Cool Tools: Restaurant Grade Sheet Pans. Like the ones in the Pioneer Woman cookbook! Being too lazy/intimidated/wary to walk into a restaurant supply store here I'm glad to know where to find them.

DIY Polka Dot Fruit Roll Ups · Edible Crafts @ CraftGossip.

Orange, Bitter, & Refreshing: 5 Classic Campari Cocktails | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn.

Tasty Planner - Article - The Problem with Ice-Planets. We were recently rewatching Firefly so I was happy to find that somebody created this dessert from the show.

Bubble gin and tonic, at Kottke. Want this.

Baked Alaska on a Stick · Edible Crafts.

Pancakes with Blueberry Butter | Not Without Salt. Blueberry butter, brilliant!

The Food Lab: Do 'Better' Eggs Really Taste Better? | Serious Eats. Comparing egg color (he takes them to the green place) and perception of flavor, bringing it around to New Coke.

I Baked a Mini Cherry Pie Into a Dark Chocolate Cupcake | Slog. Awesome.

3-D Waffles · Edible Crafts. An iron that makes waffle cups!

The Videos: Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Mrs. Agnes Marshall, Culinary Time Traveler - Voracious. Distinguished Lecturers series from the University of Washington with the guys who wrote Modernist Cuisine.

Ants on a Cupcake + Busy Bees. At Hostess With the Mostess.

Thanksgiving Leftover Sushi | This Is Why You're Fat. I actually thing this is a pretty cool idea.

The Corndog-Egg | This Is Why You're Fat. American version of a Scotch egg?

everyday chocolate cake | smitten kitchen.

Pizza Cups | Slice Pizza Blog. So awesome, pizza made in muffin tins and easy to eat without utensils.

What are some non-alcoholic martini ritual substitutes? | Ask MetaFilter. I especially like the link to these mocktails by Q Tonic.

Cool Idea! DIY Ice Cream Kit in a Jar | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn. Neato.

Pithy and Cleaver » The Quickest Biscuit: Blackberry-Peach Cobbler. I may be team cake, but Scott will vote cobbler every time. Via Serious Eats.

Infusion Profusion: Game-Changing Fast ‘N Cheap Technique, at Cooking Issues. How to infuse liquor instantly, thanks to Kay for sending me the link!

Over breakfast last week Scott and I found ourselves wondering about the origins of Melba Toast. Why Melba Toast? I have no idea, I think we were eating pancakes at the time. Turns out Melba Toast has a very romantic origin, romance! fame! scandal! all play a part, at least from it's originators. Wikipedia take it away:

It is named after Dame Nellie Melba, the stage name of Australian opera singer Helen Porter Mitchell. Its name is thought to date from 1897, when the singer was very ill and it became a staple of her diet. The toast was created for her by chef and fan Auguste Escoffier, who also created the Peach Melba dessert for her. The hotel proprietor César Ritz supposedly named it in a conversation with Escoffier.

This part of history isn't something I studied so I was delighted to read about these huge personalities. Dame Nellie Melba was a soprano and a major diva and gained a lot of scorn from her friends and colleges with her acerbic personality. She toured the world to sing, she made recordings and was on the radio in the very early days when almost nobody had a radio to listen to, she had affairs, caught a fever in Egypt, had a facelift (I did not know they existed in the 20s), gave farewell tours for nearly a decade and her face is on the Australian 100 dollar bill. What a lady.

Escoffier and Ritz have fascinating stories too, well, more fascinating than I suspected. They worked together at the Savoy until they were implicated in the disappearance of £3400 worth of wine and spirits. They then opened the Ritz hotels in Paris and London and attracted all the rich and famous as clientele, they went on to open hotels and cook for royalty and, it appears, generally lead fabulous lives. Escoffier established the system by which all our restaurant kitchens run. I love this anecdote from The Times, found on Wikipedia: "Colour meant so much to Escoffier, and a memory arises of a feast at the Carlton for which the table decorations were white and pink roses, with silvery leaves – the background for a dinner all white and pink, Borscht striking the deepest note, Filets de poulet à la Paprika coming next, and the Agneau de lait forming the high note."

Alright, history lesson concluded.

Since our Move To Seattle anniversary cake we seem to have started a new Friday night dinner tradition in our house, which is cake. This past week I made Smitten Kitchen's Everyday Chocolate Cake. It was so easy, just the mixer bowl, my underused kitchen scale and a cake pan, wha-la! I didn't have a loaf pan so I used my angle food cake pan. It turned out great, like a big chocolate donut.

The week before this I made Best Birthday Cake, also from Smitten Kitchen. Well, I used a boxed yellow cake mix and made the icing. I used a mix because lately I've been noticing all these sites recreating yellow cake so that it tastes like the stuff they loved out of the box - Angry Chicken, and of course this Smitten Kitchen recipe. But, I had never had yellow cake from a box so I decided I needed to experience the real thing before moving on to making my own. (Also, it was easier.)

The chocolate icing from SK was so very easy, but a bit too both tangy and fudgy for my taste. I'll make it again and add more sweetener (the recipe allows for that) and use a different chocolate. See? An excuse to make more cake.

The best thing about Cake Fridays? They inspire us to make more of a big deal out of dinner. We try new cocktails, use the nice dishes to eat outside on the deck, we sit and talk about our week and linger for longer than we would otherwise because there is cake to be eaten a bit later. It's perfect. Having leftover cake for Saturday breakfast is a bonus.

DIY Cheese · Edible Crafts @ CraftGossip. These cheeses are easy enough to make at home, but this tidy kit would make a nice gift.

Orangette: That's the spirit. Pimm's Cup made with ginger beer.

Serious Heat: Santa Fe-Style Green Chile Pancakes | Serious Eats : Recipes.

Does My Waiter Hate Me? : What you can do to make his job easier - CHOW. Good stuff to know.

Grownup Popsicle Recipe: Boozy Campari Citrus Pops | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn.

9 Greatest Stick Foods of All Time - Seattle Restaurants and Dining - Voracious.

Seeking Sweetness in Everyday Life - CakeSpy - Big Fun: An Enormous, and Delicious, Cinnamon Roll. I *love* this, I've always liked the inside of the cinnamon roll best.

Jelloware, Biodegradable Flavored Drinking Cups.

NOMSKULLS, by Fred. Skull shaped cupcake molds that you bake right inside of, neat.

The GSS Jell-O Mold Competition. The winners, amazing stuff!

make grow gather - Posts - not a mere trifle. Trifle in jars! Yay for jars being great to keep in the cooler.

The Double Rainbow Cocktail - Alcademics.com. Created using colored ice cubes. I love the lemon peel star garnishes.

Coconut Tuiles Recipe | Simply Recipes.

Tea & Cookies: Beat the Heat. Beyond frozen grapes for days like this one (97 degrees!).

Seattle Tall Poppy: Field Trip to Sahale Snacks. I *love* Sahale Snacks and I'm embarrassed to find I didn't know they were based here in Seattle.

Nonalcoholic Summer Sippers - No Booze Needed - CHOW.

A few questions about an involved Belgian Liège Waffle recipe. | Ask MetaFilter.

A Chow Life: Coming Home to Breakfast for Dinner. Savory Cornmeal Waffle & White Bean Chicken Chili, yum.

Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef: how to roast peppers. Reminder to self for reason to have gas stove.

Prudent Baby: DIY Sugar Cookie Cone. Via Edible Crafts.

Designer Neil Caldwell creates red, green, blue, (even purple!) BACON.

ThinkGeek :: Molecular Gastronomy Starter Kit. I want this for my birthday.

Taste Test: The Best Chocolate Chips for Chocolate Chip Cookies | Serious Eats.

Perfect Summer Reds : Not summer whites or summer rosés - CHOW.

The 2010 Jell-O Mold Competition Wobbles To and Fro : Hangover Observations : Eater National. Totally love, via Jordan Ferney.

Duh-Licious: Sugar Work: Caramel Spiral. Via Edible Crafts.

Ice Cream in a Jar Favors · Edible Crafts. Smart. And since canning jars are watertight this would be a great way to bring individual servings of ice cream to a picnic.

Regan's Tonic: Add Dry Fly Gin For Summer's Perfect Cocktail - Seattle Restaurants and Dining - Voracious. Palace Kitchen's recipe for tonic water.

French in a Flash: Sweet Onion and Goat Cheese Tarts with Thyme | Serious Eats.

American Flag Jello · Edible Crafts.

I was so pleased that iVillage asked me to provide a recipe for a Fourth of July round up. I certainly don't hide the fact that I'm not a very good cook so I went simple, and at the same time found a reason to reuse those glass jars that held the blueberry cobbler earlier this year. I made spicy chocolate pudding. All of the recipes, and I was in good company indeed, can be found here.

First let's do this: I do not recommend trying coloring your kettle corn, the green coloring paste sputtered in the hot oil and is a dangerous, bad thing. I'm shocked I didn't once again come away nursing a burn.

That said, green popcorn! This is the kettle corn recipe from Savory Sweet Life. I made it for myself one night and was so pleased with how it turned out that I decided to make a second batch for Scott when he got home. Of course I couldn't just leave well enough, I had to endanger myself with some experimenting. It was fun to see how it turned our tongues green though.

I made half a recipe in a four quart pot and didn't have trouble with the sugar caramelizing or the popcorn overfilling the pot.

I made another batch of infused gin, this time using a recipe from Gourmet magazine. I like it a lot more that the first try. This one didn't call for orange zest, which made a big difference for me since I find orange zest overwhelms everything it comes into contact with.

Ian’s Gin Recipe
(with some very small changes by NotMartha.org)

• 1 (750ml) bottle of inexpensive vodka (I ran mine through a Brita filter a few times)
• 2 Tbsp juniper berries
• 3/4 tsp coriander seed
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp fennel seed
• 3 green cardamom pods
• 2 black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf, torn into pieces (I used dried)
• 1 (3-inch) sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 (2-inch-long) fresh lemon or lime peel (I used lemon and would avoid lime, then again I say this based on the single time I tried a lime infused gin and didn't find I liked it)
• 1 (1-inch) sprig fresh lavender (I used about a teaspoon of dried culinary lavender)

Infuse juniper in the vodka overnight. Add remaining spices and herbs in the morning and let infuse all day. When you get home from work, strain out the botanicals and start making your favorite gin cocktails.