Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I was at the Salle à manger restaurant in Montreal on Saturday night and the chef had his own (and rather fancy) version of a Milky Way bar on the menu. Apparently, all those Halloween candies have a second life in restaurants too!

Wow! Those Zingerman's bars look really, really good. But oh my goodness - $6 for a candy bar??? Yikes! They better taste like gold for that price. ;-)

The husband makes this for me and I love it. Oh well, to each his own.

My mouth is watering now; I have to go fix dinner. www.satisfiedsole.com

Once again fab photos via Erin: nice work!

There are a couple of big mistakes made by non-crust makers when they embark on a pie crust mission.

Overworking. Mix until it holds together. THEN STOP. It is NOT supposed to be homogenous. It should still have bits of butter visible (which will ultimately cause flakiness). If pie crust is overworked, it shrinks in the oven and becomes very tough.

Not allowing the freshly-mixed dough to rest. Gently form the dough into a disk, wrap, and fridge it for at least 30 minutes to allow developed gluten to rest. Then, allow to come close to room temp but the dough should still feel cold to the touch.

The way to overcome fear of doing a specific thing in the kitchen is to do it repeatedly. Make a pie a week for the family or work associates and I'll bet at the end of a month the fear will be gone.

I get mine at Penzeys Spices. They have a store close to where I live, in Menlo Park. They have jars that you can open up to smell each product that they offer. It's a really fun place to explore.

mmmmm..... artificially flavored wax nubs.....

I go to the Spice House in Illinois for freshly ground Ceylon cinnamon and soft cinnamon sticks. I like www.store.mustaphas.com for true Marrakech grown whole cumin seed and green anise seed. And for most general spices. I prefer Kalustyans for ground ginger and black and white peppercorns.

Ras el hanout is a problem because each Moroccan recipe has its own best blend. I'm still lookin'

What's wrong with reassuring novice bakers that something they think might be difficult is actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it? And then offering an easy, well tested recipe...

We are talking about the combining of a few ingredients not rocket science.

Patel Brothers in Hicksville, Long Island, or the original store in Jackson Heights. Great prices on nuts, too.

@cybercita: I did read the post. I know what you are referring to. However, it seemed to me more of writing as someone who would go out and buy a store mix rather than fully accurately autobiographical. I believe the part about avoiding making it. But it seems like someone who buys pie crust would probably have tried Jiffy mix before already and know it doesn't work. The evaluation of the mix and making it seemed to be from someone that knows how to make it.

Whatever, I might be wrong. Maybe she doesn't know how to make it. Still, I think the point is to try out the mix, not make a mix and have people offer recipes and to teach her to make it. There are people who are definitely never going to make it from scratch. And there are people who will use mixes in a pinch. It's nice to know if one saves time or tastes decent. If you're absolutely never going to make something from a mix, then reading this column would seem kind of like a waste of time. Which might be the point (like if you're bored at work or something).

Living in Brooklyn, I also go to Sahadi's. But unfortunately they recently did away with the bins (where you could buy as little or as much as you liked as you liked, or thought you could use) and now sell everything prepackaged (in their own packages). Even so its cheaper than anywhere else locally. But I also think they pared down there selection and don't seem to have the more unusual stuff anymore. I need to find an alternate!