Darienne

I suppose what I am searching for is some way to spread the applesauce more evenly. Even spreading abilities have never been my forte.

I can't do quarter turns on my trays, but I do half turns. I suppose really I am just venting. We can't like everything we have to do.

It's apple leather making time again. And I hate making it. I can't seem to get it spread evenly enough that the entire sheet dries evenly. Almost all of it will be dry and one spot will not be dry and rip into removing the finished product nicely from the sheet. Or I'll leave it all too long and get crispy shards in the end. Some is under dried and some is over dried. Has anyone any clever hacks to help me get the sauce more evenly spread in the pan? Oh, I do it in the oven. Apple slices I do in both the oven and the dehydrator. (And we can't make all the apples into slices. They are too wonky and mis-formed to put through the little apple corer/slicer and so they go right into sauce, unpeeled and uncored, and then into my food mill for finishing. ) Thanks for any help.

That's pretty much our routine. Ed loads it at night and runs it (after 7 pm when the rates drop a lot) and then I empty it the next day. I don't think we've ever put dirty dishes into a clean load. (But boy have we done other senseless things!)

This current situation in Canada is quite alarming.

I never got back on this one. The bagels from St-Viateur were not good. I didn't realize that my acquaintance used them only toasted. Well, toasting bagels is not my thing and I wa sorry that I bought them. Montreal bagels must come straight from the bakery and be eaten the same day. Sorry you did not enjoy a proper bagel in your visit.

I am on book five of a series about a French policeman, setting in the fictional town of St. Denis, in the Dordogne region of France. Bruno Courrèges is the character and the author is Martin Walker. There is so much about French food and wines and the making, eating and drinking thereof woven into each book. Quite wonderful.

Add me to that list. Shortbread cookies...now that's my weakness.

It may be early for you Yanks, but it's this weekend for us in Canada. We are not exciting at Thanksgiving and eat the same things every year. Turkey, savory stuffing, gravy, carrots, Brussels Sprouts, mashed potatoes, and for dessert my go-to Lime Cheese pie with a topping of 1/4 dark chocolate ganache and 3/4 milk chocolate. Our traditional guest (with her three... count'em...three Border Collies who seem to hate our two Rotties) from South Africa loves milk chocolate and after Ed and I each have a small piece of pie, she takes home the rest.

Dear PanaCan, just read your entry and my sympathies go out to you, your family and your country. And no, we'd not heard one word of your plight. all best, Darienne

That looks incredible. Any chance of a recipe?

Glad this is over for you @Margaret Pilgrim. But then you have to remember that it might have been something you ate 30 days ago...

It's all getting just a bit repetitious, don't you think? My S-i-L's best friend is just recovering from a dreadful onslaught of e-coli. I mean really scary. She's turned a corner finally. They do eat out a lot. I wonder. I did tell her about all the recent recalls.

And I did continue to prepare them bare-hands. Then a couple of months ago, Ed prepared a bunch for me bare-hands and paid a terrible price for it. And because this topic is all about the dreadful, stupid, careless, etc things we do, I thought I'd take advantage of it just once to say I just prepared a huge batch of Poblanos and Jalapenos and I wore gloves to do it. You see, I can learn.

(No access to the NYT ) Will add that Ed was taking a French course many years ago ...good heavens, about 57 years...in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and his prof gave the class a recipe for Tortière which we have used ever since. And the pastry calls for 7-Up.

My mouth is watering. You, sir, are a genius chef.

You beat me to it, @teonzo

The gianduja I bought was in milk chocolate...Guittard if I remember correctly...but I loved it. And our local dealer (of Belcolade) once gave me a piece of a Barry(?) milk chocolate and it was amazing. My more intense relationship to chocolate and confections in general has somewhat fallen by the way over the last five years...Carpal Tunnel Syndrome amongst the reasons...and so I'm not producing much any more at all. However, I do thank you for the information.

We do have them in Canada...we've just never purchased them. Now that I look up the ingredients I'm not in a hurry to buy them. We don't like milk chocolate and loathe Nutella. Yep, both of us. I did however once purchase a slab of Gianduja while in Utah, which was of course milk chocolate, and loved it...but not the jarred Nutella. I expect it tasted quite different going back a few decades. Still I expect Kerry's would have been quite wonderful.

Truly, I have never had one.

It may well suffice for most, but I have no idea what they are. Can you give me some kind of insight or recipe? They do look delicious.

Not eating any chicken recently...no particular reason why.....

It's the reason behind the reason... I remember the Maple Leaf problem quite well. And the one machine in particular, overseen...overseen?...by an inspector and the machine had not been cleaned...not once...in five years. And one thinks of one's own life, the constant cleaning and concerns for safety and health and so on. The never-ending-ness of it all. And five years not cleaned? Where does that sort of thing leave the mind? Not good stuff. Sorry. It just can't be dealt with easily. But then life is full of that...

It's actually quite staggering. Does any person/institute/etc write about why this is happening?

Great. Hotels, Restaurants, Institutional. Your elderly Mother in some long term care facility. Your brother in the hospital. Travelers on the road. Just what we needed next.