New Salon every Friday – c’mon in
CS friends, and help yourself to tasty resources
Hosted by Barbara J Nosek
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Kitchen Talk – While cold March winds are still a-blowin,’ nice hot chicken soup remains a welcome counterpoint. And it’s Better Homes and Gardens at your service with bowls of their Best Recipes, many hearty enough to easily serve as a main meal. 
Meanwhile MyRecipes has their own Best, and it’s a goodie. Our Best Restaurant Copycat Recipes {and some packaged goods too}. Yay!
Legendary rolls, breads breakfasts, soups, sandwiches, sauces, desserts and beverages, ethnic specialtes, even Bailey’s, Nutella and Chili’s Baby Back Ribs Oh what fun this colored sugar is! Especially as a decorating substitute for those {hand raised}
who do not like sprinkles. A glittery upgrade for simple peach ice cream and whipped cream A sparkly update on bagel and cream cheese. And as if donuts aren’t already fun enough, a step even beyond the chocolate frosting. Link goes to Amazon. See Cocktail Hour Buzz below for yet another happy app.
{PS on the sugar – as much as possible add it just before serving because being sugar there may be some melting. Although if it’s going onto something sturdy like cream cheese, as on the bagel here, you can let it just blur into a different pretty pattern. Something more liquidy like whipped topping, maybe not so much.}
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Shopping Finds – Have you heard of the sausage company called Seemore??? Oh my goodness wait till you hear their flavors. Chicken Parm, Chicken Soup, Broccoli Melt, La Dolce Beet-A, Loaded 
Baked Potato. In a sausage! All can be ordered directly from them. I have to say I’ve never heard of these folks before, but their products are sold at Whole Foods and Amazon. So, I had this somewhat addictive spicy dill snack mix, that was then {how rude} discontinued. Went online to see about something similar. Did, but wow, some unexpected pricing.
Finally found something not only dilly and reasonable but also a brand name. Blue Diamond Bold Spicy Dill Pickle Almonds on Amazon, and maybe at your own market.
This week’s featured CS item on Amazon – If quitting smoking is still one of your 2021 goals, maybe this can help. Our Kindle book of reinforcements about all the good to be gained and the bad to be gone when you kick this butt. Use with or without other methods. On our Eclectic Mall page.
On the Table
Have a cuppa in Alexa’s room – recipes & more
You don’t have to have an Amazon Echo Show to tap into the particular tidbits we’ve linked below, drawn from its vast 
culinary bounty.
Just pour a cup and let’s talk food with Alexa. We also show the actual requests for those who are Echo owners, who should also note that in many cases she guides you step by step through the recipes.
Alexa says request: How do I make banana split cake? And it’s a no-bake cake! A vanilla wafer crust is layered with a cheesecake-like mix, then topped with crushed pineapple and sliced bananas, and then non dairy topping, chopped walnuts and maraschino cherries. This prep is from AllRecipes.
So, a couple of notes. First, you may want to be a bit more generous with the walnuts. Second, ummm, a most important classic topping is not represented – chocolate syrup! which you are of course free to add, or maybe chocolate chips on top.
Alexa says request: How do I make bacon jalapeno chicken? So, while this is a fairly simple and most appealing dish, it’s based on a Traeger Grill. If you have one, yay, here’s their recipe. Meanwhile so the rest of us don’t have to miss out entirely, found these Chicken Bombs with Bacon and Jalapenos on AllRecipes. Oh boy, Monterey jack and cream cheese are wrapped
up in there too, then all glazed with bbq sauce.
Alexa says request: How do I make smoky poblano corn pudding ? The smoky and the poblano elements start off this recipe with a trip to the oven for the peppers to get nice and charred. They then merge their smokiness with butter and whipping cream, cheddar and chives, to turn the frozen corn into a beautiful casserole. Thanks for this super side dish also goes to AllRecipes.
Would you like your own Echo Show?
Boundless information, music, movies, tv shows, videos, health tips & news, entertainment news, national news, local news, sports news & recaps, weather, timer, alarm, reminders, shopping lists, delivery notifications, alerts, security camera connection . . . and food, food, food, all on an interactive screen. Some connect to Amazon Prime.
You can browse all the Echo styles here on this Amazon page
Cocktail Hour Buzz 
Sundowner snacks, drinks, talk – whether for a crew, or for two, or just for you
♦ Sparkly sugar comes to happy hour. And its sweet contribution so nicely plays against this vodka sour. As you can see, I didn’t use it in the usual way. Instead of upending the glass into the sugar thus creating only a narrow coating inside and out, I ran the cut lime about a 1/2 inch down around the rim on the outside, then rolled the glass back and forth on a band of the sugar. This method also means no sugar on the inside to be washed away as you make the drink. This sugar on Amazon.
♦ Like your beer well aged? Archeologists have uncapped quite a discovery in Egypt – what’s regarded as the oldest biz-size brewery in the world, dating back over 5,000 years. OK, probably no suds left in these tanks, but it’s estimated that at its peak, the facility could pour out 5,900 gallons of beer at a time. Turns out though most of the output was used ritually rather than for consumption. Cheers! {or not}
♦ While I don’t have an Aldi’s in my town, their map shows a bunch east of the Mississippi and even a sprinkling on the other side of the river. And so for all you folks in Aldi towns, here is the Well Done Newsletter’s report from EatingWell on best wines there under $15.
♦ “Life is a combination of magic and pasta” – Federico Fellini quoted in Stanley Tucci’s “Searching for Italy”
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Help end the animosity – “Make America Decent Again”
Takeout is a nice indulgence, but if it’s a little more prevalent these days you might want to take a look at this nutritionist’s take on making your order a bit healthier with these 
oatmeal {always like some help in that bowl}, yogurt parfait, chocolate cake, even cocktails . . . and roasted carrots to which I added a bit of butter, and mmm-mmm. 
Hosted by Barbara J Nosek
marquee folks are and sometimes not. What we discover more often is what she serves them.
You’ll see three ways to kick up the flavor on what are alternatively called pigs in a blanket, but bite-size, maybe two-bite. She also shows a compatible sauce for each.
whole cob. Never know until you try. Just tightly wrapped it, uncooked, in a paper towel and then in foil, and in it went. The picture here shows it thawed, looking not bad, though for whatever reason it seems to survive the freezer better, in terms of both taste and texture, when it’s off the cob. I can probably say that with more conviction after trying one of these 
might be interesting to hit it with elote flavors. Found this 
saw a tip for removing corn silk. My previous go-to method? A paper towel. After Rach? A dedicated toothbrush! Now – even more recently, in an episode from Season 1 of “A Chef’s Life,” the silk remover was a regular household scrub brush, ahhhh, that we’d like to think also solely dedicated to the task – sure covers a lot more ground {cob}.
that could serve a totally different useful purpose. And here it is.
good dip.
For each egg, crack into a sauce dish. Have a plastic slotted spoon ready. When the water is boiling, slide the egg in and immediately, and gently, run the slotted spoon underneath it, giving it a little shove. Reduce heat to create a very gentle bubbling on the surface,
Hosted by Barbara J Nosek
dining experience, in life’s everyday situations – home alone, on the road, in a fast food outlet, at the office or a party, and more – plus shopping “survival style,” long, smart lists of snacks and substitutes, and short lists of “sneaky-
cises” and wardrobe tips.
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rather the beautiful array of 
relied on our old friend the sheet pan, 
Dubliner, it wasn’t really a match for what I’d thoroughly enjoyed in a totally authentic Irish pub, crisp cool veggies topped with warm melty cheese. Onward. Decided to apply the idea to a Mex mix. The lettuces, green onion, black olives and serrano were cold from the fridge. Tomatoes room temp. And then melted cheddar, sour cream and lime wedges.
And making that one immediately gave me a taste for Mexican Tuna Dip, which I first discovered in Cabo San Lucas, and subsequently found right in one of my fave local restaurants. As the name implies, the lively mix of cilantro, onion, tomato, jalapeno, mayo is intended as a dip but is actually quite a treat on toast or lettuce.
It also occurred to me that the melty salad could be an entree with the addition of a bit of rotisserie chicken, and then avocado making it even more substantial. Btw, with cheese pretty much all over this one, it’s a bit more like that Irish salad that started the ball of fun rolling.
versions is cut into rounds, but here it was triangles.
of choice, and browse these 
takes for it to become this kind of edible version of modeling clay couldn’t be easier. Since you can write on it, might want to take another look at the food color pens we used on the taters in our 
touch of richness. In a while I’ll dust them with confectioners sugar as you’ll see in the photo.
overcooked mac, Hellman/Best mayo, and finely grated onion. Where it goes from there determines if it’s tasty or just filling. The Taste newsletter has an interesting 
you to tasty alternative. So in that article linked in the 
We all pretty much know how to cook bacon. But . . . do we know the best way to cook bacon. Food 52 gives us the benefit of their research {oh, the sacrifice!}, for turning out perfecto strips. But . . . the answer has a bit to do with your preferences. In that regard, still helpful. Tune in 
look? Shown here, just a couple of the many artsy possibilities available.
& kitchenware, collages & sayings.
with pecans and bleu cheese, chicken grilled with ham & cheese, there are ethnic classics including saganaki, raclette, queso fundido and fondues. Great tips too for selecting, measuring, cooking, serving and storage.
After trying different methods, this is what I’ve found works best . . .
Leave it in the store package, which you’ve cut along the top on three sides. After each use tuck the wrapper tightly around on all sides, and then place it in a zip bag, wrapping that tightly around after squeezing out as much air as possible.
in the rest of the meal with roast chicken, sides, brown bread & dessert. But the same source, Irish Central, not surprisingly also offers us a prep for 
balance within our waterways. In a story in the beautiful “Saveur” magazine, celeb chef Eric Ripert has some ideas about how to fully enjoy the bounty of the seas in a responsible way.
newsletter, am I forgetting anything, probably. But now there’s one more.