Blog Posts by Sarah McColl, Shine staff

Grab your whisk, ramekins, and your frying pan. This month, the Shine Supper Club is putting the ultimate kitchen pinch hitter in the spotlight. We love eggs, but poor things don't exactly get their due. They show up for dinner when there's nothing else to make, appear on so many Saturday mornings without asking for much in return, and do excellent background work for cakes and custards. But what better kitchen stalwart than the egg, a symbol of life, to kick off the season of fresh starts, green shoots, and fragrant, warmer air? Join the Supper Club by sharing your favorite egg recipes. Here's how:

1. Write a blog post telling us about your favorite egg recipe by Sunday 11:59PM PST, March 24th. Be sure to include a photo and a recipe.
2. Mention and link to the Shine Supper Club in your post: http://shine.yahoo.com/supper-club/
3. Tweet @YahooShine with a link to your post and include the hashtag #shinesupperclub. Aren't on Twitter? Email the link to shine_sarahmccoll at yahoo.com. We

Serena Bakes Simply From Scratch is the mastermind behind this month's winning Supper Club recipe: a swoony, rich, and perfectly classic chocolate cake (recipe below). Peek inside Serena's mind (and refrigerator!) as she answers our usual questions.

What ingredient are you currently obsessed with?
My current obsession is definitely strawberries, ever since the arrival of the first bright red berries of the season! Most of my last week has been spent day dreaming of new ways to use the juicy little berries.

Favorite food memory?
Breakfast with Granny. She would spend the morning fixing whatever you requested which many times was between 3-4 different meals, dependent on how many people were in the house. My usual request were puff pancakes or pancakes with blueberry sauce. When I was in about 4th grade she made me puff pancakes almost every day for a year, I never did become sick of them. She also made everything from scratch and was the biggest inspiration for my blog.

What's your go-to

This cook believes in trussing her chicken...There are certain labor-intensive recipe phrases that can make the most diligent cook roll her eyes. "Do I really have to do that?" we wonder. Every week, we will track down the answer to that question. Why? Because as much as we love cooking, we're kind of lazy. Leave your Do I Really Have To Do That? questions in the comments and they shall be answered, saving us all a lot of needless trouble.

Julia Child does it. Michael Ruhlman does it. Alice Waters does it. But do we really have to? As we dug into this, it felt more like we were out to solve the riddle of the sphinx rather than answer a relatively straight-forward cooking question. Jesus, we just want some chicken!

Let's start with the basics. Here's what trussing can do:

1. Trussing makes for a lady-like looking bird (if you're into that). "Trussing serves purely aesthetic purposes," as blogger Sarah Puleo of Betty Cupcakes told us. "It keeps the chicken legs from being splayed apart and the wings tucked under the bird. Put it

We're acutely aware that it is not yet spring. In fact, on this Tuesday there is a TV monitor in our office warning much of the country to bunker down for a blizzard. But at this point in the season, we're kind of over all the cold-front excuses for mac and cheese and lasagna. Instead, we're craving those first bright flavors of spring--baby lettuces, radishes, and TKTK--and until they rear their heads from the thawing dirt we'll settle for wholesome winter greens and grains. Gooey cheese and coma-inducing carbs need not apply.

What we learned this month: y'all are romantics. When we asked for your sexiest dish and your most romance-ready recipes, we swooned at your heartfelt answers. Doug S wrote, "It's not the food, it's the circumstances in which the food is served and eaten," before telling the sweetest story about being laid-off, broke, and having a night so romantic--drinking margaritas with his wife at a Mexican chain restaurant-- that it still burns bright in his memory some thirty years later. When you're in love, Katie pointed out, "scrambled eggs with leftover green beans can be just as romantic as a 5 star restaurant." And we have to agree: a humble meal can set into relief just how gaga you are for each other. Sometimes it's the parking lot picnics that stand the romantic test of time.

But others of you want the kind of decadent, lazy romance we can understand: "Well, it's breakfast in bed of course," wrote Just a Normal Woman. "Warm baked French Toast, buttery syrup, some beautiful

We hope she didn't buy a bottle just for a little pan sauce...There are certain labor-intensive recipe phrases that can make the most diligent cook roll her eyes. "Do I really have to do that?" we wonder. Every week, we will track down the answer to that question. Why? Because as much as we love cooking, we're kind of lazy. Leave your Do I Really Have To Do That? questions in the comments and they shall be answered, saving us all a lot of needless trouble.

This week's question comes from Jamie S: "I want to know what the point of 'cooking sherry' is. I always leave it out of any recipes that require it."

All the experts we asked agreed you wouldn't want to cook with anything you wouldn't gladly drink. "The 'cooking wines' you find in grocery are not worth it," said James Briscione, Chef Instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education and Food Network's first Chopped Champion. "They have half the flavor of the real thing and are loaded with sugar and salt, which could leave you dish tasting worse than if you had just left the wine out

Mushrooms in a colanderThere are certain labor-intensive recipe phrases that can make the most diligent cook roll her eyes. "Do I really have to do that?" we wonder. Every week, we will track down the answer to that question. Why? Because as much as we love cooking, we're kind of lazy. Leave your Do I Really Have To Do That? questions in the comments and they shall be answered, saving us all a lot of needless trouble.

Please allow me the telling of my longtime favorite joke: A mushroom walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve your kind here." The mushroom asks, "Why not? I'm a fun guy." Ba dum dum!

Here's the deal: "Mushrooms are naturally very watery," explains cookbook author Dina Cheney. Because mushrooms are like little sponges, the thinking goes that washing them will only make them more waterlogged. "The more watery food is, the soggier its texture and more diluted/bland its flavor," says Dina. In a word, yuck.

Food science smartie Alton Brown tested brushing

At this point in winter's deep freeze, most of us feel anything but hot. The dry skin on my hand's looks like it belongs to a Golden Girl. My lips are too flaky for red lipstick, and even the most ambitious sidewalk cat-caller has little to respond to: my shape is buried under a couple layers of wool. All of which leads me to believe that whoever decided to "brighten up" February with Valentine's Day was a freak.

Leaning over a bowl of dumpling soup lends a milkmaid flush to our cheeks (and inspires a new term of endearment). Lusty, falling-apart short ribs warm us from the inside, and a dark chocolate mousse is richly decadent but still airy. These are our sexy foods: our go-to recipes for seduction that can raise temperatures in even the darkest and dreariest winter month. This month, The Shine Supper Club asks you to share your tried-and-true sexiest dish. Here's how to join us:

1. Write a blog post telling us about your sexiest dish by Sunday 11:59PM PST, February