Katie in Berkeley's Profile

Upside down cake! Particularly the pear molasses upside down cake from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors.

There are very few spices I go through quickly enough to warrant purchasing that much at one time. I bought narrower teaspoons.

Looks nice, though.

I made this pie, and though I have not yet tasted it, it looks beautiful and I can attest to the tastiness of the crust. From the center for lessons learned:

1. I cut the butter to 2 sticks because 2 and a half sticks just seemed like crazy talk. It's pretty buttery as is, with little pools of butter forming around the edge of my pie pan.

2. Note to self: Don't store dough in aluminum foil for two days. It will become an unsightly grey. But in the end you can blame the coloration on the deep red port sauce, and the egg wash hides a lot.

3. More pears! I used 3 lb but the amount of filling in the end was a little scant. Probably because I was using a smaller variety (Warren pears) and lost more pear meat to the coring process.

4. Note to self, addendum: Don't forget to pour the syrup over the pears before adding the top crust. Trying to pour it through the steam vents will work, but you will still feel a little foolish.

Thanks for a tasty recipe! I'm looking forward to digging in tomorrow afternoon.

The math in this recipe doesn't quite work out: 16 oz. of almonds and 16 oz. of sugar should make 2 lbs. of almond paste, which is four times more than necessary. Also, I think the half an egg white is off in that case? I did 8 oz. of almond meal and 8 oz. of sugar and needed a whole egg white plus a lot of hand kneading to get a paste.

That is all I am doing tonight so I cannot report on other aspects of the recipe, but I'll comment again if I find any other pitfalls.

I am entranced at this idea, and was thinking I would incorporate some "fallow time" into my day today. And then I realized I was scheduling it in just like everything else, that it had become something new to accomplish and produce. That doesn't mean I won't do it, just, well, it seemed interesting.

Malasadas from Tex's on the Big Island!

Great tip; thanks for sharing it. And more importantly, what a beautiful jar. I love it.

Oh, man, I just listed this as my favorite dish for this time of year on the Marin giveaway post! How great to scroll down and see this. Instant gratification! My favorite way to eat ratatouille is inside a crepe that has a poached egg on it. We served that at our wedding.

Just last week we tried a recipe that called for roasting the eggplant and it was SO tasty. I may never go back to the old way.

One bare-pantry desperate evening, we roasted quince, beets, and rosemary for some kind of FrankenSalad. It was weird. But also intriguing. I don't really recommend it, though.

When I was in first grade I brought in a quince for show-and-tell (and a runcible spoon to go with). Ah, the budding food geek.

I find the leftover buttermilk uses itself, most easily for a quickie curry dinner.

And for what it's worth, the New Best Recipe claims the lemon milk substitution for pancakes was tastier than buttermilk. But I use buttermilk on principle. The principle that I love it. (That's totally a principle, right?)