Stone

Don't you all realize that credit card companies track your every purchase and have been doing it for years? And your privacy remains intact. (But for the Ashcroft Abomination, but that's a different story.)

I'll use the box from the pastrami.

For a week. O.k.?

Strawberries and champagne. It worked for Scott Peterson.

there's a blurb on CNN this morning in which a doctor briefly explains that because proteins are a less efficient food than carbs, the body has to burn more calories metabolizing a gram of protein than a gram of carbs. He suggests that if you are tryng to lose weight, you'd get a better result by eating a higher percentage of proteins. (He did not discuss or endorse an "Atkins" diet.) It cited studies in journals showing that people who consume the same amount of calories lost weight if they consumed more calories in the form of protein, than carbs. It also suggested, however, than some benefits from an Atkins diet comes simply because by cutting out carbs, most people take in less calories. (I.e, they don't substitute the bun, fries or side of pasta with other food.)

I've tried it and I don't like it. Call me wierd if you must, but I have an aversion to most sweet flavors. I tolerate the sweet tooth affliction in others and will even provide them with fixes when called upon, but leave my salty/savories alone, please. You're not weird. You're right. They're wrong. Doesn't matter how many of them there are. They're still wrong.

If I recall, Graham Kerr's modern show always used arrowroot instead of flour.

What if Bud/Bud Light, with its massive brand loyalty and ad campaign, suddenly changed their recipe to add flavor? What if Rolling Rock, MGD, etc., did the same, backed by their ad campaigns of scantily clad nubile women and the "drink me and you'll get laid" message? What if Miller and its "we have taste" ad campaign actually backed it up with taste? Would they lose market share because a significant percentage of their drinkers really don't like "beer", or would people throughout the country open their eyes and say, "hey, this stuff actually has taste, and it's good?"

I decided to make GG's recipe tonight. Pretty good for the second type of cake I've ever tried. (The first being cheesecake.) Here are the cakes coming out of the oven: More bubbles than I expected, and I think they're a tad over done. Here's the finished frosted cake: I didn't chill the icing enough, so it dripped a bit. Here's a big piece o' cake; I was surprised at how good it is. The cake isn't very sweet, which offered a good contrast to the icing. It needed the ginger flavor to come out more, but I had a bitch of a time grating the ginger. I was using the grating side of my cheese grater, and ended up filling up all the holes on the grater with ginger mash and getting a puddle of ginger water underneath. But I'm pretty happy with the cake. Now I'll throw it out so I don't eat it all.

Having discovered that I work a block from Bridge Kitchenware, I've manged to treble the daily cost of leaving the office. That place has bloody everything. They've also just opened a "discount" section upstairs. It looks like an old, dusty warehouse piled with old dusty stuff. There are tons of molds, pans, cake spatulas, and glasses, many at $1-$2 per. I happened to pick up a 14.3" Demeyere saucepan for $50.

Which of the above recipes is really the best?

I've been searching the web for baked beans recipes, and I'm amazed at how many start with "buy two cans of baked beans."

Ditto. Roxanne's never had a chance cause it was not in France.

anybody got a good recipe for making a large volume of baked beans? (A gallon or so?) Please give more detail than Wilfrid's post. Also, what kind of crock should I cook them in? I don't have a slowcooker. I do have a Lodge dutch oven. And I'm near Bridge Kitchenware which sells all sorts of earthenware crocks that look like they'd be good for baked beans.

There's a long thread from a while back about kitchen scales. A bunch of folk suggested buying a postal scale. Supposedly they're just as accurate, have and have a larger range.

That's a shame. I ate there. And loved it.

Has anyone here ever gotten sick from their cutting board? Or known someone that has? Or heard about someone that has?

Do you find that this preparation, while outwardly complete on the surface, often fails to fulfill the necessary requirements of most situations in which it's truly needed? That underneat the decorative icing, the soft sponge just isn't up to the job?

Perhaps you could give us some more info, so we can tailor our advice. Where do you live? Are we talking Columbus, St. Louis, mid-West my-shirt-has-ten-colors-with-swirls-and-stuff issues? Texas helmet hair/cowboy boots? Colorado it's-still-the-60s-granola? Southern golf-shirt-with-my-company's-logo? Jersey/B&T?

I'm not cancelling. But I still can't make it. I'll be weekending in the country.

I don't remember any time that tipping was discretionary -- at least at restaurants. If you don't tip at a restaurant, you're a jerk. Unless your service was affirmatively bad. Almost everywhere else, it still is discretionary.

Some more thoughts on tipping.

A large coffee in NY is $2.06. Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly hornery, I put down $2 and reach into the tip jar for $.06. (I figure it's o.k., cuz I usually tip $.18 cents each time I ask one of the making a bit more than minimum wage "Register Associates" to stop talking to his/her friends, turn around, walk one step, pick up a cup, press down firmly on a lever for 15 seconds, turn back, walk a step, and place it on the counter in front of me, at which point I have to ask, every fucking time, for one of those hot-ringy-things. And somehow that entire transaction seems to take about as much time as watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.)

What's the new pasta selection? Are they expanding their menu? I've never really understood a lot of what was going on on the menu other thant the pizzas and antipasto.

On an Iron Chef octopus episode, Iron Chef Chinese said you have to pound the octopus with a daikon radish.