Ooooooeee...

Today was my father's birthday. Lauren and I made this rustic Italian meat sauce with pork country style ribs from The Best Recipe that he particularly likes for dinner, and cherry crumble squares for dessert. We used our favorite cherry preserves, Favorit Red Cherry, for the filling, plus a healthy dose of amaretto. I had a square tonight and I'm still in sugar shock. =_= I can't imagine how I'd feel if we'd used a sweeter cherry preserves.

Just as a public service announcement, Favorit Red Cherry is the best cherry preserves I've ever tried, and I've tried...Trader Joe's and Trappist, both of which are too sweet. I have a strong suspicion the Favorit preserves are made with Morello cherries, but I have no way to confirm it. ^^ I've never tried their other preserves. In general, my favorite jam/preserves are almost all St Dalfour--their Thick Apricot is so good that I can almost eat it straight from the jar, and their Golden Peach, Gourmet Pear, Strawberry, and Red Raspberry are very good as well. Their Black Raspberry is nasty. 8_8

I know I talk about Cook's Illustrated like it's the Bible or something, but I do have to agree to disagree with them in some ways. I think they're way too hard on Twinings Orange Pekoe tea. I disagree that tarragon is good in lobster rolls(tarragon has a tendency to make less than excellent seafood taste worse, and I prefer dill), and I'm sorry, ALL water-packed tuna is nasty.

I spent the whole evening blabbing about cinnamon and how oil-packed vs. water-packed tuna are made and annoyed the hell out of everybody.