Marlene

My father would be 84 if he were with us today, and he did all the cooking in our house and taught my brother and I how to cook and how to look for meat and produce at the supermarkets and butchers. He wasn't jewish, but for some reason, he also did the salami and eggs thing on Sunday mornings quite often.

We really enjoyed Wolfgang's and frankly on our last visit, Captain Jack's was a surprise hit. I am not a fan of Sparks at all. The Old Homestead was really good as well. Here's our mini steakhouse review I'm hoping to try Porterhouse on my upcoming trip to Ny.

Judith, how lovely to hear from you! I've been meaning to try the no knead bread for a while now. I'm glad it worked for you and you're baking again!

it might help to first warm your milk, and add it slowly. Add a little bit and let that thicken before adding more. Once you've got the sauce to the thickness you like, take the pot off the heat and stir in the cheese until it melts. I tend to use a combination of cheddar and montery jack in my mac and cheese.

Agreed. I have one of these. My husband uses a steel, which I've never been able to master. But I love this sharpener.

Well, yes it is. I happen to love my sets of All Clad, Wusthof knives and Le Creuset, including the cute little petite tomato casseroles I recently picked up. I know how to cook, but it also happens that the sets I've chosen actually work very well for me. Conversely, I do tend to make my own spice blends and rubs. Those are easy enough to make up and store in tupperware (yeah, more sets) so I can reach for them easily enough when I need them.

Potatoes Gratin with white cheddar, tarragon and white wine: i've done a step by step breakdown of this at CK, which I'll also try to get up here after I get the dishes done, but a couple of keys to remember: Hot oven, (400 degrees), enough liquid. 3 lbs of potatoes to 2 cups of liquid. In this case 1 cup of wine and 1 cup of heavy cream. finely grated cheese, and resting time. Resting time is absolutely key to gratins. If you try to serve this right out of the oven it will fall apart. Resting for 10 minutes allow you to slice and serve easily.

Mike, the snow is finally about to hit here, but I have one more large butt in the freezer and possibly it could make its way out to the smoker this week. the turkey breast especially looks great!

I am a huge fan of frozen peas. In fact, they are on the menu tonight. While I love fresh peas, the season is so short that I'd spend a lot of time without peas if it weren't for frozen. Some of the frozen fruits are great, especially frozen cranberries, also another very short season. Some of us do make turkey and cranberries at times other than Thanksgiving! The frozen raspberries and strawberries are great for pies when those aren't in season, although I confess to paying an outrageous price for fresh raspberries to make the Napoleon yesterday. There's something wrong with frozen green beans and broccoli though. They just taste weird. And unlike Susan, I like frozen corn as well.

The gratin I'm doing tonight uses white cheddar. You can also use yellow cheddar if you like. I'll post method and finished product later.

OK, looking at this spectacular picture just produced a "light bulb" moment. All I've ever used to try to bake a gratinee in is pyrex. Is that where my problems have arisen? Do I need to find a Le Cruset and put my bank account in jeopardy just so I can have the most beautiful potatoes? ← Lol, no I don't think so. I did all my gratins in pyrex 9x13 glass dishes until I got the LC. My son loved that particular gratin so much he's asked for a gratin tonight to go with the ham I'm making.

I also have a Dacor convection microwave and I've only just started to use it, but I used it to convection bake my broccoli gratin yesterday as both ovens were otherwise occupied and it turned out very well.

No, I didn't make the puff pastry. I get all butter puff pastry in sheets that have already been rolled out.

For a dinner party tonight, I made the Raspberry Napoleon:

Very nicely done Jack! I'd be interested in learning more about the making of the champagne jelly (brilliant use of gold leaf) and the apple champagne foam. And the picture shows a Grahams port, not a Warre?

Sobeys still carries it in the shaker can (at least they did yesterday when I was there) Easy blend flour

I bought a lot of pre cooked foods then (pre made salads, rotisserie chicken etc) ate them cold, while sitting on the stairs, watching Ry in his car seat on top of the dryer, with the dryer turned on hoping against hope, he'd fall asleep to the vibration. If I was lucky, he'd fall asleep around 2.a.m. and I'd just take him and the car seat and place the whole thing in the crib. To transfer him out of the car seat was to wake him up and start all over again. He slept in 15 minute stretches with awake periods of 12 hours at a time for the better part of 9 months. He also got every virus known to man and his doctor said he was working his way through all 250 of them before he was 2. To look at this child was to invite a fever of 105 in the blink of an eye. My car knew the way to the hospital all by itself. In fact, one day, (by this time I had him in daycare a couple of days a week to get a break) the daycare called me and said he'd started one of those fevers again. I got in my car and was three quarters of the way to the hospital, when I realized I'd forgotten to stop and pick him up! Autopilot. And you haven't lived until you wake up one morning and realize that your 3 year old suddenly can't stand up, resulting in a three week stay at Sick Kids where I lost 15 lbs because we were afraid to leave his room to go find something to eat. I have many war stories. I also had a spouse who was working 12 hours a day shutting down a data centre, so I got no help or relief in that area. You'd be surprised what you can toss in a crockpot with very little thought or pre planning, but those premade meals at the supermarket were a god send. Those and a lot of wine got me through the first year

Maybe get a crockpot? I also tip toed for years and I did the white noise things in my son's room. I wouldn't let anyone turn a radio on etc because if they woke the baby after I'd spend 3 hours getting him to sleep, I was going to kill someone. Crockpots are great for this sort of time. you don't really need to plan ahead much (except to make sure you've got ingredients. Stews, chilis, ribs, can easily be bubbling away and are very forgiving for those nights when baby doesn't want to go to sleep and dinner is going to be way way late.

Rack of lamb, with a garlic, parsley, mustard and breadcrumb crust and Gratin Dauphonaise:

I did the Gratin Dauphinoise from Les Halles tonight for dinner.

Stew or pot roast comes to mind with that cut. Certainly something that needs to simmer for some time to make it tender. Blade is the same as chuck and it's what I use for those two dishes all the time.

did the roast chicken tonight. And served it with buttermilk chive mashed and sauteed green beans. Not shown is the pan gravy I made with the drippings rather than making a chicken jus.

Bouchon, absolutely. All About Braising by Molly Stevens for braising techniques and wonderful food all around The Silver Spoon and the Cooks books are fabulous techique books as well. I happen to like the William Sonoma "Mastering" series as well.

Cumbrae's. Their meat can be pricey, but boy oh boy, is it ever good!

I picked up a trio of spirit jams the other day. Champagne and strawberry, icewine and blueberry, and reisling and marmelade.