Smithy

Suits my mood this whole week!

Thanks for that information, Okanagancook. My library's copy must predate that award. Doesn't change the suggestiveness of the medallion, though!

Thanks to this topic, starting here and continuing until Anna's succumbing here, I decided I simply had to see Milk Street Tuesday Nights for myself. Kudos to @MelissaH and @JoNorvelleWalker for reminding me of libraries, and kudos to our library for being willing to place holds. I picked it up last night. It's a beautiful book. Not only is the cover appealing... but so is the layout, and so are the recipes. I am a sucker for good food photography and I like the book layout with a picture on one page and the recipe on the other. As others have noted earlier, this book doesn't have the "very best" hyperbole of CK's earlier venture - well, not as much hyperbole, anyway - and the recipes look like I could spend a happy year cooking my way through this book alone. That isn't the way I go, of course, being a cookbook dilettante who flits from one book to the next like a drunken bee, but I think I'll end up buying this one...cheap, used, whatever. Unfortunately i won't be able to do more than admire it until Sunday, the first opportunity I'll have to cook. The story is the same with the Cuisinart CSO 300N Steam Convection oven I picked up from Amazon, due to arrive today. What a lot of enablers I've fallen among! Edited to add: when I looked this book up on Amazon to make a link, what did I see but Dorie Greenspan's Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook...the other book Anna mentioned dithering over in the original discussion. Sheesh. It's a conspiracy, I tell ya.

Yay! That will improve things for y'all! It should make cooking a bit less of a chore too, if the kitchen isn't too darned hot.

For me, the issue seems to have been the startup sequence. I *think* the correct sequence is to start the phone app, then plug in the Joule. Unfortunately, it's been at least a month since I used it. I may have the sequence reversed. It seems not to be dependent on the router I'm using, although for a while I thought it was. I like the small size and good heating of the Joule, but I'm inclined to agree with rotuts that the Anova is more straightforward...and more private.

Thumbs up / smiley for that breakfast, Anna. Thumbs down / frowney for yesterday's pains and the anticipated pains today. I hope it goes more smoothly than yesterday!

I wish you lot wouldn't keep talking about having backups. I've only just decided to make space for one and give it a try.

I can see I'll have to reread this entire darned topic (and its predecessors) and, if the refurbished unit I bought seems to live up to its promise, but a backup as a spare. Good grief!

I just ordered a refurbished 300N.

2 for, 1 against (so far). Thanks, folks. Anyone else? @rotuts: why the new one? General principles, or a specific issue? I can get a 4-year Asurion protection plan for $30 and still come out money ahead on the refurbished.

Amazon offers "renewed" CSO 300N's for $125. I seem to recall @rotuts mentioning that upthread. If I were to pull the trigger on one of these, I'd have to get rid of the air fryer AND the toaster. That leads to the question: how good is the CSO for simple toast? Most toaster ovens don't do as well as a regular toaster. Is this an exception?

I too am surprised at what Amazon suggests for me. Some of the "hurry, don't miss this!" deals they shoot my way are about as appealing as a pile of rotten peaches. Maybe less so.

That's a very good question. I wondered the same thing, but since I'm probably going to buy a solid "something" instead of contributing I probably won't research it. Maybe someone else here knows?

I recently learned that Amazon, at least, has a way out of the big-ticket-item problem: it's possible to contribute to a wedding registry item without buying the whole thing. So, for instance, some of my family members have registered for swank china and crystal. Some items say "$xx needed for this" and a button that says "contribute".

This line really made me giggle. The knives look too pretty to just register the comment with a laugh-emoji, though. @gfron1, all of the food sounds wonderful but this bit sounds like something we might try at home. Sorrel mousse? Redbud vinegar jelly? Pointers would be appreciated, if you're willing and have time. That is a great picture, with a wonderful backdrop. I love the look of that wall! I can identify some of the members in the picture, but it would be lovely to know who-all is in this picture...if someone is willing?

My copy shows a Table of Contents on "Page 1" - and that seems to be 2 or 3 pages into the book, after the cover, the frontispiece... ...oh, wait...now instead of being at position "0" of the book it seems to be sitting at location 5523 /99% of the book. Weird. It's there, but the whole book seems to run in a ring instead of having a definite beginning and end.

The whole adventure looks grand. I'm sorry I couldn't be there, and I'm sorry @kayb couldn't stay for the entire event. Does that mean that the Cardinals game didn't materialize? Thanks for the report, Chris. Note to the other participants: your reports would be welcome too!

Stumbled over on Amazon today: The Texas Food Bible: From Legendary Dishes to New Classics by Chef Dean Fearing. It's gotten good reviews, although as usual with reviews some must be taken with literary salt: one reviewer for the hardbound book wrote "GREAT GIFT FOR THE KITCHEN, MANY GREAT RECIPES, LOOKS GREAT ON DISPLAY" $1.99 for the Kindle edition, at least for this Prime member.

I agreed with her assessment of carbonara, and like you I thought the age business was funny!

That's a fun article! I may actually have learned a use for frozen peas, other than to keep my husband happy.

That looks like a perfect sandwich. I don't have big tomatoes at present, but I think it's time to shift myself and go make a tomato / cucumber / cilantro salad with some cherry tomatoes. Maybe make some bread to go with it later. Or maybe not.

That's what I always say, but along about lunchtime I still feel peckish... it's an eternal struggle between mind and stomach!

"Wasp nests"...now, that's something not often seen in a restroom!

Thanks for the additional information about the long pepper and the pink peppercorns. I am especially interested in the latter because those trees lined the walkways in Fresno, where my grandparents lived, and Claremont, where I went to college, and I never knew they were good for anything more than the aroma until Panaderia Canadense's recent foodblog. I'll be careful with them, and won't try using one of my new peppermills for them. So far I've only tried the green peppercorns from the sample set I got. I think they're delightfully pungent and quite fresh. I don't have a lot of experience by which to judge them, but I'm happy with the the flavor. I'll post more about this as I try other corns from the sampler. I also have a follow-up on Customer Service. I reported above that my sampler pack arrived with one broken tube. I sent an email to the company after learning that the product couldn't be returned despite being damaged. Then I found the Amazon Customer Service chat and contacted them. They issued a full refund for the product. I was pretty happy with that. Two days later, without warning, a brand-new sampler pack arrived, this time intact, from CAM foods! So then I had a full pack and an almost-full pack at no charge. That wouldn't do. How to pay CAM for the replacement, I wondered, without its looking like a new order? I contacted Customer Service again and explained the situation. They said they'd charge my card again for the replacement pack. It remains to be seen whether (a) that actually happens and (b) yet another sampler pack arrives despite my best intentions. I have to give credit all around for their efforts at customer satisfaction.

I too have the Kyocera adjustable mandoline. Works a treat.