Smithy

Those are amusing labels! As you surmised, I'd never heard of a Shawinigan Handshake before. Thanks for the additional links.

We just closed the back gate of our little home, for the 3rd or 4th time in 2 weeks, to improve our wind and storm protection and eliminate some drafts. Just over the mountains and along the coast, parts of Southern California are under flash flood warnings. After my last post I got busy with holiday plans and interactions, and we've moved many times. We've gone round in a circle and are now just at the perimeter of the Southern California storms. Along the way I took photos, made notes, and failed to post anything. (I also failed to send Christmas cards, so there you go.) I've decided to take a page from the Quentin Tarantino School of Narrative. Who needs linear storytelling? It's stormy right now, but I can cast my mind back to a happier season - only a month ago! - and bring you along. Prepare for some jumps. We shopped at a large and delightful grocery store last week (Stater Bros) and quite forgot to take any photos. They have an impressive butcher counter - I think high-quality meat was how they got their start - including a broad variety of in-house sausages. We stocked up on items that we'd exhausted, perishable fruits and vegetables, and luxury meats such as salmon, various sausages, and chicken. Tonight's dinner will involve boneless skinless chicken breast and green beans from that trip. I'll post photos of it later, but probably much later. This is a nonlinear story. Two days ago it was all about comfort food. I had some leftover salmon that became a salmon salad. Part of it went on toast, with capers, in a nod to @blue_dolphin's breakfast of the same day. My darling opted for his own comfort food: leftover hash from the previous night's dinner. We had fresh juice from navel oranges and minneola tangelos. It was a blustery day, full of wind, and the lake was roiled. We turned off the radio and went for a drive to check out another possible camping area. By the time we came back, the skies had opened up and the low points in the roads were flooding. We were rewarded during a break in the storm by a full double rainbow. This is an excerpt. I'm sorry the double bow isn't more clear. Our trailer was fine, but the camp road was muddy; traffic cones had been placed a little beyond us to discourage people from driving farther. That night, it was about comfort food and beer. We had purchased a Caprese Italian Sausage at Stater Bros - they said it was a New York style Italian sausage, but were not specific about the seasonings. The sausages were plenty spicy but the seasonings seemed more complex and less hot than with standard hot Italian sausage: perhaps a bit less red pepper and a bit more black, or even white pepper? A touch of mace, perhaps? The fennel was less pronounced than we usually expect, and seemed nicely balanced. Those sausages, a bunch of chard, onions, and garlic all went into a one-pot creamy Pasta Alfredo meal. We also tried a new beer. This one was strong and bitter, and sported the words "You are not worthy". It was worthy of the dinner. Next up: dates from yesterday? Or Christmas preparations from last month? I'll flip a coin.

@gfweb, that floor IS gorgeous! One concern I have is how slick it will be for humans if water is spilled. One of my cousins hit a wet patch on her highly polished wood floor, went down hard, narrowly missed the kitchen counter with her head. I think she still had a concussion. They scuffed the surface after that for safety's sake. I'd hate to see you take such drastic action, but I hope you're addressing safety somehow. Edit: the stone wall with the wooden floor is an exceptionally fine pairing.

I'm quoting this part of your post to remind people of the question, in hopes someone has an answer. I have not found such a listing of video length. Last time around (and this time so far) I used the progress strip across the top of each page to track my progress, but that still begs the question of video length. Has anyone else found a listing of the videos and their lengths? Is there a way to find such a listing on YouTube?

I don't remember whether your oven is gas or electric. Mine (at home) is electric. I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that it significantly overshoots the target temperature when preheating, then cycles wildly when it is supposed to be at the set temperature. That alone was a valuable lesson from this particular lab, but it took a while to figure out why the sugar was melting at such unexpected temperatures!

PChem at any hour was rough. 08:00 would have been the worst! I will say, however, that this course's review of pH, moles and concentrations helped clarify and consolidate knowledge that I had barely understood before.

You posted this topic just after we'd refilled the trailer freezer on a shopping expedition. If I join you on this challenge, I might - just might - have the darned freezer empty by May. Whether I'll join you remains to be seen, but I'll be following along with interest! Re barley: I'd forgotten all about how much I used to love beef barley soup. Thanks for the reminder!

It's nice to see you back here AND cooking again, Kim! My mother always loved her electric skillet. She let it go when she and Dad downsized into a tiny apartment, and neither my sister nor I wanted it. Sometimes I think that was a mistake. Your chicken looks wonderful.

How did you like the texture and doneness of the salmon, @mgaretz? I'm always on the alert for more ways to do salmon - my favorite fish, but not my darling's unless it's done certain ways.

I know there's a discussion forum associated with the class, but I thought it was clunky and difficult to follow the first time around. I wonder whether a discussion topic here would help us all. What do you think?

It started today. First lesson is up!

I think the idea of the glass floor allowing a view of the cellar with its various growth and processing areas is wonderful, but some guests may not. Will you have an alternative - an opaque walkway, for instance - for those who dislike heights or who might feel indecently exposed if a worker is below?

Slight change of direction from a water miser here...are you generally able to reuse that water? In my current situation (no dishwasher) I'm using the SV water to wash dishes. When I get home again I plan to use it for those items that must be handwashed, except when I'm planning to use the SV setup for several nights running. This has little to do with how much water you need to shift and a lot to do with how much counter space you have, but I know you and I have both been looking for water-saving tricks.

Did you use any sort of cover? I've been using (and reusing, and reusing...) plastic wrap for a cover with reasonable success, but perhaps not as long as you were doing. I'm also keeping an eye out for a large silicone cover that I can custom cut to allow space for the circulator. This one and the largest in this set are examples. I'm not willing to buy a new one for the purpose, but I think they're likely to start turning up in thrift stores any time now. Inveterate thrift-store shopper that you are, you're likely to find one before I do.

Oddly enough, the supports for the glass platter that allow it to rotate freely seem rarely to be interchangeable. Some are spindles, some are rings with plastic wheels; even the ring-and-wheel setups seem to be of a different diameter. If your microwave dies and you have room for those odds and ends, save the support as well as the glass platter in case you, er, overcook the support in your next oven. (It's possible in a combination convection/microwave oven *ahem*. I don't know whether it can happen in a microwave-only oven.)

I have a bowl of that design; I think it's made from acacia. It's one of my favorites...doubly so because it was a gift from my parents. I happen to know that the price was quite a bit more than $3.59. Nice finds, @Porthos!

I seem to be an outlier regarding the V-slicer design. I tried one (by OXO, I think) and found that the apex made a pinch point right at the thickest part of the vegetable in question. Things jammed there. I took it back. The single angled blade makes the most sense to me. Can't comment on the Bron or Benriner, either one.

What a great story, @HungryChris - how nice to see the holiday spirit brought into the work place! @liuzhou, I've never seen peppercorns so fresh that they were still on the branch. Thanks especially for that photo, and for the happy story.

@Jon Savage and other respondents, the entire duck idea was rejected by this group, but I'm grateful for the information. I'll serve duck at another time, with another crowd, and be pleased to have these guidelines.

I love the pull out pantry! It was massively useful - as in a wonderful use of a narrow space - back when I had one.

I had to go back and re-find the original reference to catfish in this context, so I could get the "invisible leftover" reference. Glad I did.

Hello, Skyclad, and welcome to eGullet! I can't answer your question, but if nobody comes along quickly to help, you may find the answer in this topic on Making Limoncello.

Not just from hard boiled eggs! Do not cook eggs in the microwave unless the yolk is thoroughly scrambled/whipped/beaten (choose your method) to eliminate air pockets. Some of our favorite family lore is about how Dad learned that the hard way. One egg exploded inside the microwave; the other waited until his guest began to eat it. :-D

@Shelby, that might be almost the right era for those spoons. @IowaDee, you're very close. I took a break from the desert and drove to San Diego to visit my best friend and part of her family. She and her husband recently returned from a career overseas and I am delighted to have them back in the country. (I had hoped to arrive in time to scoop up my friend and her son, if he was interested, and get to @FrogPrincesse's daughter's Christmas market, but I didn't arrive with enough time or energy to make the drive to the other end of San Diego.) One of the weekend's festivities was the annual party for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. It's a pot luck lunch, a fundraiser, and a chance for the Peace Corps folks to make plans for the next year. The lunch was an excellent feast, and I wish I'd taken photos. Many people brought foods from the countries where they had served. My friend's son, just back from Senegal, brought an excellent mafé and there was at least one more peanut stew; there were South American foods and Indian foods and foods from various parts of the South Pacific. The fundraiser was a silent auction. People could bid on trips, restaurant or zoo tickets, or various items: clothing, basketry, gift baskets, pottery, and so on...some new, some donated from people's households as they downsized. Those of you who have been reading along know that I'm a sucker for gadgetry and cookware. I perused the tables, saw some major bargains, thought "it's for a good cause!" and bid. Some items I bid on because they were appealing and I couldn't stand to see them orphaned with no bids. Some items I truly wanted, and watched to see if I was outbid. When the time came, I found that I'd won the bids on: A Christmas basket that included a bottle of wine, carefully wrapped (we drank it at my friends' house, and I left the basket with them); Some fun Egyptian mugs that I would never have bought in Egypt for myself; A small but heavy wooden spice grinder and spice box ("Oh, Nance," exclaimed my friend, "if we'd known you'd want that we'd have given it to you instead of donating it!") and A beautifully basketed collection titled "Let's Cook!" I left this basket behind too, and my friends will use it or give it away. Look at what-all was included! The colored stripey things at the upper left are place mats made of fine wooden sticks, the kind that roll up easily. I couldn't resist. All that stuff - and a Guatemalan handbag, not shown - set me back $38. As I was paying at the checkout table, a woman came up, spotted the "Let's Cook!" basket and said, "Oh, good! I was hoping somebody would give that a good home. I've had those salad servers since my Peace Corp stint in Romania, in the early '60's. I thought it was time to let somebody else enjoy them." My friend's husband is only semi-retired, and was away during most of my visit. I stayed an extra day in order to see him. Bless him, he brought a gift! I'm not sure what the binding agent is other than honey, but these are sweet, crunchy, nutty, delicious little bites of sesame seeds and nuts. Lovely stuff.

There are other campsites nearby that have been in use over the years. This one isn't right for our rig, but is good for tent campers. We've never seen anyone in it, but there's a rotting lawn chair, some nice logs suitable for supports of some kind, an old fire ring with weeds growing up through it, and stones moved around to give a landscaping effect. I spotted a small shopping basket just at the edge of the clearing, went to investigate, and found this: Cool, huh? It's larger than any of my clay cookware; I think it would accommodate 2 chickens. I considered giving it a home. Would somebody be back for it? Then I realized that the base is cracked. It's still the right size to fit in our fire ring. I've been wishing I had something that needed a slow roast in the embers: eggplant, for instance. I don't. We'll be moving in a couple of days. I've left it in place for someone else to use, if they wish. If it's still here next time we come, I'll put more creative thought into using it.