SylviaLovegren

I liked his show a lot. In retrospect, knowing about his secret life, it's petty creepy. But I had no clue at the time.

Duck breast with peppercorn (green or otherwise) sauce (brandy and cream) is good and easy. Veal goes nicely with risotto if you don't want potatoes. Sounds like a lovely dinner!

This is it. Sick of complications, sick of going out, sick of rich food, sick of everything. Toasted cheese sandwich and soup. Perfect.

Donuts of any sort!

I love getting cookbooks as gifts. My friends and family have given me some excellent ones over the years, the best being books I probably would not have chosen myself. If you really like a particular cookbook and think a friend or family member would enjoy it, too, why not share? Isn't that what gift giving is about?

I don't know anything about professional baking and I live in North America, so I can't offer you any advice. But I'd love to hear stories about food in Finland.

Necco Wafers, candy corn and licorice (except salted) are some of the best candies, ever. The yummiest Neccos are the black ones. These are not "serious" candies, of course. That designation belongs to high end chocolates. There are times when you want a truly delicious high quality candy. But there are plenty of times when you want to chomp on some orange slices or candy corn.

Y'all are weird. All that stuff is good, even when bad, except for really cheap chocolates that taste like stale floor sweepings. The really bad candy is Dutch salted licorice. I shudder just thinking about it.

I don't know the effect of the different curds, but I do know the effect of just made versus hanging around for even a few hours. At the best NJ salumerias of my experience the muzz is made every few hours and not refrigerated so it's always juicy and warm when you bite into it. Really, you can't underestimate how much a difference age and temperature make. So if Fairway makes their muzz "fresh" every day but it is 12 hours old and has been refrigerated, it's going to taste very meh.

My experience is in Hoboken, NJ, across the river from NYC, which in the 90s had at least 5 salumerias making mozzarella every day, all from the Polly-O cheese curds. Each places' muzz tasted very different, but all were delicious. Vito's Deli (always my favorite) let me watch them make the muzz one day, starting with the packaged curds, and I have to tell you the taste of the new born muzz right out of the warm water was sublime. But Vito's never sold muzz that was more than a few hours old, because the whole point was the warm, juicy creaminess. Once past that tender moment, it's just string cheese, and not worth much except for pizza topping. So maybe stuff made from fresh milk right next to the farm would be more sublime than fresh Vito's polly-o muzz. But for those of us living in the city far from a dependable fresh dairy, thank you Vito's! And thank you polly-o.

It gets flabby but you can crisp it up in a pan or in the microwave.

That takes me to a 404-page not found. I'm curious!

Also, to be pedantic, gyro is pronounced hhhyee-roh (like hero, with a y thrown in). But that's really hard to do, so we'll go with yee-roh.

Here's a thread on the subject My link I'm debating whether to brine a pork loin roast....

Mac 'n' cheese with ham. Eggs Benedict. Croque monsieur. Grilled ham and cheese sammiches. Jambalaya. Or you can just ship that thing to me if you don't know what to do with it...

I make something very similar and love it. Good with almonds, too.

This stuff better be amazingly good for all that work. Either that or you need 9 Greek grandmothers and aunts hanging around the house happy to do it.

The ones used to send to school with my son a few years ago were all padded and insulated soft lunch boxes. None of the kids had hard-sided boxes anymore.

If your MIL always talked about it, it must be good:) But most of the things she talked about she made -- she was an excellent cook in her day. But the trahana was only talked about, never made, so I wondered if it were one of those childhood memories that are best left in memory. Apparently folks here really like it. Or maybe ME kishk is better than Greek-style?

How was it? We once got a Turducken from upstate NY, cost about $250 with shipping, and it was absolutely awful, greasy and tasted like canned pimiento. No one ate any of it and we ended up throwing it out, which was a shame. Since then I've been scared to try any.

This is like Greek trahana. In fact, I googled and yes, kishk and trahana are the same. My MIL always used to talk about the trahana her mother used to make in Greece. Is it good? It just doesn't sound appealing to me, but...

For pretty good coffee one cup at a time and easy I recommend a cone filter and a kettle, too. If your water is awful the coffee will taste a lot better if you use filtered water.

I love this story. Sounds like a Werner Herzog movie!

There are always macaroons, as mentioned, or pavlovas -- baked meringues filled with lemon curd and topped with whipped cream, add some berries or substitute berries for the lemon, or use chocolate cream. Yum.

Tamales from a truck in Holland, Michigan, run by two tiny Mexican women. Everything was fresh and homemade and unbelievably delicious. And who expected great Mexican food in Holland?