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I could not resist! The siren song drew me in. Have just ordered one of the new CSO-500 steam ovens! (sound of angels singing.... ) 🙂 My husband (very reasonably) said: "Doesn't the one currently on our countertop work ok?" AND "Don't we have an extra in the garage?" Yes and yes, but the one on my countertop is 3 years old and is disgustingly grotty. Even though I clean it regularly, it gets used so much that it becomes very hard to clean. But I do know someone who would love to have it and I will clean it up as best as I can. Also, my stepdaughter is now mad for this oven, I gifted her one about a year ago. At some point, she will want a new one. All is good. (more angels ..... ) 🤣

Better get them shipped before August 1st though.

If you set your oven to 200f/100%humidity/sous vide, nothing will boil. Put a glass container in it with water, check on it after an hour. It should not be passing bubbles

Yes, but.... They last for a few days, which baguettes in France (or Vietnam) don't. In France four hours at best. In Vietnam, bánh mì sellers get two or three deliveries or bake the same number of batches throughout the day. In France, you have to get up early or go without.

I think you now have to follow along on the other thread to see the outcome. I believe @ElsieDis going to ship one now as she is quite a bit closer than me! Good job, Elsie!

If necessary, we'll get you one here in Canada and ship it to you!!! 🙂 One of my cousins who now lives here in BC is going to visit his sister in Kansas City next month. But I think the plan is to fly. If he was driving, I would ask him to bring one along. 😞

Well, they look convincing in the photo!

Anybody else getting Milk Bar Compost Cookie vibes from these?

We also get 法棍 (fǎ gùn), literally French sticks. These are baguettes 🥖. Sometimes. Never great, the best come from Walmart or a Taiwan chain of restaurants here on mainland China. Those from local bakeries are highly unpredictable. They aren’t anywhere close to the real French baguettes my French grandmother bought every morning, but are edible bread. Walmart China Baquettes

The rosewood is too hard a wood and my knives don't like it. The bamboo ones are the ones I use more for cutting bread or soft meats (not the same boards) but scar easily if I say, chop through bones. I prefer boards somewhere in-between. I have three different sizes of the bamboo but I generally prefer the sandalwood for heavier use. Must get a new one. The old one disappeared in my last house move.

Are croissants bread? Arguable. Wikipedia describes them as a cross between bread and flaky pastry, but Wikipedia is flaky, itself. The Chinese name is 牛角面包 (niú jiǎo miàn bāo), literally cow horn bread. Whatever, the vendors of these translate them as croissants which they 100% aren’t. Although hinting at being crescent-shaped but forgetting to curve, in fact, in addition to looking slightly under baked, they contain in their depths industrial ham and pink slime sausages dressed with sweet mayonnaise. A hanging crime in that France.

I had a bamboo cutting board and thought it was fine, although I didn't like it as well as my other boards and gave it away. (I think it was the dimensions that I didn't like.) What do you see as its shortcomings? And what's the rosewood like?

I looked into Acacia a while ago because it was one of the few ok looking end grain boards I could find near where I live. There are a huge number of Acacia species but it sounded like the boards were likely rather hard or maybe have some silica in the wood. Don't quote me on that last bit. But the internet opinions ranged from probably ok to you can probably do better

I was reading this thread with increasing anticipation, saying "he'd *better* have bought that or I will, and send it to him, take that man out of his misery!" And, I don't have one of these so I can't relate to the devotion but I can absolutely appreciate it! Please tell us when it arrives and if your pan fits

Full bodied. Goes great with pizza.

Lemon goes well with blueberries. I got the orange marmalade and cardamom idea from this recipe that we also make especially in winter. https://cookingwithcarlee.com/simple-giant-orange-cardamom-roll/

What a lovely spread!

I'm a WaPo subscriber as well, so all was well. I make my "everyday" cornbread and muffins in an 8x8 pan and cook them in the big Breville oven. Since sweetie died, and I mostly cook for myself or one other person, I rarely use the regular oven. I go back and forth between cornmeal (Bob's medium grind) and Bob's polenta. I've got the product and the oven dialed in pretty well. Tried other, more "posh" brands, and have always returned to Bob's. The cardamom grabbed my attention when first reading your post. Marmalade, not so much, even though I loved sweeties marmalade. I may play around with lemon. Have made lemon-blueberry cornbread before, and it's a nice combo. I think some lemon zest would be very nice with the blueberries, not sure how it would go with the cardamom. Thanks so much for your help.

Maybe in southern Asia, but in China and SE Asia most cutting boards are made from bamboo (not technically a wood, but a grass). A few more are made from Ironwood, rosewood or sandalwood. I have both bamboo and rosewood. Neither are great.

It's from WaPo so it's copyrighted. This is link. https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/blueberry-cornmeal-cake/ As a subscriber I can send limited free links to others. I will send a link to your msg's here at egullet. fyi, the recipe calls for making it in a cast iron skillet; I gave mine away during out last move. It just became too darn heavy for my hands (Dupuytren's Contracture issues). So I combine all ingredients and put in well greased-floured 8 or 9 inch square pan. Though I bet it'd be extra good in a skillet! The recipe calls for corn meal; I have always used polenta, the fast-cooking time (the one I use cooks in 5 minutes stove top). Not sure if that's called "quick" or "instant." As I said, this time I added cardamom (a spice we both adore) to batter and instead of the sprinkle of sugar on the top before baking, I skipped that and instead brushed orange marmalade over the top when it came out of oven.

Thank you! They’re from zafferano. I have three of these on an 8’ table with no overhead light available, works well, very moody https://zafferanoamerica.com/products/pina-pro

Beautifully executed and looks delicious! Love the tiny lamps! Amazon?

I made a baby shower for my gf’s daughter, we had 30 people, I decided to channel my inner Lulu and make Le Aioli Monstre. I did the entire thing in the anova oven, pretty much pegged the thing to 212f/100% humidity. It was really great, nailed everything, best surprise was how delicious the cherry tomatoes were with a 15 min steam. Iirc, the baby squash took something like 7 minutes. Supplemented the aioli with toum so I didn’t have to worry about raw eggs and pregnant women. great summer dinner, particularly for a crowd.

@gulfporter I'm a sucker for polenta with blueberries. As it happens, there are plenty of both here ... are you able to provide the recipe? Private is cool if there are copyright concerns.

I've made this Blueberry Polenta Cake before. I found it a tad too plain. This time I added some ground cardamom to the batter and I glazed it with orange marmalade as soon as I removed it from the oven. We both like it better with these minor changes. I got a crack and a small dip in the center but so far the interior seems fine, not sure if that will be true when we get to the center of cake. I did it in Viking oven with convection bake....dropped the bake time from 45 to 50 minutes to 37 minutes when I checked it by thermometer and it was between 202 and 210 degrees depending on where I poked it (ouch!).