Congratulations, rbtraveler, you have successfully established yourself as the archetypal chatroom/forum critic -- add nothing to the discussion other than an assessment of whether you think it's a worthy one. Speaking of horses.....

And, if you click on rb's name, you'll see that about half of his/her posts have "non-travel" titles. I haven't read them all, but that makes me wonder...how much travel advice does rb have to share? Evidently, there's a lot of time to share COMPLAINTS about Fodorites' threads.

Too much time and too little travel?

Thanks, Starrsville! Now I am looking forward to furnishing the new house! I plan to take a trip to the furniture places in North Carolina to check out good furniture places I have heard about there. (Now that's travel-related, right?!) ha!

bamakelly, I've had friends who have done the NC thing with good and bad experiences. I found that I could get just as good deals when Rich's had their big furniture sales. But, now that they are Macy's I'm not sure I'll continue to shop there. Hurts my heart there is no Rich's in Atlanta anymore.

There are also some good deals to be found at the high end furniture liquidators in Dalton, GA - near the carpet outlets. Worth checking out if you are in the area. Not necessarily worth a special trip - head to NC instead.

But, I like buying locally, mainly in case there are any delivery or mix up problems.

By the way, I did the corn casserole again. Big hit! Thanks!

Good to know, Starrsville! I did a search on the furniture places on Fodors and found mixed reviews. I will shop around for sure. I miss Rich's too! Loved their furniture department. Glad the corn casserole worked again. It's so easy and always a favorite in my house. Happy 4th.

We just had the corn casserole for supper, and we liked it too.

I wish I could try the corn casserole, but alas, my husband would end up in the hospital if he ate it. There are a bunch of good things to try out here.

Cassandra, I never hardly trade recipes because I am a pinch of this and handful of that, kind of girl. Just like my gram and my great grandmother. It was hard to get them to write their recipes down and then get them to taste the same.

With baking you must follow the recipe.
I worked in a bakery for 5 years. I don't really like baking for that reason. But, if you don't follow the formula, it usually does not come out right.

I will stick to creative cooking.

My father developed a gluten allergy and my mom had to completely relearn how to cook. As mentioned before, most of the southern casseroles have a can of cream-of-something soup in them. Dad used to have a Campbell's soup for lunch with saltine crackers. Talk about putting oneself in the hospital :-)

Happy 4th to all! Eat a slice of watermelon for me - 'cause I can't!

Reading about Campbell's Soup made me remember a recipe I had blocked from my memory. Did anyone else make hamburger pie? It was browned hamburger and onion, a can of tomato soup, a can of drained green beans, with leftover mashed potatoes on top, baked until browned. I couldn't cook a thing but fudge when I got married and made this on a weekly basis after someone gave me the recipe. It's pretty bad.

My late MIL was a sweet woman who produced an amazing family, and she could bake enough to put 20 lbs. on you when you walked into her kitchen. But otherwise, cooking wasn't her strong suit, and shortly after I married her son, I was presented with a deck of index cards with "family" recipes. In addition to the tuna bake and the green bake and the beans-n-franks bake, there was her "famous" recipe for Russian Salad Dressing: a cup of mayonnaise and a cup of ketchup. One of her daughters told me, confidentially, that the unlisted secret ingredient was a quarter cup of pickle relish.

:-) the "secret" ingredient

One of the nicest wedding gifts you can give is a binder with simple to cook recipes from "family members".

It takes time, but if one emails those invited to a shower and they email back their favorite recipes, it makes a great shower keepsake - and a good starter set of recipes for a new bride.

Starrsville
Do you drain your peas and asparagus?

Starrsville
Do you drain your peas and asparagus? Sounds really good!

That's a great idea starrsville, I am working on a cookbook/journal right now for family next year that incorporates all the places I have been, then recipes that remind me of that place...I am now torn though because there are turning out to be so many, that it will be expensive to print in color so I may either scan photos in black & white or do pen & ink illustrations...as much as I would love to do a full color illustration on all like the old cookbooks used to be...it's going to take me a while...I've been more places than I thought :-)

Yes, I drain the peas and asparagus.

Wed, you may want to see how much Kinko's would charge for printing and binding.

Seems like a great idea for another Fodors Forum: Recipes from our travels!

Starrsville is right....a family recipe book is a GREAT gift. A friend of mine wrote to all our wedding guests and catagorized all the recipes submitted into a binder with handy dividers. It is one of my favorite gifts of all time and it's so nice to have tried and true recipes.

Bamakelly,
I thikn you should repost that corn casserole recipe for lazy girls like me who scrolled through the original thread and must have missed it!!

Thanks!

When I moved to Florida a very good friend gave me a gift of a cookbook. The cover is wood, handpainted with vegetables and fruits (she was an art teacher). Each page is a recipe written out longhand and each has a hand drawn and colored picture of one of the main ingredients. Many of the recipes are introduced with things like "this is the dish we had after Kristin's christening" or "remember when I got drunk on the fogcutters while preparing this?". A year after I moved she was killed in a car wreck. That book is one of my most treasured possessions. What an amount of love went into making it.

You gave me goosebumps, Patrick.

OWJ: Happy to oblige. It is very similar to the recipe further up the thread with a slight variation. I am just tickled that everyone likes it so much! It's a family favorite in the Kelly home. :)

Corn Casserole

1 can regular corn, drained
1 can creamed corn
1 stick butter
1 box Jiffy corn mix
8 oz sour cream
1 beaten egg

Melt butter. Add corns. Add muffin mix and egg and sour cream, stirring between each.

Mix well. Pour into 2 or 3 quart casserole dish. Bake at 375* for 45 minutes.