Connie, if there is one thing I have learned in the last few years of cooking, it is that "more salt" is almost always the right answer for underwhelming flavor from a recipe. For beef stroganoff, I would sub soy sauce for some of the salt; it brings deep meaty flavor that can help enhance the beef and mushroom flavors.

I've been meaning to make beef stroganoff myself! But with ground beef because that's how I was raised (?) and also it's easier.

Like is this to make the special needs folks feel good or is it really about secretly making the frats and sorority girls feel better.

I don't think it's a secret that anything that is set up as a volunteer activity for a group is always at least as much about making the group feel good. This is why I never wanted corporate volunteer days at my youth center job. PITA for no benefit to our kids!

Hey Ginger, my mom thanks you for the tip that she would feel worse the next day after her treatment, because she did! Day-of, I think mostly she was groggy from benadryl.

Also, re: noodles, I put the timer for at least one minute less than the package says and then test.

Well B is definitely a factor, so the real question is what, if anything, do the special needs folk get from it? Sounds like you weren't impressed.

Well the twins had fun (and yes Noah went because Grace had fun the week before). Which is enough.

I did have to engage a different set of thinking about the Greek Life people, which is healthy for me to not always assume the worse.

I guess it's because one of the people said something about how the event was super important. Important to whom, I guess. Yes, fun for my kids, but not a particularly meaning-filled experience.

I don't think it's a secret that anything that is set up as a volunteer activity for a group is always at least as much about making the group feel good. This is why I never wanted corporate volunteer days at my youth center job. PITA for no benefit to our kids!

It made me think of Joey telling Phoebe that anything done to be nice is always more about the do-er than the recipient.

Hi

On shore for a few hours in Newcastle, found wifi at The Beer Hut. Not having beer because seasickness got me a little.

So sad, sarameg, but how good that her people are taking care of her.

I was so pissed one year I did a big volunteer day in NYC, and we were supposed to be sprucing up outside a school, but it was raining, so they had people painting inside -- but not just regular painting, they made a really crappy mural. Don't leave the school worse than you found it!!

This is 2015, right? We're going to a birthday brunch at what I think is a prohibition-themed bar, but it has NO WEBSITE. I just wanted to see the menu, and -- nothing. It does have a FB page, but that's pretty sparse (and no menu). Googling the name of the bar brings up reviews of the bar in local publications, but they don't really talk about food as much as "Yay, bar!" I even checked UrbanSpoon and Yelp, because sometimes they have pictures of the menu that someone took with their iPhone and uploaded, but -- nothing.

How does a bar not have a website in the year 2015? Sheesh.

I think maybe I'll eat a bagel before I go.

Timelies all!

Quiet day here.

I have been annoyed quite often lately with how many restaurants and bars and other such things have been using facebook pages exclusively instead of websites. It is like AOL all over again.

Ooh, I hope I'm about to get into a fight on the internet about how my neighborhood has changed over the last 30 years.