Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

My husband (who is a clam fanatic) loves this place called Flo's Clam Shack. We eat at it very often. The stuffed quahog's are very good and the lobster roll is top notch too. The prices are very reasonable and it is slightly off the tourist beat.

http://www.quahog.org/cuisine/index.php?id=93

Thanks, now I'm hungry. And extra thanks for the links and the recipes!

Ooh and @bonbons I second the Trader Joe's stuff - my brother loved getting lots of stuff from there.

If I were you I would go with @squeezebottle's suggestion to go with a local product - perhaps what they call Smokies out there. Sure they are bigger than traditional hot dogs, but you can cut them in half or quarters. Look for a locally produced brand - try a farmers market. A locally produced product may not have all the added ingredients that you are trying to avoid.

As my husband notes he cannot believe the selection of smoked meat and hot dog type products in Canada. I would try Safeway as a good place to start looking.

Thanks @sadiepix that sounds great (and within my skill level) I'll give it a go.

Thanks everyone else for the other suggestions too.

Just to let everyone know I emailed the hostess told her I was not comfortable making something I'd never made before (worried that it wouldn't turn out) so I said I'd bring my tres leche cake that I had made before and I hoped would fit her theme. She said great, thanks. I brought it, it was good, all the food was good and we had a good time. The best part? There were tons of kids at the bbq who loved the cake and even the hostess said it was prob better than spicy brownies.

Thanks for all the posts btw. Very entertaining.

lol rdrnr44

I am passive aggressive. But I did email her, tell her I do not consider myself a good baker/brownie maker and I would hate to ruin her bbq with an inferior dessert and I will just pick up something at the local bakery on the way there.

I just couldn't justify the cost when our family goes through so much milk. I try and buy the hormone free kind. As the descendant of farmers (not dairy though) I feel for them, but when it comes down to it I have to be able to afford not only to feed my kids but to clothe them too so cutbacks have to be made.

Easy, anything from my grandma's garden, like fresh raspberries eaten as I picked them or raw sugar peas. Yum!

Oh and her spoon jam made with strawberries or raspberries from her garden.

Nettles always remind me of when my brother was training with the UK special forces and one of the handbooks had instructions on how to make nettle tea if you were stranded.

@soyviz I'm intrigued. I'm trying to sub something with a lower glycemic level into some of my cooking... where do you find your recipes or do you just switch it straight?

I'm Canadian and live in NYC. I get packages sent from home or have friends bring stuff when they visit me (or visit Myer's of Keswick for a reasonable UK facsimilie) when I need my fix, but these are the things I miss the most which can't be acquired here:

Swiss Chalet chicken (double leg dinner with fries)
Coffee Crisp chocolate bars
Old Dutch BBQ potato chips (sadly they changed the flavour last year so I'm never to have this one again)
Shreddies
And slurpees (the machines are different in Canada and produce a superior product to the American one).

ita @malecki my mum is Hungarian and I saw the headline and would never, ever consider chicken paprikash healthy! Delcious yes, but not waistline friendly.

Her method is to brown the chicken (whole chicken cut up with skin) in some fat (usually she uses butter and oil mixed) and then fry the onions in the fat until golden and brown.

She always serves it with egg dumplings (though she always uses the German word spaetzle, prol because she grew up in Zurich) and I have so many memories of her standing over a hot pot of boiling water slicing the dough into the water with a knife that she would quickly dip back into the water. She taught me how to make spaetzle this way and I still do.