The first four ingredients are distilled vinegar, jalapeño pepper, water and salt.

I will try some soon.

It's interesting seeing jalapeño peppers listed as "mild." When I was a kid they were the hot ones for us Minnesotans.

Oh my how far have we come.

I just lit candles and opened my first present, which is a Le Creuset French oven.

We had a lovely evening lighting candles with my dad, then went out for dinner. I gave The Girl the big set of pots and pans she's been asking for! She was very pleased. Yay.

I have a cooking question! I want to try making sufganiyot, from this recipe: [link] I've never deep-fried anything before. What kind of oil do I use? What kind of pan do I use? My options for the pan are a wok and several different pots. How much is "several inches of oil"? Anything else I should know?

Vegetable oil? Canola?

I have never made doughnuts, but I think you need enough oil so that the doughnuts float, and you have room to get in there and flip them.

I would totally use the Tabasco, but I am pretty casual when it comes to expiration dates, unless it's dairy, chicken or pork.

So, a sublettor is like a poor relation in an Austen novel, there on sufferance and not to be considered one of the real residents?

Hmm. I think I am coming from the perspective that I have only (after my freshman year of college, which is maybe why I so protective of my space -- SEX ON MY BED roommate, I'm looking at you and I'm still bitter!) been rommates with people I know pretty darned well. A subletter roommate seems just so odd to me -- I get the idea of subletting an apartment, but not really one where I would have housemates.

I sublet an apartment from an acquaintance for a summer in college, and even though we were friendly, I always felt very, very much that I was a houseguest, and that I wasn't in "my" space.

You want a heavy pot and an oil with a high smoke point. I think peanut oil and canola oil are good choices. The Le Creuset might be a good pot. I think you can deep fry in a wok but I haven't tried it. Based on the recipe, it sounds like you don't have to totally submerge the donuts, but you'll want enough oil in the pan to be at least halfway up the things you are frying - without a basket or spider, much more than that might make it harder to turn them.

Watch out for spatter.

without a basket or spider, much more than that might make it harder to turn them.

I do have a spider. I use it when I make pasta -- I've never been able to figure out how to dump a pot of pasta and water into a colander without burning myself.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I might give this a try on Sunday. (I'm missing a few ingredients, so I can't make them tonight. Plus, if I make them on Sunday, then I can bring some into the office on Monday, so I won't eat them all.)

But I've been a sublettor before and was under the misapprehension that paying my monthly rent meant I lived there, fair and square.

I think it's an issue of history and relationship. I would not have minded if my roommate, whom I hardly ever saw, watched my DVDs, since we lived together for months. He didn't, though. But the subletters were watching stuff very shortly after moving in, and we hadn't really established any sort of relationship.

One time I was spending the summer staying at the Masters' House. At Rice, the Masters are community members who live on campus, and they let me and a roommate stay at their house while they traveled. For a few days, their grandsons or nephews or something visited, and they ate a bunch of my food, which really annoyed me. They had no way of knowing what food in the fridge was ours, I guess, but, uh, clearly it's one of those things that still bothers me.

They had no way of knowing what food in the fridge was ours, I guess,

There's this thing called verbalization...