I have a gem for you! Strickly uppa crust and very easy. Different from the usual sweet versions with nuts and sugar. I found this recipe many years ago out for lunch by myself. Someone had left a copy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer food section on the table, and the rest is history. This is WAY swanky as well as really delicious. It will get you raves, I absolutely promise. I also promise that although it looks tricky, it's actually a breeze. I thought things like cutting the brie, rolling the pastry, and getting it to stick to the cheese would all be difficult, but they were all very very easy. Plus, you can assemble the whole thing a day ahead and stick it in the freezer and bake just before party time. Healthy it isn't, but you didn't ask for that! :) Enjoy. Baked Brie with Pesto A 1.1 lb. (see note) wheel of brie, not too ripe About 2 T pesto sauce 2 oz. lox or nova or smoked salmon, cut up to little bits (buy the cheaper tidbits if you can find them) 2 sheets (1 package) frozen puff pastry, defrosted per package instructions 1 egg, beaten Make sure brie is firm before you begin. Refrigerate it several hours or place in freezer for 25 minutes. Using a long, serrated knife dipped in warm water, cut the brie in half horizontally. Spread one side with the pesto not quite to edge and top with the fish. Replace top half of brie, place on a greased baking sheet and freeze 30 minutes. (I like to use a greased quiche dish instead; then I can serve it right in the dish. The 1.1 lb. wheel of brie leaves room for crackers; the bigger one just fits.) Roll out one sheet of pastry a little so that you can cut out a circle that will cover the top and sides of the brie. Place the brie in the middle of the circle and fold the dough up around the sides, pressing the edges into the cheese. Roll out the other sheet of pastry and cut out a second circle of the same size. Invert the cheese onto this circle, brush with the egg wash, and form a tight seal (this dough does this very easily). Turn the cheese back over and replace it on the baking dish or sheet. If you like, use the dough scraps to make cut-out decorations for the top. Keep them simple; remember, it’s puff pastry. Then brush all over with the remaining egg wash. Return to freezer for 15 minutes and preheat oven to 400. You can freeze it overnight at this point. Remove baking sheet from freezer and place it on the middle rack of your oven. Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let it rest at least 25 minutes before serving, or it will be very runny. If you wait a lot longer than 25 minuets, you can reheat at 250 for 15 minutes. Serve with crackers or bread, or just its own pastry, if you didn’t let it get runny, or even cold the next day. Note: you can use any size wheel of brie, but it must be an entire round. If you use the 1.1 pound size, you can get away with using only one sheet of pastry per wheel, if you roll it thin. The huge size needs the whole package.

In New Jersey we had pizza parlors in the very late 40's. It was called Pizza pie. When I started dating my DH to be ( he was from Iowa and I from NJ and we were dating in Mass.)he had just returned from being stationed in California....and was fascinated with the Trader Vic and other Hawiian restraunts.... In the east we didn't know anything about rum drinks with umbrellas and Pupu platters....we were too busy drinking Martinis and Manhattens (and some drank 7 and 7 blech!) and talking through our teeth, to care about what happened on the west coast.LOL! And Cheri rumaki was "exotic"....cutting edge in the late 50s'! LOL! When my parents would have a party, the only "mixer" that friends used was seltzer ( in a syphon!) and ginger ale! And no wine, no beer...just booze! When we had parties in the early years...it was BYOB! LOL! When we finally got out of the just married/poor category, we did like out parents....M and M parties and "highballs". I can't remember when we started to serve wine as a before dinner drink. For a lot of years it was only served with dinner....at least in our crowd....at least until mid 80s'. Linda C...walking down memory lane... It's been said they were the "greatest generation"....they had to be!! LOL!

Based upon what Prarie love wrote, at least some people do believe that hypothyroid-induced seizures are common. Being hypothyroid and having seizures are not necessarily related, though they certainly can be. Unfortunately being that most animals do not get regular annual (twice yearly for older pets) bloodwork when they are healthy, but most people will get bloodwork done when their pet has a seizure, it is often the case that low T4 is discovered right after an animal has a seizure. But the seizure itself can cause low T4, and once the animal's seizures are controlled the T4 returns to normal- or not if the animal is on phenobarbital. This is euthyroid sick syndrome- normally functioning thyroid that is temporarily suppressed due to another disease. Euthyroid sick syndrome can be caused by any disease, including a disease that causes seizures or the seizures themselves. It doesn't hurt to judiciously supplement thyroid hormone in an emergency while waiting for a full thyroid panel, which takes 1-2 weeks (having just gotten one for my dog) as long as you don't go overboard, as oversupplementing thyroid hormone can be cardiotoxic. But you are not really controlling the seizures, you are actually preventing further seizures. In other words, even if a dog's seizures are caused by hypothyroidism, giving thyroid hormone won't do anything to stop the current seizures (explaination follows). The full thyroid panel can sort out euthyroid sick syndrome from true hypothyroidism if it is done prior to starting phenobarb, usually. Some pets refuse to be classified, like my own dog. I did a LOT of reading on this lately because my pathologists were stumped when I asked how hypothyroidism, which causes decreased cellular activity, could possibly cause seziures, which are caused by increased cellular activity. I would have asked the neurologists, but they were in rounds and then left before I could catch them. But I did find the info myself, and it seems that hyperlipidemia (VERY high serum triglycerides and/or cholesterol) may lead to atherosclerosis and then ischemic encephalopathy (low oxygen to the brain) due to hemorrhage or thrombus, causing seizures or other CNS signs (called a stroke in people). There are many causes for hyperlipidemia, hypothyroidism is one. One study showed that dogs that had atherosclerosis were 51 times more likely to be hypothyroid than dogs who did not have artherosclerosis (they showed similar results for dogs with diabetes mellitus). Hyperlipidemia may also cause hypercoagulable syndrome where an animal throws clots, which can end up anywhere. Clinical signs are referrable to location of clot, so if a dog threw a clot into the brain, that would also cause ischemic encephalopathy and possible CNS signs or seizures. Of course, bloodwork would pick up hyperlipidemia (well, a complete panel would show both cholesterol and triglyceride levels; some in-house machines can't do this), so waiting for a thyroid panel just tells you why the hyperlipidemia is present. Because hyperlipidemia may have causes besides hypothyroidism, it is much more important to include cholesterol and triglycerides in a seizure work-up than to include thyroid testing. You can always go back for a cause of hyperlipidemia if needed. That said, you need to have a full thyroid panel done before a pet is placed on phenobarbital because that drug suppresses thyroid hormone in some animals. It does not always cause clinical disease and may not always need to be treated. Once on phenobarb, it is very difficult to impossible to sort out true hypothyroidism from phenobarb-induced thyroid suppression. Without clinical signs though, there doesn't seem to be a need for treatment. Atherosclerosis appears to be rare in dogs overall, but common in dogs with hypothyroidism and diabetes mellitus. The actual incidence is unknown because you need either MRI, CT, or a necropsy to diagnose it. Most people don't have access to MRI or CT for their pets either because of expense or because it isn't available. And most people refuse necropsy. The unfortunate part about atherosclerosis is that once it is in the brain, you can't get rid of it, even by treating the underlying cause. If you can get the animal to stop having seizures and if there isn't too much permanent damage and if you can treat the underlying cause, you may be able to prevent more seizures depending upon how much of the brain is affected by atherosclerosis. The damage is done, and you have to prevent further atherosclerosis by treating the disease. In some cases, the damage to the brain may be too great and the patient dies despite best efforts, even if the cause was "just" hypothyroidism. Controlling hypothyroidism would also prevent further seizures due to hypercoagulable states caused by hyperlipidemia, but the same "ifs" apply. This is why supplementing thyroid hormone when presented with a seizuring animal isn't really necessary, even if the seizures are caused by hypothyroidism. You do need to control the hypothyroidism, but that can wait until the animal stops seizing and you have at least a clue of whether or not the animal is actually hypothyroid. It appears that the reason hypothyroidism is a rare cause of seizures in dogs is that most cases of hypothyroidism are diagnosed and treated long before a patient develops clincally significant hyperlipidemia and subsequent atherosclerosis. It seems that mild hypothyroidism without clinical signs does not cause the a high degree of hyperlipidemia, so the risk of seizures in this case is very small. I guess if you ignore the clinical signs long enough and don't do screening bloodwork on a regular basis, a dog could have severe hypothyroidism and seizures. BTW, collies are prone to hyperlipidemia without hypothyroidism, so in the case of poor Shelby, testing cholesterol and triglycerides is much more important than thyroid testing. You have to know what is common in certain breeds and ages, otherwise you end up running every test in the book and that is a waste of time, money, and effort.

For something sweet that doubles as an appetizer, try stuffing canned Chinese Lychee nuts with a cream cheese filling. I like the cream cheese mixed with sunflower seeds or other nuts, dried cranberries, toasted sesame seeds, or black pepper. I know it sounds a bit odd, but they really are tasty, and easy to spear off a plate/tray with a toothpick. If you aren't familiar with Lychee nuts, they are actually a fruit (I dunno why they're called nuts), that one can occasionally buy fresh in some specialty produce markets. There is a hard, reddish peel on the fresh ones, an almost opalescent flesh, and very large seeds (which make an excellent pocket for stuffing). The canned sort are peeled and seeded already, of course. You could probably do the same thing with other fruits...melons, strawberries etc, but you'd have to be balling and hollowing.