Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Best use of avocado is the sandwich that Popover calls a Sunshine Cab Company: Whole grain toast with chicken breast, avocado, and crispy bacon!!!

This has to be the most revolting photograph of food ever. Looks like the cookie dragged itself across the scarlet whatever, leaving a trail of baby-poop beige slime behind it. Yuck!

The grill pan to brown, oven to finish method is foolproof in my experience for producing a wonderful steak that is evenly cooked throughout. I make London Broil this way all the time -- btw, pick one that has lots of marbling, slice thin, and it won't be tough. My standby, though perhaps heretical, is Lawry's Seasoned Salt. I have never tried adding it long before I put the meat on, but I'll try next time!

When I was about 12, my father, an avid fisherman, caught a snapping turtle by mistake and became obsessed with the notion of turtle soup. He brought it up to the house and "cleaned" it (after cutting off its head, I think -- I couldn't watch), much to my mother's distress, and she was not a faint-hearted woman. I have horrible shadowy memories of him prying the shell off and what lay inside. I think he hung it for a while too. Think it smelled too, though that may be hindsight. Don't remember the soup at all. Yechh!!

Chocolate chips, maple syrup, Jane's Crazy Mixed Up Salt, Lawry's Seasoned Salt -- of course. Health not being the primary objective, needless to say...

This is absolutely not just chocolate milk -- it's full of ice and delicious -- a million years ago I used to drink iced chocolates all the time in coffee houses in Harvard Square. Until this article, the only place I knew you could get one in New York was Serendipity -- pricey, but worth it, if you can stand the ambience. The quality of the chocolate syrup used is key. Also, it should be served with whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top. Could never figure out why Starbucks etc did not glom onto this idea -- especially for those of us who don't like coffee. So much more refreshing than a milk shake -- and surely less calories. Though perhaps one shouldn't even mention calories in this context...

I do not understand why chains like Starbucks have not picked up on the cold hot chocolate idea -- the most refreshing of all summer drinks (especially for those of us who do not like coffee). When I was in college a million years ago in Cambridge, MA, the coffee shops we hung out in served what they called iced chocolate. Not thick with ice cream, just cold and dark chocolate-y and delicious.

Sad the Cupcake Cafe did not make it -- delicious to me, and beautiful to boot! I don't understand why people want the cake to be "fluffy" -- I want it dense and moist -- that's what makes it feel homemade. I even like a bit of sugary grit in the icing too...!!!

Wow. That slide show may even be enough to nudge me off my Upper West Side ass all the way downtown for breakfast!!

Annoying bread quibble here -- the bread in the picture is clearly pumpernickel -- no relation to crusty French bread at all....

What happens if you don't use the gelatin -- I often hate the texture that it produces...?? (An aversion springing from a traumatic c. 1950 pre-school experience in which the staple dessert was jello and all the kids had to try a spoonful of everything. I finally gave in and promptly threw up. In the end, an early victory -- while I was there, they never served jello again!!! Au fond, I believe that things that go into your mouth should not wobble....)

I love to cook and when I was first married, many years ago, would make elaborate dinners for my husband, who ALWAYS came home much later than he said he would -- and I was miserable watching my food congeal. Years later, I decided that he came home late mostly because he told me what he thought I wanted to hear or what he wished were true rather than what was practical reality. Long ago though --not worth crying over bechamel under the bridge.... But more to the point -- in truth, he would have been perfectly happy with tuna salad.

People who make elaborate food often do so for themselves. Back then, I felt compelled to make labor intensive meals. At dinner parties I let my husband entertain our guests until we ate -- I hated to come out and be distracted from my cooking. When everything was on the table, I would start to enjoy myself -- sit back and wait for the compliments. It never occurred to me that this might have been uncomfortable for the people I had invited.

I wonder whether the Cinco de Mayo poster had told her son that she intended to make a big fuss for him -- maybe it would have been worth asking him if he liked the idea. I also wonder how old he is. Not that being young excuses rudeness, but kids in late teens or even early twenties think about these things differently. If you want kids live up to your expectations, especially young narcissistic ones, you owe it to them to make those expectations clear. In other words, if you say, "I want to make this great meal and I'm serving it at six, so please be on time," and he says -- "oh mom, don't make this such a big deal," listen to him. Invite your own friends for the blowout -- or swallow your disappointment if he doesn't seem hugely grateful.

PS This doesn't mean that he shouldn't be apologetic -- or that you shouldn't let him know that he done you wrong... But it's worth figuring out how much of this was due to miscommunication, and make it work better for both of you next time, rather than wallowing in misery and leveraging the guilt...

The best fried potatoes anywhere used to be the flat fries at Martell's on the upper east side -- they were cut like potato chips, but a teensy bit thicker. Sublime. But Les Halles' are excellent too.