Angela Knipple

We pulled up the layers of linoleum over our kitchen hardwood a couple of years ago and refinished it. The damp mop or sponge was always fine with a little light cleaner only on bad spots, but then we got a steam mop. Now, we don't need cleaner at all, and the results are gorgeous.

When my dad cooks ribs, he keeps the grill relatively hot to give it just enough time for the connective tissue to soften without making the meat mushy or dry. To keep it moist, he swears by a pan of diluted apple juice in the smoker. He never sprays the ribs because that does interfere with the bark. And I have to agree with Slamdunkpro - if your rub has a lot of salt, don't leave it on long. As far as doneness, what you're looking for is to have the meat tender enough to pull away from the bones at with only slight pressure, but you don't want it falling off them on its own.

I use my stick blender in a mason jar or my 4 cup food-processor. The milk frother is a great idea, too. And I didn't know that about blenders and mason jars. That is brilliant.

Mt Olive bread & butter pickles are one of my all-time favorites, definitely my favorite to pick up at the grocery store. Is it wrong that a small jar of those counts as a meal for me?

There are some great people around Memphis. This farmer changed our whole outlook on beef. He raises pastured black Angus that are the most flavorful beef I've ever had. And he opens his farm a couple of times a year for a big potluck where he provides the steaks. He ships via FedEx. Neola Farms This is our favorite pork producer. He raises Berkshire hogs on a farm in the Ozarks. Not only is the meat delicious, but there's nothing better than going out to his farm. You can just sit in the pasture and be climbed over by baby pigs, and the adults are as friendly as big dogs. He always provides a pig for the Cochon 555 events. He's also branching into lamb. He will ship. Newman Farm We're lucky enough to get some really great goat cheese here. These folks built a cheese cave last year, so we're starting to get some wonderful cave-aged products from them along with their original line. They have a cabin on the farm that's great for a weekend away from the city. They ship. Bonnie Blue As far as things that are only available locally, we have two wonderful grits and cornmeal producers - Delta Grind and Grit Girl. They both produce a full line of corn products - grits, polenta, cornmeal, masa - and throw in buckwheat flour or blue corn on occasion. We've also got some great bakeries. Cucina Bread makes artisan loaves (our favorite thing is to get her tomato-parmesan focaccia to eat for breakfast at the farmers market), and Big Ono Bake Shop makes sweet Hawaiian breads (their black-pepper-cheddar makes a great steak sandwich). Shoaf's Loaf actually grinds wheat to make bread every day. They make the most amazing ginger snaps. One of the busiest booths at our markets, though, belong to Las Delicias, a Mexican restaurant and tortilleria. They bring the best fresh tortilla chips with fresh guacamole, pico de gallo, salsa, and ceviche.

Yes, but not for too much longer I hope. Our house was built in 1912, so I know exactly what you're going through. We just make sure that all the room doors are open to diffuse the smoke as much as possible and we have transoms over the back and side doors that we can open to create a cross draft. The worst times for us have been the smoke from peppers when making mole and hot and numbing rabbit, but anything with a strong odor (fish) tends to linger at our house. We finally broke down and remodeled, so we should have an actual exhaust system in place within the next few months.

I definitely have a deli cup problem. They just seem so much more useful than weird sizes of rubbermaid with all of their specific lids taking up space. The worst, tho, I think, are my glass jars. My husband hates them. But they're useful, and it just seems wasteful to throw them out. There are the 5 bookcases of cookbooks/foodbooks. On the food side - condiments are bad, but jellies are the worst for me. I'll be at a farmers market or somewhere and see something that I haven't seen before or that looks good, and then it goes home and ends up on the infamous "jelly shelf". It just always seems like whenever my husband manages to talk me into getting rid of something, a situation comes up where I have exactly what I need because of the hoard. And so it remains.

It's not a fish fry, but this is something that I've never seen anywhere except in Memphis. Every year we get the Waffle Shop at Calvary Episcopal Church. Yes, there are waffles, but there's also chicken hash, fish pudding, and their famous tomato aspic. People cry during the summer because you can only get the aspic during Lent, and no one has ever been able to get it come out the same as the church. It's a beautiful thing. http://www.calvarymemphis.org/news/waffleshop.htm And for pictures, a friend went last week and posted these. http://www.eatlocalmemphis.org/2011/03/30/call-in-the-calvary-its-waffle-shop-time/

My father smokes a goose every year at Christmas. He says the lower/slower cooking helps to keep the meat from being greasy. He stuffs it with apples, onions, pears, cranberries, and raisins and smokes over a mix of cherry and hickory. It's always so good, and the smoke makes for a wonderful stock from the carcass.

I'm going to yes, but I don't think it's because it's Angus in particular. We buy our beef directly from the farmer, and the care he puts into their feed and exercise is what I think really makes the difference. When we ran out and had to get from the supermarket, the difference in color, flavor, and fat content was very obvious. That being said, beef from other breeds raised at the same standards is just as good when we've bought from other farmers.

He's not a famous fancy chef, but the chef-owner of my favorite Ethiopian restaurant loves the curly fries from Arby's.

For me, it really depends on the situation. We've eaten at communal tables and had great meals and great conversations with people we never would have met otherwise. My main complaint about most of the meals we've eaten this way are that most were served family-style. I'm the unsociable one in our house, and I really hate having to ask a stranger to pass a dish. When the meals are served normally or on a buffet, it's a lot easier for me to enjoy it. We went to an Endless Table meal, and it was honestly difficult to try everything because no one seemed to know which serving dishes were for which set of diners or how many people those dishes were supposed to serve. It's an experience, but it's definitely something that works best for me in small doses - a couple of times a year is plenty. Besides, it's a little tiring texting the speculative comments to my SO under the table.

We're actually in the middle of our kitchen remodel. We added much-needed space to our kitchen so that we can actually have storage. When we bought the house, the only truly usable cabinet and counter space was on the built-in butler pantry (about 5 linear feet). For my DH and me, most things have been pretty easy to agree on, but counter height does tend to be an issue for us since we both cook, normally together. I'm 5'2" and he's 6', so standard countertops are a little too high for me and a little too low for him. But since there's really not a solution for that other than his-and-her kitchens, we've learned to compromise. If we're going to be working at the counter for an extended period (Christmas baking), I wear my kitchen clogs as much for the little bit of extra height as for the comfort. A thick chopping block gives him the height he wants. So, even though it still won't be perfect, at least we'll have room now to keep the pots and pans actually in the kitchen, along with a second sink, room for a commercial refrigerator, and a range and wok burner with an exhaust fan to handle it. The only other things I would really like to change would require serious structural changes to the house - changing the upstairs staircase landing to make the kitchen more open to the dining room and the downstairs landing to make the basement more accessible from the kitchen so that we would use it more for root vegetable and wine storage.

The Daisy Fuentes recipe is very similar to the one I use. I've always been told that the bottled stuff will work if you have to use it, but it's just not the same as a batch you can make from scratch. I typically make it in big batches during the summer when I can get really fresh herbs and peppers. It freezes well and adds to any bean dish and a lot of soups. I also like to use it with omelettes or over seafood. You'll have better luck looking for it in Caribbean recipes. It's more of a Cuban or Puerto Rican technique than a Mexican one.

I love good carbonnades. We seem to make it at least once a month in the winter. Mexican beef stew - calde de res - is one of my favorites, and it's one of those stews that's never the same in any two places. I thicken my version with a walnut and spice paste. And Haitian queue de boeuf with fresh habanero sauce is so good on a cold day, and it makes the house smell wonderful while it's in the oven. Brazilian feijoada isn't strictly a beef stew - it's more of an everything stew, but it's really popular at our house. There's also an Italian beef and lentil stew that we make and some of the variations of South American locro de papas add beef.

I was just in our local Penzey's for a post-Christmas restock. There was plenty of salt on display, including the only "fancy" ones they've ever had there. Maybe our Penzey's was always lacking, but I didn't notice that anything was missing. That being said, there was definitely a much larger display of their salt-free seasoning blends. And no, all salts DO NOT taste the same.

Rosehip tea for a slightly sore throat. Mint tea for sinus stuff. My grandmother's hot toddy (honey, lemon, hot water, and Wild Turkey until it looks like tea) for everything else. I would say that was what the grownups drank when they were sick, but I always got a small one once it didn't have to be in a sippy cup. I slept, I felt better, and I turned out mostly ok. And since the Wild Turkey was for medicinal purposes only, my grandmother was always able to say that she never drank alcohol.

The spicy mustard that's always sitting on the table at Chinese buffets.

I have gotten away from this situation in the past few years, but I spent a week in a different city at least once a month for 3 years. I always hit a grocery store first. That sounds easy and boring, but you can find some really good regional things that you haven't run into before. Definitely splitting a cab with other people is a good way to get away from the tourist traps as long as you have people who are willing to take a chance with their dinner. I have had to spend a week with co-workers who were sure they would die of food poisoning if they wandered away from TGI Friday's and Applebee's. Chowhound and Yelp are really good sources for food that would be off the map. I especially use them when I travel now to find the ethnic enclaves in cities. And ask the people who work at the hotel or the convention center staff. If you ask a maid at a hotel where she likes to eat, she's more likely to steer you to the little places than the concierge or front desk staff. I've done a week in Orlando a couple of times. If you can get away from the tourist strips, there is really good Jamaican and Cuban food hiding around town.

I'm thinking that it might be tamales. If I'm remembering my history correctly, they originated with the Aztecs as a form of easily portable food for soldiers. There are similar dishes in Native American cuisine that may have come from those tamales or may have originated on their own. Another thought would be dumplings. The problem there is defining origin, but they've been around for a long time throughout Asia, southern Europe, and the Middle East. Kind of like the biryani vs. pilaf question, every culture wants to claim that they were the first to make it.

I second the suggestion to use thighs. Are you planning a loose chorizo or putting it in cases? I have done this for a loose version of a pastel de choclo recipe, and the spices really do dominate the flavor of the meat. What you come out with is a lighter chorizo in flavor. To me, it just seemed brighter.

We live in Memphis where there used to be Bojangles when I was a kid. It really was the best fried chicken chain around with the exception of Pirtle's which is a purely Memphis thing. Whenever we're in the area of a Bojangles when we're on the road, our son always begs for a chicken biscuit and their hashbrowns. I have to admit that for a fast food breakfast, Bojangles is really great.

I just found out that my husband, who is not only willing to put up with me but actually seems to like me a little bit, has gotten an immersion circulator for my Christmas present. Of course I'm going to cook a sous vide egg for him first, but what should I do next? I have lots of fun things in my meat freezer that might be good - pig snouts and trotters, pork osso bucco cuts, lots of venison and rabbit, beef and pork liver, whole jowls, pork belly, and there are probably a few hearts and kidneys floating around in there. And yes, there's probably any normal cut you can think of in there too. There are worse things to hoard than good meat. So, any suggestions? Any opinions on what to put in the bag with the meat?

I'm making gingerbread piggies for gifts this week, and I have a question. I've used lard in cookies that are free-form, but I've never used it in a cut-out cookie. Any recommendations on what percentage lard and what percentage butter would work best?

I'm impressed. We just went through our pantry and found a few things that should have died 5 years ago. I wasn't brave enough to open anything except the jar of alfredo sauce (I have no idea why we even had that because I've always made my own. I'm going to blame my mother.). After that and the screaming, we just threw the rest out intact. But that was a jar - I would expect that a can would be better about lasting. But seriously, pictures would be excellent.