I just tried this recipe and it turned out great. Made my own "buttermilk" with milk and vinegar, and added a little vanilla, just for fun. They turned out very light and fluffy, picture perfect.

I had just bought new baking powder and baking soda, so if your panners don't rise, that is probably the problem.

How does your "great New York grocery store" feel about you telling everyone that the "pre-packed salad" has "the greens going a little limp, the chicken dry as cotton"?

I was never all that enamored with Served, but this new column is dead air.

I decided to give your column another try and got as far as "It's usually older customers....", and quit. Where I am, it's the young girls who are whining, "Do you have any fat free triple cream brie?" or "Why does this ribeye have so much fa-a-at on it? Don't you have any steaks without fat?" Then they bitch about it being tough and flavorless when they overcook it.

@ Carrie V - Frankly, there are a lot of more critical posts in this thread about PW and SE, so I don't know why you singled me out. But if you're going to excuse coverage of a mediocre blog and reality TV personality by saying it appeals to your audience (your words, not mine) then, yes, you should interview other reality TV personalities that appeal to your audience as well. I never said ALL of them. I just pointed out that it's unusual for SE to spend ANY time interviewing or promoting reality TV food personalities. But if that's the way SE wants to go, for whatever reason, I'm sure those of us who prefer non-reality TV based content will somehow survive.
I don't care what SE does - it's Ed's baby and he calls the shots. I'll be disappointed for the two seconds it takes to remove your bookmark and replace it with a better one.

Two glowing articles within five days for a new FN reality TV show sounds like pimping to me. I didn't bother reading the first one, and ignored the second until I saw how many comments it elicited. That made me curious enough to visit the PW site. What I saw was a dump and stir cook who wants to be famous and has enough money to hire people to make that happen. I don't think I'm alone in feeling that SE is better than that. Or should be. I'm all for building relationships, collaborations and networking, but I thought SE was more about food and less about promoting branded personalities.

Sandra Lee is routinely served up as the queen of crap cooking on SE, but I've never seen Aunt Sandy make a cake with nothing but flour, sugar and fruit cocktail in syrup. (She does have some Cocktail Time recipes that use it though.)

Call me a jellus h8tr, but it's really disappointing to see SE following in FN's footsteps and dumbing down content to appeal to...whom?

Mr. Arjava used to bring Matthew's pepperoni pizza home for dinner when we lived in Bawlmer. We always enjoyed it with a nice beer from Sem Lem.

I've had several careers including elementary school teacher, owner of two franchises, and project manager in both aerospace and biotechnology. I'm semi-retired now and eyeing yet another career.

Don't take offense by this, but stop referring to your Ivy League education, especially in the workplace. I've got my own advanced degrees from prestigious universities, as well as memberships in a couple of invitation-only intellectual forums. I've worked with people who have discovered major medical advancements, mathematical formulas, you get the idea. Nobody brings up where they went to school - it's considered pretty douchey. Your peers aren't impressed and the people you manage will just think you're a snotty, spoiled rich kid who likes to flaunt her privileged life.

None of that may be true, but trust me. No one likes a braggart. Let your excellence speak for you.

Good luck (sincerely) on your new endeavors.

I live in an apartment with a cheap crappy electric stove - I used to have a nice gas cooktop and double oven. It takes a while to adjust, but the main things are 1) there's more heat up/cool down time, if something is really overheating you have to remove it from the burner rather than just turn it down, 2) don't try to hurry things up by cranking it up and down, your food will suffer 3) you WILL get used to it with practice.

I can cook just as well on the electric, but it took practice. But, I would still get a gas stove if I had the choice.

@rookiekat - you'll likely get lots of advice on this, but here's what I'd do: Keep taking the recipe, but tape a card on the bowl or table that says something like "Rookiekat's Original (No Ketchup) Special Salad" and list the ingredients. Not how much or anything, just what's in it. You can say it's just in case someone has an allergy to an ingredient. If Miss Recipe Thief still wants to walk around talking about ketchup, she'll look pathetic. Besides, like dbcurrie said, everyone probably sees through her anyway.

Don't let her steal your accomplishment...bring it with pride.

Oh FFS, it's cake and frosting. Any food can be made cutesy and gimmicky, have too much of one component or another, or spawn a wave of unitasker accessories. If it's good cake and good icing, what's the problem? The size and decorating is just part of the presentation. It's supposed to be portable and fun, like an ice cream cone or a cone of french fries.

I have a "cupcake carrier", which gets used often, mostly as an excellent dough proofer for bagels. I can stack two layers and it fits in the fridge nicely. I find lots of other uses for it too, including holding the occasional batch of cupcakes or muffins.

There's a lot of bad pizza places out there, and some, inexplicably, have lines out the door too. I can order a small pizza, no problem, but a small cake is verboten? And how many thousands of useless, stupid pizza gadgets are out there? Yet, there's no call to abandon pizza.

So does this mean that W doesn't really work at the restaurant supply place? The Mad French Chef isn't a mad French chef? Itchy and Twitchy aren't attorneys?? Colonel Bob Boatwright? Lactose Man? Are you telling me all these people aren't real??

I suppose you expect me to believe that the Chairman isn't an actual chairman either.

I'm in the no foil, no oil group. Wash, dry, make a steam escape hole, throw in a 375 oven for an hour.

I don't order baked taters in restaurants because of the possible foil factor, although if I'm really in the mood for one I'll ask how it's made.

IMO this isn't so much a right/wrong issue as a personal preference. Moist potato skin is not as heinous as, say, flabby wet chicken skin.

Thanks and good luck, AB!