SylviaLovegren

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?

The pork looks delicious. We get pork shoulder roasts on sale all the time here, so I've started making lots of slow-cooker pork. Yum.

Someone just gave me a bagel holder -- you supply the guillotine. Since we don't eat many carbs and since the few "bagels" I've tried in Toronto don't even reach the level of "bagel-ish", it's in my donate to Salvation Army box. I'd be happy to send it to you if you want it. But now I'm craving a real NY bagel. Sob.

Have you checked U-line? See uline.com. But if you don't find what you're looking for, give them a call. I've found them to be very helpful and they are good with volume discounts.

That lemon meringue tart looks delicious. Well, so does everything else but lemon meringue is a dangerous weakness...

6 grams in the tortilla? Will have to see if those buggers are available up here. We're on a relatively lo-carb diet but I do miss some of the flexibility carb foods add. Looking forward to hearing of your culinary adventures.

The sake might go off but I can't believe it would be harmful to taste. And if it tastes good, why not drink it?

Why? Any idea?

Shamefully, I've never been able to get myself to eat rabbit either. I know it's a dumb prejudice, as there is no problem eating pigs, cows, deer, elk, lamb, etc. But the little furry ones trigger something... If it were a regular thing around me, the silliness would probably go away.

The juice vendors are amazing. The guinea pig... There's a market in Clifton, NJ, (huge market) that sells frozen guinea pigs with the heads and feet still on. They look just like the pets except skinned (and dead). Never could manage to try one. I recognize this as cultural prejudice, of course. This whole blog is just wonderful.

For big black olives I love Alfonsos. For green olives the small Lebanese have a buttery richness that I adore. Nicoise are also good. Kalamata are a nice "safe" olive -- almost everyone has them and even the jarred ones are good. When we lived in NJ we made a bi-weekly trek to Nouris, a Lebanese market in Paterson, that has a huge array of olives in giant tubs that can be sampled before buying. Big green, little green, cracked green, huge fat black ones, little wrinkled black ones, medium purple ones. I miss that! Haven't found anything quite comparable yet in Toronto, although there are good Greek olives aplenty. Still haven't found any Alfonsos tho.

It's the word I use to translate it. Those things are called Dulce de Mani (peanut sweets) locally. Mora are Andean blackberries; Mora syrup is a heavy panela and juice syrup distilled from them. It's used on ice cream, usually. I'm sorry to be a pain but I was so interested to hear "brickle" used, because it has disappeared from my life anyway. Did you use it Canada? Did you have butter brickle ice cream? Also, that potato/cheese/avocado soup looks fabulous. Any chance of a recipe?

I was surprised to see "molasses brickle" -- hadn't heard the word "brickle" in a hundred years, since when we had butter brickle ice cream when I was a kid. Looked it up and apparently it was a trademark related to the the toffee Heath bar in the U.S. and the ice cream made with it. Do the Ecuadorians use "brickle"? What is the Mora syrup? A heavy cane syrup? What's it used for. I am just loving this look at a, to me, totally exotic place and wonderful food.

My father-in-law was like that. He thought that people who said they could taste the difference between a raw slice of potato and of apple were lying. And he would always ask why the rest of us thought that limes weren't the same as lemons. He could taste sour, sweet and salt, but other than that, it was all the same.

Could you expound? Wiki tells me that "embutido" is a sausage, so I'm clueless.

I'm so happy you're blogging. Always love your posts.

We had a friend who stayed with us for a while and I knew he didn't like sophisticated cooking, so I made him hamburgers which he said he liked. They were delicious, fresh beef, thick, grilled to juicy perfection. He looked at his burger and nibbled around a bit but didn't eat much. Then later he went out and I found out he'd been to McDonalds. That's what he thought I meant by hamburgers and that's what he liked. He ate McDonalds for every meal in the 2 weeks he was with us -- hamburgers, fries and a coke with sometimes a McMuffin for breakfast. 3 meals a day. I made our normal food for us and he ate rancid faux food and was happy. It was appalling, but what are you gonna do?

Speculaas (the Dutch version) are just made with regular flour. Wikipedia says the Belgian version -- speculoos -- are often made with almond flour, so maybe the almonds are toasted first? Mignonette sauce is vinegar and shallot, but "mignonette" refers to a cute little thing, also a fragrant but small,shy flower. So calling a cake "mignonette" might just indicate its dainty, pleasing qualities.

Yup yup and yup. I usually use white wine for the liquid.

The Duralex Picardie tumblers are great to have -- inexpensive, durable, stackable and classic. They're available in lots of sizes: http://www.duralexusa.com/Picardie-Tumblers-cat1.html

On google I found a dead trademark for Delatour et Cie's App-Son which is what I see on the label, isn't it? http://www.trademarkia.com/company-e-delatour-et-cie-sa-372838-page-1-2 Trademark dead 1971, it was a "naturally spice flavored liqueur."

This sounds incredibly delicious.