Are you in hectic holiday mode yet? I'm currently facing the challenge of getting all my grown children in the same place at the same time. As an only child, I never experienced this issue growing up. Now I feel like a coach drawing out defensive strategies trying to get us all together. One great thing about the kids being grown is the opportunity to introduce new dishes. My older boys were always so fussy about anything resembling vegetables that it was difficult to stretch the menu with something new. This year I have four recipes tucked aside that I'm considering for Thanksgiving. I need to narrow my choices down, but it will certainly be fun to branch out. Are you trying something new this year? Pop over to Facebook and start a conversation in our group. Not part of the group yet? Send me the email address that you use for Facebook and I'll add you to the group. Easy as that.

Let's touch on the topic of negative reviews—both on your own recipes and those written by you. When you see that someone has left a negative review on one of your published recipes, and you likely will from time to time, don't take it to heart. When most people write recipe reviews, they don't put as much thought into it as you and I do. Remember that part of my job is reading the recipe reviews on tasteofhome.com, so I've seen it all.

There's the standard, oh-so-classy “this sucked”; the internationally renowned “there's no way this is authentic [insert country of choice here]”; and the ever-popular “I've been baking all my life! Forty 5-star reviews be damned, this recipe is wrong.” Take it from me: If someone writes a bad review on one of your recipes, the best response is to tip your hat and thank them for their time—and then have a good chuckle, knowing that it was good enough to make the pages of a national food magazine.

Now, about negative reviews from you. It's going to happen; it probably already has. You make a recipe that sounds fabulous, but when it hits the table you're just not impressed. Here are a few tips for handling this scenario: If the recipe worked but you didn't care for the flavors, textures or something else, say that. This is the “Dear John, it's not you, it's me” review. (“These Mexicali Pork Chops turned out fine, but after trying them we didn't much care for the flavors.”) If you need help figuring out how to say what you want to say, message me. We'll work through it.

If the dish was a total disaster, send me an email with a link to the recipe and let's talk about it. You're our experts, so if the recipe went kaplooey for you, we want to make sure the same doesn't happen to other readers. I really want to be able to take a look at it, so don't ever think you're bothering me.

Finally, if you see a recipe on the site with a few bad reviews and you think I should take a peek at it, email it to me. I'll be happy to have a look. You can either paste a link to the recipe in a message to me or send it through the site's Email a Friend feature. And if you see a question about a recipe on Facebook or the website, feel free to lend your expertise to the cause. We count on you to be our experts on the ground.

Happy cooking, my friends!

Sue Stetzel

sue.stetzel@tmbi.com

PS: In case you were wondering, here's where we stand with last month's requests:

Layered Desserts: 40

Game-Day Slow Cooker Recipes: 41

Classic Cookie Redo Recipes: 28

Be sure to get your recipe uploaded before they pull the links.