Katie Meadow

No kidding. I drink my rye straight from the bottle. 750ml = one shot.

@Dejah so happy for you having all your family for the holiday. I'm coming to your house next xmas eve. You had me at wonton buffet.

I have no idea where my recipe came from. There are a bunch of recipes for Torta di Mele with Sambuca on line, but mine is different, possibly tweaked by me and/or others. My recipe is called Torta di Mele with Lemon or Sambuca, and offers an alternative using lemon and no alcohol. Plus it includes a topping, which most others don't seem to do. Another differencei is that mine uses only one egg, while most of the ones on line use four eggs. If you are desperate for my recipe I can figure out how to send it in a pm perhaps.

Excellent date for a birthday. Have a happy one!

I realize now my brain has holiday addle, or worse. I did not make an apple calvados cake yesterday. I made an apple cake with sambuca! But I do have a couple of recipes for apple cake with calvados. One is a David Lebovitz recipe called Apple Calvados Cake. The other is from Acadiana Table and is called Apple Gateau with Calvados Creme. I've made the Lebovitz one and it was good. The other sounds dreamy; it occurs to me you could make the calvados sauce and it would be great simply poured over a baked apple. I believe both are easily available on their respective websites. I make a lot of apple cakes in the winter.

Thanks, I also have a dedicated carbon steel omelet pan that I have used for over 30 years and is, in my estimation, perfect. I hope this new pan works as well for as long. By that time I will be 107. I'm also keeping my cast iron skillets in good condition, so when the time is right that day comes I will hit myself over the head with one of those, if I can still lift it. That should be a fitting end. By then my omelet pan will probably be useless because there will be so few chickens left without avian flu that eggs will be unaffordable for all of us in the 99.99 percent.

Perfect xmas dinner for the two of us: To start, homemade cheese straws left over from xmas eve party and a glass of gifted Rittenhouse rye. For dinner, gifted Domingo Rojo beans from my Napa SIL (she's got my number) made into a New Mexico style beans over rice. Pickled veg, also leftover from the party. And for dessert an apple calvados cake made after opening presents. That's not quite correct. It was intended for dessert, but, unable to resist, we ate it warm from the oven a couple of hours BEFORE dinner. Gift of note from my husband: a 12 inch carbon steel skillet. Gorgeous.

To be fair I must amend my remarks. The SIL who can't cook has become a vegan and I wouldn't put it past her to omit butter from whatever she ends up making. So let's be charitable and say that's the cause of any crisp failure. And I adore her, no matter what.

Behind the bubbly: evil greed yes, surprising not so much.

We will be six boomers and six millennials plus some partners. Half, cutting across the generations, are vegetarians. There will be an eggplant parm, various salads and sides, and one of my nephews makes dynamite sri racha chicken wings. Our contributions will be cheese straws from Edna Lewis and smoky roast almonds to add to the apps, raw carrot salad that is Indianish and pickled vegetables. The sister-in-law who can't cook is doing dessert this year. I hope she doesn't bring her standard, which is a pear crisp of sorts that typically has undercooked under-ripe pears and oats that somehow stubbornly remain soggy. But there will be lots of Napa Valley wines and it will be a party. Cheers!

I second NY Noodletown. I've never had a bad time there. For chocolate, my favorite in all the world so far is Neuhaus, from Belgium. I'm not in NY nearly as much as I used to be, but I always made a detour to their Lexington Ave store. I notice they now have two other venues, one on Madison and another at Grand Central Station. Of course their chocolates can be mailed. And if you find yourself at Grand Central you can gawk at the amazing architecture and have lunch at the Grand Central Oyster Bar.

In my college years in New Mexico, when it was the right time of year, we would take a large blanket and drive up into the lower hills of the Sandia Mountains in search of piñon pine trees. We'd lay the blanket carefully under the tree and shake the limbs. Instant pine nuts.

Yes to Papaya King! Growing up on West 86th, Gray's Papaya was a short walk. But it didn't have the magic of Papaya King, which was a crosstown bus away. Glad to hear they reopened but I don't get to NY as often as I used to. But if I could go back in time it would be to Lichtman's Bakery, which was half a block from our apartment.

@Shelby I'm just curious. Last night I read a long piece in the Nation magazine about Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD. It describes the westward movement of the disease in deer and discusses at length the possibility of it jumping to humans (zoonotic). In some states like CO and WI it's so pervasive that every deer killed must be tested before you can eat it. Are hunters in your area dealing with that? I knew absolutely nothing about this until I read the article. Now I know more than I wish I did.

All the people I know who do a seven fishes dinner say you MUST have eel! Maybe just an old nonna's tale?