News and Fun Facts   My kind of fun fact and kind of not so fun fact is the same.  I was itching to test out a Hungarian recipe book recently donated to me and chose to make peppers stuffed with veal.  Alas, veal was no where to be found.  It seems it has been banned in California.  So scrap any veal recipe on your list.  And, really, standard beef is no substitute.  As we head into fall, we’ll start by baking this week Traci de Jardin’s favorite Thanksgiving dessert, cranberry walnut tart.   And for dinner this week you can imagine yourself in Paris with the quiche class on Wednesday. Hey, this is the week to eat some great food while musing over the election results.

Snap and Cook Photo Drawing  We had a fun Halloween week and I wanted to share our winner’s photo with darling Halloween cupcakes.  Send me a photo from a recipe posted in the newsletter or from a class to enter the drawing for a FREE class.    

Top Tip  While we all hope to make a perfect pie or tart shell, sometimes all doesn’t go so well.  Try out this way to patch your pie shell,  offered to readers in a recent Cooks Illustrated article.

What I’m Reading  I’m not saying that corn syrup is a super food but read “We need to Talk about Corn Syrup” to read why’s it’s actually not as bad as you think.  It’s a key ingredient for my ooey gooey brownies and this week’s cranberry walnut tart class.

What I’m Watching  I’m still watching the most recent season of the Great British Baking show (season 7, episode 4) and I recommend it both to inspire your baking and to build your self esteem.  You’ll see that even the experts have some flops.  For instance, if you put too much custardy filling in the middle of a bundt cake it can easily crack, sadly this happened to one of the contestants on the show.

What I’m Cooking  I LOVE shrimp risotto.  If you do, too, try out my recipe.  As I tell my students, risotto is a “process”.  Once you master it you can swap out the ingredients and let your imagination go a bit wild.  Ditto for quiche.  We’ll learn how to make quiche this week in class. Once you learn the techniques for quiche you can mix and match the cheese type and main ingredient.  In class we’re going classic with either a mushroom or bacon (Lorraine) quiche.