Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Oh man, I had some really beautiful ones once that were made from a red-colored (no idea what by) rice cake filled with I think honey and sesame seeds. hungryhungryhippo, your filling version sounds super tasty!

And come spring, don't forget the maple taffy on snow (aka tire, the same candy they make in Little House in the Big Woods).

Don't forget Wind in the Willows! I've always wanted to have a picnic like the ones described there:

"‘There’s cold chicken inside it,’ replied the Rat briefly;
coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrolls
cresssandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater––’"

Ooh, or the one later on:
"There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes."

Good luck with your canning! I just canned my first batch of blackberry jam (thank you, Greenlake!), and am hoping to do applesauce tonight or tomorrow. And while it's not strictly canning, I'd love to learn to make kimchi someday too!

(Is anyone else worried by the fact that in the illustration, the water doesn't cover the tops of the canning jars?)

yayfood, I think the issue with using metal (or at least solely metal) utensils is that many customers take their ice cream away, and thus away would go all those metal spoons. My local, Molly Moon's, has only a few tables but has lines out the door. I don't think there's enough Goodwill utensils in Seattle to keep up with that, cost aside!

That said, how hard would it be for places to have metal in-house and biodegradeable to-go utensils? I suppose it would depend on what washing-up infrastructure the place already has.

I have a Jello cookbook from the 1970s. Some of the desserts are quite pretty, really - but there iss also, unfortunately, a section called "Salads That Help Make the Meal." The winner of The Horror, the Horror! award from that section is definitely Jellied Salad Nicoise:
1 can tuna
1 small tomato, diced
1/2 cup cooked green beans (mmm, canned I hope!)
2 Tbl sliced black olives
2 Tbl green pepper strips
2 Tbl red onion strips
2 Tbl French or Italian dressing
1 hard-boiled egg, diced
1 PACKET OF LEMON JELL-O

The recipe calls for putting the vegetable and egg mixture into a ring mold, pouring on half of the (partially thickened) Jello, and then, for the layered look, topping that with 2 cups of chopped lettuce, and pouring the rest of the Jello over that.

It also calls for serving the salad with a lovely mayonnaise dressing: 1/2 cup mayo, 2 Tbl cream, 2 finely chopped anchovy fillets. Yum.

I second that call for soondubu jigae recipes! I haven't had it in months, and I'm in serious withdrawl. It's one of the dishes I use as a benchmark when evaluating Korean restos.

I will second, third, and fourth the people who emphasize finding out about the person's food dislikes and allergies in advance. I have been wooing my SO with food (she's a sucker for garlic, bacon, and chocolate), and had I not done my research, it would have tanked - she HATES onions, cilantro, ginger, lemongrass, pork, and lamb. Problematic, since 1) onions are fundamental, and 2) I learned to cook from a Vietnamese-Aussie friend, so I use those ingredients all the time! Now I always keep my eye out for recipes with no onion (or where the onion can easily be removed) - and she really appreciates my efforts.

Of course, if your eater has some strong food preferences/allergies/religious dietary restrictions, they should be up front about it, but it's best not to make any assumptions.