Hec, I like a port and raspberry sauce or lemon butter on mine.

I love the port and raspberry sauce--I've been making it since before I could legally drink--and wish I would remember to write down a recipe for it.

Tep, the batter takes 24 hours to prep, sadly. Mind you, most of that's "resting". (And really, it only rests overnight, but still.)

We had pumpkin ice cream yesterday--a brand from SF--and I wanted to be in Ohio so I could try Graeters. I shake my fists at you with access.

I was thinking about that and I think that is another thing I haven't really had.

Making out with gay boys is covered in the Facts Of Life manual in the chapter called All Of The Fun And None Of The Guilt. My favorite chapter. I think they also cover Gummi Worms in that chapter.

Heh. I want to hear the gay boys talk about making out with straight girls, now.

I am a big proponet of splitting the bill evenly, but usually with people I eat out with a lot. and if I suggest it it is usually " do we want to split - or figure out what each of us owes". and honestly, sheer laziness is the key. If someone says figure it out ,that's what we do. One time when we put it on our credit card for a large group - everybody had money for themselves - but at the last minute everyone decicded to treat three people.- so people didn't have the cash. within 48 hours people made up the difference.

Today we are putting in a new reciever. ( our old one does not handle everything it needs to handle) . this is involing hole drilling , new shelves, and new wires... I though we were done with the plan - i tried to rake my tiny yard -- it took forever, because I kept having to go back inside...

How exactly would one go about making this fig sauce?

I just heated Bonne Maman's fig jam until it was somewhat runny, and mixed in a little lemon juice.

I thought it was good.

I don't often go out with people I don't know really well, and the bill nearly never gets split down who ordered what lines. I'll pay for someone's because she got my drinks last time and I don't have cash, or someone came to visit, so we buy theirs or they buy ours, maybe I'm doing a little better this month so I treat the person who just dropped a bunch of money on property tax. Terribly subjective accounting all based on friendship, generosity and what feels fair. Can't say I'd really reccommend it though.

Smaller dinners, especially with close friends, we usually end up fighting over who gets to pay. More often than not we do the, "you can pay next time" or "I'll get dinner if you get the movie tickets" route.

oooookaaaaaay, I think I have a rough draft of a paper. I have to read it again I guess. But I am so sick of it by now! Sadly, I suspect it sucks.

Mostly I prefer the pass the check around and toss in your share method. This works for me since I usually drink and DH usually gets appetizers. Most times my share would be more than an even split. We also tend to overtip. Those times when I have the garden salad and tea I still like the pass the check around method, because money saving!

There are times when even split makes more sense. Particularly when there are a lot of table dishes and shared wine.

eta: Yay for rough draft.

With group dinners, I just like to know going in how we'll manage the bill to avoid reenacting that Friends episode, especially since these days I'm one of the poor Friends.

Last weekend I was the organizer in chief for a dinner with 14 Regency writers, and I'm pleased to say that despite many of us never having met before the conference, the bill-splitting went perfectly smoothly. We announced to the waitress that we'd all be paying separately at the start, and while she couldn't do separate checks, she was nice enough to do a handwritten sheet itemized by person to help us out. That and the fact that most of us were carrying enough cash to cover our meals helped out--I'm sure the thing where you hand the server a stack of credit cards and say "$25 on this one, $30 on that one, etc." gets seriously annoying with more than 2-3 cards.