Eight Salty, Sweet, Mouth-Puckering Licorices at Cool Hunting
How do I get the first piece of cake out of the baking dish without wrecking the first piece itself? at Ask Metafilter
I want to make pasta, but it's oh-so-complicated... Making pasta in a college dorm kitchen, at Ask Metafilter.
Recipe: D.I.Y. Hummus at The Kitchen
Spicy Black Bean Dip at Recipe Bazaar
Trader Joe's Spicy Black Bean Dip recipe? at Ask Metafilter
grapefruit is making a cocktail comeback, via
The Food Section. Bring on the
Salty Dog!
Pretzel Pralines at Brownie Points
Zombie Punch at NY Times
real life test kitchen: jamie oliver’s lemon chicken at Shelterrific
food pyramid to remind you to eat more whole foods at Miss Ginsu
Silicone cupcake liners arent nonstick, at Ask Metafilter
The high-tech Clover, and two affordable alternatives, at Chow. See the
map of coffeeshops using a Clover, there are a number here in Seattle!
too late for Christmas:
peppermint marshmallows at Serious Eats
Food-in-a-jar gifts at How About Orange
Cook's Talk: Short and Long Caramels at The Kitchen
jar cakes! at Super Eggplant
a slice-and-bake cookie palette at Smitten Kitchen
too late for New Years:
My Darling Clementine a nice champagne cocktail, at Imbibe
Meyer Lemon Champagne Cocktail at Bake and Shake
Today is
Repeal Day, so pop out and have a drink tonight to celebrate the anniversary of the day the United States repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and gave Americans the constitutional ability to consume alcohol.
How to make clear ice cubes via
kottke
Champagne cocktail taste test at Shelterrific
Homemade bread challenge at Brownie Points
Inside out martini glass at Better Living Through Design
You can now buy those Egg Pants! at AT:The Kitchen
Pretty Cube Jigger at Da*xiang
Martha Stewart's Everyday Food Magazine Recipe Index -- once upon a time I started a database just like this.
Honey-Nut-Vanilla Granola at Hogwash
Dough-nu-matic makes mini doughnuts at Popgadget
Sticky Pig Candy Stripes at Delicious Days
Cookies of the Dead at Miss Ginsu
The Bacon-Flavored American Dream, the story behind that Bacon Salt stuff, at The Stranger
Caramelized brown butter rice krispie treats, recipe from the NYTimes, and a warning about adding chocolate at Smitten Kitchen. I made these and oh my gosh they are yummy, but I suggest you cut them before they've fully cooled. There is more butter and less marshmallow and every time we cut into them they do this spectacular crumbling/shooting across the counter to land on the floor combo.
I am researching the best way to accomplish this task: make life-sized, edible, realistic replicas of a razor blade, suitable to bring to a Halloween party next year. What sort of candy medium would work bestl? at Ask Metafilter
Pan de Muertos (Day of the Dead Bread) at Chow
What Is Pink Lemonade? at Chow. My mom insists real pink lemonade is made using a sour tasting berry.
Ginning Up the Gin Market Is the gin renaissance a false phenomenon? at Chow
I recieved a
Vacu Vin Rapid Ice pack as a gift last Christmas, and I'm really pleased with how it works. It's a gel pack that you keep in your freezer, when you need to keep some white wine chilled, or even cool down some red, you simply slip it over the bottle. It keeps the contents nicely cold. I've even been known to slip this over a bottle of beer, which can go from sort of cold to ice cold very quickly. Oh look, they even have
can sizes,
beer bottle sizes and a countoured one for
champagne bottles. I don't particularly like the graphics on the sides, but here is a
silver one for wine bottles.
p.s. Why yes, that is a Campari bottle in the picture. We very conveniently didn't have any wine in the house at the time of the picture taking.
So, you know how sometimes you'll go to the store to get beer and you'll see six packs that are missing a few bottles? Somebody has bought a mixed six pack (and inevitably they've bought half the bottles from the last six pack of the beer you wanted). I always wondered if there was any etiquette behind that, and last weekend I got to ask a nice shopkeeper about it. He explained that in his store you can mix six packs as much as you want but they'll charge you a single-bottle price for each bottle in the pack, meaning, for example, instead of $8 you could pay $12 for a mixed pack. Taking a few bottles out of a last six-pack is rude, but for all the swapper knows there is more in the back. If the beer you came for is victim of missing bottles you can negotiate a normal six-pack price with replacements.
This recipe for
Chocolate-Topped Peanut-Toffee Bars won the Betty Crocker Baking Contest, and the secret ingredient was potato chips. at Loveschool.
Blood Orange Martini at Smitten Kitchen.
Sassy Priscilla's
King Sized Cupcakes.
Megan’s Spicy Mexican Dip at Pensive Frog.
Freezing bread dough at Baking Bites.
Chicken Pad Thai at Splatgirl Creates.
How does one become a star customer at a sushi-ya? at Ask Metafilter.
How to make kettle corn at Craft.
Finding the name for a Scotch, ginger ale and bitters drink, at Ask Metafilter.
How many calories in a marathon? at Brownie Points.
Search for favorite frozen peas, at The Kitchen.
Peter's Wine Quiz, Excerpted from
Educating Peter by Lettie Teague, at The Splendid Table.
Food:
Chow talks about a new
no-knead method of baking bread that is given the thumbs up by Harold McGee and turns out to actually be a very, very old method.
Ugly Green Chair introduces me to the
Ginger Rogers (mint, ginger syrup, fresh lime juice, gin, and ginger ale) by way of Daily Candy. Oh thank you.
Peanut Butter Popcorn at The Kitchen.
Orecchiette at Delicious Days.
Best Buttermilk Pancakes at Bakingsheet.
I missed out on seeing Amy Sedaris when she was here last week on tour for her book
I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. I pulled the most common of my lazy sins and waited too long to buy tickets, and then they were sold out. But I hear the book is fabulous and plan to make a special trip to acquire it this weekend.
I like to add lemon to my water but I'm fickle about it, resulting in too many tightly wrapped lemon halves lurking in the back of the fridge. So I tried
True Lemon and I'm surprised to report that I like it. I'm not so sure about all the recipes on the True Lemon site, and
Cook's Illustrated recently gave thumbs down to using it in baked goods. But for adding to drinks it's better than, you know, digging suspicious produce out of the crisper drawer.
White whole wheat pizza dough, at 101 Cookbooks.
The Spirit World on
jiggers, ponies, and a mini angled measure cup.
Seattle Livejournal on the
best Autumn spots.
Chicken and dumpling stew at My Aim Is True.
Sunshine jar, gathers solar power during the day, glows at night, nice. at Popgadget.
Halloween countdowns!
I-Mockery on Halloween candy, and
X-Entertainment on everything.
Fried Mac and Cheese, first I
saw it on an episode of Good Eats (recipe), the next morning Shelterrific
taunts me, and now it is something I will eat this week.
I like to have a stock of fairly inexpensive table wines on hand*, so I was interested when Seattle Bon Vivant posted this tip about
Hyatt Vineyards Merlot at Trader Joe's. I was a little skeptical, I mean, it's $3, and I have not bought You-Know-How-Many Buck Chuck in years. But that week I found myself near a Trader Joe's so I went in to look for it thinking about picking up one bottle and maybe some mac and cheese.
I was expecting to spot it in a towering display, what I found was a well dressed young woman on her hands and knees in the wine aisle reaching way back into the bottom shelf to get the very last of the Hyatt Vineyards bottles so she could make a whole case. I remarked that that was the wine I'd come to find, and I'd heard good things about it. "It's great," she said brushing the dust off of the knees of her extrememly expensive jeans, "you can serve it to your guests and they'll never know it's a $3.00 wine." She didn't offer to let me take one of her bottles. I was simultaneous gripped with a desire to buy more than just one bottle, and deep mourning at my near miss of having some In The Know wine. I went up to the front desk to ask if they were planning on getting more in, and as I was saying "it's from Hya...." their wine guy was next to me, holding out a case. So I bought it, a bit gleefully.
And it was good. There was none of that obvious sweetness I've come to expect in cheap wines. Recently I found that we'd drunk the last bottle without realizing it, and I was sad. A trip to Trader Joe's turned up no more. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Thanks to Viv for the tip.
* Though lately my tastes have run more towards the
less expensive Cline offerings.
