Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Oh yes! Chocolate chip cookies! Not being on a diet helps me so much!
I have made a lifestyle change. Instead of the entire pack of cookies, I just eat one. So, you might want to eat enough cookies to make only one from your testings. No, I wouldn't spit out the cookies, either. Once chocolate hits my tongue, I am a goner.

My goal is not to gain any weight over the holidays. Which is going to be
really tough since I love to cook during the holidays.

Keep up the good work. Remember, it isn't all up or down. Goes both ways.

Sure pizza can be diet food. Except I am not on a diet. I have made a life-style change. I eat anything and everything I want, except I dont' eat the whole thing. Good that you had friends to give the leftovers to. I found that I like a nice tomato/basil white pizza far more now than the greasy, meaty ones I used to eat. Keep up the good work. You are an inspiration to me
with what you do for a living.

I do what my mom did back in the 1950's: celery sticks stuffed with cheese (either flavored cream or boursin style goat), pickle wedges and or/cornichons, black olives. Crackers and the cheese I pipe into the celery is also there for something a bit more substantial. My kitchen is tiny and I have no room to bake anything that isn't on the main menu. It all sits on the pass through so everyone can come eat what they want from little plates and I get to visit with them while I cook.

Oh, I am all about the dressing/stuffing and gravy. I add the boiled neck meat to the stuffing and the giblets to the gravy and I am a happy lady. Even though I live in the South, I still make Northern dressing: no cornbread allowed! Though I do like cornbread by itself.

And it is all about the family. I love it when I can cook for mine.

.

We don't have CFDC in Raleigh, NC either. I have looked for it at all the lovely conveniece stores around where I live, and nada. Even in the grocery stores I don't see it that much. Then again, the supermarkets seem to have different sodas in each one so that you have to shop at two or three stores to get what you really like. I drink bottled water mostly now.
I do drink coffee, but I really did like the taste of CFDC over Pepsi's product and this is the home of Pepsi. Go figure.

Oh and congarats on the weight loss. Pizza is a tough one and barbeque,
well, I am impressed.

I buy food at the local farmers market as well as the corporate supermarkets. When we have local farmers markets in every neighborhood in the country, and something other than a 7-11 as the market of choice in the poorer neighborhoods, then we will be doing the right thing in our country. Not everyone is smart about what they put in their mouth on a daily basis. But if we make choices that are good for not only ourselves but our planet, then perhaps our grandchildren will not be in the same mess we are in now.

Oh my! I know why I love Mr. Bean! I am in tears from laughing so hard. Thanks for sharing this with all of us.

This cat has been fed like this since it was a kitten! My cat won't eat with chopsticks, but she does like to dance for her treats when I get home.
Thanks for the fun video.

I haven't been to a buffet in over a year because I can't eat the amount of food they lay out and you can't take it with you! And yes, if you eat buffet every day you will weigh far more than if you go once a year. I don't think the government should regulate our eating habits. I think that each person makes a choice on what they eat. Some, like me, actually have a hormone inbalance. So, judging what is out there isn't fair to anyone, either the people eating or the establishment that is serving the food.

Oh! My mother's monkey bread! Done in a tube pan, like you use for angel food cakes. Yummy! Always done with cinnamon and sugar. I never have been a bread baker myself, but I certainly remember all those many days in my teens when my mother made this delightful sounding food of the gods!

It is an homage to one of my cats. No, I am not the queen of bleu cheese!
Though I do love all kinds of cheese.

Chichi,

Keep up the good work! I was in a chain market here in Raleigh one night and they had chicken feet! I was amazed! Didn't buy them, but I know that I can find a recipe for them because of your Nasty Bits articles.

I love liver, kidneys, heart, tongue and other strange parts of the animal that I learned from eating them as a child. I don't think of eating them as a trend. We don't utilize the whole animal like our ancestors and even those in other countries.

Again, Chichi, you are doing a fantastic job with a touchy subject.

I agree on the basic cakes with choice of icing/frosting and/or filling. Everyone will eat a white cake with white frosting and a lovely chocloate mousse filling(I had a piece this morning!!). Since you are doing sheet cake style, I am guessing, you do the basic Texas sheet cake recipe and go from there. Chocolate, vanilla, devil's food, white and yellow cakes can be changed up by how you, the baker, want them to be. You also don't want the flavor of anything to be overpowering. Presentation is essential, but if it is just for a dinner party, well, it doesn't have to look like a wedding cake. Do what you are most comfortable with and go from there. And my favorite cake is a wonderfully rich butter pound cake with no frosting.