I've made it twice, once for a Halloween potluck where I used to work and once for another party, I've forgotten the specifics. Both times there were those who thought it was hilarious and those who refused to touch it. Interestingly, mostly the folks who wouldn't touch it were those who had cats!

My biggest laugh was the look on the face of the cashier at the local pet store where I bought the pan and scooper. He asked if I'd just gotten a cat. "No," I replied, "I'm just making a cake."

It's surprisingly tasty, even with the original ingredients - cake mix and pudding mix. Normally I never use mixes, this was a pleasant surprise.

A friend just sent us a link to something called Dishcrawl in Pasadena. It's four courses at four different restaurants, destination a secret until that night. It's intriguing - we're going to be out of town for the one in mid-June, but might try it later. Has anyone tried this, and can you let us know if it's worth it? Here's the link:

http://www.dishcrawl.com/dishcrawl/21...

Kimagure Ike for sure. But that's okay, it's actually in Pasadena, and everyone knows Los Angeles Magazine doesn't recognize anything east of La Brea.

Can Angostura and Peychaud's bitters be used interchangeably? I've seen recipes that specifically call for one or the other, would just as soon not have to keep both around, since we don't use them a lot.

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered an iced coffee at a Starbuck's across the street from the local city college. I took one sip and almost gagged from the sweetness - the server had automatically put in three shots of sweetener. I returned it and got just what I wanted, plain iced coffee, but was told "this is how we do it, you have to specify if you don't want it sweetened".

I've had iced coffee from at least two other Starbucks in our community, without automatic sweetening. I can only surmise that this is how college students want it.

That's amazing! Thanks, I don't doubt we'll be trying it soon.

Can you expound on the Sunday Roastie? I can't find it on their web site.

It's walking distance from our house, so we couldn't wait to try it, finally got there with a friend last night. Three of us had: little gem salad, brussels sprouts, scallops, rib eye and paella. We brought a bottle of 2006 Au Bon Climat chardonnay which was perfect with the first courses, then our friend brought a Linne Calodo Problem Child, a Zinfandel blend with which we finished the meal. The service was friendly and competent without being cloying.

The standouts were the scallops, Brussels sprouts and ribeye, which was one of the best steaks I've ever had. I got the bone, which I gnawed on with pleasure. Paella was tasty, but missing the crunch of browned rice at the bottom, and the salad was a salad.

I'd definitely have the scallops again, and would love to try the lamb, but there's one problem nobody has mentioned - the noise level was deafening. The room is all sharp angles and hard surfaces, we had to yell to talk to our friend across the table, and all left with our ears ringing.

The waitress told us they're planning on putting some fabric padding on the walls which should help some, but as good as the food was, I don't think we'll be back unless there's a real change to the acoustics.

That said, the place was full on a Monday night - obviously a lot of people are okay with the volume.

Apparently it's open now - has anyone tried it? It sounds interesting, but no prices on the web site.

I don't think anybody has mentioned the South Pasadena Farmer's Market on Thursday afternoons. Lots of prepared foods, but a good selection of produce as well, a grass-fed beef guy, some eggs, and some organic produce. And right next door to Nicole's for wonderful cheeses.

Oh, now I'm starving for dim sum. Too late for today, will try for tomorrow.

Thank you for that! I recently ordered a martini at a well-regarded local bar. The bartender first asked gin or vodka, and I could understand that, so specified gin. He poured gin in the shaker, then said "and do you want me to put some vermouth in that?" as though it would be a special request.

Caprese salad for dinner:

Good tomatoes
Fresh mozzarella
home-grown basil
olive oil

And good bread and white wine. That's dinner about once a week all summer long.

I don't know of any, but will be waiting hopefully for an answer.

When my brother and I were young (about 10 and 8, he being the 8-year-old) my parents took us out for ice cream one warm summer night. We ordered ice cream cones, and as my dad was paying, my brother disappeared into the rest room, then returned still carrying his cone. My mother told him he shouldn't have carried his ice cream into the rest room. His reply: "But I only used one hand."

Kind of northeast of Hollywood, but Cabrera's in Pasadena is the real deal. Excellent margaritas, beans & rice, karaoke on weekends, but really delicious food. Main dishes are made from scratch, it's family-owned, and you can taste the freshness.

I forgot about noodles & pot cheese. I don't do it often, but it's absolutely a favorite, if I made it with 2 pounds of noodles, DH would still eat the whole thing.

Mandelbrot
Sour cream cookies
Stuffed cabbage
Sweet & sour meatballs
Cole slaw
Meatloaf
Turkey with cornbread stuffing

Many years ago, the local Pasadena free paper ran an article on the Tournament of Roses and how valuable it is to the city. The officially accepted contraction is TofR. You guessed it, autocoreect changed it to tofu. So a 4-paragraph article included such gems as "millions of people watch tofu on New Year's Day" and "tofu brings hundreds of thousands of dollars pouring into Pasadena hotels and restaurants each year."

My first trip to Europe was in the late 1960s. In Florence, I remember visiting the huge food stalls, and seeing rabbits ready to be sold. They were skinned and gutted, but all had fur left on one hind leg. When I finally found someone who understood my feeble attemps at Italian, he explained that this was a law - during and immediately after WWII, when food was very scarce, cat was often sold as rabbit. With the fur left on, the identification is much easier.

For lunch, drive about 1/2 hour north to San Simeon (the old village, not the town along the freeway) and have the best sandwich of your life at Sebastian's. Then go a little farther north and watch the elephant seals. The big males should be in by now, they're amazing.

Could it be that LA covers such a large geographic area, while Manhattan is considered separately from the other boroughs.

The first episode of "Portlandia" had a couple inquiring about the provenance of the free-range chicken they were about to order. They were shown a binder with pictures of the farm and the chickens, each of whom had a name. IIRC, the dialog was something like "And that's Wally, he'll be your entree tonight." Hilarious and right on target.

Doctors' office staff do that too - "Doctor is running a little late, please be patient." Drives me nuts when they do it because I feel like I'm being treated like a 5-year old. Worse with chefs.

We wound up going to Wood Spoon, and couldn't have been happier. We got there around 6:00, so walked across the street to Pattern Bar for a drink first. And as an aside - they serve their sparkling wine in coupes rather than flutes. I get that they're trying to go with the retro look and feel, but that's just an awful decision.

Back to Woodspoon - we loved it. We started with an order of the potato croquettes, since DH, aka Steve, has never met a potato he didn't like, and weren't disappointed. They were fresh, hot, amazingly light, and delicious. Since we'd never been there before, we decided to ignore the specials (although the salmon looked wonderful), and go with their standards, I had the pot pie and he had the carne de panela. Without going into detail, I was happy, and he was ecstatic.I'd have either dish again, but also want to try lots of other menu items.

Thanks all for the suggestions. We've been to Colori and liked it a lot, but Brazilian sounded more interesting than Italian this time, and we weren't wrong.

If you're okay having your meal sans alcohol, go to Chichen Itza in Mercado La Paloma on Grand, just a few blocks from the museum. http://www.chichenitzarestaurant.com/

The Mercado has both shops and food stalls, mostly food of Mexico, but I think there's a Thai stall in there as well. Chichen Itza's food is amazing, fresh and prepared from scratch. You order at the counter and they bring your meal to you. I volunteer at the museum, and we go there for lunch at least once a month. I'm working at eating my way through the menu, everything I've tried has been delicious.

Just got home yesterday, and finally have time to reply. Sadly, we wound up not eating out anywhere in Redding - the family demands were just too much and we weren't able to break away. I'll save the list for next time, we get up there a couple of times a year.

I do want to recommend Casa Cuevas in Anderson, a few miles south of Redding. It's a smallish, family-owned Mexican restaurant, and the food was amazing. Everything is made there, and the quality and flavors show it. We had dinner there one evening with 10 people - 5 adults and 5 kids, and they took wonderful care of all of us. I wasn't too hungry, so had albondigas soup, lovely with its vegetables, rich broth and rough-textured meatballs. DH had an amazing roasted lamb shank with chile sauce, the flavors and complexity were just wonderful. The next day we grabbed take-out lunch - fish tacos for me, chile verde for DH. Again, just delicious. I'd go back and eat my way through their menu.

www.facebook.com/pages/La-Casa-Cuevas...

It sounds as though your knives are already at Ross, but I just wanted to assure you that you won't regret it. We've been taking our knives to Ross for a few years, they do amazing work for a reasonable price.

Thanks to you both. We'll definitely stay downtown and try one of your suggestions.

No, a nice thought but our pooches are senior citizens, one deaf the other almost blind, and aren't real manageable on a patio. They'll snooze happily in the car while we eat.

I appreciate what you say about the location, I had a hunch the Sacto North area would be less interesting. Midtown area sounds just right, casual is better than fancy.