What was the one toy you wanted as a kid that your parents never bought you?
Submitted by Princess of Darkness.

I wanted an Easy Bake Oven.

Oh, how I wanted to make those little cookies and cakes! Just like on TV.

I loved helping mom in the kitchen, but really I wanted my very own oven.  I remember my mom saying that it wouldn't actually work like it showed on TV. That did nothing to diminish my desire for it. I guess since this is the first QotD I've answered in six months I'm still not quite over it.

Easy Bake

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If you could open any sort of restaurant, what would it be like?

Bistro

I would have a cozy little French bistro, maybe a little like Le Pichet in Seattle. No fusion cuisine, no "northwest" cuisine, strictly French. Of course, to pull this off, I would first conduct extensive field research in France - a year might do the trick.

But, honestly, I did my time as a chef. It's a very tough business and hot, physically demanding work. I am much happier in my current occupation. I don't regret for a minute going to cooking school and time spent working in "the industry." But for me, it just wasn't my professional calling.

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Soda? Cola? Pop? What do you say? Any other regional household words that set you apart?
Question submitted by Gladys.

I grew up in a rather German household (known especially for precision timing and NOT EVER being late). There were occasional bits of German in our household lexicon. First and foremost of these were Klimpers.

Klimpers

Now, I know that Klimpers is not a real German word. I think my grandfather probably made it up. But it's the perfect word for... Klimpers.

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What's the most extreme weather you've been in? A memorable storm? Heat wave? Or something else?

Storm

It was about 10 years ago - in the month of June - we were visiting Drake's folks in rural west-central Illinois. Drake and his Dad (Jim) were working in the pasture; my mother-in-law (Lorna) and I were at the house. Lorna had the radio on so we knew that some nearby counties were under a tornado watch. But the weather looked fine were we were. I could see, however, some stormy clouds off into the distance. Since we almost never get storms in Seattle, I pulled a lawn chair into the yard and decided to watched the clouds for a while. Meanwhile, Lorna went off to pick some raspberries.

As I watched the sky, I realized that pitch-dark clouds now seemed to be moving our direction. I looked around for Lorna, but she was nowhere in sight. I looked at the sky again; the clouds were clearly racing towards us. I decided to go into the house to check what the radio was saying, but as I came inside, the electricity went off.

I looked back outside. It was now extremely dark. Wild-looking clouds were quickly coming closer and the wind was coming up fast. Harder. Unbelievably, there I was on the front porch yelling "Lorna!  Lorna!" - I felt like I was in the Wizard of Oz. And of course, I had no idea what circumstances Drake and his Dad were in at the pasture.

Finally I saw Lorna, running towards the house against the wind. By the time we both got into the house it  the wind was making the house creak ominously. At this point, I thought we might lose the house. We hunkered down in the basement.

The storm damage was widespread, but thankfully limited to downed trees and powerlines. Drake and his Dad had ridden out the storm in Jim's truck - which they knew was not the best place to be in case of a tornado - but they really didn't have any other options.

That night, we ate out of cans and played cards by candlelight. It was a day and a half before we got power back. On the farm, that means no water either. But Jim, a volunteer fire fighter, had a new generator he wanted to "test" at the fire station. So the next day we all took generator-powered showers.

Jim and Lorna still talk about that storm. In all their years on the farm, they had never seen anything come up that fast.

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What's your favorite drink or cocktail? What's in it?
Question submitted by charm.vox.com

Ariel non-alcoholic wines

I used to love gin and tonics on a summer day. And a fine wine with a beautiful dinner.

Now, I am strictly a sparkling water gal. I stopped drinking in 2001 for about 6 months while losing weight. After I had reached my goal weight and started drinking again, I had a hard time tolerating alcohol. Finally, I gave up drinking all together.

Drake stopped drinking in 2004 when he was undergoing treatment for lymphoma. The same thing happened to him - after he completed treatment he had hard time tolerating alcohol so gradually he gave it up.

Drake really missed wine with dinner, so he researched non-alcoholic wines. Some of these were awful - like grape juice. Bad, weird grape juice. But, then he found Ariel:

ARIEL is a pioneer in the production of super and ultra premium non-alcoholic wines. The wine world took notice when our ARIEL Blanc won a Gold Medal against wines with alcohol. Since that historic event, ARIEL wines have been judged in eight professional wine competitions to be superior to wines with alcohol.

Drake drinks a glass of Ariel now just about every night with dinner.  I have it once in a while, too, but I had already cultivated a water habit so I stick mostly with that.

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What's one thing that you hope to do or accomplish before the end of this year?

A New Stove

I want to get a new stove. Our stove has the irritating habit of erroring out, showing "--F1--" on its display and beeping irritatingly until you hit the cancel button. Sometimes, we have to resort the throwing the breaker to get it to stop, we cancel...it F1s...we cancel...it F1s...on and on. GE has been out to replace the module three times - all to no avail. We've given up. It's planned obsolescence. And very frustrating. My aunt had the same stove for 45 years. This one is a wreck after 12 years.

It doesn't sound like much for a year-end project, but there is a domino effect with the other appliances in the kitchen. Meaning, if we are going to upgrade the stove, then what about the dishwasher, which we've talked about replacing. And, if we are going to replace the stove and dishwasher, we might as well go the whole nine years and replace the fridge, too. This complicates the decision-making exponentially.

Drake and I are awful consumers because neither of us enjoys shopping and we give up easily. A few months ago, we took a field trip to the appliance store. Talk about the paradox of choice. We were paralyzed. We came home empty-handed and have been hitting the Cancel button ever since.

But, I really do want a new stove. We just need to go back to the appliance store and give it another try.

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What's the strongest association you have between a scent and a memory?

Up, Up and Away

Pool chlorine and childhood swim lessons. After the lesson, they would have a free swimming period. When free swimming was over, they would play Up, Up and Away by the Fifth Dimension, which was the signal to get out of the pool. So actually, I have a kind of strange connection between chlorine and Up, Up and Away. Last week at lap swim the guards were playing a oldies station and unbelievably Up, Up and Away came on. Talk about a flashback! I almost got out of the pool.

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What are your three favorite album covers of all-time? Any honorable mentions?

Question submitted by Tamara.

Cabot does Dylan

This question immediately lead me to think of the enormous LP collection Drake has - stashed in some built-in cabinetry he made just for the purpose. It's like our own little vinyl museum. One particular treasure is Sebastian Cabot Reads Bob Dylan, released in 1967. Cabot's thoughtful pose on the cover is clearly meant to capture the profundity of the content within.

Now, it's easy to laugh at such an endeavor. At one level, this is Mr. French reading Dylan. But actually, I think this is a sincere effort. It doesn't work artistically, for me at least, but I have to admire the guy for giving this a shot. I think he revered Dylan as a poet and wanted to emphasize that aspect of his art, separate from the music.

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What was your most memorable or favorite school field trip?

When I was a junior in high school we went to Elgin State Hospital - the state institution for the insane. It was part of a psychology class. This was a "one time only" event because once parents heard about what the trip entailed they hit the roof. They took us right into the wards - I mean we saw everything - I won't go into the details here, but it was pretty mind-blowing. The images from that field trip stay with me even today. I don't recall being particularly frightened or disturbed at the time. But believe me, we talked about that field trip for a long time - I think just trying to process the quantity of human suffering we observed. I don't, by the way, think that it was a bad idea. It was a completely unsheltered experience - and it dealt directly with the subject matter we were studying.

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What's the oldest digital camera photo you have on your computer? When is it from? Let's see it!

Mr. Duck

There is, of course, a logical explanation. We were going to New York to celebrate our 20th wedding (March, 2003) anniversary and had just bought a digital camera. We got the idea to put together a photo album for our niece and nephew called "Mr. Duck Goes to New York." So, we brought the duck and then photographed it at various points of interest in NYC. We started with a travel shot, Mr. Duck on the airplane. It was actually pretty hilarious posing Mr. Duck on the subway, at Rockefeller Center, Central Park, etc. And our niece and nephew loved the photos.

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