Debra, does that mean you made it home stomach intact? I hope so! The swap was FANTASTIC!! I'm so excited about my garden, and now I have so many lovely things to start me off. I look forward to being a big contributor in the future rather than a big taker. Thanks to everybody for their generosity. Tina, will wait to hear from you on the seeds. Thanks so much for heading all that up. Recipe for those who want it: Thai Coconut Chicken Soup Notes: If you make the soup ahead of time, be sure to wait to add the coconut milk until just before you serve it, and don't overheat it with the cm in it. This tip is only because the cm will not be creamy, but will break into smaller cm curdles in the soup if overheated. Has absolutely NO affect on the taste, but it looks weird for company. ( I add the cm, chicken, and mushroom just before serving.) The red curry paste is the source of the heat. I put only a scant 3 T in the soup I brought, so beware of the amount you add! If you decide to make this soup often, or you make Asian food often, you'll save significant cash by getting the ingredients at an Asian food store in your area. Some things are 1/4 the price! Heat over med heat till shimmering:         1 T veg oil Add, cook for 1 minute:     2 T grated ginger     3-6 T Thai red curry paste Add 1/2 c. chicken broth and stir to dissolve curry paste, then add     5 1/2 c more chicken broth (total of 6 c chicken broth)     3 T fish sauce (Eeeeeewwwwwww!)     1 T light brown sugar and cook for 15 more minutes. Add and cook for 3 minutes longer     1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast sliced into thin 1" strips     1/2 lb. sliced white mushrooms     2 14 oz. cans coconut milk Just before serving add     3 T lime juice     salt to taste Serve with 1/2 c fresh cilantro for sprinkling. That's it. Very easy, very fast. Thanks again to everybody! Deanna

Thank you all so much! This was so helpful. A lot of the great ideas had to be ruled out right away, however, because there was no chance for a trip to the store. The sink backed up the night before, so I had to have a plumber in - oh, and the builder was already there to re-anchor the dishwasher so we could use it. I couldn't cook while they were working, obviously, so I cleaned the house -- the housecleaner had called at 9:00 a.m. and cancelled because her uncle died -- and set the table then. As soon as they left, I had to go across town to get my laptop fixed. One of those days! Good thing I'd done most of the cooking already. Luckily, I had a box of Trader Joe corn & roasted pepper soup in the pantry, and it was parve. So I just heated it in the MW and gave her that when we had matzo ball soup. I didn't put out anything extra for her while we were standing around having chopped liver, and that was fine -- the other girls weren't much interested in it anyway. The evening was a success, and I didn't feel like a bad hostess or as if this drew focus. Thank you all so so so much for rallying to my aid and giving me confidence. I always feel like you are right there with me!

I just wanted to post that we've had this KUDE 70 dishwasher for three days, and it is incredible! We have never, ever had this level of performance from any appliance. I could spend an hour typing about what it's done, but I don't have the time. The cycle and rack configuration options are ingenious. Thank you Kitchenaid for this amazing dishwasher. I looked for a water detection alarm for under the dishwasher and only found battery operated one. However, since I have a garbage disposal that is switched on and off magnetically, I have a "hot outlet" (or something like that), which according to the guy that installed my dishwasher, means that I can plug in a water detector/alarm under the sink and put it in the void under the dishwasher. Amazon also sells a three pack of battery operated detectors, which I plan to buy for the water heater closets. Thanks forfabulous the tip, Ntruro!

Well, the party was a lot of fun, and although the freeways were empty, Kevin wanted to take La Brea, which was also almost empty. We only had traffic near Hollywood & Highland. Kevin got confused on Cahuenga because he didn't realize that we were supposed to be on E. Cahuenga, but I finally convinced him. He's only been to the John Anson Ford Theater once (I've been quite a few times), and he's never been to the Hollywood Bowl OR Universal, and so he's not as familiar with the streets and neighborhood as I am. It took us 20 minutes on city streets, and so that wasn't bad. Paul is kind of between gigs right now, but he was able to buy his condo last year. His last job was video editing for a new reality dating show, which will premier on Bravo the first week of December. Here's his imdb profile, which oddly does not mention that he did the video editing for Blind Date, even though I have seen his name on the credits at the end of some of the early episodes. That's where he met my friend Secha and subsequently how I met him. Also in attendance, doing most of the cooking, was a friend of his named Sean, who books talent for several talk show - I don't remember which ones, but he was interesting to talk with. There was also a friend of Paul's from Boston and his wife (from Seattle), who were pleasant but live in Orange County and were a bit dull. They thought Venice was full of crazy people and didn't like. Also, Vince Ly was there, whom I met when we were making Attention Span, As for the food - Paul admits to not knowing how to cook anything (He has a copy of the book How To Boil Water, but he was in charge of starting the turkey before everyone else arrived. For some reason, the turkey was cooked with a rum glaze that contained nutmeg, and I found the nutmeg to give the turkey a very off flavor, and so I only ate a small portion of the thigh, which, however, was very moist. The breast was dry. Paul loved the mushroom gravy that I made, and the entire quart that I took got consumed, even though there was also some plain gravy that someone else made. Vincent brought a ham and a cake, and Paul gave me some of the ham to take home and Kevin took some of the turkey, which I was not interested in eating. Most of my stuffing was left over because there was another stuffing that was on the table (Mine was left on the pass-through and therefore not easily accessible) made using a boxed stuffing mix. I didn't eat any of that, but I did have mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Paul made the mistake of buying Ralphs' brand instead of Ocean Spray, and the other Paul was not letting him live that down, telling him that Cape Cod economy depended on everyone buying O.S.! My friend Paul lived in Boston before moving to L.A., although he lived in Poland until he was ten (speaking only Polish and German) and then in Austria with his grandmother for two years after that. Paul was cracking jokes constantly during the party, and he has a very dry, quick wit. His accent is more like The Bronx than Boston, and so he comes off like a NY personality. At one point he found an abandoned half consumed bottle of beer and demanded to know whose it was. Then he exclaimed, "This is alcohol abuse! Don't you know that there are sober children in India?" Toward the end of the party we started talking about the next party, and I told Paul that I would like to host it, since we live about half way between the two Pauls. Paul's birthday is exactly one week before mine, and so we decided to have a joint birthday party - or two parties one week apart. There's no telling what his schedule will be like by then, however, since his work is very sporadic. I hope it will work out because he's great at parties! BTW, I didn't make the ice cream because I forgot that the recipe calls for milk, which is something I never have on hand (except after guest leave and leave it in my fridge), and so I just took some strawberry ice cream that I had made a month or so ago. It was still good, but no one at the party was interested in ice cream, since we had cake and pecan pie. If it has been chocolate ice cream, however, it would have been good on the cake (which was chocolate), but then I guess strawberry would have been good on the cake as well, although I didn't think of it at the time. Oh, I had the idea of making Caesar Salad, but I had forgotten to ask Kevin to buy the lettuce. I should have made the salad dressing and croûtons anyway because Paul had bought the Romaine lettuce and forgot to get the dressing. I wish he had told me because there was not a single green vegetable at the meal! In fact, it was rather sparse, but still enough food and lots left over. Kevin and I were very happy that we didn't have to go to a restaurant, and I was especially happy to renew contact with Paul and hope we will see more of each other in the near future. Lars