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I made the chocolate lebkuchen dough yesterday. It's now ripening and I'll bake it Thursday night.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-lebkuchen/detail.aspx

But some of us like the gritty grainy fudge!

Belinskaya: make sure to pick up a box of the maple leaf cookies at TJ's, too.

Duncan1205: Thank you for mentioning the Pennsylvania Dutch version. One of my good friends is from there and goes apoplectic on the subject of chicken pot pie. He insists it does NOT have crust - that what I call chicken pot pie is chicken pie. His version of chicken pot pie has noodles in it, and the one he proudly brought me frozen from PA, well, I called it bland chicken stew.

Nothing fancy or complicated here: New York strip steaks done on the grill (which, for Massachusetts, is pretty good! No snow!), baked regular and sweet potatoes, and broccoli. Spanish rioja (my first) to drink with the meal, and my homemade chocolate lebkuchen for dessert.

Based on this article I bought a bottle of Fetzer Gewürztraminer and everyone around the table really enjoyed it. I should have bought more than bottle - those whomI thought would gravitate to the cabernet sauvignon/shiraz blend I brought (based on what they drank last year) decided to try the g. instead and the red didn't even get opened. :)

Here's another use: use Velveeta instead of CoM soup in green bean casserole. Cut the cheese up into chunks, melt it in the nuker, mix it with HOT green beans (they must be hot or the cheese will cool and glob up), pour into baking dish, cover with French's onions, and bake for a while.

I think I used a 5# brick with 4 pounds of steamed frozen French-cut green beans. Major yum.

Chanterelle - perhaps The Student Prince/The Fort? German restaurant with lots of steins and plates on the wall?

Ah, the Student Prince's game menu. Last time I was there (in May, cause I remember that glass of maiboch) we had some sort of creole alligator appetizer. It was tougher than I expected but not bad.

Bourbon and ginger here, or a whiskey sour.

I was a supermarket cashier in high school and was one of the fastest in the store, so they always put me on one of the express lanes. Well, Sunday afternoon at 12:05 (the store opened at noon, thanks MA blue laws)... my second or third order, and the 20-pound bag of kitty litter catches on my asterisk-shaped scanner guard and dumps the entire bag all over my scanner and both conveyor belts. Fun!

The Pizza Shoppe in East Longmeadow, MA. Weirdo biscuit/shortbread sweet crust but so good. Sliced small pies, square-cut everything else. Always interesting to see who goes for an innie vs. who wants crust.

@lemons - Whereabouts in Chicopee? If you post on masslive.com's nostalgia forum, I'm sure someone will remember it.

@jword2001 - yes, the Willington pizza is really good!

I feel sorry for those people who live in parts of the country where independent pizza/grinder shops aren't on every corner.

Let's see...my taco bake, my brownies, the Pioneer Woman's apple dumplings.... none of my friends are good cooks. :(