MaryIsobel

I have only tsted umi once. I don't know if it was "off" but I literally could not force myself to swallow it and faked a kind of sneeze/cough and spat it into my napkin. First and ony time I have ever done that with any food. I should try it again but cannot bring myself to even think of it.

I thought the idea of drilling a hole in a stainless steel bowl and adding a handle was brilliant and therefore, I shall steal it! Thank you @AlaMoi!

I hope your re-admittance provides a solution and in any case is short lived. If you were in hospital here, you would have likely received mystery meat with some kind of brown sauce and instant mashed potatoes or something masquerading as macaroni and cheese - some type of canned veg and jello for dessert.

Started buying Krusteaz at Costco years ago and have found no reason to change. To me, pancakes are pancakes - I'm not a huge fan (I am all about fresh berries and such for topping) but my kids loved them and with the mix it is one of the first things they learned to "cook" by themselves.

Haha - same experience. I had been to Drago's before so told my husband we have to get the oysters for an appy. Then there were another dozen and yes, there was a 3rd and that was dinner and it was divine!

Depends on the cheese I suppose, but Drago's charbroiled oysters are the oyster presentation I have enjoyed above all others. https://www.thespruceeats.com/official-dragos-charbroiled-oysters-recipe-1135643

Wanted to add Breka https://www.breka.ca/#a-vancouver-favourite for breakfast or coffee and pastries or late night dessert. Or soup or sandwiches or donuts! There are 7 locations, open 24/7 - seriously excellent food for unbelievably low prices. Every time we go, I keep expecting the prices to have gone up. Grilled sandwiches for under 10.00, fabulous pastries in the 5-7 dollar range. Just unheard of in downtown Vancouver.

Nothing is appealing to me either. Started to feel flu-like symptoms last night and feeling worse today. Add to that that our furnace has just died and it's about 2 degrees celius today. Made myself Lipton chicken noodle in my favourite mug to be consumed under blankets with my lap dog keeping me compay- we shall see.

You make a very good point. If the name or the packaging had skewed Mexican, my mind might have gone in a different direction than KFC with ketchup on it!

You are an artist. Those are all jreally lovely.

I saw Lay's "Tomato & Chicken" flavoured chips yesterday. No amount of curiosity as to what on earth they could taste like, could convince me to buy them.

I live about 45 minutes outside Vancouver, but don't actually venture in that often but when we do we almost always have a meal. You've been given some great suggestions. Vij's is definitely a very popular spot for Indian food. Granville Island is an amazing adventure, easy to spend a few hours there. I have been to the Fanny Bay Oyster Bar - their happy hour is great. My favourite special occaision spot has always been Le Crocodile, dependably stellar food and impeccable service. Sushi and all manor of Asian restaurants abound.

I love any kind of noodles/sauce for breakfast!

I can't imagine how big the parent plants were. What a windfall. My daughter had an excess of basil this year and she made basil oil with some of it. She gave me a small bottle and it was really lovely on fresh tomatoes.

I swear by micropore tape and a sharpie. I have found that masking tapes or writing on the bag are no nearly as long lasting as the micropore

I have all of the Best of Bridge cookbooks and one daughter has said she would like them all because "they are so retro but also really good recipes." Other than that I have my "bibles." All of Julia's, Bakewise and Cookwise by Shirley O. Corriher, Rose Levy Bernbaum's Cake Bible and Bread Bible, Silver Palate and the Loony Spoons books which I find helpful when trying to shed pounds. I purged about 150 cookbooks several years ago when I realized that I used only a few and anything that I want is now available on the internet.

I've always been proud that both my daughters are good cooks and interested in food. We regularly share what we cooked or intersting recipes. One daughter's mother-in-law ended up taking over the Thanksgiving meal at my daughters home (long, complicated story.) Anyway, got a text from my daughter today with a picture of part of a fennel bulb, stalks and fronds, asking, what is this? Is it a leek? I was going to attach a screen shot of the text but for some reason I can't upload photos. Doesn't matter - the jist is that she had no idea what fennel is. I make a fennel/potato gratin now and then and always put it in bouilabaisse, but I guess she has never seen it in the raw.

I think that since there is no way to know how acidic your tomatoes are, suggestions err on the side of caution.

2.00 white pumpkin, 12.00 worth of flowers from another. Still have enough flowers for a couple of arrangements for the guest bedrooms.TG flowers.pdfTG flowers.pdf

@CookBot I think the Terry's Oranges were the beginning of her obsession. I've been putting one in her Christmas stocking since she was five years old!

Last night was our long postponed trip into Vancouver to see Colin James. We ate at Frankie's Italian Kitchen, https://www.frankiesitaliankitchen.ca/ chosen for it's proximity to the venue. Overall it was good. Very old school decor, kind of looked like a "gentlemen's club." Most of the wait staff were older Italian men. It also houses a jazz bar, but as we were eating kind of early, the music hadn't started. Not a big jazz fan and the restaurant was loud as it was, so I was kind of glad we missed the music. Cocktails to start; a Negroni for me and a Dirty Martini for my husband. We shared an order of arancini. Everything was good - the arancini was seasoned nicely, a bit sage forward. My husband ordered the lamb shank with risotto bianco and broccolini. He said it was very good, incrediby tender. I took his word for it, as I don't care for lamb. I had the shrimp tagliatelle, which unfortunately was the most disappointing thing we had. While the lobster cream was rich and had a nice mouth feel, I found the dish overall to be very underseasoned, accepting the ground pepper and parm that were offered helped but it left me wishing I had ordered something else.

Wow - just a Thursday night dinner? Looks amazing.

Russets are easy to come by here. If you buy individually (at almost 2.00 CDN per pound!) they are a decent size, but should you opt for a 5lb. bag, which is much cheaper per pound, they are the size of small apples, which makes peeling an arduous task. I bought 10 pounds for 5 dollars recently when we were in the Cariboo, and they are all nice sized baking potatoes. I used half the bag yesterday to make a batch of twice baked for the freezer and will use the rest for Thanksgiving mashed. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two occasions where I peel potatoes for mashed. The rest of the year, I leave the skin on.

Yes, that is the other roast I use for pot roast and such but blade roasts are definitely more common in these parts. I can get anything I need by getting in touch with one of the butchers of course, but I was speaking about what's cmmonly available at the supermarkets. I have only seen tri-tip for sale once and when I asked the meat guy why, he sort of shrugged and said that they're just not popular here but apparently are prevalent in Alberta.