Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

So, you can eat bread, but you can't put butter on it? What's the point?

The twice baked sweet potatoes sound delicious to me. I've never been able to eat the sweet potatoes with the brown sugar and marshmallow topping, and it's been served at every Thanksgiving dinner I've been to.

I also don't have a potato ricer. Any suggestions? I'm going to try this tomorrow. I can't wait.

Centro in Des Moines, Black Market Pizza in Ames are my favorites.

For our last several vacations, we have rented a cabin or timeshare and the knives in rentals are usually horrible, so I have learned to bring my chef's knife and bread knife. We also usually bring some good olive oil, and enough coffee for the first day or two until we can get to a grocery store. When we're doing the family reunion thing we bring a big soup pot or 2 since the pans in the condos are seldom large enough. In a couple weeks though, we're going on vacation and staying in a bed and breakfast for several days, so we'll be eating out all meals (except breakfast of course). Never done that before, and looking forward to trying some wonderful local restaurants.

I had been rooting for Aarti from the very beginning and am glad she won. I am completely unfamiliar with Indian food and am looking forward to her show and trying some of her recipes. I think her POV - blending of Indian ingredients with American dishes we are familiar with is a great idea.

My homemade Bailey's or Kahlua in most chocolate desserts makes them even better.

I prefer good quality dark chocolate (70-75%) for both baking and just eating out of hand. Just plain chocolate, no other flavorings. I enjoy good white chocolate occasionally in baked goods, as long as it's with some good dark chocolate too.

Both triumph and disaster this weekend. I made some white chocolate cherry shortbread cookies. Half the cookie is dipped in melted white chocolate. Well for some reason, the chocolate wouldn't melt right and looked a sickly yellow color. I tried it two more times before having any success. They did turn our very pretty and festive looking, and delicious.

I don't remember for sure, but it may well have been Spritz. Those are still one of my very favorite cookies. My mother still has the same cookie press that I used 40 years ago, and it works better than several different ones I have tried in the last few years.

I live in the midwest, so there's no such thing as "fresh" shrimp. Frozen works for me.

My husband and I made this last night for dinner, along with a steak and salad. It was delicious. And very easy and quick to make.

Eating ham always makes me think of my dad, who passed away 9 nine years ago. He ate ham sandwiches every single day. I like them pretty much the way he did - plain with just some swiss cheese, and a little butter on the bread.