NeroW

That sounds familiar. When I first started cooking (for him, bless him for helping to set me on the path ) I was entranced, but had to look at a book for every little thing. Now I use recipes much more as a guideline or inspiration, in the same way I read a few poems from a book before I write. I read recipes every day, whether from my mom's weird old cookbooks where everything is en gelee (I love the pictures!), from my cookbooks, or from the Internet. Rarely do I adhere exactly to the recipe. I almost always substitute. Like Jinmyo, I don't like to make the same meal twice unless it's a casual soup/sandwich thing, or a simple pasta. In preparation for school, I was told to practice the classics: the mother sauces, souffles, etc., so I have repeated those ad nauseum. If I could afford it and we had the shops around here with more unusual ingredients, I'd tackle new and fantastic recipes every day! As it stands we usually try about 4-5 new ones per week.

Berry Blue. Or Red. My last roommate ALWAYS had a pitcher of Kool Aid in our refrigerator. He was partial to the lemonade flavor, but would usually bow to me and mix the Red. I have a large plastic pitcher that is stained a lovely shade of Berry Blue-Red. In school some of the girls used to mix multliple packets of the Kool Aid powder with sugar, carry it around in a plastic baggie, and lick it off their fingers. The girls who were stained with Kool Aid powder were the "in" crowd. Or they'd cut a little hole in the corner of the baggie and dribble it directly into their mouths. You wouldn't have caught me dead doing that.

I also do this with glass jars. I've wanted to do it with my Tupperware, and then mark each container and its corresponding lid with some kind of matching symbol (which would also guard against theft: while rifling through friends' Tupperware drawer, recognizing your long-lost flat blue-lidded thingie, and saying: "hey, that's mine!" and having her say "no, that's mine"). Unfortunately I have done nothing, and it rains Tupperware whenever I open that particular cupboard. Oh well. Maybe if I spent less time on eGullet . . .

awbrig, will you elaborate? Specifically: chili-truffle? I'd like to stuff one of those cupcakes into my mouth right about . . . now. Pre-party V-Day: champane risotto with sea scallops (B.A. recipe), salad with toasty walnuts, pears, endive (I think endive, my sister made it and due to conspicuous champagne consumption I can't quite remember what greens she used). The S.O. actually made the salad dressing, which amazed us, as he is very shy in our kitchen. I was beaming with pride. gknl: I can't comment as I didn't end up making the cakes, much to the disappointment of the boss and the S.O. Working so many jobs doesn't leave me with much left at the end of the evening for baking, also I realized I don't have 3 9-inch cake pans. Saturday night ate at Emil's, an Italian place in East Lansing, MI. Cute spot, opened in 1912 or so, and we had high hopes. Disappointed. We sent the first wine back (it tasted seriously bad, like a Michigan basement), were served Campbell's soup (not joking, I've eaten enough of it to know, ) and my pasta shells were stuffed with that imitiation Krabmeat and covered with dark-yellow (??) alfredo sauce. Also, there was a burned spot on the top of one of the shells. V. disappointing. I envied the guy at my table who'd ordered a burger.

Thanks, Big Mac & Stephanie. When I watch the show, I'm usually laughing so hard I apparently can't understand my own language.

Quickie, working-2-jobs-cooking for my sister, my mommy, and my S.O.: Roasted huge pile of red bell pepper, crookneck squash, butternut squash, tomato, onion, zucchini. Smooshed it around with penne pasta, EVOO, my best balsamico and my best Parmigiano, and minced garlic and fresh basil to finish. Rustic and inexpensive, but yummy winter food. Gross store-bought breadsticks from supermarket. Current apartment plonk wine. Couple globs of tapioca puddin for dessert. Tonight making 2 Hummingbird Cakes (Saveur): one for boss, one for S.O. Expect to have frosting for dinner.

I also use epicurious.com for ideas and general browsing. Being of limited means, I read a recipe from the printed versions of Bon Appetit or Gourmet and think: "hey, that sounds good, howsabout I go spend $100 on ingredients I'll only use once for a recipe that, for all I know, may not turn out?" It's then that I turn to epicurious. To read about other people's successes or failures, and sometimes to share mine. There is no comparison between the forums on epicurious.com and those here, however--they are hard to navigate and the people who frequent them are just not . . . it's just not on the same level. Also, the pop-up ads are atrocious and some of the reviewers are just plain mean and nasty. I am not familiar with any of the other sites FG listed. I've tried Cook's Illustrated, but don't want to pay for the website when I already subscribe to the magazine. Cook's is a font of knowledge, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

I think that's the worst thing I've read here yet. Guilty pleasure: soft store-bought onion bagels, toasted, with butter and green shake-y "Parmesan" cheese.

I also use my Foreman a lot. Not the kind you plug in, just a big old heavy grill pan.

I've been thinking about this chocolate box all day, my sister and I were fascinated by it last night. I would never even attempt it. I do love Jacques Torres. At least he didn't add garlic.

I was looking over this exact recipe last night, thinking of this thread, and realized: "she CAN'T mean this." Whoa!

Yes. We still do this, but we are depraved, and probably not a good cross-section of any population.

Ever do the Stoplight shots? I think it's Hot Damn, creme de banana, and Green Apple Puckershots. While posting a few days ago, I forgot a drink that, unfortunately, entered my life again this weekend: Mind Erasers. Add these to the "outgrown" list. A pint glass filled with 2 shots vodka, 2 shot Kahlua, and the rest soda. 4 straws. Not sure about those booze ratios, but sure about the 4 straws. Drink as fast as you can. I will never drink anything with more than 2 straws in it again. 2 straws. Tops.

Yay! Good to hear from you Mr. Saran! Yes, they are from Gujarat. Unfortunately we don't have much in the way of ethnic-food groceries in this particular neck of the woods. When I get to Chicago next month, it'll be on my list of foods to search out.

Friday: pan-seared shrimp in pumpkin seed/tomatillo sauce with Basmati. From "A New Way to Cook," which I have been so pleased with so far. Saturday: beef carbonnade. Again. And Sunday: chicken au vinaigre and potatoes/carrots/onions cooked en papillote, or as the S.O. says: "hobo style." Didn't know how to match wine with vinegary food (??), drank water.

Perhaps you can tell me: Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to sample much Indian cuisine. I hope this changes when I go to London! However, my Indian friend's mom here in Michigan makes something I absolutely love and devour unashamedly. It's almost like a snack mix. She gives us big bags of it but won't tell me how to recreate it. It's called--chevru? chayvrew?--forgive my spelling. It seems really simple and it tastes SO good. Does anyone know how to make this?

You ain't kiddin. According to the bartendin' S.O., the current tipple handed to the sorority women by the hopeful fraternity men is something called a Purple Rain. Mixed like a Long Island, it is: Vodka Rum Gin Tequila Triple Sec Sour mix Chambord Good God! Last night, his bar's busiest night, he sold SEVENTY-NINE of the things. He also got to listen to Prince's epochal "Purple Rain" on the jukebox ad nauseum. And he reports that the women's bathroom was no fun to clean up after closing time. I pride myself on my abilities in the bar department, but this is beyond even me.

A few weeks ago I used some to make Sichuan pepper-salt, which I got from Deb Madison "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," and then I served the pepper-salt with dumplings at a party. I bought them at my Asian grocer. EWEddie later told me (on a different thread) that they were illegal. ?? Since reading this thread, I realized that what I bought was not (I don't think) true Sichuan peppercorns. There was almost no kick to them whatsoever: I was expecting to experience the whole "licking a nine-volt battery" thing. Maybe they were old? Any thoughts on what OTHER condiment could have been given to me when I asked my grocer for "Sichuan peppercorns?" Keeping in mind the darned language barrier, of course. She scooped them out of a bin and sold them to me in a little baggie, further adding to the intrigue.

There is also a super yummy one or two in Chris Kimball "The Cooks Bible."

Come on: what? A couple of years ago in Bon Appetit, there was a recipe for a champagne risotto with scallops. I had decent results using a bottle that sat open (i.e., that my roommates miraculously didn't guzzle) for about a day. I think the recipe was printed in early 1998. You can probably find it on epicurious.com . . . CHAMPAGNE RISOTTO WITH SCALLOPS Also, this recipe shouldn't be doubled. The champagne taste is way too overpowering. Edit to say: whoa, sweet! Software read my mind and linked itself! (insert theme from "Twilight Zone" here) Good luck!

So: my curiousity is piqued, as usual. What other drinks have we invented ourselves that we are particularly proud of, fruitcake or no?

Is it just me, or does gin make a man mean? Yes. Mine involves an elevator. Damn! This is a fantastic idea. Several of my friends would just love this.

Yep, I'm still running with the college crowd, and here reporting in from the Front. There are still a lot of these parties. But in these parts we call it jungle juice. The last jungle juice party I went to seemed more sophisticated: yes, there was the required giant blue Tupperware vat and fifty million empty gallons of booze next to it, and there was fruit--but someone had taken an actual melon baller and had filled the punch with melon balls! It was just delightful. I "just ate the fruit." Outgrown: LIIT's, Snakebites, Kamikaze, French Kamikaze, The Three Wise Men, Irish Car Bomb, Gorilla Fart, Prairie Fire, Blue Motorcycle, Baby Guinness, Orange F***ers (don't ask), Jager Bomb, Berenjager, any Ouzo drink, White Russians, Black Russians, Blue Maui, Sex on the Beach, any drink that ends in -tini and has colored booze or chocolate syrup or anything in it but gin or vodka. Have also outgrown the "keg stand": where you are held upside down by a bunch of other drunks over the keg, they stick the tap in your mouth and pour it down your throat until you collapse in a heap on the disgustingly dirty basement floor. I haven't seen a keg stand in a while! Or one of those beer helmets that you put on your head, put 2 beers in the special holders, and drink them rapidly through the long plastic tubes. But, I have been invited to a kegger tomorrow, will report back.

I am thinking of making this cake for the SO. If you don't mind my asking--did you follow the recipe exactly as written? To me, it seems it would be awful cloying and sticky-sweet--but that's my personal taste. It IS a cake, after all. Just had a piece of chicken, sauteed portobellos, and pasta. Trying to pare down.

Hamms. Schlitz. No, wait. Huber Bock. Huber is the worst.