I can't believe people think pancakes are hard! PANCAKES! Use the Joy of Cooking recipe. It's mega easy.

I've made puff pastry at home but I'm a professional...I actually did that when I was still in school. I barely have the energy/patience to make popcorn at home these days.

Basically there is nothing I won't try to make at home if I want it badly enough. But with a steady paycheck, I can afford to go out and get it from someone who has a better idea of what they're doing.

Um...I guess I'd never cook fish at home. Too stinky.

Peaches are still definitely my preference but we've been getting some fantastic nectarines in at work so I have a nectarine upside down cake on the menu. It's a beautiful honey-olive oil cake and I cover it with macerated raspberries and diced fresh nectarine, and some salted honey cream...Sosososo pretty.

I feel like a lot of home cooks and food bloggers aren't getting it. There ARE cookbooks that are not really meant to be useful home kitchen standbys. They're things that professionals keep in their restaurant kitchens for inspiration. Modernist Cuisine is of that type.

Here's my recipe for Concord grape jelly:

2 lb. grapes
400 g (2 cups) sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Slip the skins off the grapes and puree with half the sugar. Combine everything in a pot, bring to a boil and simmer for at least 20 minutes. Place a white plate in the freezer. After 20 minutes, drop a small amount of the jelly on a plate and place in freezer until cold. Poke the jelly on the chilled plate to see if it wrinkles or is runny. If it's runny and liquidy, cook for another 5 minutes and repeat the test until the jelly no longer is fluid when poked. Immediately strain the jelly through a fine mesh strainer/chinois and pour into your container of choice, processing if that's your thing. Makes 3 pints.

You can add a cinnamon stick and some juniper berries for a really nice spiced flavor, but pure grape jelly is so awesome as it is. I made some last fall and still have one pint unopened in my fridge. It's the most satisfying thing I've ever preserved, because it's GRAPE JELLY that I made myself!

I also have a recipe for spiced Concord grape ice cream: http://verysmallanna.com/2009/11/long-time-no-recipe/

I genuinely like coconut water. :( I work in a really hot, outrageously humid kitchen for 14-16 hours a day and it's one of the only things that makes it bearable. I don't like very sweet drinks so I love the way it tastes, I'm a fan of funkier flavors. It's also awesome hangover juice. I always have a quart either in my home fridge or my work fridge.

What? You don't like him since his show wasn't 100% reality? Ok...

And sometimes the best cooking implements DO come from a hardware store.

When I got my first apartment I used my can opener as a hammer when I assembled some media shelves. I still don't own a hammer...

@matamua That's perfectly acceptable, blowtorches aren't just for bruleeing. The cooks at work use my torch to roast peppers when the burners are full (but they know it's just a matter of time until I come running upstairs looking for it).

@smallkitchen & @CJ McD Also perfectly acceptable. They're pretty much the same gloves that pro kitchens have.

@Les ah I do that at work all the time, being the shortest one in the kitchen. Unless I'm really in a rush or the tongs aren't cutting it, I don't ask for help reaching things.

@Mohican As pastry chefs go, I am still quite a rebel ;)

I do nothing but work in a kitchen and take occasional walks and unless I eat a ton (usually I just plain forget) I sometimes have trouble keeping weight on. I personally think that exercise for the sake of exercise is for suckers and I;m happy to have a job that keeps me on my feet.

I just want my station at work to have its own mini-oven, not share space with the slicer, not be the only place in the prep kitchen with outlets, and also have some kind of magical climate control so the humidity doesn't ruin all my meringues :(

"Also, besides the eggs, white cake recipes tend to have solid vegetable shortening like Crisco"

They do??? My white cake has butter and egg whites and comes out snowy white. Only gross people use Crisco.

The best kind of animal crackers are the ones you make yourself...after painstakingly developing them for the restaurant you work in ;)

http://tribecacitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tinys-cookie-by-tribeca-citizen.jpg

(Really nice coincidence since today was our first day officially open.)