baroness

I am moderately(?) lactose intolerant. I can eat small amounts of hard, aged cheeses but *cannot* handle milk, cream, ice cream, and soft cheeses such as ricotta.

Here's my Aunt Minnie's Spritz (Swedish style) 1 cup room temp butter 1 cup sugar 3 egg yolks 1 tsp. pure almond extract 2 1/2 cups flour Decorations as desired: colored sugars, nonpareils, etc. Cream butter and sugar; beat in egg yolks, almond, then flour. Place in cookie press and press cookies onto sheets. Decorate as desired. Bake at 350 for about 10 min, or edges are very faintly brown. Makes about 6 dozen. These are delicious straight out of the oven, but improve with age - if you can manage to forget about them...

If you don't want to pay the because-it's-WS upcharge mentioned above, they do sell Microplanes and some other tools at list price; their stores have a wide supply of interesting cookie cutters at reasonable prices, too.

Lior, do tell more! Are these cookies filled? They look wonderful.

If you have patience and a bit of artistic flare, you could plan out a mosaic pattern using the various colors. Bake a sheet pan of brownies or other bar cookies until barely done, then press the candies on top in the mosaic design.

A Safety Note -- for those lovely cocktail picks: Most inexpensive glass beads, particularly those made in China and India, have not been annealed, or properly annealed. This means that there is a great deal of stress and tension from the lampworking process in the glass, and the beads may suddenly pop or split, seemingly for no reason. One way to cull the chanciest of these beads would be to freeze them for several days, then dump them straight into a large pot of boiling water -- while wearing safety glasses. If you buy your beads from an artisan on etsy, justbeads, ebay, or the like you will get properly annealed beads. They may be more expensive, but they are worth it. Disclosure: Yes, I am a glass artist, but do not sell on any of the above venues. Please be safe as well as pretty!

Those do sound good; the chicken stock would need to be omitted for the vegetarian version.

Since your appetizers are quite substantial, and you are serving soup as well, your main course could be rather light. Mujadarrah (spelling?) popped into my head -- a simple but delicious dish of rice and lentils with lots of crisp caramelized onions on top. You could do dolmas (stuffed grape leaves, with or without meat) as well. As both dishes are rice based, there's not a gluten issue. How about something dark chocolate with those pears? Korova/world peace cookies or just some good-quality chocolate...

I concur. Do have a repair person look at the oven; there is something wrong inside. I don't think a pizza stone will solve anything that you describe.

Dried figs will have a richer flavor, therefore your cake will be "figgier" than the original product. You will most likely need to poach the dried ones briefly to hydrate them.

Alana makes some good points; it's wise to have at least one non-red meat main dish, whether it's vegetarian or poultry (or both). Gfron, you mentioned wanting to use pinon and pomegranate. A simple but tasty way to use the former is to add a generous amount of toasted nuts to string beans and well-browned shallots or onions. Pomegranate would make a lovely poultry glaze, or perhaps sorbet.

AKA "Mostly Martha"

Actually, there are two: Food To Die For: Secrets from Kay Scarpetta's Kitchen, and Scarpetta's Winter Table. I've made some of the recipes from the library's copies and found them very good.

I agree on the lower heat, and removing the pan when popping slows. I don't agree with the 'no shaking' policy, though. If your popping pan is very shallow (skillet), it may work...but a deeper pan (saucepan) needs shaking or stirring of some sort to force the heavier, unpopped corn to the bottom. And if that's a bit more work than microwave, so what? It's *so* worth the effort!

For those still faced with turkey leftovers, King Arthur Flour has several ideas on their blog, including turkey pot pie in herbed bread rolls: click here! and turkey with dumplings.

Try this: Extra-Large "Caramel" Kernels

If you mean non-scented/flavored black teas, I would suggest something in the Assam or Keemun ranges. You might also like Scotch or Irish Breakfast types.

For a softer set/gel, you could use arrowroot or cornstarch. Either would thicken the sauce but not make it as bouncy as gelatin would. For bouncy, look up some recipes for cranberry-jello salads.

Chris, Would you mind checking what type of plastic the ingenuiTEA is made from (the number inside the triangle)? I like the concept, but am hesitant to pour boiling water into, and steep in, plastic with all the recurring talk of the hazards of heated plastic. Thanks!

I just tried this, and mine burned. I was doing nearly high (8 on a 1-10 knob), then turned down to medium when it started popping. It's not badly burned, but I'd like it less so. ← I'm not SusieQ, but I suspect your heat was far too high. Try a batch all on medium heat, or even lower if your pan is on the thin side.

This is my favorite Whirley Pop recipe; you could (gasp!) omit the cinnamon mix to make kettle corn.... Cinnamon Crunch Popcorn Mix 2 tsp cinnamon with 1 T sugar and 1/4 tsp salt; set aside. Put 1/4 cup each popcorn, oil, and sugar into popper and pop the corn. Remove from heat and pour in cinnamon mixture; close lid and stir (off heat) to mix.

Of supermarket popcorn, I buy Jolly Time WHITE. The white variety is more delicate and I prefer its taste. For fancier corn -- which is worth it, flavorwise, if you eat it without seasoning other than salt and pepper, try baby white, blue (my favorite), lady finger, or red. Here's a good source! Most of these recipes are written for the Whirley Pop - I haven't made popcorn any other way for years! , but they may help you out: click here!

Lidded mugs are handy -- as are tea cozies -- to keep the tea at serving temperature.

I have many teapots. The ones I use the most for black and green teas are the BeeHouse brand from Japan, 2 and 3 cup sizes. They have a generously-sized steel mesh infuser basket, but you can leave it out if you wish. They POUR extremely well - gracefully and without dripping (many, MANY pots drip!). I did buy a Chinese rip-off of this brand online and was very disappointed in the finish of the pot and its basket, and it dripped like mad...now it is a vase. The Bodum tea presses also get a fair amount of use. Cleaning the pots is a breeze; doing their baskets and plungers is rather annoying. For oolongs, I like my old reddish-clay pots (some with clay infusers) bought in Chinatown. Single cups, which are rare for me: a SwissGold infuser basket designed for cup brewing. I do have some of those do-it-yourself tea bags, but must admit I have not used them.

I would suggest you bake them, freeze in the pan(s), and refresh in the oven just before serving.