I'm not sure how the idea came to me, but it did.

I make a neat little homemade chocolate cheese from scratch (heat the milk and cream, add lemon juice to curdle, strain, drain, and mix in cocoa and sugar... that easy). I was trying to think of a dessert I could make from it and came up with the following idea.

Make the cheese (possibly with some ground chocolate chips mixed in to make it a little more gooey when hot). Form the cheese into balls and then chill. Take a chilled ball, dip it in drop doughnut or funnel cake batter, and deep fry. Let drain, then skewer three or four balls together to make a kebab. Drizzle the kebab with a chocolate sauce that's been kicked up a notch with a little salt and some fresh ground pink peppercorn.

So, who dares me to actually make this (as my wife shakes her head and begs me to just say "no")?

My Facebook friends read about my adventure trying to find tri-tip last Friday morning. I started at Fred Meyer, but they were out. I'd seen Albertson's advertising a special on it, so I went there, but they were out. So I went to the closest Safeway, but they were out. Knowing Costco seems to always have tri-tip, I went there. I'd avoided Costco because I knew I'd have to buy more than I needed, but I was at the end of my rope.

I got a 2-roast pack, took it home, marinated it, oven-roasted it, and served it with sweet potato pancakes and a salad of chopped roma tomato and English cucumber tossed with a little olive oil and salt. But I ended up with a lot of leftover tri-tip.

It's been my experience that roasted meats don't re-heat well. They get an odd flavor. I tried steaming some thin-sliced tri-tip by wrapping it in a wet paper towel and nuking it for 30 seconds for a flatbread wrap, but the odd flavor was there.

Then I tried making French dip sandwiches, letting the tri-tip warm to room temperature for an hour and then dipping it in a simple beef broth jus before putting it on toasted french rolls with butter and swiss cheese. That was okay, but still far from "good".

So I'm putting out the question to my friends and readers: Do you have any tips for making something tasty with leftover tri-tip?

I shop at Costco. You can't beat their prices on diapers, cheese, and some other things my family uses a lot of. It's where we bought my sons matching outfits earlier today (to my great combination of dismay and glee). But there have been two sore disappointments with the Costco in Everett, Washington.

1. You never know when they'll have Triscuits (my wife's favorite cracker). Sometimes they do, most times not, and this drives us into the arms of WalMart because they have the best prices on Triscuits for normal consumer size packaging.
2. In 6 years, they haven't carried a decent brand of salami that didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. I'm just not a fan of Italian salami and they seem bound and determined to keep expanding their selection of Italian lunch meats and Italian-branded lunch meats like turkey breast and pastrami from Columbus meats.

Why is it that they have like 8 types of Italian salami in the Everett Costco, but nothing simple and domestic? I get the worst aftertaste from Italian salami. I'd kill for them to simply carry Oscar Mayer hard salami or the same hard salami I can get in the deli case at Safeway.

I understand that products come and go, but on my last visit, in the premium lunch meat aisle there were the Kirkland lunch meats and then all the other lunch meat and salami were Italian or from Italian meats companies. Even their pastrami and turley breast were from Columbus. What gives?

I love Costco. My dad got me a membership when I went off to college 23 years ago and I've been a member ever since. But this obsessions with Italian meats in the deli section has got to stop. Give us some good old, plain old salami. No fancy imported stuff. I'd love some kosher chubs I could hang to dry in my kitchen, but failing that, just something along the lines of simple, domestic hard salami like Oscar Mayer.

Thanks Costco!

My son has been disappointed recently because I have decided to boycott Taco Time. Think of it as if you created a Mexican restaurant and applied a Northwestern Scandinavian sensibility to its food. We're not talking Lutefisk tacos, but the food is just sort of boring. That's not why I'm boycotting it though. I'm boycotting it because their drive through is the slowest I've ever encountered, and despite the extra time, they have a tendency to get my order wrong. Last time, they gave me a chicken taco salad instead of a beef taco salad, and their chicken is disgusting. It tastes like it's warmed-over canned chicken and it's just terrible. I'm just done with them.

The one thing was, instead of potato chunks (like Taco Bell) or french fries (like just about everywhere else), they served tater tots (calling them "Mexi Fries"), and my older boy loved to get a kid-size quesadilla and tater tots from them. Since he could no longer have Taco Time tater tots, I thought I'd console him by trying my hand at a recipe I'd only heard of in hushed whispers, a dish that can drive a cardiologist to acts of violence... Tater Tot Casserole. It's the holy grail of fat and starch, and I was pretty sure my kid would love it.

Here are the components:

Equipment:

2.5 quart covered casserole dish
mixing bowl
spoon

Ingredients:

2 lb. bag of frozen tater tots
10 ounce can of condensed cream of potato soup
16 ounce tub of sour cream
6 oz can of french fried onions
2 cups of shredded cheese (packed)
3 bun length hotdogs
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Put the oil in the casserole dish and use a paper towel to spread it around the bottom and sides of the dish.

Quarter the hotdogs lengthwise and dice into 1/4 inch bits.

In a mixing bowl, combine the sour cream, soup, half the cheese, half the fried onions, the salt, the pepper, the onion powder, the rosemary, and the hotdog bits.

Create a single layer of tater tots in the bottom of the casserole, laying them lengthwise, and try to fit in as many as you can. Spoon the sour cream mixture over that, creating a fairly even layer.

Cover the sour cream layer with the remaining tots and press them in gently. Cover the tots with the remaining cheese in an even layer. Cover the cheese with the remaining french fried onions in an even layer.

Cover the casserole with its lid and put it in the oven for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove the lid and let bake for another 10 or so minutes to gently brown the french fried onions on top.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then serve. It's best if you mash all the bits together once it's on the plate so all the flavors get distributed around. It also stands up well to reheating in the microwave.

Enjoy!