Dianabanana

There's also Orange Mate/Lemon Mate/Grapefruit Mate--air fresheners that are just citrus oils. Because they are essentially food, they don't seem as wrong when used to combat cooking odors.

Well, call me cynical, but . . .

Those spray air fresheners are absolutely hideous and I forbid you to use them! It works pretty well to put a small pot of water to simmer with nice-smelling things in it, like lemon or orange peel, ginger, cinnamon, etc. Or you can get out the big guns and boil vinegar.

kellytree, what a lovely and talented daughter you have, and what a lucky girl she is to have a mom who facilitates her cooking adventures!

My bag of Woodstock Farms Organic frozen cut spinach has the USDA Organic logo on it, then says "Product of China." What gives?

I don't think using a laptop would actively bother anyone. I think the issue is that a person using a laptop is closed to social interaction in a way that a person with a yellow pad and pen is not. When a room starts filling up with people using laptops, it starts to feel cold, and that's the opposite of what you want in a bar.

Whitman College? ← Ooooh, you're warm!

Late to the party as usual, but I'm in now! My copy of the book was on my doorstep when I got home last night. I changed right into my jammies, made myself a cup of tea, and settled in for a nice, long read. I was out of most everything normally needed for baking so I thought I was safe--but then ten minutes later there I was sliding Parisian Apple Tarts into the oven. Turns out I had puff pastry scraps in the refrigerator from the night before, and one apple! Thanks, Dorie!

Before I sent him on to his next destination, I took one more shot of the bag. Can anyone identify this mystery location? Hint: It's 4-1/2 hours away from Seattle.

I've been making a pecan pie from Cook's Illustrated since 1989, which is when I clipped the recipe. I've never had a pecan pie I liked better. However, a month or so ago I made the Maple Walnut Tart from RLB and immediately knew that the pecan pie had lost its place on the Thanksgiving table! We liked it so much that I made three of them inside of two weeks.

I checked out the stuffed pumpkin and it really is beautiful. One more thought--Deborah Madison has lentils with wine-glazed vegetables in her Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone--you could do that and top with puff pastry. It would be sufficiently impressive, go with other Thanksgiving food, and give the vegetarians their protein, too.

God almighty, this is something I never could have imagined in a million years! I just can't get over it. It's like a weird reverse Back to the Future. Indian pizza joints? I looked at the map and I know exactly where Moksha is--it's right near my old house. I am so glad I read this thread. I have sometimes thought of going back there just to take a look around, but I think I would have had a stroke if I'd stumbled on all of this unawares! Here's the weirdest bit: I now live in a very small town in Idaho, and am friends with someone in my same profession here who, amazingly, also lived right off Oak Tree Road at the same time I did, although we never knew each other then. He's going to keel over when I show him this! Edited out typos due to state of stunned disbelief.

Reading through this thread is just incredible to me. During high school I lived just a few blocks off Oak Tree Road in Edison, but haven't been back since. Only during my junior and senior years did we start seeing a few Indian families moving in--I distinctly remember seeing girls in saris at the public library and it was an unusual sight. I went to Catholic school but I think even the public schools were virtually all white. Oak Tree Road was nothing but strip malls, fast food, and gas stations. It's hard to believe what you guys are describing! It makes me sad to think of all the crap I ate as a teenager compared to what you can get there now. I hope someone will take pictures not just of Moksha, which sounds amazing, but also of the neighborhood. I would love to see it.

Last year for a fish main at Thanksgiving I did seared halibut on a bed of pan-fried potatoes, corn, red bell peppers, and onions, with chipotle sour cream. The thing that was so great about it (besides being delicious) was that it went really well with other traditional Thanksgiving sides.

All we ever hear about now with herb-flavored oils is the risk of anaerobic bacteria. Interesting!

Blech. Add me to the "take the money, keep the cookies" camp.

You know that head-exploding feeling you get when you're tasting something intensely wonderful? I'm getting that just from reading about this.

God that looks delicious! I've only had fresh yuba once, but it was extraordinary. My husband and I were visiting Nikko on a freezing February day. By the time we thought of dinner it was getting dark already, and we discovered that many of the restaurants were closed for the season. After a long, ridiculous comedy of errors, stumbling around in the dark, unable to speak the language, abandoned by our taxi driver, frozen to the bone--miracle of miracles, the door to a beautiful French chateau opens and we are greeted in perfect English by a lovely young man who had been an exchange student in Kansas! The restaurant was technically closed; I don't know what they were doing there. Somehow the topic of yuba came up and we expressed an interest--so although it was a classical French restaurant, no yuba on the menu, this lovely young man disappeared into the kitchen and began to produce course after course featuring milky fresh yuba. We were the only people in the big, dimly lit chateau. What a strange and wonderful evening.

Okay, you're next! The rules of the game seem to be: 1) sign the bag with your name, city, and date, 2) take a picture of the bag near a local landmark, and 3) the person who sends it to you will tell you where to send it when you're done. So Kent already told me to send it to Jen, but I'll tell Jen to send it to you.

I'm like a five-year-old sitting in front of the oven window, watching my baked goods rise.

Seattle! Sunbathing out on the deck with Bunny the Sheltie. Next we're off to . . .

Well, I just asked about this over in a Polish culture forum, and the reply was very interesting. They said that although they have red and white flowers and so forth to express patriotism, there is no particular dish meant to evoke the flag. The part I found surprising was that they don't associate particular colors with holidays, either; e.g., no red and green at Christmas.

when are you coming to my house? I love cherry pie! ← I have a big bag of pie cherries in my freezer . . .

There isn't anything unfortunate about this--it's dialect. My grandparents, who came to this country from Puglia when they were well into their 30s, said "manigot." They also pronounced ricotta "rigot"; mozzarella "moozadell"; melanzana "melanzan"; prosciutto "prozhoot," and so forth.

Pyrex, and I got about a dozen of them for $1.00 each at a Corning outlet, which lets me bring a pie and leave the plate as a gift for my host.