Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Walmart in the baking section near the flour. It is Hodgkins Mills. Works great on whole grain breads......causes them to rise more easily. It's a must!

I do this because I have a growing list of recipes I'm eager to try but can't justify making without a special occasion: they're too complicated or too expensive for everyday cooking. For those same reasons, they're not easy to test beforehand.

But if I'm having folks over, I also try to be sure that most of the cooking/prep can be done in advance, so that leaves much less cooking stress at the time. It also give me the chance to assess any potential problems and try to come up with a workaround.

I only had one true dud, and that would have been avoided if I'd thought it through when picking the recipe. I saw crab cake and corn and assumed deliciousness, but didn't consider how the technique would turn out something a little too different.

And I usually try to make sure there is at least one dish that I know and that is likely to have wide appeal (potatoes are my best friend in this category).

Thanks so much for the tips. I feel like I'm not going crazy now. At the various grocery stores (organic or not), health food and bulk stores I've tried, I've gotten funny looks when I asked for it. I'm going to try the King Arthur website mentioned.

Yeah--I never really thought about things not turning out well. I do tend to think about the dishes exhaustively during the days leading up to the event. That way I feel like I know the essence of the dish and can taste and tweak as I need to--seeing as I think recipes are more of a guide than anything else...which is why I don't bake, I guess.

Yeah - I use my friends as guinea pigs whenever I am trying out new recipes... but I sometimes tell them beforehand, especially if it's something I am not too confident in.

They're always good sports and will try anything I cook... nothing has gone to waste, so far. :)

Hmm, I've never made something for a guest that I've never tasted or seen in my life - so I'm not quite as adventurous. I don't like the stress of not knowing if the consistency is right, esp. with food that I have no pictures of so I don't know what it's even supposed to optimally look like to gauge whether I've failed partway through the process. We'll do it if it's just the two of us.

The food that we often make at home has been considered too adventurous for some of our guests, let alone trying to cook a cuisine or dish no one has yet eaten. So when we have guests, we just make stuff anyone will like, e.g., gumbo, pad thai, sukiyaki, sushi, to be safe.