Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

An 8 x 8 LOAF pan?

I could write a book about my horrible experiences with baggers at Krogers. My husband got tired of hearing me rant and rave this past November and told me to pay more and shop at the small independents who make shopping in their establishment actually enjoyable. At the check-out, they first ask you if you would like paper or plastic bags, and KNOW how to pack a paper bag!! The Kroger baggers pack paper bags just like they do the plastic - just throw everything in.

One of the best "worst" experiences with Krogers baggers was when the bagger put the half-gallon carton of milk flat on the bottom of a paper bag, laying parallel, and packed a large glass jar of pickles and several cans on top of it. The milk carton sprung a leak on the way home and when I went to remove the bag from the trunk of my car, the bag was soaked and tore open when I lifted it. Thank goodness it broke before I even had it out of the trunk, so the glass jar fell into the trunk instead of on the concrete garage floor. I have e-mailed them more times than I can count about their baggers and all I get is "thank you for your comment. We are looking into it".

I have my Irish-American friend Casey O'Hanlon to thank for the term "weird beer" after he stated "Americans and their weird beers....."

There isn't a meal in the world worth that kind of treatment. There are just too many excellent restaurants with excellent service to put up with even mildly bad service.

The Barefoot Contessa has a very good recipe called Company Pot Roast I believe which is very good.

Are the shrimp peeled before roasting?

Thank you so much!! We won't have access to a car but our daughter knows the public transportation system really well. Depending on the weather - I'd like to take a cab rather than the El. Thanks again.

Have there been an food recalls on organic produce/products? Through experience, I have noticed that a lot of organic produce seems to have a longer "shelf life" than non-organic, especially strawberries and lettuce. And organic 2% milk tastes better than non-organic whole milk and also keeps longer (just look at the expiration date on the carton) I recently heard about a web site devoted to organic products - www.organic-center.org which seems to address a lot of issues related to organic produce/products.

I've always used the Land-O-Lakes recipe from the butter carton, but I only eat a brownie fresh, and warm, the day they're made. My husband and daughter get the rest.

i also use corasely ground black pepper and heat it in the olive oil, along with the red pepper and then add the garlic for added kick. Heating black pepper in oil for a few minutes really brings out a nice peppery flavor.

When traveling, I always stop at small, local restaurants and look for numerous "local" license plates on vehicles in the parking lot. If the food weren't good, locals wouldn't eat there and the restaurant wouldn't be around long. I still remember the wedding soup I had at a small local diner just outside of Pittsburgh where the parking lot was full of locals even at 4:00 in the afternoon.

When traveling, I always like to eat at independent, local restaurants. I look to see if the parking lot is full of vehicles with local license plates and if so, I eat there. I don't think many local restaurants would survive long if it weren't for the locals.