> I really hope Sam doesn't mean it when he says they both "never wants to go back to Canada" in the Peter-Sellers sense of the phrase.

Oh, Leen and I definitely feel that way, but the difference is that that feeling won't have Peter Sellers-like permanence. I couldn't waste the energy doting on an episode like that for very long. It would be so self-destructive if I did. It's self-destructive enough letting these emotions get out of hand just in the short term. Already I can think back on that drive home and not get angry and frustrated. I think I'd dread the next time I had to drive in Quebec, but I wouldn't stop from doing it if I had good reason to. (Visiting you would be more than reason enough.)

> Like I said, the Stoddards have a gift for putting one's heart at ease.

Is that a gift or just the quality of not bearing sharp objects?

> Sam, you didn't tell them about my boxed-up boxy basement!

That's because I didn't see it. During the tour of the household, you were going to show it to us, slipped downstairs, then decided you'd better not. :-) Even so, I'd bet money our basement looks worse.

> Now I crave a copy of the "Sorceror's Stone" to see in live action whether Scholastic changed perfectly good Briticisms like "shan'ts" to boring "won'ts"...

I'm going to do a comparison myself when I read them. We're already comparing book #4 as Leen reads it. One pleasant surprise was that the American edition let a usage of "fortnight" slip through. One change, however, has us guessing. The British edition, on page 56ish, says, "Bulgaria have got Viktor Krum, though . . . Krum's one decent player; Ireland have got seven." The first "have" Leen thought was a typo, but the second mistake on the very next line had her wondering. We looked it up in the American edition, and we found "has" in both places. In American English, countries and sports teams are singular nouns. Are they plural in British English? Or is it just a truly weird double typo?

> (Pssst... You forgot to mention the presence of evil CHEEZ WHIZ in the fridge.)

Oh yeah. There was cheez whiz in there, too. The Cheez Whiz looked out of place, and not just for having an English label. I cannot for the life of me imagine what use you would have for Cheez Whiz.

> The pork ribs were cooked in... erm... hoisin sauce, dark soya, 5-spices powder (cloves, fennel, cassia bark, aniseed), fermented tofu in red bean paste, star anise crushed by mortar and pestle, and honey and crushed garlic.

Now, if it had been me, the sauce would have consisted of out-of-the-bottle barbecue sauce. Period. If I was feeling ambitious, I might have thrown a little cheez whiz in. :-)

> And, if you'll forgive me for mentioning this particular quirk... The other thing that astonished me about Sam is how he watched part of the TV show upside down, lying on the floor.

Actually I don't recall doing that before. I do love to lie on the floor, and at that particular moment -- actually a bit before the show started -- I was angled for conversation, not for TV watching, but when something I heard caught me ear, I twisted around to see, and that's how I ended up. Once the show started, I watched it right-side up. I've actually noticed that the impact of my perception of what's happening on a screen is dramatically reduced if I'm not looking at the screen right side up. I discovered this when watching movies while lying on my side without having my head propped up. The illusion of reality is made somewhat more distant. You can test this yourself by putting on a particularly strong scene of your favorite movie and alternating between positioning your head vertically and sideways. Even simple scenes -- two shots of people talking -- seem to be less potent, from a visual standpoint, if you're not seeing the frame right side up. Not that Iron Chef would have been terribly hampered by sideways or upside down viewing, but you got my mind wandering.

At any rate, lying on the floor rules. I do it much more than any other member of my family. In fact, I even have a penchant for lying on *stairs* and have figured out how to do that in a few different ways and be quite comfortable, assuming the stairs are carpeted.

> Criticism? You're actually scoping for criticism of your cooking??? Uh. Well, I guess you could have used the cast iron for the scrambled eggs (which Dave really loved, even the next day, because of the cheese btw) and the teflon pan for the ham and bacon, instead of vice versa.

That's the way I did it! :-) Or did you mean to say it the other way?

> And never fear. There's only one (1) 2-inch knife scratch in the Dupont pan...

AAHHH!!! I truly thought the only contact the knife made with the pan was a genuine poke, no scraping involved. A two inch scratch!! Send your mailing address. I'll mail you a replacement pan. Two. And a new knife. Darn darn darn darn.

> Wolf "Food funny: did you ever get to sample the Poutine at Lafleur's?" spirit

Sadly, no. We had every last intention of doing just that, but when we got in the truck, we kind of sighed, looked at each other, and decided we just wanted to go home. It was pretty stupid of us, actually, because it sounded good to both of us. Alas.