I suspect more than a few readers aren’t prepared to spend $120 on a De’Longhi Coffeee Urn they’ll use once a year. At work I’m used to feeding at least 200 people a night, so I put together a few simple (and free) suggestions that will help ease the pain of large scale entertaining.

Use the Oven: Baking and roasting are much easier than sautéing or frying. Less risk of burning, sticking and smoking. A stir fry for 30 will make you crazy. When possible, choose slow cooking recipes that can trundle along happily in the oven while you turn your attention to other aspects of party planning.

The Magic Number: When possible, cook everything at the same temperature. Your magic number may be 400, or 325; either way, there is no need to adhere slavishly to a recipe’s recommendation. Rather than doing all sorts of complicated calculations while rotating gratins and pies in the oven, just pick a number in the middle and stick with it. It really doesn’t matter that much. If you notice excess browning, turn down the heat. If nothing is happening, turn it up.

Aluminum Foil: If you don’t have it, make it. Need a lid for the roasting pan? Two pieces of heavy duty aluminum foil. An extra cookie sheet? Two pieces of heavy duty aluminum foil. A huge colander? Two pieces of heavy duty aluminum foil with holes poked through. Your cookware wont be glamorous, but it’ll be nearly free and you can throw it away when you’re finished.

Keep Hot Food Hot: One of the biggest challenges when cooking for a crowd is getting your food to the table warm. Rather than a warming tray, pop your pizza stone or a ceramic tile into the oven to heat up while you’re cooking and use it to keep food warm from below (but cover with a towel to protect grabby hands if you’re having a buffet). Gently warm your serving bowls and trays with hot water. Your old friend aluminum foil is the perfect cover for casseroles, and the microwave is a well insulated box where you can hide foods until you’re ready to serve them. Many restaurants even partially cook your food earlier in the day and finish cooking right before service.

Choose Wisely: Menu planning is the real key to simplifying your holiday extravaganza. In addition to preparing mostly oven (not stovetop) dishes, consider a few plates that will be served room temperature. Plan foods like short ribs that don’t burn easily and that can hang around in the oven until you’re ready for them. Prepare baked pasta dishes rather than worrying about getting your linguine al dente. Make dessert a day or two in advance. Don’t worry about garnish and, whatever you do, don’t deep fry or you’ll find yourself spending Christmas Day over a pot of hot oil in a kitchen reeking of crab cake rather than opening all those presents you surely deserve.

The recipe was extensive, the noodles were homemade, the ragu took hours. An experiment for another day, when memories of brining and basting had faded. Still, the cheesy, meaty, gooey photos were inspiring. Inspiring enough that I created this super simplistic formula for “Inauthentic Meat Lasagne” using techniques from Fine Cooking and ingredients I found lurking around the back of the fridge.

Inauthentic Meat Lasagne has three components – noodles, red sauce, and white sauce (béchamel or besciamella).  First, prepare the red sauce and start your pasta water. Leave the red sauce over low heat and throw in the noodles. While they cook you can whip up a quick batch of béchamel.

Preparing Your Components

Red sauce – Crumble and brown some hot Italian sausage. Make a red sauce using your favorite quick recipe; I discovered and defrosted some marinara I’d prepared in August. (You can even use sauce from a jar. Hide the evidence.) Add the sausage to the red sauce and simmer over low heat while you prepare the rest of the components.

Noodles – Buy them at the store, cook them using the directions on the box. Or use the no cook variety.

Bechamel – Melt 6 Tbsp. butter, add 6 Tbsp. flour over medium low and whisk until no longer raw tasting (3-5 minutes). Add 3 cups milk, whisk and bring to a low simmer (don’t boil), reduce until creamy and thick. Season with salt and pepper.

Building Your Lasagne

Layer red sauce (with sausage), then noodles, then béchamel, then optional cheese.
Repeat. Just keep going until you’ve reached the top of the dish. Pop it in a 350 degree oven until it’s fully heated, usually at least 45 minutes. I like to broil it for 5 minutes at the end to ensure a crispy top. Let it rest before attempting to cut. It may not be authentic, but it’s cheesy and comforting and beats having General Tso’s for the third night in a row.

There is only so much you can do to a roast turkey. You can brine it, you can rub flavorful things under the skin and stuff them into the cavity, and you can baste it with various liquidy concoctions. That’s about it. Then the side dishes — don’t we have enough recipes for stuffing (no raisins, PLEASE!), cranberry glop, and pumpkin pie (always better when purchased at the local gourmet food store). No one needs an entire month of food journalism each year devoted to these simple recipes and their subsequent leftovers (turkey sandwiches with sharp cheese and honey mustard, obviously).

Perhaps I could get behind the concept of such single-minded food journalism if it were devoted to a particularly intriguing and complex delight like the oyster, or if only a few select magazines each year were permitted to run Thanksgiving recipes in their November issues. It could be determined by lottery the previous year, or a committee could be established to make the decision. It would be like the Olympics. Magazines would put in bids and only the most worthy (i.e. those promising to feature oyster or otherwise raisin-less stuffing) would be chosen by the ITC to adorn the covers of their November issues with festive fowls.

People, let’s band together. Let’s write to the editors. Let’s stamp out the Thanksgiving magazine menace before it creeps back to September. I’m doing what I can (last year we ate short ribs for Thanksgiving dinner), what are you doing? Our voices need to be heard before the Christmas cookie barrage begins, if we want to make any kind of a difference!

Last week�s Chronicle is all about flatbread, perfect if you�re in the mood for some savory baking.

Here�s where you can celebrate Oktoberfest in the San Francisco area.

My favorite story - Marlena Spieler gets a nip on the rear from an overly fresh lobster.

If you are sure of your cooking skills and you want to test your mettle in front of millions of members of the viewing public, the Food Network is looking for the next Food Network Star. Send your video and application by October 27, 2006.

Sometimes, though, cooking like a chef doesn�t make sense. Chefs have huge industrial kitchens, supersize appliances, yards of counterspace, and produce food in volumes impractical to anyone who doesn�t run an orphanage. How many of Bon Appetit�s Top Secrets work for the home cook unwilling to spend hours or millions on a meal?

Salt-Roasted Porterhouse

This one�s easy � it�s a steak cooked in a salt crust (same way you�d cook a salt crusted fish). Sure, you use a lot of salt, but at $1.99 a box, that doesn�t put too much strain on the wallet.

Soft Egg Ravioli

While the idea of poaching a fragile pasta to protect it during cooking makes plenty of sense, soft egg ravioli is not the ideal way to practice the technique. Without truffles, or with the substitution of truffle butter or oil, this recipe is pretty cheap, until you count the cost of your personal time and anguish. Making ravioli is not easy, making ravioli around a raw egg may make you insane. One of my culinary school instructors made this dish for us and even he, a former chef at Le Cirque, needed a team of assistants to assemble the pasta. If you�re going to try this one, plan on devoting your entire weekend and buy at least 10 cartons of eggs.

Duck-Fat Belgian Fries

I love duck fat. Looooooove it. It makes everything taste richer and better. When I cook with duck, I save the fat in little jars and use it later to add that ducky flavor to saut�ed vegetables, pasta, more duck, etc. Even when I�m saving my duck fat religiously, I never have more than a few tablespoons hanging around. This recipe calls for four cups of duck fat (about $20 worth at Dartagnan). You really need to love your fries to make that kind of investment. It just might be worth it.

Whole Roasted Game Hens with Grits and Wild Mushroom Sauce

The secret to this recipe is a good smear of herb butter under the skin of the hen. Heck yea! This trick is cheap and quick. With a little creativity, you can create a variety of flavored butters to augment the flavor of your bird. Ginger garlic butter is by far my favorite, but the possibilities are endless. Pesto butter? Walnut mushroom? Roquefort? Just throw butter and your favorite secret ingredient into the food processor, or mix with a spoon in a small bowl. You can freeze larger batches and use them as needed.

Spanish Pork Braise

The secret here is the �Porkapalooza.� By using four different types of pork in this recipe, you get a far greater piggy experience. This trick is not only a flavor booster, but a great way to use all the parts of your animal. Duck fat, chicken livers, bone marrow � toss �em in!

Pan-Seared Sea Scallops with Lentils, Bacon, and Cider Reduction

Although this seems like a delightful recipe, I�m not sure what the big secret is. Bon Appetit describes it as �high-wire balance� and the �juggling of contrasting flavors,� but I don�t get the mystique. Still, who doesn�t love bacon, and this recipe sounds pretty easy.

Like a Caesar

The secret to this funky variation on a Caesar salad is the 37 cloves of garlic blanched six times and pureed into a spread. Awesome. Especially if you have young children you can trick into peeling the garlic for you.

Truffled Red Wine Risotto with Parmesan Broth

I can�t argue with adding extra cheesy flavor to anything, and this seems like a great way to use up cheese ends, although it does mean one more scary bag of scraps lurking in the back of your freezer.

Spiny Lobster in �Crazy Water�

The trick here is to par boil your lobster, cut it in half, and finish cooking it in a pan. As long as it�s done flopping around before I take it out of the water, this trick is fine by me.

Chili-Smoked Prawns with Barbecue Hollandaise

You can smoke these prawns right in your own kitchen, using wood chips and a big skillet. Much cheaper than investing in a smoker, but would your entire house/apartment smell like smoked prawns for the next month? I don’t know if I’m willing to risk it.

Minestrone of Late-Summer Vegetables

For me, vegetable stock is no big secret, it�s what you use when you have vegetarians coming over for dinner.

Coke-Braised Pork Carnitas

I�ve always wanted to try one of these recipes where Coke is the secret magical ingredient. The big drawback to this recipe is that after you saut� the pork for a few minutes, you deep fry it for an hour and a half. Is that right? An hour and a half? That seems like an awfully long time to stand watch over a pot of blazing hot oil. I�d try this one only if I had a culinary school student intern to monitor the deep fry thermometer for me.

Don�t get me wrong, I love these recipes. I want my food magazines to branch away from the �quick and easy weeknight meals� and give me some fantasy and glamour, and these recipes do it perfectly. Still, you won’t find me investing in 8 gallons of duck fat any time soon.

The article that really caught my eye was by Marlena Spieler, the self-proclaimed queen of packed lunches. She has tips, recipes (like Persian herb, cucumber and goat cheese flatbreads) and seasonal suggestions to make your lunchbox more appealing.

The only problem�Spieler is not the queen of packed lunches. She can be the duchess, or the viscountess, but not the queen. The Queen of packed lunches � that�s my mom.

Although I went to a public school with a school lunch program, my mom made my lunch nearly every day. Each lunch was a complete little meal; you had your main course, usually (but not always) a sandwich; your fruit or vegetable; your other �side dish�; and your dessert. Roast beef sandwiches with horseradish mayo, tuna salad with celery and dill, chicken pitas with sprouts and cucumbers, grilled chicken salad, tortilla �roll-ups� with cream cheese, turkey and jalepenos � I actually ate that way every day for lunch.

Baloney was unheard of. The bread was lightly toasted, and with mayo and/or honey mustard. The sandwiches were seasoned with salt and fresh ground pepper, and somehow stayed crispy in my locker until noon or later. The side dishes varied from carrot sticks, apples, or a wedge of cheddar to saut�ed spinach with garlic or pasta salad with feta and bell peppers. Dessert: a fun size snickers; two chocolate chip cookies; maybe a small piece of homemade carrot cake.

Evidence of her royal status - you could trade half of one of my mom�s sandwiches for a Tastykake, even the highly coveted chocolate covered, custard filled Tasty-Klair Pie, no problem. (Not that I ever did such a thing.)

I know other kids don�t have the luxury of being raised by the Queen of lunches, and many are dependent on school lunches for an affordable meal, possibly their only real meal of the day. Moms or Dads can�t all do what mine did. But schools can. Turkey with fresh lettuce, real cheese and honey mustard on whole wheat bread? That�s not too much to ask.

I did a little experiment, pricing the ingredients for eight sandwiches (that�s one large uncooked turkey breast, one loaf of bread, two heads of lettuce, a hunk of swiss cheese, and a few bucks for mayo) and came out with a price of a little over a dollar a sandwich. I did most of my theoretical shopping at freshdirect.com; the cost could likely be cut in half by schools buying in bulk.

What would the Queen say? Let them eat turkey on whole wheat!

There really are four simple steps to improved knife skills: practice, slow down, be more precise, and practice some more. Here�s how I learned to make square dice of any size (shown large size for easy viewing). First, it is essential to square off the victim (in this case, an unsuspecting jicama), then slice it like a loaf of bread.

Next, cut each slice into strips, and then into little squares. At first, they won’t be square, they�ll be little trapezoids and pentagons and whatnot. Just slow down, and try to be really careful to keep all the edges square and even. Keep practicing.

Unfortunately, I’ve found that it�s nearly impossible to force yourself to practice knife skills at home. What could be more uninspiring than dicing a vegetable into perfect squares for no reason whatsoever? Surely you have something better to do? Like scrubbing the baseboards or checking the roof for loose tiles?

Fine Cooking to the rescue! The colorful Chopped Mexican Salad with Roasted Peppers, Corn, Tomatoes & Avocado provides plenty of opportunities for dicing and mincing. The honey-lime-cumin vinaigrette is refreshing on a hot day and the components travel easily when packed in separate containers (best to chop the avocado on arrival, if possible).

I made a few modifications to the recipe - here�s my version:

Chopped Mexican Salad with Roasted Peppers, Corn, Tomatoes & Avocado

2 large orange or red bell peppers, halved, cored and seeded.
2 ears fresh corn, husked
olive oil
5 plum tomatoes, diced
1 large jicama, peeled and diced
2 firm avocados, peeled and diced
1 15 oz can black beans, drained

Place the corn and the peppers (cut side down) on a foil lined baking sheet. Drizzle generously with olive oil and sprinkle the corn with salt. Roast the peppers and corn in a 425 degree oven until the peppers are soft and starting to blacken slightly around the edges, and the corn is starting to brown (about 30 minutes) rolling and shaking every 10 minutes to turn the corn. Let them rest until cool, then peel and dice the pepper. Slice the kernels from the cob.

Vinaigrette
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper
3 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons orange juice
2 teaspoons finely chopped shallots
1 tablespoon honey
� tsp cumin seeds, toasted and finely ground
� cup extra-virgin olive oil
� cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro

Fine Cooking has great instructions for making this vinaigrette, starting with a garlic salt paste, which will give you plenty of additional practice mincing. If you�re feeling pretty fed up with the whole knife skills business by this point, skip the chopping and just throw all of the above ingredients (except the olive oil) into your mini food processor and blast them. Add the oil in a thin stream, while pulsing.

I tossed everything together in a big bowl, Fine Cooking keeps each salad component separate. It�s up to you. If your guests are distracted by conversation or wine or even the flavors of this bright salad, feel free to draw their attention to the fact that you cut each and every little piece into a perfect square. Conversation will stop, people will stare at you, but there�s no point in spending your whole afternoon dicing if no one�s going to notice your newly honed knife skills.

As I lay here gasping and panting on the cool, cool tile of the bathroom floor, my thoughts are far from the kitchen. I am not a hot weather person. Memorial Day marks the start of three months of solid complaining and sweating on my part, accompanied by total refusal to enter the kitchen except to refill my glass of wine.

What to eat when it�s too hot to turn on the oven and you don’t have an outdoor grill? Sandwiches.

I�m a pretty fussy sandwich eater. I�ve had too many conference room meals of slimy cold cuts layered on dry bread with warm mayo to find any appeal in hastily prepared and inevitably dry lunch food.

A meal of sandwiches doesn�t mean you need to settle for bland and mealy. When I read about the tortas in last Wednesday�s Chronicle, I nearly booked a flight to the West coast just to sample one.

Due to financial constraints, I decided that perhaps a trip to the grocery store would be a more reasonable option than a red-eye to Tortas los Picudos. This weekend I had to pack some picnic lunches, so I got the chance to try out some festive sandwiches of my own. I used Whole Food�s Ciabatta bread � it�s thick, but not so crusty that it becomes rock-hard overnight. I split each loaf, pulled out a fair amount of dough from the center, and layered the ingredients inside. I pressed the sandwiches overnight in the fridge to help flatten them and soak some juices into the bread. A six pack of beer makes the perfect sandwich press.

Jamon and Mozzarella Sandwiches
I used jamon smuggled by a dear friend all the way from Spain, hidden inside his laptop. If you don�t have a Spanish friend willing to smuggle you cured meats, just use prosciutto. First, prepare a salsa by roasting red peppers and peeling off the blackened skin, and finely slicing and caramelizing some yellow onion. Put both in the food processor and pulse until chunky and bite size. Layer the jamon (sliced into bite size pieces), slices of fresh mozzarella, and your salsa on each sandwich bottom, just like this�

and then top each with bread and press in the fridge.

Chicken Pesto Sandwiches

First, just grill or saut� a few chicken breasts, and put them aside to cool. Once they�ve cooled, slice them very thin, layer them on the bread, and spread them with pesto sauce (I bought some at Whole Foods), thin sliced Fontina cheese, and alfalfa sprouts.

These recipes were simple, but produced sandwiches that could be made and pressed the night before and stored without refrigeration the next day. They�re not as decadent as tortas, but hopefully they�ll help provide a little inspiration for those hot nights when you can’t bear to turn on the oven.

I have a love hate relationship with the New York Times Magazine. Every Sunday morning, I eagerly settle down with my coffee, favorite pencil, special eraser, and the crossword puzzle. After an hour, I�ve thrown the pencil on the ground 18 times, erased so much that the paper is worn thin, and started wondering (again) if perhaps people just talk to me at parties out of pity because I�m a drooling moron.

This week I got an unexpected little ego boost when I turned to The Way We Eat (login required) and read about sauces and vinaigrettes. I may not know who Architect William van ____ is (15 down � please email holdtheraisins@yahoo.com with the answer) but I can emulsify like nobody�s business.

Before culinary school, I was a timid emulsifier. I�d give my salad dressing a few cautious stirs, shake it up a bit, and hope for the best. Now, I�m like mustard. I can bring a sauce together with only a big bowl, my trusty whisk, and my scrawny triceps.

The article claims that tricky sauces and souffl�s require �a solid foundation, a meticulously followed blueprint and dogged optimism � or an unshakable ego.� I have none of those things. I never have the proper ingredients and I�m too much of a slacker to measure very carefully. Ego is not on my side; every time I make an emulsified sauce, I am filled with grave doubts throughout the process. The neighbors can probably hear me shouting to my husband from the kitchen: �no hollandaise for you!� or �stiff peaks my a**!� Nevertheless, it usually comes together in the end.

If you want to practice, try making your own mayonnaise. The ingredients are relatively cheap, so even if you don�t use it, you don�t have to feel too guilty tossing it out.

Lawyer-type warning: Mayo is made with raw egg yolks, so you could get all sorts of nasty poisoning, especially if you are sick or pregnant or elderly. You can use pasteurized yolk product from the grocery store, which is a much safer alternative and is often used in restaurants that make their own mayo. If you are willing to take the risk and eat your raw yolk mayo (I do), don�t let it sit around the fridge for a week. Eat it asap, then throw the rest away. And don�t blame me if you get all sickly, I warned you.

Chef Mike�s Quick and Easy Mayonnaise
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1 pinch salt
1 pinch sugar
1 cup oil

In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients except the canola oil. While whisking, slowly add the oil, drop by drop, creating a white creamy emulsion. Once it starts looking like mayonnaise, you can add the oil in a thin stream (but don�t stop whisking). Once all the oil is incorporated, you may want to whisk in a tablespoon of cold water to add shine. It helps to use a really large bowl and, if your bowl isn�t heavy, put a wet towel underneath to prevent shifting (you�ll need both hands for the oil whisking process). Voila � you�ve emulsified!

If you need a little bit more challenge, go for a souffl�; I shared my favorite recipe and techniques back in April � just click here.

If all else fails, your mayonnaise breaks, and you still can’t finish the puzzle, just turn to page 46 and distract yourself with total paranoia about poisoning yourself by eating vegetables from your garden.