Breezygirl, Yes, that wok grate is so helpful. It holds my wok rock steady. Last night my wife who mostly eats raw tasted my wok dish last night. She was only going to have one piece of broccoli and she practically finished off the whole dish! I love to cook for her, but she just sticks to her raw diet. Now I have lured her back to my cooking! I'm making her lunch this afternoon.

I belonged to a pot luck monthly dinner club for about 12 years. There were 5 couples and we alternated so you had a month when you were host and 4 months off. The host provided the meat course and all drinks, alcoholic and otherwise, and the guests brought vegetables, salad, hors d'ouvres and dessert. And that also alternated. It was very interesting because one gal didn't cook....at all! But was willing to learn....sow e had a few interesting things in the first few years...until she learned to read a recipe! LOL! When wew ent to their house, they almost always served steaks that he grilled ( and very well too I might add!) and hordouvres were things like a big bowl of shrimp, or a side of smoked salmon, sometimes some nice cheeses and deli spreads....but the vegetables and salads were the adventure! Over the years we all learned some things. One gal never made desserts and had no idea how to make a pie or cake, but she learned that brownies and icecream were good as were fruits and bought pound cake. I am bad at veggies to take, I don't make veggie casseroles, but learned to take fresh veggies to be quickly steamed on site or a dish of veggies to be roasted. But I have never liked no list potlucks. Years ago I hosted a lot of cast parties for the community theater. Very often there were 75 to 80 and once I counted 120 people....sitting on the stairs and standing anywhere they could find a square foot to stand in! It was the custom for the host to order food and soft drinks and to tell everyone how much their share was and then everyone would bring something to share. The usual "cost" was about $5 per person...that covered drinks meat and buns for sandwiches. So I decided I could do better.....and made a gazillion buns with one other person's help and bought a ham and had it shaved and bought a big beef roast, cooked it and had it shaved and bought and roasted a turkey and had my DH carve it. And used my own plates and silverware. Costs for that amounted to about $1.50 per person. I counted on others to bring potato salad, and brownies and such....and got bags and bags of chips and commercial dip... So the next time I made coleslaw.... and provided a sign up sheet for chips and dips, raw veggies, desserts and specified cookies or bars, potato salad and posted a category for "miscellaneous"....and some idiot brought a frozen pizza that had to be cooked, watched so it didn't burn and cut and served....and it only served 8! I hate to be surprised when I am hosting a huge party. Linda C

I never noticed, but I'm sure I will from now on. ha I hope that's not the case for poor John Sliney cause he has some gosh aweful creatures in his books....(I love them and just bought one of his books).ha I'll have to look up his picture and see if it's true in his case. ha Thanks for putting us on the trail and remind me never to design anything of my own. ha ~Anj

s ... m ... d... h? Sometimes when I see a grocery customer with a lot of stuff in the small top basket and nothing in the bottom, larger tray, I ask, with semi-serious expression, whether they may be a bit worried whether, with a top-heavy load like that ... ... if they turn a corner quickly, whether it might tip over. Most give me a look, and say that they aren't really worried about it, then I ask/suggest, with a smile, that that's not one of their major worries, and when they agree that it's not, I suggest that that's good - that it'd be a shame to get worried over little stuff that's very unlikely to happen. But there's almost always more of a lilt to it than the serious sound when it's written here. o j