Alton Brown has a terrific homemade-from-scratch version. (I don't use his shallots; they made a pasty mess the two times I tried, so I still use canned fried onions.)

I found the exact same one. :)

At the New York Renaissance Festival, the preferred quaff for the summer heat is a Bee Sting - 12 ounces of hard cider and 4 ounces of mead, poured into a mug. (Mead is honey wine, if you didn't know...)

The Victorinox 8" Chef's Knife is Cook's Illustrated's favorite knife.

Oooooh, I want this recipe! :)

I love the amazing variety of cheese, how it can be mild or piquant, creamy rubbery or hard... I love cheese!

I'm planning to introduce my boyfriend to two four-star restaurants in Westchester (the last two of my top five restaurants in the county): Crabtree's Kittle House in Chappaqua, NY (maybe we'll see President Clinton!) and La Panetiere in Rye, NY.

I suspect there is going to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth in your near future, Mr. Wheaton.

I find a ricer is a bit of a one-trick-pony. A food mill does the job equally well, and is far more versatile.

Cutting crackers or square rolled cookies. Trimming tart dough. Cutting strips for lattice-top pies. Slicing frittatas and quiches. Cutting tortillas into wedges to make tortilla chips.

The best meatballs do start with a panade, but it should be made with milk, not water. :D The dairy proteins interact with the meat proteins; they don't bind together the same way, so a small amount of dairy helps prevent the meatballs getting tough. My mom always just plopped the raw meatballs straight into the simmering sauce and cooked them there; that's still my preferred method.

My mother had a copy of that cookbook! I haven't seen it in years; I wonder what happened to it. I've always seen (and made) kasha varnishkes with the butterfly-shaped noodles the Italians call "farfalle."

I wish my tiny NYC apartment had room for a dedicated freezer - the one on top of my refrigerator never has enough room!

On Saturday, I made Sweet and Sour Pot Roast in Tomato Sauce http://bit.ly/ej4UZj (it's gluten-free, Carol!). On Sunday, we went out for a belated Valentine's dinner at Harvest on Hudson. http://bit.ly/fMjKtB Monday, I had the day off, and I made French Onion Soup a la Alton Brown http://bit.ly/hF5sct , but I used J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's method for caramelizing the onions http://bit.ly/g8gP4a (which didn't work all that well for me; they dissolved into paste).

Thank you for the reminder, Wil. I've posted a memoriam on my own blog. I was a junior at the Bronx High School of Science. One of our teachers had been a finalist; if luck had gone a slightly different way, he'd have been the one on that Shuttle, not McAuliffe. I didn't see the footage until that evening watching the news over dinner... and then I couldn't eat for the tears. The image of those diverging smoke trails is forever imprinted on my soul.

I used to say that Weight Watchers was the best eating plan in the world; if we put all of America on a WW-style diet with appropriate weight-maintenance calorie levels, half our health problems would go away. Unfortunately, the shift to simplification in the program over the past 10-15 years has led to a loss of emphasis on balanced intake; it's entirely about calories, fat and fibre these days. It's still the weight-loss program I recommend over all others, but it is not the easy, perfectly balanced diet it used to be.

Commercially, I like the Bonne Maman brand, and Sarabeth's are always great (but pricey). I always snag a few jars of marmalade by Pim Té (of Chez Pim) when she stocks her Etsy store.

I've never owned a LeCreuset, but I do own a Lodge, and I love it. I use it for all sorts of things.

Awesomesauce. Hey, Wil, did you know you were in today's New York Times crossword puzzle (9/9/10)?

Spicy brown mustard, sweet pickle relish and sauerkraut. My preferred kraut is Ba-Tam-Te New Kraut, which is actually pickled in a brine (as opposed to traditional sauerkraut which is simply salted and left to ferment in its own juices).

I keep small jars, 1/4-1/2 cup at a time, in a cupboard for active use. The remainder of my bulk supply (I buy from Penzey's, usually in 1/4 lb bags) gets FoodSaver vacuum-sealed and goes into the freezer. Stuff on the shelf gets rotated out every 6-12 months, stuff in the freezer, if not used, every 3 years.

If you have a vacuum sealer, you don't need them. Use the sealer without the vacuum mode; most chip bags will seal very nicely from the heat of the sealing element. Works even better than a chip clip, which, after all, isn't sealing the entire width of the opening.

Breadcrumbs. Stores great in the freezer, useful for all kinds of things. If I have lots left over late in the year, I make a very old (medieval-old) predecessor of gingerbread - breadcrumbs, honey and lots of spices. Makes a delicious (if sticky) holiday treat.

I don't think I've ever seen that before. The deadpan delivery is sidesplittingly funny. "We ate the Necco wafers..." the tears are rolling down my face.