Two visitors hit snags with the fennel recipe.  My comments are in italics.

One visitor sent me an S.O.S. that read: “‘Fennel in oven roasting –still hard as rocks.” Unfortunately, I didn’t receive the message in time.  Later, I received an update: ”I let them roast more, then thought they were too soft, but everyone loved them —big hit”.

There are several possible explanations for the cooking time snafu:

1. Large rather than medium fennel bulbs were used.
2. The cores were not removed, or not removed sufficiently. If you have doubts about the technique for removing the cores, watch the fennel voicethread.
3. The oven was not correctly calibrated.  Mis-calibration is a common problem and you really have to know the quirks of your equipment. For example, I have two ovens, but only 1 is accurate; the other is off by 35°. Repairmen have never been able to fix it, so just I make my own adjustments. If you want to test your oven’s calibration, you can buy an inexpensive oven thermometer and conduct your own experiments. If you use your oven frequently, it really is a good idea.

In another case, . the fennel was neglected after cooking and ended up too soft:

“I botched it when I took it from the oven, opened the package and
smelled something intense and delicious, but left the fennel in its
aluminum foil while I worked out before I finished cooking
it.”

 I’m all for working out, but you can’t neglect your fennel when you remove it from the oven. You need to open the packets completely to stop the cooking and, ideally, you should remove the bulbs from the hot pan. I usually transfer them to a cool baking sheet.  Meanwhile, the good news is that they smelled “intense and delicious.” That bodes well for a second attempt.

I’ve modified the recipe in light of these reports, so you may want to check the updated version. In addition, I received a request for “serving suggestions” and I am in the process of adding those as well .

Regarding difficulties viewing specific content on this website– particularly audio-visual material:

As I mentioned in a previous post, difficulties of this kind are related to browser capability. If you are still using IE6 or some equivalent, you will be able to visit the site, but– unfortunately– your access to multimedia will be somewhat limited. I apologize for this situation, bu that’s the nature of life on the web.