Dianabanana

I'm a Jif girl and so's my dog. Mine is crunchy and hers is creamy. Bunny's contribution to this thread is "Peanut butter and Kong, straight up!" Nine-thirty rolls around and she's there barking at me for her nightcap.

Dianabanana, check out the colanders/strainers that are rectangular and made of mesh, like a strainer, but with a frame that expands to fit over the top edges of your sink. The frame holds the strainer basket well above the bottom the sink, and they're way more secure than balancing a regular strainer on the sink edges/divider. I got mine at Linens 'N' Things and its one of the best inventions yet. ← Brilliant. Thanks.

I think this is an absolutely beautiful idea, and after being completely outraged by this http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118...4289705455.html article about how, in 21 states, women with breast or cervical cancer are denied Medicaid coverage if they weren't diagnosed at the "right" clinic, I couldn't be more supportive of your goal. Clearly you are not a person daunted by logistical complexities; nevertheless I think you might be glad if you stuck with just pumpkin and pecan pies for this first year at least (already I'm thinking this will be an annual thing!). Some few little things are bound to go wrong and at least this way you'd be dealing with fewer variables. I wish I lived in New York--I would love to do this with you.

Crushed red pepper. It sits next to my stove with the salt, pepper, and olive oil. When I'm on an Indian food bender, I blow through bags of whole cumin.

My gripe is with colanders with bases that are solid (i.e., unperforated) ring stands and extend from the bowl all the way down. When you pour a pot of pasta or whatever into them, most of the water goes down the holes in the middle of the bowl and is trapped by the base, so it backs up into the bowl. If your sink is (cough) less than scrupulously clean, then all the yuck must be getting washed back up over your nice clean pasta. It is next to impossible to find a well-made colander with feet instead of this stupid ring stand.

That's interesting. My husband likes bananas, but doesn't eat them often because they give him heartburn. Conventional brands of yogurt do also, but the organic brands with sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup don't. We were wondering whether maybe bananas are high in fructose. Maybe I'll see if he has a problem with organic bananas. MelissaH ← I hope you'll report back.

I've only eaten them with Cheerios or Shredded Wheat. Anything else is too sweet. An interesting aside about bananas: My whole life they've given me a stomach ache. Then about 20 years ago organic bananas became available to me and I discovered that they don't! From time to time I've tried eating a conventional banana just to see if maybe the problem has gone away. It hasn't.

Right, I had forgotten, but that was what prompted me to write to RLB. I had heard that French flour was not bleached. Now, it didn't occur to me that American recipes had more sugar/fat/liquid than French ones. Obviously this is true for some classic French cakes like genoise, but I find it hard to believe that no one in France is making American-style butter/chiffon/whatever cakes, or that all those cakes are falling!

And how long will they keep in the refrigerator? I repacked mine into glass jars with rubber seals, but that was many moons ago. Now I just eye them warily whenever I open the fridge.

I was interested in this, too, and wrote to Rose Levy Beranbaum about it. She said basically (not quoting here) that it had to be bleached in order to have the desirable qualities of cake flour, and that if it wasn't bleached, the cake would collapse because the flour wouldn't have a rough enough texture. I really dislike the taste of cake flour, though, and wish someone would come up with an alternative.

eBay! I never thought of that, thanks! Scott, I'm PMing you.

Well I did look on their website and they sell them in tins for restaurant supply, but I've no idea how I would go about getting one of those.

I just watched the CNN clip, and I wanted to say that I completely respect the decisions you have made regarding treatment. I am no Grant Achatz and the cancer I faced was not Stage IV, but I made a similar decision to forego the traditional radiation protocol which presented a risk of damaging my sense of taste or destroying my salivary glands, because I felt that I would not be any recognizable version of myself without the ability to enjoy food. I am doing just fine, and I hope that you will do just fine--better than fine--as well.

Does anyone know if there's a way to buy Fabbri amarena cherries for a reasonable price but also in a quantity that a home cook would be likely to use up in her lifetime? It seems to me that a large portion of my $16-$20 is going to pay for the fancy jar. I thought I saw these in bulk somewhere recently but can't for the life of me remember where, and now I am kicking myself. Edited to say that, for those unfamiliar with amarena cherries, these are the preserved wild Italian cherries in syrup.

This looks interesting. And the inclusion of some other wet ingredients may help offset the ricotta's tendency to be dry: http://world.std.com/~kcl/Rricottapie.html ← I believe that's the recipe from Carol Field's The Italian Baker. I thought that looked good, too.

I remember there was a yeasted muffin recipe in either Laurel's Kitchen or Laurel's Bread Book. I think it was called Everybody's Muffins, because it didn't have eggs or milk, as I recall. They were actually not too bad, considering.

Well I finally made something bad out of Baking with Julia, and it was Nick Malgieri's ricotta pie, which was dry, dry, dry. I don't understand how it could be so bad. I'm wondering if it was the ricotta I used--normally I probably would have used Polly-O, but I sent my husband to the store and he came back with Organic Valley. Anyway, moving on to my point, I'm now on a mission to find a great ricotta pie recipe and would appreciate any suggestions.

Amarena cherries and their syrup.

But what's in it?

Doesn't matter what kind of bread it's on, what's in it, what phase the moon is in--whatever it is, it gets cut, and it gets cut DIAGONALLY! Baguette? Check. Burger? Check. (Geometry is no obstacle to our unifying theory of the diagonal.) PB&J? Tuna on rye? Eensy weensy tea sandwiches? Check, check, check! In order to pleasurably commence the eating of the sandwich, it is necessary to have a pointy place to start. That's why they call it a starting point, people!

Ooh, forgot one: Express lane signs that say "10 items or less." It's fewer! FEWER!! I'll tell my husband that's what he can put on my gravestone: "It's 10 items or fewer!" I know I sound like a nut. It really bugs me, though!

I think that's a good way to put it--technically correct, impeccably fresh, but lacks soul. Also, I find the exceedingly oversized portions vulgar and wasteful. Went once, won't go back.

Is THAT what happened!! I made some grilled spot prawns with a pineapple/red bell pepper/red onion/basil relish in the morning and brought it to work for lunch, and the prawns were so soft I was really concerned about eating them. Huh! Besides cooking, how might my pineapple be "otherwise treated to denature the enzymes?"

Thanks! The only thing I have made with it so far is kinpira, so I will try your panchan. I would love to hear other suggestions for using it.

Refrigerated potatoes. Our local food co-op, which is ostensibly committed to the ideal of quality food over profit, does this. I have written to explain that this turns the starches to sugars and makes the potatoes brown too fast and taste weirdly sweet. They replied that they lose too many potatoes to sprouting otherwise, and so will continue to refrigerate them. Unbelievable. Having a completely separate "natural" or "organic" food section in the regular grocery store, forcing me to check in two places (normal section and organic) for each item to see what the choices are at that store. Checkers who comment on my purchases, especially the ones who ask, dumbfounded, "What do you do with [insert not particularly obscure produce item]?" I know this is my opportunity to spread the gospel, but I can't help it, it just annoys me.