As someone who grew up in DC, I was just laughing at the presence of a Green Line in the DC subway. They didn’t even break ground on that until at least a year or two later, and it didn’t open for service until the early 90's.

I will make mashed potatoes solely to go with my incredibly decadent horseradish cream sauce.  (You reduce vegetable broth while braising beef in it down to where it JUST turns into a syrup.  Dump in cream that’s been soaking prepared horseradis, simmer to combine, and create a new addiction to a bunch of people at…

I believe the freeze dried stuff is good for day-to-day pantry use, but I make my really good Robuchon-style mashed potatoes for the holidays. By the time I’m making other stuff, ricing a bunch of potatoes really doesn’t add much time.

Those would be Robuchon potatoes. I make these for the holidays because there’s nothing like them. Boiling them with the skins on, then slicing in half and ricing them hot makes for the most amazing texture.

Yep, I’d caught that with your name, hence why I was having feelings - we were there the week after your Mom got ill.

This is giving me feelings.

I LOVE Dorie Greenspan. Her 20-minute duck breast recipe - you pan sear, cook in the oven on low, then make a pan sauce out of drippings, honey, lime juice and balsamic vinegar - is one of my favorites. And the Cote d’Azur Cure-All soup is absolutely awesome anytime, but particulary good if you have the flu or a bad…

Just a quick correction:

No idea on your crab question. Just trying to assess the physics of the gelatin.

In trying to tie together books, cartoons, and video games, The Mandalorian has often had these big, long exposition dumps; here, Gideon explaining away Mandalorian mythology just about brings the episode to a halt. Clunky dialogue hinders most of the episode.

May not be.

I just want to note that Wholly Guacamole is a generally awesome brand.

I think it’s a way to make sure all the particles are fully dissolved for a uniform texture.

Excellent, thanks.

You think standard jarred preserved lemons would work?

I make them most holidays. They are excellent.  Penzeys sells dehydrated lemon peel and that works so much better than extract.

I’ve had a lot of success with this recipe over the years. Note you use small amounts of oil for each step. (Also, I use the crappy chicken-flavored rice you can nuke in the packets. For whatever reason, it works really, really well.)

I live near an Italian specialty shop with a pasticceria attached. The pignoli are like 4x per pound than any other cookie, but SO worth it.

There’s also the tea-biscuit refrigerator cake. I think it’s a scootch too sweet, but that’s just me - I’ve made it for other people and they like it well enough. And I’ve been known to swap out craisins for raisins pretty successfully as well - I think the tartness works better than a straight raisin. I also think…

My fancy/holiday mashed potatoes are half & half/butter (basically, they’re the “Robuchon-style” mashed potatoes). But my quick weeknight rough-mash are with sour cream, so there is no wrong there.