SylviaLovegren

It all looks quite yummy. And I find Cracker Barrell to be pretty good for drive-by food. I especially like their green beans, boiled long with lots of pork fat, slurp..

Just gorgeous. The first picture of the picture had me practically diving through my screen. Sigh. Are those really dates growing in the palms? Didn't know there were date palms in the Carib. Looking forward to hearing about more food and adventures!

Had my first unfiltered IPA on Sunday at a wonderful place in Niagara-on-the-Lake. About an hour later, one of the worst headaches I've ever had, which is still giving me slight boomerang effects. It was a 7% beer, but I split the one glass with the hubster and didn't feel anything but mildly happy afterwards...until the head started splitting. Perhaps it is coincidence, but I'm not having another unfiltered beer. Ever.

I've always used an easy old Betty Crocker recipe that my grandmother used -- usually as a sheet cake with broiled icing or a nice buttercream. 5/8 cup butter 1-7/8 cups sugar 2 eggs 3 cups cake flour 3 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1-1/4 cup milk 1-1/2 tsp vanilla Cream butter, then cream in sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. Sift dry ingredients and fold them into the egg mixture, alternating with the milk. Spoon batter into 13x9 prepared pan or two 9" layer pans. Bake in preheated 350 oven for 30-35 minutes for layers, 35-40 for sheet cake. It's easier to make this cake with a stand mixer, but my grandmother always did hers by hand, using just a big old spoon. Endless variations to flavorings are possible, but if you add anything acidic, add a 1/2 tsp baking soda. One of the Betty Crocker variations on this cake is to take half the batter and tint it red, adding 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp cloves and 1/8 tsp nutmeg to the red, then swirl the red and white batters together in the pan. A kid would enjoy that, I think.

Hi Jan, we always used to get ours in the Greek groceries in Astoria. Have you tried Nouri or Fatal in Paterson? They must have it.

Dunno. Canadian by choice, as well, and I much refer nuts to raisins, or nothing at all to raisins. For some reason, the raisins are just all wrong (and I love raisins). Kind of ruin the perfection of butter tarts. Also, too, re: cardamom. A bit in peppernuts or gingerbread gives a wonderful, heady aroma. And I love it in cranberry relish, with honey and orange But then, I really like cardamom.

Wow, can you send those trucks up to Toronto? The City Fathers here still have their knickers in a twist about allowing food trucks to operate very freely, don't ask me why. OK, I will not rant. Caplansky's smoked meat is good, a very solid good. It isn't the Very Best I've Ever Eaten, but it is definitely good. And they understand rye bread and pickles. If you're at Terminal One at Pearson Airport, there's a Caplansky's there. You can get a very nice smoked meat sandwich on rye, with a Verner's and vinegar coleslaw. Now that's tasty airport food!

We keep Bubba Burgers in the freezer. They are hard to find, at least here, but we stock up when they turn up in the stores. They're not bad, which is what I ask of a frozen burger and THEY ARE NOT FLAVORED with garlic, onions, salt, pepper, herbs, etc., which almost all burgers here are, frozen or otherwise. If I wanted meatballs, I'd buy meatballs, not hamburgers, thank you very much. (Can you tell this is a pet peeve?)

The recipe looks like a....snap. I may wait and get some candied ginger to chop up and add -- the TJ triple-ginger cookies have that and I love biting into a little sweet hot nugget.

Are you kidding? That is fantastic. Wow.

You can't just drop that there without sharing the recipe. Upthread you talked about Katherine Hepburn's brownies and I made them for a cute young German/Serbian couple who were visiting Canada -- they loved them and went off with a doggy bag full. Gosh, they were good. And simple, too!

Deborah Madison Greens I've used regularly ever since it came out -- still fresh and wonderful. La Bouche Creole by Soniat. Richard Olney Simple French Food and the French Menu Cookbook A newer book I'm using a lot lately is Susanna Hoffman's The Olive and the Caper, a Greek cookbook. For baking my battered Betty Crocker 1950 Cook Book is the go-to. And the bulging binder of tried and to try recipes.

Here's a link to a site that has all different flavor wacky cakes -- vanilla, lemon, spice, etc. for variety. http://www.goodshomedesign.com/10-amazing-crazy-cakes-no-eggs-milk-butter-or-bowls/ Rice pudding made with coconut cream can be pretty yummy, too. Baked apples stuffed with chopped raisins or dates, brown sugar, cinnamon. Or saute apple slices until soft, then flavor and serve in a tart shell or with sorbet. Sweet potatoes can make great tart fillings, with lots of brown sugar and coconut cream. Baked bananas with honey and lemon juice, or frozen banana with chocolate shell.

Welcome!

So sad to hear this.

For really really really good cinammon buns go to the Bird-in-Hand Bake Shop on Gibbons Rd (NOT the B-I-H Bakery on Phil. Pike). Absolutely amazing. Their pecan sticky buns are also to die for. Best PA Dutch buffet is Diener's on Rt. 30 just across the alley from the (terrible) Dutch Haven in Ronks. Farm fresh food cooked by Mennonite and Amish cooks. Cheap, too -- all you can eat breakfast is $8 (or was, two years ago, last time we were there). Dinner is equally cheap...but it caters to farm families and the last seating is 6:00 PM! Their mashed potatoes are fantastic, excellent scrapple, ham, fried chicken, pot pie (PA Dutch style), and the vegetables in the summertime are fresh picked. And where else can you get pistachio pudding complete with baby marshmallows, all you can eat?

I used one of my old pyrex casseroles on the stove top recently and it shattered into a hundred pieces. Surprised the heck outta me since I'd been doing that for years. (It was fun getting the peas and glass out of the burners.) It was a glass one not a ceramic, but I'd still be hesitant to use intense heat like that now.

My SIL is a veteran double dipper and she thinks I'm rude for objecting to her habit. She also pours half drunk glasses of wine back into the bottle and cups of coffee back into the pot. It never bothered my husband but I always refused to eat any of the double dipped/repoured stuff. Since she has moved across the country and away from us, my husband's colds and minor illnesses have gone way down. Could be coincidence. Makes me gag.

If you look at American magazines from the late 1910s and the 1920s, you'll see tons of ads for canned pineapple (it was a relatively new thing, then and very popular) -- and a lot of times the recipe featured is tomato/pineapple salad. Sad to say I never tried it.

The Costco hot dogs ($1.59 including all-you-drink beverage) fit the bill perfectly. We go about once a month and always time it so we're just ready for lunch. But I have mine with a Pepsi. Don't usually like Pepsi, but it is PERFECT with the large juicy dog with sweet relish and bright yellow mustard on a squishy bun.

I've made flan with coconut milk and substituted it straight for the milk/cream. Never cooked with palm sugar, but substituting brown sugar for white is straight across, too (packed if you're using cup measure).

Many modern books, even expensive ones, are poorly bound. This is a sad fact of modern life. You can take the quires out of the binding entirely, line them up square, get some mesh fabric and cut it to the size of the spine, get some ph-neutral white glue, attach the mesh fabric to the quires with glue and then reattach the covers. It will be better. But the best would have been sewing the original binding in the first place rather than relying on gluing for such a heavy book.

Tors is not much better, decor-wise. But good.

Tor's Fish & Chips in downtown was really great. Absolutely fresh fish and their fresh coleslaw was fantastic -- we ordered seconds and I'm sorry I didn't ask for the recipe. Very casual, obviously. We tried Zat's downtown, an Italian place, which was fine if you're looking for old-fashioned Italian-Canadian spaghetti with meatballs or lasagne. Our dining in Orillia was not extensive, obviously.

Thanks for the recipe! I can just taste it. The ones I googled all contained Cool Whip which my grandmother would not have had access to and which I prefer not to eat. My "anyone" is the hubster, who has weird food restrictions and phobias, so I never know if a "new" food will be acceptable (sometimes not sure on old ones, either!) and my DIL's family -- the Canadian side of which has never eaten gelatin, literally, and the Dutch side of which thinks gelatin "salads" are food from another universe. My son likes Jell-O but he thinks the idea of mayo in gelatine is weird. If he only knew!