My dad is super picky, but he loves beets, carrots and squash, all of which can sub rather easily for potatoes and are great roasted. Turnips are good roasted too, they aren't as bitter that way. I also love rutabagas, lightly steamed and then mashed with salt, butter and lots of pepper. You might try rutabaga on your family. They look ugly as sin in the grocery store, but just take a sharp knife, peel away the ugliness to reveal the peachy goodness underneath, steam in a pot with a small amount of boiling water (DON'T OVERCOOK), then drain, mash with small amount of butter and season to taste. If you don't overcook them they have a mild flavor. My dad likes the frozen mashed butternut squash as a side dish, and like I said, he's the world's pickiest eater so if he'll eat it it must be tolerable to most. I find it insipid and like my butternut squash peeled and roasted. But being of northern European descent, there's hardly a root vegetable I'm not enamoured with. I even like parsnips. Here's another recipe you can make and keep the leftovers for reheating and to add to other dishes. Roasted Root Vegetables - from my friend Bev. B. Feel free to leave out veggies you don't like, just sub more of the ones you do like. 2 lb. carrots - peeled and chunked 3 turnips - chunked 2-3 sweet potatoes (recipe calls for white ones but I like both kinds roasted. As far as I know, sweet potatoes are not in the nightshade family, but if I'm wrong, leave out. If you want to use them, peel and chunk) 1 med. rutabaga (or butternut squash, or both), peeled and chunked 4-8 parsnips, peeled and chunked 1 lg. yellow or red onion, cut into large chunks 3 med. beets (optional) Either steam and rinse under cold water to peel, or just peel with a veg. peeler. Cut into chunks. As to the size of the "chunks" about 1" square is the smallest I would go with. Mine are about 2 inches. Depends on your taste for the presentation. I like my chunks bite sized, but you can do this with bigger chunks that then need to be cut up to eat. Because the beets bleed and stain the other veggies, do them in a separate small pan. Sauce: 1 cup lowfat chicken broth (or veggie broth. can use less) 1/4 cup olive oil 2 tsp. ground rosemary 1 tsp. sugar or maple syrup (I think I use more like 1 TBLSP, but that's because I also use some balsamic vinegar in the sauce). Mix together until blended. I also add 1 TBLSP tamari, some sea salt to taste, and ground pepper. Also sometimes 1 TBLSP red wine or a splash of balsamic vinegar. Place veggies in a 9x13 inch roasting pan (or larger). Pour sauce over veggies and stir to mix. Frankly, I don't mix up the sauce separately. I chunk up the veggies, put them in my steel roaster, dump the sauce ingredients over them, and then stir them to mix before putting in the oven. I've made these in pyrex baking dishes and nonstick coated aluminum pans too. My steel roaster is the best but the others are still good. Roast at 375 degrees uncovered for 1 hour. Check after 30 min. stir if veggies are drying out. Check again after 1 hour, may need to go a little longer if veggies are not done. Stir occasionally to redistribute the sauce. Don't stir too much though, or your veggies will turn to mush. Can cover with foil at the end if it is drying out too much, and/or add a little water. This freezes pretty good. Can use these veggies later in salads or casseroles or soups.

We are facing the same decisions on our reno in Lake Tahoe. I have lighting plans done, but my KD and contractor don't see eye to eye and right now I'm feeling pretty blurry eyed. Thanks dmlove for your contribution! I love your idea of overworking the Fluorescents on the overhead cabinets. I have a lot of those to work with, so you think T5HO would be the best solution for this? (For T24 only, we'll never use them) My husband and I live on mood lighting even when we aren't entertaining. Evenings we cook together and our kitchen lighting consists of candles on our island (2 glasses with a good Brunello or Bordeaux), 2 medium-lit task lights and a low-lit chandelier in our adjoining dining room. For us, bright lights are for surgery and cleaning. I'm also taking a look at your suggestion of the Juno 13 watt bulb airtight cans to dim and Lutron Hi Lume that dim down to 1%. We are searching for warm ambient lighting with dimmers......so any other suggestions are welcome! Under island and undercabinet lighting needs to be decided as well

P. G. Wodehouse, one of my favorite book characters was Jeeves. Also one of those books which is somewhere in back of a bookcase, need to look. Mario Puzo can hit home, painfully. Like his quotes. Barry McGuire is an unknown to me. His quotes are biographical, so don't mean much to me. Walter Jon Williams is an old member of my bookshelves. He stays and does not go out with the donate book pile, which only very slowly gets bigger.

Most of us over the age of 65 have never had to worry about what we served when entertaining except for shellfish - perhaps a severe peanut allergy but I only know one man with this. He simply never eats anything prepared in anyone's home as he knows they probably have used peanuts or peanut butter in their mixing bowls/skillets. I usually just dealt with the shellfish by never serving it unless I absolutely knew my friends ate it. But when we were younger and had and went to lots of dinner parties, no one was on any "special diet" - no gluten-free (not sure anyone had even heard of gluten outside a home ec class!), no paleo, no Mediterranean, no vegans or vegetarian. When I was married 40 years ago, my matron of honor did not eat red meat at the rehearsal dinner, but she found plenty of other things on her plate and did not go hungry. I think she was the first person I knew who didn't eat red meat. If one has never learned to cook for such diets, it's pretty hard to learn, especially when entertaining. I never serve a recipe I have not prepared multiple times before. At my age, just preparing a meal for others is not easy and trying to figure out what is "allowed" is frankly just more than I am up to doing. I wonder how we all survived all those dinner parties in the past. Have people's bodies really changed that much? I don't remember anyone ever becoming ill and we all knew one another pretty wells.