Katie Meadow

Exactly. I love my ceramic spoons. I just sang their praises on the soup vs table spoon discussion. For wontons and wonton soup I always use chopsticks and the spoon.

Now you tell me! For 77 years I've been calling a tablespoon a soup spoon. I don't think I would want to use a tablespoon for dessert; that seems like overkill for rice pudding, flan or ice cream. For wonton soup or just Sechuan wontons in America those ceramic Asian style spoons are very handy. Wontons are the one thing that challenge my otherwise adept use of chopsticks. I can do it, but I like an assist. For some ungodly reason most of my husband's siblings and parents used teaspoons for soup. That's just weird. And they are all big tall people with big mouths.

Very clever. I hate soggy wontons. Our take-out Viet restaurant packages pho similarly. Broth in one container, noodles and everything else in a separate one. When ordering pho in a restaurant I always appreciate it when they bring the thinly sliced beef on a plate so you can add it in yourself and it doesn't get overcooked.

What is the difference between cream of coconut and coconut cream?

So you want to shave a popsicle without making one first? I wish I was with you and we could get high together. I'll bring the shave-ice machine we gave our daughter when she was seven, which would be thirty years ago. We can mix up a batch of flavored sugar water and freeze it in the provided mold and then shave it, and voila! Now that I think about it I'm surprised I never tried to make real espresso shave ice with that thing. And now I wonder where that thing is. In the cavernous basement? Under the bed? Under your bed? @blue_dolphin we may need your help.

When snag becomes gag. If you keep buying it they'll keep making it. I'd love to see the packaging for the Chinese version. Shelby you kill me. You're such a cheap date. When my husband disappears I grab caviar. The grape caviar is good, but the raspberry is better.

She had me at butter, she lost me at glucose, potato chips and pretzels. I would suggest trying the TJ's version before making your own. It's a labor of love. Or a waste of good potato chips. Compost indeed. I once went to the original Milk Bar and tried the cereal milk ice cream. Fawful, but then I was over thirty. I'm sure my four year old granddaughters would think they had died and gone to heaven. I shudder to think what would happen in the evening when the coffee grounds and the sugar take wing. Christina Tosi doesn't have a sweet tooth. She has fangs.

@blue_dolphin, you did indeed post about the lima beans before, but it was in the succotash thread. I have no doubt that I have repeated myself more than once (haha) in a number o f threads. So, for all of you who know me too well, thanks for not pointing it out. It's only going to get worse. I have a sister-in-law who told the same long boring story twice during one Thanksgiving dinner. Her excuse was too much wine. No one at the table was rude enough to call her attention to it, but we sat in stunned silence the second time around. That was a relatively memorable turkey day.

Did they cook quickly? Did you stop them cooking in time for them to keep their shape? I've always winged it when it comes to succotash; it's one of those things I didn't grow up with. I take corn kernels off the cob and sauté them for a few minutes with a little garlic and basil or other herbs. Mix the corn, lima beans and halved cherry tomatoes and a little red onion and dress as you like. If you are into bacon cook a few strips first, then fry the corn in the bacon fat and add broken bacon pieces to the salad. Would be good with Indio oregano and roasted green chile, you think?

I don't go there either. As a former card carrying member of the SF Mycological society I would never advise eating raw mushrooms, even the white buttons from the grocery store.

Like so many people I have rather negative memories of lima beans. Many years ago there was a man who sold fresh shelled butter beans in very limited quantity at the Berkeley farmers' market. They were fabulous. At the time I had no idea they were either closely related to lima beans or were actually lima beans by another name. I finally tried the RG baby lima beans. I cooked them very simply with onion, a little minced celery and carrot, and garlic, in vegetable stock. They cooked surprising quickly and a bit unevenly, and some did not retain their shape. By themselves in a soupy bowl with generous salt they were delicious. A drizzle of Frank's didn't do them any harm. They were really creamy, but not potato-like, more silky. I had intended to use some for a succotash, and I did, but I think for that purpose they might have been better if I had cooked them less, so they had more integrity. I think they would be great cooked with ham stock I think they are too delicate and cook to fast to make good use of a ham shank or smoked pork neck. My marriage to Domingo Rojo is now an open one..

@blue_dolphin How do you like to make slaw with it? What else goes in? Do you use it by itself with oil or mix it into mano? What else do you do with it? I've got a bottle of the one pictured on the right.

I tried the Delice de Bourgogne cheese today. Delicious, and a deal at $14 lb. One thing, though, it's pretty salty, so beware if you are not a person who likes salt. Still, creamy x 3 and rather addictive.

A hallucinogenic bolete? What's not to like?

Another vote for burgers on toasted bread. I hardly ever eat beef any more but once in a blue moon I get a great yen for a green chile burger cooked on the grill. Usually it's an Italian batard, or it could be rye. I just find those buns to be inedible.