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Thank you so much. I can check the shipping costs either once I get to work on Monday morning or if I figure out how to do it from home this evening. I will keep you posted. As for if I had a choice, I would take the new 500C. I'll get back to you soon!

My sis and BIL were here to help with packing/moving some things. They brought me overly ripe home grown tomatoes--the heat and extreme rain we had in a short period of time got them splitting quickly. I'd planned to have a bowl of soup that a friend had brought me, but the weather was so stinking hot and humid that after working all day, I only wanted something cold. Had some tomato, couple of zesty dill spears and giardineira (Why can't I ever spell it right?). It was perfect--cold and light. My friend also brought some banana bread that has Heath bar and chocolate chips, but I'll have it in a bit if I can cool down enough after a shower. And need to peel and chop the other tomatoes to use in a pasta sauce because they are too far gone to slice.

Saw these in a local grocery the other day. Pink Barbie food does not appeal to me at all, I have to say!!!

So here's an interesting detail. I now see the original CSO 300 also available on Costco Canada. @KennethT, if you had a choice, which one would you prefer? https://www.costco.ca/.product.1178104.html

I would consider it, but it makes more sense for someone closer to NY to do it. I have no idea of what the shipping costs would be but I'm sure they would be less from central/eastern Canada than from here on the extreme west coast. 🙂 Edited to add: But I will purchase it and ship it to you if it makes sense to do so! Are you able to check shipping costs?

Just a final update, the seller already wrote back to me and told me to initiate a refund request through Ebay and they will completely refund the purchase including the shipping cost, and that I should just dispose of the oven or try to find someone to fix it - they don't want me to bother returning it to them since it doesn't work anyway. So I'm very happy with this Ebay seller and would certainly buy from them again. So, on to the topic.... sigh.... unless an enterprising Canadian would consider shipping a CSO 500 to me here in NY... hehe... I can pay by Zelle or wire transfer and can throw in a bit extra for the trouble, and I have a UPS account to ship with - I can send a call tag so UPS can pick up from them....

Since my issues here, I'm back in the market for a new steam oven. It seems like the rest of the 300s on Ebay are all used and I'd rather not get a used piece of kitchen equipment. I would jump at the 500 if I could get it, but unfortunately it's unavailable in the US.... so I've been looking at this one from Panasonic: https://shop.panasonic.com/products/homechef-7-in-1-steam-multi-oven-0-7-cu-ft?_pos=1&_psq=sc180&_ss=e&_v=1.0 It's significantly underpowered compared to the CSO 300 and loses an inch in the depth. BUT, it comes with 2 racks and 2 pans which would be convenient at times. It also has a "ferment" setting which could be interesting.

This was a first try - came out really good, I don't know if I would change it - it came out very similar to what we had recently in various places in Jakarta. Makes 3-4 servings for 2 people - 250g Indonesian red keriting chillies (I grow these) if you don't have access to these, you can substitute the same quantity of large red spur chillies plus a few Thai chillies - 1 large US/European shallot or 3 small asian shallots - 3 cloves garlic - 1 red plum tomato (hard and not that ripe) - 3 kaffir lime leaves seasoning: - juice of about 1/3 of a US lime - 1/2 t MSG - 1/3 t chicken or mushroom powder - 1 t salt 1. Grind the chillies, shallot and garlic together to a rough paste 2. Grind the tomato separately 3. Heat a wok with about 1/4C of neutral oil and fry the chilli paste over moderate heat until softened and fragrant, stirring constantly 4. Add the lime leaves and ground tomato 5. Fry, stirring constantly, until the oil seeps back out of the mixture 6. Season, to taste

When I went to my butcher this morning to get my weekend fill of Mett, he had three veal shanks on display. Of course I had to get one, gave it a Marcella Hazan-ish treatment (EVO & butter, onion, garlic, anchovy, white wine) and braised it for around 4.5h … Cooks treat: bone marrow on toast with a sprinkle of salt & parsley - just sooo good 🤗 Great texture on the shank - tender, with just the slightest resistance to the bite. Served with creamy polenta and wilted spinach with almonds and raisins. And the strained braising juices, reduced and finished with a touch of butter. No complaints indeed 🥳

Yes, 40gr for 1 day or 12gr for 24hr in the frig.

Hey, I cite that guy frequently, too 🥳

Finally some time back in the kitchen!!! I made a first try with a Padang style sambal merah, so made some Indonesian-style ground bison patties with sambal merah and sambal ijo. Bison patties with shallot, garlic, black pepper, coriander powder, chicken powder, salt and msg and a touch of starch. .

Another one of my plating semi-disasters. Pan-roasted pork rib chop, sliced off the bone (which is at lower left) and served with pan sauce made with shallots, mushrooms, white wine, chicken stock, mustard, horseradish and butter. Mustard greens and Jasmine rice round it out. Last night, I made dinner at a friend's apartment, a mere 9 floors below ours. Did all prep here, and brought it down to finish. Only took a picture of one plate: On top - fresh artichoke hearts, braised with olive oil, garlic, white wine, lemon, saffron and pimentón. Below, two versions of the exact same recipe for Maryland-style crab cakes. On the left, jumbo lump blue crab. On the right - Jonah crab. 3 out of 4 of us preferred the jumbo lump. Also on menu: Gildas to start, pasta al pesto with green beans, yellow beans and potatoes for the main. Blueberry/nectarine cobbler, served with vanilla ice cream for dessert. As a famous person once opined: "No complaints."

9-volt battery-flavored tortilla chips Doritos, eat your heart out! Unfortunately, though, the sample packs are on a lottery system.

Thanks to the expert enablement of @TdeV in the Indoor Smoker topic I now have Delish! by Philip R Craig and Shirley Prada Craig. Delish! is the first and only cookbook in my collection to have a recipe for water. I made some last night but then spilled it trying to swat a fly.

Sorry about that. If you go to the Amazon.com product page, then scroll down the page until you see “Additional details” then click on that, it opens up the information I quoted, and that @rotuts took a screenshot of.

@ElsieD from the page . if you need more info , let me know.

I can't access the US site directly from your link, I did get to it by first keying Amazon.com into Google. But, I could not find the info you quoted. The yeast that you linked to is what i have.

Thank you. If I read the instructions correctly, it says to use 40 grams of dry lievito?

Trader Joe's has reasonable prices on most nuts and dried fruits and lots of people love their 'pound plus' chocolate bars. Discount stores, obviously - I like Grocery Outlet. And, depending on the exchange rate and shipping, Canada! (last time I was looking for cocoa butter, the best price I found was from Vanilla Food Co in Canada)

It's Ebay so you can't call them, but I messaged them through the website explaining the issue. The seller has excellent reviews so I imagine that they'll settle it fairly but they're away until 7/30 so I'll wait to hear back from them. @rotuts Worst comes to worst, they have a 30 day return policy, but that means that I need to pay for shipping back to them - to CA from NY so not inexpensive but at least I'll get most of my money back. I'm hoping that they will send a call tag to return at their expense and provide a full refund (including the shipping cost to me) since I'm returning it because it was defective, not because I don't like it or want it.

How sad. Did you try calling them to ask about the problem you are having?

@KennethT how unfortunate . I hope you can get your money back .

Yes, I definitely tried different outlets and have reset the GFCI. But, my GFCI outlet has an LED that shows status and it's green. Plus, I plugged something else in at the same outlet at the same time (duplex outlet) and it's working fine. We've tried that too. It used to help, but not anymore. It seems like it works for a few minutes - usually around 5-7 minutes and then the screeching starts. I think that once it gets warm, the dimensions change a bit and the bearing freezes up - many sleeve bearings act that way - they're less expensive than ball bearings, but that's what it sounds like - a frozen bearing - it might not be too difficult to fix but I can't get in there to get to it. Also, some bearings are press-fit onto the shaft and I don't know if I can make a jig to press it (I have a hydraulic press at work but it's big and without a proper jig, it would do more damage than good!).

NOOOOOOO!!!!! I'm so sorry!!!!! Very very stupid question and I'm sure it's not the case but your reset button on the outlet doesn't need to be reset does it? I assume you tried that or a different plug in. And, I'll add, that when mine does that screeching sound I have banged the hell out of the top of it and then restarted --sometimes that helped. Sometimes it didn't but I got out some aggression.