Maybe you’ve seen those pads, sold at some supermarkets, that have a huge list of grocery items with a checkbox next to each. You’re supposed to check things off as you realize you need them, then take the list to the store.

I bought one of those years ago and found it less than useful. We always ended up needing things not on the list (why the list doesn’t have fish sauce on it I’ll never understand) and then checking three items, which felt wasteful. We switched to a magnetic list pad with a picture of a cat on it. I got eight of them for like $5 from Miles Kimball. We also have a little pen holder on the fridge. For grocery shopping, it works perfectly.

But then there are the special trips. Trader Joe’s. Costco. Whole Foods. Often we’ll go to one of these stores in search of something special, but also want to grab some regular items (such as diapers, Trader Joe’s caramels, and Prince Charles Biscuits). We tried taping a separate list to the fridge, but ended up intermixing items from multiple stores and mixing greatest-hits items with one-timers. And what do you do, bring the list along and then remember to tape it back up when you get home?

It was time to go online. We set up a Shopping page on [Backpack](http://backpackit.com/?referrer=BP2WJ), a website that might be called a place to upload your brain. Any time I have some random piece of information to write down, I put it somewhere on Backpack. This has saved a lot of Post-Its. It’s free to sign up and create up to five pages; I liked it so much I subscribed.

Now when we’re heading to Costco or Joe’s, we can consult the Backpack page and be reminded, oh yeah, we also need a Pound Plus bar, which is a huge chocolate bar allegedly used for baking. We write down what we actually need on a paper list, head to the store, and don’t come back smacking our heads because we forgot the ravioli.

Laurie and I can both add and delete items from our Backpack page. You can’t, but you’re welcome to have a look.

The short ribs were excellent. Susie Middleton was right. I am planning to live off them from here on out.

I realized that I’ve never given the recipe for Iris’s favorite carrots. These are suitable for kids of any age, or adults, and Iris has been known to eat several entire carrots’ worth at a sitting.

Peel as many **carrots** as you can fit in your skillet and cut them into 1/4 inch slices. Mince a **shallot**, or a bit of onion if you have no shallots. Melt some **butter** in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallot and cook for about a minute, then throw in the carrots and **salt** to taste. Give them a good stir, then let them cook for a couple of minutes. Stir again, then let them brown again. You want the vegetables to get a little color. Add a pinch (or more) each of **ground ginger** and **cumin** and stir to combine. Add liquid to just cover the bottom of the pan. I used the braising liquid from the short ribs, but chicken broth or water are fine. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are very tender, about 15-20 minutes. If the bottom of the pan gets dry, add water as needed. Uncover, boil off any remaining liquid, top with freshly ground **pepper**, and serve.

Do you know the braising liquid dilemma? If you reduce your braising liquid down to less than a cup, you have an incredibly silky and rich sauce–but less than a cup of it. If you don’t reduce that far, you have plenty of sauce, but you keep thinking about how much richer and silkier the sauce would be if only….

The February/March 2006 issue of Fine Cooking is awesome. Here’s a link to the table of contents, but it’s going to break when the next issue comes out. Some of the highlights are a gratin of winter greens; roasted chicken thighs; braised short ribs; and rice noodle stir-fries. I love winter cooking.

Last night’s dinner was almost entirely from Fine Cooking. I made Yukon Gold home fries with my home-rendered lard and that smoked Spanish paprika I got at Penzey’s. I had some nice pancetta, broccoli, and purple garlic sitting around, so I made the slow-cooked broccoli from the previous issue of Fine Cooking. Iris especially enjoyed the sticky, crunchy garlic slices. Then, when the potatoes were done, I scrambled a few eggs in the same pan so they picked up a bit of paprika.

Before dinner I rubbed some short ribs with an Asian spice rub, and today I will braise them. This is from a Molly Stevens article, also in the current Fine Cooking. As editor Susie Middleton put it, “Seriously, I could live off the Asian-Glazed Braised Short Ribs,” so if they’re not good I’m going to call her up and be all, “Twenty aught-six is hosed, dude.”

Then, to celebrate the end of 2005, Laurie and I drank some Moscato d’Asti, watched a classic Scrubs episode, and went to bed at eleven.

One of Iris’s favorite books of the year was Cupcakes by Elinor Klivans. There are many books about cupcakes, but most of them seem to be more about making frosting roses or providing a souvenir than about making great-tasting desserts.

I’m all for hitting up Magnolia to mack on some cupcakes, but cupcakes are easy to make at home, and Klivans’s book has some great ideas. It also has pictures, which Iris has been identifying (“nutty,” “crumb,” “chocly”) since before she was one-and-a-half. There’s nothing in it that wouldn’t be appealing to kids, but nothing looks like a Baskin-Robbins clown cone, either–not even the cupcakes served in ice cream cones.

Iris selected the White Mountain Chocolate Cupcakes (aka “creamy”), which are supremely tender cakes topped with seven-minute frosting, something I’d never heard of before Laurie made these cupcakes. It’s called seven-minute frosting because you beat it for seven minutes. It’s basically a meringue, and it tastes like marshmallows.

People often say that cupcakes are just a vehicle for frosting, but in Iris’s case, the cupcake and frosting together are vehicles for sprinkles. There was much discussion over which kind of sprinkles Iris would have, and she ended up with colorful sanding sugar. Later she ate some polka-dot sprinkles, just plain.

I often cut up food for Iris even though she doesn’t really need the help anymore. We let her attack the cupcake whole. She got so much frosting on her face that it looked like she’d been on fire and we had to unload the extinguisher on her.

Next year I’m hoping Iris will request the Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes, because for me, a cupcake is just a vehicle for chocolate mousse.

Everyone knows what an instant-read thermometer is. It’s a thermometer you stick into a piece of food and it instantly tells you the temperature. Right?

You wish. An instant-read thermometer is any thermometer that doesn’t have to be stuck into the food *while it’s heating up* in order to get an accurate reading. My old Taylor instant-read took about a minute to get a reading. When I break out the thermometer, it’s because I want to know whether something is done *now,* not so I can stick my hand into a hot oven for a minute like a jackass.

So I got a Thermapen. The Thermapen lives up to the phrase “instant-read”: you stick it in, and it tell you the temperature in four seconds, max, and usually more like two seconds. It has a range of -58°F to 572°F. It comes in colors, like the late iPod mini. There’s an optional belt holster, which of course I bought, because in my book there’s no such thing as an *optional* holster.

No thermometer is perfect, and there are a couple of downsides to the Thermapen. First, the quick reading depends on the thermometer having a thin, sharp tip. You could poke your eye out, but more to the point, it’s delicate. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, but if this is something you’re worried about, you can order a Thermapen with a thicker tip that is hardier but takes ten seconds to read.

Second, you can’t switch the Thermapen between Fahrenheit and Celsius. You can get a Celsius-only model, but only in gray.

Third, and I know you’re waiting for this, the Thermapen costs a bundle. The thermometer itself is $85. Throw in the holster and shipping, and you’re close to $100. Do you really need a $100 thermometer? Maybe not. If you cook meat, make candy, or deep-fry regularly, the Thermapen will save you many headaches. If you don’t eat meat, candy, or fried foods, probably you gave up on this blog weeks ago. So I guess you need a Thermapen.

You can order the Thermapen from [Thermoworks](http://www.thermoworks.com). I haven’t had the occasion to use their tech support yet, but this is an encouraging sign:

> When you call, we don’t need to transfer you to a half-dozen different folks before you get what you need. We promise, no transfer or one transfer. And, we have real people answer the phone. No automated reception software.