Hi Wayne, I may have to give lettuce a shot next fall, never have tried it then. I just got back from our Xmas party here at work. Brought in a Huge pile of carrots and one of those caulflowers, plus some diced turnips with dip. All went fast, esp the carrots which got raves and disappointments that they ran out so soon. Odd, but there are many trees around town that are still 100% green leafed, most are either all bare or in mid/late colors but some look like they do in July. Not sure what's up with that but in a typical year all the trees are bare to the bone by now, whereas about 1/2 are still hanging on. This is throwing a monkey wrench into the local leaf sweeper trucks and may cause gutter/sewage problems this winter.

Last night was my experiment. I fully preheated the oven to 500 deg. I prepared my chicken - rinse, dry, salt, pepper, into a #7 Griswold pan - and let it sit at room temp for a good half hour while the oven preheated. Put it in the oven on the second lowest rack. That's all there is to it, right? When the breast was a beautiful golden brown I checked the temp. The breast was already at 180. I poked at the thighs a bit and found areas as cool as 140. Clearly it needed more time in the oven despite the breast already being overcooked. After another fifteen minutes or so (I wasn't paying attention to the clock during any of this) the thighs were just barely approaching 165 so I pulled it out of the oven. Immediately after setting it on my counter I noticed that while the top of the drumsticks were nice and brown like the breast, the majority was a flabby pale beige. Same for the entire thighs and most of the wings. While carving the chicken I took a bite of the breast. Predictably it was dry, but my wife seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. I chose to eat the dark meat and sadly peeled off the skin. It was flavorful and extremely juicy if somewhat undercooked for my taste. In hindsight I know I made one mistake. I put the chicken in head first, whereas the instructions make a point of saying legs should face the back. Given this, I will give the method another shot even though being in the back didn't help the wings out any. On a positive note, I'm convinced of the small-pan tip. The oven didn't smoke at all, and the splatters on the wall were minimal. Who'da thunk, "place in pan and throw in oven" could yield such varied results.

Jasdip, These were the other threads. The cookalongs. I know I said tried and true, but this is what I was thinking of...

OK, maureen, if you can control the sausage jokes I won't say anything about sausages and stuffing and the gleam in Dick's eye. Ahem. I used collagen casings but I think I'd try the natural ones next time. The collagen ones were easy to use but they have a paper like texture that I don't like on the cooked sausages, even if the instructions do say they are edible. We got our spices and casings at a supply in Detroit, based on the recommendation from that Charcuterie cookbook Larry Engelhardt gave me last year. We purchased on-line, their site is www.butcher-packer.com They were cheap, fast, reliable. Their bulk spices are great, that's where we got the fennel we used. I'll definitely order from them again. Oh, and the book is available there too, one of the authors (Brian Polcyn) is the chef/owner of a Detroit area restaurant called Five Lakes Grill which has won about a gazillion awards for their food. It's an amazing book. Annie