Thank you Steel Magnolia! I made the Italian dressing that you posted and it is a hit here. I used half Champagne vinegar and half white balsamic and was very happy with that combination. Max and I had it on a simple side salad on Saturday along with grilled lamb chops and asparagus. But the real indication of success was at dinner last night when DMIL, who generally eats only three or four bites of salad, no matter what the dressing is, finished her plate! I too, like the little bit of thickening that the mayo adds, without making it really a "cream" dressing. Next time I'll double the recipe. It's a keeper! I haven't posted here in a while, but I've been reading late at night. I wish we could buy halibut as wonderful as Ann's, and that I could make a strawberry roll as perfect as Shelley's, and that I had Annie's bean soup and bacon corn muffins, and SharonCB's fruit plate with honeydew, and Linda's blackberry panna cotta, and Lou's roast chicken, and... Instead we started out yesterday with scrambled eggs and popovers. I considered these moderately successful. It's the first time in years that I have tried to make popovers here. They were always a success when we lived in Illinois. At this elevation they have always looked like hockey pucks. After researching popovers at high altitude, I decided to try one recipe posted for altitudes a little lower than mine and keep a log and work my way through variations in technique that I found on the web. The variations in "best" that I found on the web were convection vs conventional oven, cold start vs preheated, and bread flour vs AP. This version included, preheated convection oven and bread flour. I wrote it down. Anyone out there in CF land living above 5000' have a success recipe to share? We invited DMIL for dinner to quietly observe Orthodox Easter with her so she would not be alone remembering traditions shared with her family. We had a CD playing of the Russian Easter Liturgy, which I remember hearing so much at home growing up, although my mother had become Roman Catholic as a young adult. It's really hauntingly beautiful. Back to dinne; we had roast boneless pork loin, apple slices cooked with a few dried cranberries and cinnamon, green beans with a little tomato bruschetta mixed in, scalloped potatoes, and tossed salad with SM's Italian dressing. We finished with decaf cappuccino and Pecan Pie Cupcakes - not really cakelike, more like dessert bars baked in muffin tins. But with only five ingredients, six if you count the vanilla I added, they were quick, chewy and good. Lee

We had a small gathering this year - no neices, nephews, or their children, and so it was mostly adults - except my sister brought her step-grandson who is 17. My SIL did not show up because she was not feeling well, but I don't think she has felt well in over two years. The worst part of it was the travel. We had a three hour layover in Dallas and got into Austin at about midnight. My sister would have picked us up at the airport, but when we called her from Dallas, she told us we would have to take a cab. I asked her how much that would cost, knowing she was very far from the airport, and so I decided that we should rent a car for the day, if the rental car agencies were still open, since it would be about the same price as the cab ride. I thought about renting one for a week, but nothing affordable was available. We were unable to call the rental agencies from Dallas (we got stupid recordings), and so we took our chances at the Austin airport and got lucky! Very lucky!! Since DS had to work on Tuesday and we would have been otherwise stranded at her house, we really needed a car for the day. It was extremely cold Tuesday morning (lowever 40s), and there was no way we would have wanted to walk to the nearest place to get breakfast from her house. As for Thanksgiving ... I bought much of the food at Central Market in Austin, including a free-range turkey breast. DM told me NOT to buy a whole turkey. I started the dry salt technique in Austin (not as early as I would have liked, but it worked anyway), and then started cooking on Wednesday as my parents' house. Wednesday, I removed the back and some excess skin from the breast so that I could make stock for gravy and dressing and also made two of my lime pies. I had brought nine limes from my yard. I also made some Chex mix snack, which DM loves and which I planned to use as a snack/appetizer the next day. I miscalculated how long the breast would take to cook, and so the meal was delayed by about 20 minutes, but it turned out okay. I didn't make that many dishes, and so it was very easy to manage. DS kept insisting on helping me prepare stuff, and so I let her slice the mushrooms for the gravy and prepare the lettuce for the Caesar salad. DM complained that I had bought anchovies for the salad, but she ate the salad anyway and liked it! I made my very easy grits faux cornbread stuffing, and that went over well. The next day DM reheated some of it in a plastic container, and I refused to eat any of that. For vegetable, we had broccoli. DS removed the florets and chopped the stems into small pieces, and I boiled the small pieces in a small amount of water with a bit of onion to make a sauce. I purd the stems/onions with the cooking water and a bit of cornstarch (normally I use potato starch) and S&P and then returned that to the pan with the florets to allow them to cook slowly. I guess I undercooked the florets because although they were hot, most of them were left on people's plates. I thought they were fine and could have been reheated, if necessary. The sauce came out the way I wanted it. DM insisted on opening a can of sweet potatoes, and most of that was left over. We also had canned cranberry sauce, which I really do not mind, and I didn't have time to make it myself. Besides that, cranberries are expensive in Texas! We had whole wheat rolls from HEB which everone but DM liked. The worst part of the meal was the mushroom gravy I made because I added a bit too much salt, but I was the only one who didn't like it. I got a lot of teasing for my lime pies from those present who felt obligated to torture me (proabably for Amanda's sake), but I could not be insulted. I could always threaten not to allow them to have seconds, if they irritated me too much. DM thought I should have made only one pie, but we needed both of them, since that was the only dessert. I'm in Austin now, and will be leaving for L.A. this evening. We got horrible flight times, since we are using DS's frequent flyer miles (She wanted to use them up before the airline went into chapter 11, which it hasnt'), and so next time we will buy our own tickets. We got these back in early June before I was working full time. Next visit we will allow ourselves more control and flexibility over our schedule and will probably rent a car for the entire visit so that we won't be stranded anywhere. Lars

I'm having trouble understanding what was so disappointing....'gloppy mess', do you mean the custard didn't set or just didn't appear the way you expected? If it was just that there weren't distinct layers, I wouldn't give it a second thought, I'd serve it. The pie I made my nephews wife at Thanksgiving had way more pecans than the recipe called for....my bag of chopped may have been 12 oz but I used them all instead of the 1 C pecan halves the recipe states. Pie was gone in a heartbeat, no one complained. I try to come as close as I can to everyone's favorites for Thanksgiving without making one dessert each ;) One year niece in law asked if she could begin to request pecan, telling me being from Texas, it signified home to her. So of course I accommodate even though it's never been a regular on our holiday tables. I use the Dear Abbey recipe... 1 cup light corn syrup 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar 3 eggs, slightly beaten 1/3 cup butter, melted 1/3-1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla Cup pecan halves (I subbed 12 - or 16? - oz bag chopped pecans, I'm not even sure now, I made 5 pies Wednesday, other things, sharing my kitchen with a friend who needed a place to cook and the day a bit of a blur)

Martha, if it came from a store other than a "foodie" type establishment, it's probably the Grade A or light amber. For cooking the Grade B dark stuff is more flavorful but also darker, coming from a later tapping of sap. There used to be Grade A B and C, now the grades have changed to include 4 levels of grade A, the "dark" is what grade B used to be and the "very dark" is old Grade C, which was usually sold to companies for flavoring because it's so dark. I love anything maple, though, so I'm saving the recipe for this pie, thanks. Annie