Please, please, please. If I have to hear another news story about the shortage of Eggo Waffles I just might lose it. Are people really running out and hoarding boxes of the stuff? Because OMG what would we do, how could we cope if we couldn't pull a factory-formed rock-hard frozen breakfast item from our freezer? I don't know, crack some eggs? This Fresh Forkin' Friday I'm making 200 waffles, freezing them, and seling them from a stand in front of my house.

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Last night I was at a charity function that featured a sampling of chefs. It was the usual gig with scattered stations of chefs offering tasty food on small plastic plates. While some of the plates were perfectly balanced, a few were laden with a giant chunk of meat that would prove to be more than a bite. Lord knows I don't always strive for ladylike ideals when snacking, but wrestling to bite into a chewy hunk of seared protein as sauce drips down my dress is not fabulous on any night. Cut it, you say? With my cute little plastic fork as I stand bustling with silent auction bidders? No, I'll just half-bend over and hope my hair shields my Neanderthal technique of grabbing the burning bite from my mouth with my fingers. This Fresh Forkin' Friday I'm scrubbing my dress.

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What I could use this Fresh Forkin' Friday is a little deluge of rain. Just a smidgen of cold badness would be better than the awfully bucolic sunny warmth we're being offered up. See, I have a giant stack of November food magazines, and I have to get through them and start assembling ideas and inspirations for The Feast. This is best done with slippers and a hot toddy and no feeling of guilt that I should be putting the kid on the bike one last time before we shut in. Brussels sprouts or creamed corn? Whole wheat rolls or herbed ciabatta? These decisions are best made when there's no chance of a walk in the woods. Focus. Focus. 

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You know what's perplexing me this Fresh Forkin' Friday? The "left-over candy" recipes. Are there really households in this world that have left-over Halloween candy, I mean besides the sad collection of Almond Joys or hard candies left at the bottom of the bowl? Some of these recipes call for chopped up candy bars like Snickers or Butterfinger! Really? In what world are there Snickers left after November 1st?

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C is for cookie, and that's good enough for me. This Fresh Forkin' Friday I am on a cookie mission. It's a rough job, but someone has to traverse the metro in search of the yummy goodness being baked around town to be featured in a photo shoot for the December issue. I'm up to the task. I have the skills. I have sniffed out some amazing ginger molasses cookies from Salty Tart but whose French macaroons will make the cut? Do I include the legendary pumpkin cookies from D'Amico, given their limited availability? Which sickerdoodles are worthy enough to grace your holiday plates? I'm on the job people, I working for you with glass of milk in hand and blue monster leanings in my heart.

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This Fresh Forkin' Friday marks the beginning of the end of the season for area farmer's markets. Mill City will ring it out this weekend with a Fall Harvest celebration including pumpkin painting and the Goose Chase Cloggers! The Midtown Farmer's Market is open until the 31st for your pumpkin-buying-apple-bobbing pleasure. Kingfield Market will rock until the 25th, and close with a pumpkin carving contest. Both the Minneapolis Market and St. Paul Market will sally forth through November, and into the festive December for St. Paul. But worry not, Local D'Lish will again host a winter market every other Saturday through the chill.

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The Fine Living Channel, which is owned by the peeps behind Food Network, is destined to become the Cooking Channel by mid-2010.

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This Fresh Forkin' Friday I am madly planning my work and working my plan. I'm cooking for an Oktoberfest party this weekend and that means pork, ja wohl! I'm cooking a pork shoulder overnight in a trough of Surly Furious. I want to pull it, so that the beer lovers can put it on the pretzel rolls and stroll from bonfire to band to beer keg. But because this isn't about barbecue and sauce, it's a little harder. I'm used to dousing the pulled pork in a thin Carolina vinegar sauce to help keep it moist, but there aren't a ton of German versions of this. What I've come up with is a thinner version of Bruce Aidells beer and horseradish mustard. Hopefully it will be tangy and earthy while still letting the pork come through. Wunschen mir Gluck!

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Last week I received a sample pack of Verterra disposable dinnerware. Verterra might be the coolest new product in the somewhat oxymoronic world of sustainable disposable products. They have a natural beige wood-like appearance with clean rounded edges and they are rigid. The dinnerware is made from the discarded palm leaves of the betelnut tree.

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Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) could be the most underutilized and misunderstood grain in the pantry. It has been a staple food for more than 5,000 years in the Andes Mountains of South America. It may finally be catching on in somewhat civilized modern day world.

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