Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Oops, I now realize we are talking baking, not drinking. Obviously I had not finished my morning cup yet....

Eric Ripert!

creamy tomato soup with a puff pastry top. Yum!

I grew up with the worst bagged lunches ever (unsalted PB with no jelly on 50-grain bread, unpeeled carrots, etc) so I take extra care that the lunches are yummy AND healthy. However, without any heating facilities available in elementary school, and a thermos unlikely to survive a week, there are limitations. I tend toward a lot of fruit and sliced veggies, cheese sticks, sandwiches of tuna, cheese, or turkey. DD hates PB. I would like some good suggestions for non-sandwich items that don't need any heat.

I am surprised this legislation isn't already in place. There are some products that are already labelled as "cheese products." Why do so if it isn't required? (I am thinking specifically of spray cheese, which seemed really delicious to me another life ago.)

I think it depends on how much work I want to put into it. A filet is great, seared just a few minutes per side. When I make skirt steak, I usually braise it in the oven for hours, but tend to put more work into it (stuffing or braised vegetables, interesting sauce, etc.)
Filet mignon is the fancy meal that doesn't take much work. Skirt steak is the fancy meal that takes some time and creativity.

We have our own homemade ginger simple syrup (for soda and for cocktails), but I think we could do more. On my to-do list: making pepper-infused vodka for bloody marys. Also, I would love to see a recipe for homemade bitters.

I think two things to note about HFCS are

1) if it is in your food, that food is probably heavily processed and bears little resemblance ingredient-wise to the substance it is meant to represent in your diet (a great example of this is sliced bread or hamburger and hot dog buns, many of which are often made with HFCS and a host of other things that are harder pronounce.)

2) it can be lurking in places where most non-foodie people don't think to look for it. I have a diabetic relative who basically avoids sugars and is trying to eat a lot of salads. Some salad dressings have HFCS as the second ingredient (and I found one in her pantry where it was the FIRST ingredient.)