My SIL enjoyed the conscious gourmet 3 day retreat in NC.so much she took my MIL back the second time. Not sure if it is what you and your daughter want. Does it have to be a formal course? Many Internet bloggers turned cookbook authors in the vegetarian and vegan community volunteered for apprenticeships at local veg eateries. Some were even paid for their work.... They learned great knife skills, artistic plating, how a real kitchen works and from tasting the menu they developed a palate and knowledge. Plus many said the chefs took the time to educate those who really wanted to learn. Or would you consider having her travel from city to city taking in the sites and attending a day class here or a week class there? She could come up with a great schedule taught by so many vegetarians. I think the problem with community college courses is she will be expected to work with some form of animal product. Good luck!

I used to be really lucky at winning lottery prizes. I won $1000 on the very first Canadian Olympic lottery in 1976 and it was a Christmas gift from my brother and his wife. I then used to win a little bit here and there on the Provincial tickets - enough over time that I used that money to go on 2 cruises within months apart. They don't sell Provincial lottery tickets anymore. Now, I rarely buy lottery tickets but when I do I always seem to win free tickets or a couple of dollars. I'm lucky at finding change on the street and even if it is a penny I will pick it up. I usually save up the found money in a cup for a year and then donate it to charity - the most change I found in a year was $13 and that was from doing a lot of walking. LOL I am lucky whenever I go to the Windsor Casino which is usually once or twice a year for birthdays. I can bet $20 and walk out with $150 very easily. I know when to quit and walk away. LOL I often win small raffles or door prizes. One time at a Jack and Jill I attended I bought 2 strips of tickets for $5 and I walked out with a huge all weather flashlight/lantern and a large Rigid Shopvac. I think that was the biggest prize I have ever won. I'm lucky that I have the best friends that a person can hope for. Truly Blessed. I am usually pretty lucky at being in the right place at the right time. I'm not so lucky in love but then I don't really put myself out there. It's not going to come to me so I really should try harder to meet a guy. Yep, my friend Kathy always says I am the luckiest person she knows. (Kathy. who won a brand new van which she sold and put the money on a down payment on her house - first and only time she won anything) I'm truly lucky/Blessed for all the good things and kindnesses that have happened to me and for me in my lifetime. Anne

I'll be the odd (wo)man out here. I love to cook, but I've been doing since I was 11 yrs old, and frankly cooking 7 days a week is drudgery. Add in breakfast and/or lunch and it's a pain. I loved my career and it wasn't unusual to be gone 12-13 hrs, 5 days/wk. Weekends were crammed with errands and family/friends. We are fortunate to live in one of the greatest restaurant areas in the world: the San Francisco Bay Area. There is great food at all price points. You can eat for $5 or $500, but either way you could eat well -- check out NYTimes' Seth Kugel's visit last month to Portland, where he gave himself an $8/meal budget and was wowed by the amazing meals he got from the local food trucks. When I worked it wasn't unusual for us to go out 4-5x/wk. The question was, "What country do you want to eat today?" We could do Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Cal-Mex, American, Moroccan, Korean, French, Italian, Burmese, Greek, and more - all within 1 mile walk, and usually several iterations of each one (you couldn't even count how many Chinese restaurants of various regionalities there were). Now we're retired. We have both money and time. When I feel like cooking, I make the dishes that took too much time when I was working - long slow braises or slow-roasting, or dishes that just require an enormous amount of prep. But we still go out 3-5x/wk, When we travel around the area as we like to do (we just got back from Napa last week and will be in Sonoma next month), we travel specifically to eat. In Napa, we had amazing, elegant, fabulous Cal-French food that I would never bother cooking in a million years. There were brilliant combinations, such as the black cod served with a seafood sabayon, roasted matsutake mushrooms, and the tiniest perfect baby turnips that had no bitterness at all. Or an amazing carpaccio, dressed with nothing but a touch of Meyer lemon EVOO. I cook when I want to, but dining out is simply more fun. No shopping, no prep, no dirty dishes, no leftovers, no fuss. Yes, I could grow my own piquillo peppers and buy Ceylon cinnamon -- but why? I'd rather go to the great Spanish tapas restaurant a few minutes away and have them roast, skin and stuff the peppers with fresh chevre; roast, skin and sprinkle the cinnamon on fresh beets; and make that perfect paella 'tradicionale" for my spouse and the dreamy Fideua Negre, noodle paella with squid ink, for me. I mean, do I seriously want to buy a pressure cooker just for my octopus? Why should I bother cleaning and skinning a cephalopod when there's at least a dozen restaurants that make fabulous smoke-grilled octopus within 5 miles of our house? Should I want to soak the bacalhau in 8 changes of water over two days? It would just be so much easier to go to the Cuban or Portuguese or Italian restaurants, and have a couple of orders of really amazing salt cod fritters or roasted salt cod with polenta, instead! The take-out food these days is so much better quality than before. One place offers a marvelous frozen (bake it at home) chicken pot pie - perfect butter pastry, organic chicken breast and organic vegetables - all they offer is either a fried chicken sandwich on artisanal roll with housemade slaw, or the pot pie. That's it; they open 4 days/wk for 3 hrs a day and then go home to raise their baby daughter. Lines out the door every day. One specialty market with various food sellers (we lust after their pork tomahawk chop - wowie! What a hunk of meat!) has lovely little frittatas with artichoke, red pepper and Gruyere. My DH hates frittatas, so I buy one for myself while he gets the penne with San Marco marinara and Kurobuta pork meatballs; that way we both win. I loathe Food Network. When I write up reviews on the restaurants we've eaten at (I do it for my own archives, not to publish them), I often refer negatively to "Food Network chefs" - cooks who slop the food out as fast as possible, in ridiculous combinations of too many ingredients. They don't know the difference between a sauce Amoricaine and a Bordelaise. Bleh. It's taken me decades to get my DH off the crappy food he grew up with. But he's finally come around, so that when we drop $$$$ on the perfect dinner at Etoile or Spoonbar or La Folie, he says, "That was absolutely worth every penny." And you know, it is. Here is a link that might be useful: NYTimes Frugal Traveler does Portland on the cheap This post was edited by jkom51 on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 0:17

Coincidentally, I've been thinking about cake mixes...on another thread I wrote about making cupcakes for my grandson's birthday. I was just going to buy plain cupcakes and embellish them, because I want some vanilla, chocolate and need some # of gluten free. So I am really not up to making 3 batches of cupcakes (mostly because I hate the clean up in between batches). But then I realized I'd have to get unfrosted premade cupcakes from the bakery and I thought, sheesh, how lazy is that, buying cupcakes then frosting and decorating on my own. I can just whip out the plain cupcakes. A MIX, I'll use a MIX. Then I started searching on this forum for people's favorites and found this thread. And there are some references on the internet to TJ's having cake mixes, but I can't find out if they still do. Does anyone know? I love their pumpkin bread mix and buy a few boxes to last when they pull their seasonal stuff.