Joanna's Profile

I witnessed a near perfect storm of bad grocery store behavior recently. It was early on a Saturday morning, so the store was mostly quiet, but only a couple of registers were open. The couple checking out ahead of me were almost comically smug and obnoxious. They had a ton of items and were taking their time, talking loudly, giving their toddler impulse buy items to play with (that they had no intention of buying) and finally telling the cashier to wait so they could guess the total. "I think it's $180" "I'm going with $168." "No way, it's more than that." And on and on...

Meanwhile, the man behind me, who just wanted to buy his coconut water and cereal, was losing it. He was muttering loudly about their behavior, dropping lots of f-bombs and slamming his cart up and down in anger. He paced back and forth between our aisle and another one before eventually stomping over to the other. The couple was, of course, oblivious to all of this, but I was honestly a little afraid for a second!

I just bought a Cuisinart enameled cast iron Dutch oven at Marshalls for $50. So far, so good!

@Teacherteacher: They are! I would recommend cutting the slices as thin as possible. I got a couple of slightly bitter bites on the slices that I cut too thick.

@labchick - The recipe serves 20 people. It also calls for 2 10-pound cans of tomatoes. I scaled it way down and used 2 28-ounce cans of tomatoes and a couple tablespoons of oil.

Thanks for catching that, Mrs.Mack. It's fixed now.

I did see another recipe – for fennel, I believe – that suggested wrapping fennel pieces in foil and tucking the packets into a bed of salt, which was roasted in the oven uncovered. So, if you're going to be using the oven, you might be able to get away with a thinner pan.

I'm helping to organize a bake sale in Chicago on Monday (1/18) at The Hideout as part of their Benefit for Haiti.

If anyone in Chicago is interested in donating baked goods, email me at joannam@apartmenttherapy.com.

It would be wonderful to have members of The Kitchn community involved!

Thanks for sharing this great idea, Dana!

I just made my semiannual trip and picked up the cute little pitcher and sugar bowl from the Gifts Under $10 guide, salad serving spoons and LOTS of tea towels.

Thanks, aichan! Fixed.

@keltrue - It's a bacon chocolate cupcake. The link to "It's Holly" in the image credit line at the bottom goes to the photos source. Frog cupcake would be a REALLY odd combo!

MegP: Unless I'm using the brown sugar as some sort of topping and not baking it, I just mix the sugar and molasses together with the rest of the ingredients. If the recipe calls for creaming the sugar with butter, I'd add the molasses at that point.

PreludeInZ: I've never premade it. I'm sure you could. You'd probably just have to use one of the techniques mentioned to keep it soft.