Katie Meadow

My best guess? it's a weapon to prevent cats from jumping up on the table. My next best guess? Something used to grab corn that accidentally finds its way into the kitchen so that you don't have to touch the corn itself. In that case either you invented it or you are the only customer.

Always good advice to avoid green, interior or exterior. Although if you glance at Houzz these days you see that green in kitchens is gaining fans. But it's not for me. Benjamin Moore Arugula, no thanks.

Do you mean the color of decaying food or the exterior paint color? It's a light grey now, and we're bored of it!

I wanted the chocolates, but he felt it was def time to paint the exterior. I lost the first challenge, but the real struggle is yet to come: what color? So far I am a little bit ahead in this one. Prep work should take three weeks or so. That means we still have plenty of time to strategize and undermine each others' ideas. We don't fight about money. We don't fight about chores. We don't fight about where to go on vacation. We fight about color. Needless to say he has some terrible ideas, however my positions are weakened by the fact that I no longer can distinguish pastels at all and am not reliable on hues of darker shades, either. This is not to say that we never argue about food. When it comes to anchovies, he uses too much. We also disagree about at what point rotting food needs to be be tossed.I prefer when it's green. He likes black. I thought I was getting back on topic, but no.

I really hope it isn't something I need.

If it comes to that, @weinoo, I want a divorce.

With roast potatoes or fries I like a paprika-laced aioli. Great idea to combine sweet and smoked paprika. It never occurred to me to simply flavor the salt. Sounds yummy. \ idea of combining sweet and smoked paprika

It may sound ordinary, but with martinis you can't go wrong with high quality Virginia peanuts. Or Marcona almonds. Give yourself a break! Keeping those saltines warm and crispy sounds very challenging.

I assume you have tried Tokyo Market and Ranch 99?

For a house gin we often use plain old Bombay. Sapphire is pricier and I don't actually like it as much. Bombay clocks in at 43%.

Thanks, you're a doll! Some of the recipes I've found (sans sel) recommend bread flour, so experiments will be made.

A question for you bread bakers: For cocktail hour in Decatur GA my daughter needed a quick carb fix and ordered a Hawaiian Roll which was actually listed in the starters. It came as a very tall slightly squarish chunk of soft fluffy brioche-like bread with a shiny brown top embedded with large salt crystals. It was buttery on the bottom, sweet and salty and utterly delicious. At another restaurant the same thing was simply served as a bread course, also with crunchy salt on the glaze. Also delicious. Then at a funky cafe they sold sweet rolls about the shape of a Mexican sandwich roll, glazed all over that had a similar taste, plus the salt and with a buttery crisp bottom. What are these? Just Hawaiian rolls topped with salt? And why was it so common around Decatur? I've looked for supermarket Hawaiian rolls, sold in trays of a dozen, similarly lofty and glazed but without any salt crystals. No recipes on line seem to have salt crystals on top. Anyway I'm craving the sweet/salty/buttery things. So maybe my husband, currently on a brioche learning curve, can duplicate the rolls we had in GA.

Girl, you are a cheap date! I'm a cheap date when it comes to martinis; I'm under the host after just one. But chocolate is another thing. My favorite is Neuhaus from Belgium. This year we had to decide whether to buy a box of Neuhaus dark chocolates or paint the house.

Over a lifetime of cooking I've collected enough spice jars so that I can buy my spices in paper packets ("refills") and rarely need to buy anything in little bottles. This saves money, and my spice source is high quality and local, which helps. Needless to say the spice bottles are not "matchy matchy." One benefit for me is that the lids vary in color, so I've accumulated jars with red, black, white and blue tops. My spices are mostly in four shelves, each about 2 jars deep. Each shelf houses jars with one color, loosely organized by use. This is the only way my husband knows where to put back any given spice once he's removed it from the shelf. I use a labeler, since years of washing out jars makes them appear tidy and clean, without funky paper labels. Just curious: I looked at the Penzey's website and see no indication that spices can be bought without bottles. packets Do any online spice purveyors offer 2 - 4 oz packets w/o bottles? Shout-out to @weinoo: I'm impressed you have saffrons, i.e. more than one kind. Oh, my one regret is that spice bottles have not typically been square.

In fact he did. He kept all the PB and dark chocolate for himself and gave only milk chocolate to the Reese's Co.

Sounds yummy! They ship to Namibia, Argentina and Vatican City among other places, just not to the US. Why?

Finally! For father's day, a sit-down lunch that the twins approved of and were willing to eat everything and hang at the table. Bacon, which is their favorite food group, omelets with Oaxaca cheese. plantain slices fried crispy in butter, and for dessert a churro coffee cake thing. To drink, Gabrielle Hamilton's strawberry milk. Whew. The plantains here are fantastic; they ripen well and are sweet as candy.. The ones we get at home are inconsistent and not as good. We're flying back this afternoon with a Vidalia onion in our luggage. No other souvenirs from Decatur. I would pack a peck of corn if I could, but it won't fit in our suitcases. v Ooops I meant to put this in the lunch thread. I wouldn't know a SV if it hit me on the head.

Fabulous and amazing it is.

My Ninja personal blender is at least seven years old and going strong. I love it. I think it was developed to compete with the Nutri-Bullet or so-called Magic Bullet. Remember those long-winded infomercials when they first came on the scene? I bought it after using my brother's Nutri-Bullet and found that it was more powerful and just all around better than the bullet.

You're in MT, so you must mean Mountain Oysters!

I dunno about that. I had a lousy one this evening at a pricey restaurant in Atlanta. A rather weird tasting gin and a wimpy tonic. No muddled lime and no mint, just a shrimpy wedge of lime on the rim. My husband makes a really good G&T. As for the Porch Swing, before last month I thought they were made with bourbon, which I don't care for. But a few weeks ago at a wonderful converted farmhouse in Becket MA called the Dream Away Lodge I had one made with gin. They must have had the very last bottle of Pimm's on the east coast. As soon as I get back to CA I'm going to pick up a bottle and I'll be in business. Recipes vary widely when it comes to the splash of soda. Some say ginger ale is good, which I do keep in stock. I find 7-Up too sweet.

Aggrieved by my daughter's low liquor supply we went out the other day and bought gin, tonic and Carpano Antica. It's very very hot here in Atlanta. I wanted a Porch Swing, but apparently the east coast is suffering from shipping issues when it comes to Pimm's.

As @Margaret Pilgrim observed, I too thought about where we all live, but in a different way.. I'm here in Atlanta on east coast time. The twins like to wake us old folks up at 7am. By 7:30 I was browsing on my laptop and noticed @Shel_B was posting. That means you were thinking seriously about this egg at 4am Pacific Time. Really? I wish you a better night's sleep tonight.

@Neely, old and picky works for me.

No pix. The thin crust comes out blistered and spotted and a bit crackly. Structurally good enough to pick up the slice easily; not the foldable NY style I grew up with. We like a rather minimal topping, just a thin coat of sauce, modest amount of buffalo mozzarella, a few shreds of basil, and very thin slices of tomato. If you strategically place the basil under the tomato slices you get a lot of flavor and no burnt crispy leaves.