthelove.com.

Going back to the keeping of lists and such, I am an extremely anal person about using lists. We have totes with our vacation stuff in it. I still list out what I want to have at the lake and go through the totes to double-check. Same level of anal for my ren faire stuff. Since I have food in 2 different refrigerators, 2 different freezers, and other stuff staged in the house I pack every Friday night to the list. There is also a column for personal stuff. Who wants to run out of clean undies or my head meds. The good thing is this my system but doesn't have to be anyone else's. If the attempts at keeping lists doesn't work out, that's ok. You two still turn out an amazing amount of interesting food and cocktails. I raise my water bottle in salute to your long negroni. Cheers.

My bachelor kitchens we rather rag-tag even though I had been cooking since I was 13. Being a starving student didn't leave much room for upgrading my junky stuff. When my sweetie and I married one of the pans we were given was a 3-quart Reverware pan with steamer and double-boiler inserts. It was the same pan that was my potatoes and veggies mainstay while cooking the family dinner when I was in high school. Our steamer insert went MIA (I replaced it when I discovered the wonders of steaming) but we still have the double-boiler insert as well as the pan. My wife didn't cook until we were married but she cooks well. Where she really shines is desserts. Anyway, she liked the Revereware pan so much that we bought a second one. I have the one that is older than me that I used as a kid put away as a keepsake. We have a Revere 16 qt stock pot that we acquired early on. But my favorite early-marriage acquisition was actually a gift. My sweetie bought me a chef's knife for Christmas about 4 yeas into our marriage. It didn't my hand well so we went back to the store and exchanged it for a knife that was not manufactured for very long, a 10" Mighty Oak. It is still my primary knife 33 years later. I found a second one on ebay last year and that is my veggies-only prep knife. Our Hobart-era KitchenAid 5 qt mixer has been retired but retained. We choose to upgrade to a 6 qt to better handle stiff cookies doughs. But the 5 qt sits in a box waiting for the right time to rejoin a kitchen. Most of the others stuff has come and gone as various whims have struck us.

I took a look at the recipe MJX linked to. It is somewhat different. The recipe I used called for an Irish Cream Frosting. And I don't think it called for ginger. I won't know for many hours because I have errands to attend to after work and won't be home until maybe 8:30 p,m. PDT.

Sorry the weather has you down. I wonder if the Guinness cake is the same one my daughter and son-in-law asked us for for their casual after-faire-hours reception? I'm at work which means I'm away from my digital recipe files.

Regarding the silicone coating: if there are silicone muffin "tins" and such why would a silicone application to parchment be troublesome? I have never really had clean-up issues in my home kitchen so following this thread is for general interest only.

It may be similar to some other meals you've shown but it sure looks like a nice spread to me.

Silicone is commonly used on parchment paper. The particular brand I buy has Quilon ® as the release coating.

That was my thought also. Parchment paper is only good for about 400 degrees F. We buy pre-cut half-sheet size parchment paper for our home kitchen. I have never even thought of using it in a pan over flame.

The strawberries look wonderful. Strawberries are not hard to find in southern California, but tasty, flavorful ones are not so common.

So, I have been following the travels part of this thread on a map, but I can't seem to find wiki. Is it on the island or back towards Espanola? Perhaps Wikwemikong?

Those look so good.

I have no idea of what a "Candian" dish would be, except maybe for poutine. What would they be?

Looks beautiful.

Well said, Shel_B. I forget that some people use there microwaves for something other than re-heating and thawing.

I second the question of what kind of cooking do you do or want to do. You can't go wrong with Weinoo's list of basic items. If you live in an area with enough population to have thrift stores, you can pick up equipment there as stated above. You do need to examine each item you consider for hidden damage and it helps to know what a new equivalent would cost. I have a personal bias against glass and plastic mixing bowls. Glass can break and is heavy; plastic never really completely cleans up after being in contact with oils or fats. I strongly recommend stainless steel bowls. I've been married for 37 years and lived on my own for 6 years before that and have always cooked. I still add equipment to our kitchen to this day. Enjoy making your kitchen you own.

Do you ever stew rhubarb with a little bit of sugar to use as a side at dinner? I still remember going out and picking fresh rhubarb from my mom's garden, stewing it and serving it with dinner.

My faire nephew has started culinary school and the program he is in starts you in front-of-house.

scubadoo97 - I also love to cook. We were out making a day of thrift shopping and we knew that we would need lunch out. One of the thrift stores that I haunt is next to this restaurant and they always seem plenty busy. I thought it would be a nice change to try somewhere new. Just didn't work out that way. gfron1, I hope to make it to Silver City and eat at the Curious Kumquat (sp) some day. I have been to Silver City years ago on business. I thought about bad day but two things kept poppling up in my mind. 1) The other customers seemed to be getting wnat they needed and were being more attended to. 2) Having a second server offer to get us a box and then not do it added to the frustration. It still might be have been a bad day. I get that. But I don't eat plastic cheese and that was also very off-putting. Only sort of related (thinking about the plastic cheese) The is a chain in southern California that my DW and I dearly love, Farmer Boys. Since they offer breakfast all day long occasionally I get a Denver omelet. I have to order my toast dry, however. For reasons beyond me this mostly class act uses margarine instead of butter. No thanks. Just bring me some jam.

My personal tipping starts at 15%. If I get decent service and food, you get 15% If you make me feel better taken care of I'll go up to perhaps 20% If I did not find it a good experience down goes the tip. I struggle with leaving less than 10%. When my DW and I went out to celebrate our annivesary early this month we got server who was clueless. Basic idea: we had just been seated and he wanted to know if we were ready to order. I was a Wednesday and there couldn't have been more than 20% of the tables occupied. For reasons unknown to me the moved the servers around and we got someone who was a proper server, pleasant, knew the menu, etc. After he left the table the first time I leaned over to my wife and said "They just rescued the tip." We were well taken care of for the rest of the meal, felt welcome there and he got 20%.

Bravo on the Schweppes. It's superior, in my DW's and my opinions, to the offerings we find for our G&Ts. I've never seen Ruffles Poutine here in southern California. I'd centainly give them a try. How much travel time to get to Mindemoya? My guess is a generous half hour.

My wife and I went to a popular diner in Upland yesterday for lunch. It was our first visit. They were not particularly busy, Maybe half of the booths occupied. It may well be our first and last visit. My DW said she would be willing to try them for a breakfast. I'm not so sure. The food. We both ordered cold sandwiches off of the menu. My DW ordered a turkey with cheddar, I ordered roast beef and Swiss. They left the cheese off of my sandwich and put American cheese on her sandwich. It took about 10 minutes to get some slices of Swiss cheese brought to the table so that I could add them to my sandwich. I ordered potato salad and it was most decicedly from a commercial food producer, not bad, just surprised. I shouldn't have bothered waiting for the cheese. It was, like my DW's cheese, plastic cheese. The service. After our food was delivered and I got our server's attention and asked for the cheese, I watched her deliver food to several tables, then saw me looking at her and that look of "oh, he still needs cheese!" came over her face. Our server did not come by the table once to ask if everything was ok (witness I had to flag her down to get my cheese). When she noticed that my plate was more or less empty she came by and asked if we needed boxes. My wife asked for one. Our server then went about taking care of other customers. After several minutes I told my wife I was beating down the urge to just go get a box myself. Another server happened by and asked if we needed boxes. My wife again asked for a box. I watched the second server then go about tending to her guests and even converse, I assume about business, with our server. At this point I went over and stood by them (the boxes were right there) and one of them realized I still needed a box and gave it to me. When we were preparing to leave a busboy brought us to-go cups of the ice tea and soda we had with our meal. It was an appreciated gesture but, if that is part of how they do business, why didn't our server ask if we wanted to-go cups of beverage. I begrudgely left a 10% tip since I found the food mediocre and the service attrocious. This diner has won awards from a local magazine that I know and respect. I don't get it.

Andiesenji, I really like the idea of the baskets. I was trying to think what I could use to contain and help organize stuff in the new freezer. Bask8 had not crossed my mind.

Our small chest freezer has been dieing an inglorious slow death. Our Costco brought in an inexpensive 16 cubic foot upright for $500. It took a while for me to be ready to buy one. I went to Costco Friday night to make sure they still had some. They only had the floor model but had lowered the price to $450. When I went to pick it up Saturday morning they had lowered the price to $350 to get if sold. It is now in service and I am happy for $150 saved. I grew up with a chest freezer and my DW and I have had both chest and upright freezers over the course of our marriage. As our age-related health issues continue to increase I can say that an upright freezer is much easier for us to use. Just emptying to cooler into the new freezer was much easier than unloaded the old one.