Smithy

I've been delighted with the fingerlings I've used, partly for their ease of preparation (rinse, pat dry) and partly for their variety in size and color. Although I can see where the size differences might be aggravating, that hasn't caused a problem for me. I do think that as a rule I pick potatoes with approximately the same diameter to allow for even cooking. I've cooked them in the following ways: (1) braised; (2) parboiled then spitted and grilled; and most recently, used as a stand for chicken roasted over a bed of salt. That last may take some explanation: it's a technique from Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France. You put about an inch of coarse salt in the bottom of a pan; bury the potatoes in it (whole); park the chicken atop the potatoes or on a grill parked above the potatoes, and let 'er rip at high heat. The potatoes come out silky, the chicken comes out perfectly done, and the oils and greases are absorbed by the salt to make cleanup a breeze. For more detail see her book; my point is that fingerling potatoes cooked in a bed of salt are a wonderful treat.

You're doing an excellent job of sharing it! At times like this, I *almost* wish I again lived in a major West Coast metro area...the market choices are the flip side of high population density, aren't they? And the West Coast gets great cross-pollenation from other cultures. Beautiful blog, just beautiful. I look forward to more!

So...several months later...did you go? Where did you eat? What did you think? What do you recommmend? I hope you had fun, and found that the leads were worthwhile!

OK, I have a new question. What's the weight limit of these ceramic-top stoves? A salesman to whom I spoke today noted that people have occasionally had trouble because of putting too large a stockpot, with too much liquid, on the burner. I questioned him to make sure. He was not referring to having a stockpot overhang the burner circle; instead, he was suggesting that a stockpot that fits inside the circle might still have too much weight for the glass. I already figure I'll have to do my canning on the side burner of the gas grill outside (or on our camp stove) due to the respective size of the burner circle and the canning kettle. However, it's never occurred to me before today that a full stockpot of the proper diameter might overload the cooking surface. Are a 20-quart stockpot and a ceramic-top stove natural enemies? What say you, fellow eG'ers?

Huh. I grew up on a citrus ranch and have never heard of this. I'll have to try it.

Dave, that may be the best perspective of all. Neither my electric-coil house stove nor my propane trailer stove look the way they did 5 years ago. In fact, the only cooking surface I own that hasn't visibly aged in 5 years is our Coleman camp stove...at 30+ years old, it was already well-aged when I inherited it.

Thanks, Marlene. That looks like a nice unit. I know I want a double oven the next time around. The stove features look like they'd give the flexibility I want. The glass top makes me a bit nervous, though. How easy is it to scratch the surface when moving a pan across the surface? How much time can elapse after spilling sugar or syrup on it before there's a permanent change to the surface? These used to be big issues with the glass-top stoves. Have the glass tops become sturdier in the last 10 years?

Looks like I should have looked at the other topic more before asking my questions about whether the ban was lifted...sorry!

Interesting report. Did anything ever come of it? It was published in 1997. A few things jumped out at me: * The storm sewers and sanitary sewers are combined. Is this still true? The cost of disconnecting the systems is huge, but due to environmental-regulatory pressure the City of Duluth, MN has been doing just that. * They projected a "minimal" change to water quality. However, the water in Flushing Bay failed to meet the summer water quality standards for dissolved oxygen 50% of the summer (when the standard applies) at the time the study was published, and the addition of garbage grinders was anticipated to lower the dissolved oxygen content slightly more. (Pages 11 and 12, for anyone interested.) In the Lake Superior basin that would be a probable kiss of death to any proposal with even a small degradation to water quality. It may be different in New York where the population density is so much greater. *Looking at the project capital outlay for modifications to treatment plants, I'm guessing that it would be a tougher sell now than in 1997. So...what happened? And thanks for posting the study. My questions notwithstanding, it puts garbage grinders in a better light than I'd have expected.

I'm afraid I'd scratch a glass-top if I weren't careful enough moving my heavier pots around. Do you have any issues with that?

*bump* In this response to Dave Scantland's excellent Daily Gullet article, "Flameout", Chris A wrote: I wanted to ask right there and then about Chris's stove, but decided to post my question in a more appropriate place. So, Chris - what kind of stove do you have? I'm about to start shopping... Anyone else? Nobody has weighed in on this topic/thread since 2007.

Ach. I share your pain. Our house has a good-sized kitchen with the stove on an interior wall. No exhaust fan. No reliable cross-ventilation. I get very tired of cleaning the gunk off the pots, pans and decorative doodads that sit atop the cabinets, but it has to be done a couple of times a year. Heavy-duty frying, or accidental smoke, odorize the house for days. We're planning to do a low-level kitchen remodeling and I very much want to install a proper ventilation system: a quiet, effective, range hood with exhaust to the outside world. Options are limited without spending boucoup bucks. A vent pipe up through the ceiling will run through our bed upstairs. A vent down through the floor will hit the office desk. If I move the stove to an outside wall I'll have to relocate plumbing to accommodate the sink that lives there now. A vent sideways to the nearest wall seems the best answer, but then I'll sacrifice badly-needed cabinet space. Friends (including my husband) keep assuring me that the recirculating-fan range hoods do an adequate job. I have my doubts. I suspect we'll end up continuing to do the majority of frying outside, on the deck, when the weather is fine.

Great post, Dave. Add me to the list of people compelled to rethink the electric / gas business. I've been cooking on electric coils for years now and thinking that gas (propane, in my rural case) would surely deliver more heat and control than the burner shuffle I do on coils now. And yet - in our travel trailer, home for months at a time, I can't honestly say I'm getting more heat and control on our propane stove than I get on our electric stove at the house. Since I'm winding up for a kitchen remodeling project at home, your piece is very timely. I first read the story as a ham that wouldn't fit in the grandmother's only baking pan, in one of those Reader's Digest "Life in These United States" segments. I have always imagined that discussion taking place with my grandmother, given the size of the baking pan she had (and I have inherited). Based on your description, I'd love to take a cooking class from you!

Two years ago we found a couple of excellent places down on the main street, in the pedestrian mall area. (If you think of Avalon Harbor as having a U shape, with the Pavilion at one tip and the ferry terminal at the other, I'm referring to the crossbar at the bottom of the U.) One is called "Steve's", I think - if not Steve then another man's first name. Local seafood to die for. Excellent breads and wines came as well. There was probably a good salad, or decadent dessert, that I don't remember...we admired everything we saw pass by our table, and we liked everything we ate. Sorry it was 2 years ago and my memory is inexact, but it's easy to find: the only restaurant that's a floor above the street. It was noisy (a wedding party was there as well) and rather expensive, but well worth one meal. On a street corner no more than 2 blocks to the right of (Steve's?) - to the right if you're standing at the shops and facing the harbor, that is - is a combination art gallery and coffee / dessert shop. Don't miss it. We bought tortes and tartlets. We bought cookies. We bought wine. we enjoyed the artwork. We kept coming back. I think they have coffee and sandwiches. When I say "street corner" I mean that the pedestrian mall has ended. We had lunch one day at another place whose name totally escapes me. If you're coming from the ferry terminal toward the main street and miss the turn, you'll run into the restaurant. Sorry I'm so vague about names, but I hope I've given you enough information to go on. I'd go back to those places in a heartbeat! If I find old notes in time I'll post the names. Have fun!

Sewing the skins to a rack to hold them flat sounds like a lot of unnecessary work. Couldn't you weight them flat with, say, a bacon press and render them in a low oven?

Is it possible that what you are seeing arises from an inappropriate replacement probe? I'm aware, for example, that the temperature probes for the various models of SousVideMagic are NOT interchangeable. Perhaps someone else can offer suggestions for (re)calibratable continuous-read thermometers. ... It's quite possible that I inadvertently put in the wrong replacement probe, or switched some around in my kitchen stock. I haven't a clue how to re-sort them, short of mixing and matching and checking calibration as I go. Yes, if anyone knows of consumer-grade remote-probe thermometers that can be calibrated at will, I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks for your comments, Dougal. I rechecked the calibration while I was comparing the response times of the remote-sensing thermometer and the instant-read thermometer in question. I learned the following: The "known good" Maverick remote-sensing set reads boiling water at least 20 degrees high, and ice water at least 10 degrees low AND takes a good 20 seconds to stabilize ; The instant-read thermometer responds more quickly (4-6 seconds) and gives sensible readings; I have another Maverick smoker thermometer set that reads boiling water and ice water sensibly and responds only slightly more slowly than the instant-read thermometer. This set had been relegated to our travel trailer because it has that dimwitted design that requires removing the battery cover to turn it on. However, it seems to be the better set. I haven't had time to recheck my claim that the probe conducts heat to the interior of the meat, but I certainly have no recent evidence to support that claim. I wonder how much I'd have to pay to get a system that I could recalibrate as needed? If I buy a replacement probe, do I have to worry that it won't match the receiver it plugs into? This would be a factor for a thermocouple (J-type vs K-type, for instance) but I don't know whether it's a factor for consumer-level kitchen appliances. I know I've bought replacement probes (from Maverick) more than once, but of course have no idea which systems not have those probes.

*Bump* I used one of my Maverick remote-sensing smoker thermometers today and reconfirmed my suspicion that I Need Another Thermometer. It isn't that the calibration is off; I've checked that. The problem is that the portion of the probe sheath that isn't buried in meat heats up from the oven, transmits heat into the meat, and gives an unrealistically high temperature (or else actually cooks the meat from within). With sausage, today's fun project, the probe is simply too big to fit entirely in the meat. However, even with a roast it's hard to bury the entire probe. I think they make it L-shaped on purpose to prevent just such a measure. I can confirm that the probe temperature is not representative of the meat temperature by putting an instant-read thermometer elsewhere into the meat and seeing that it's a good 30 degrees cooler. However, I'd rather not open the door to insert an instant-read thermometer. It lets out too much heat and smoke from my smoker. I think the key must be to have the least-massive and smallest probe possible, and I seem to recall someone (Fat Guy?) saying so in an earlier topic. Haven't found that conversation, though. None of the thermometer topics has been active lately. Maybe somebody has found a solution to this problem by now? Or can tell me where I'm going wrong?

My mother, sister and I are headed for the Sonoma Valley (or is it Napa?) this fall. My mother particularly wants to see a winery she and Dad visited a couple of decades ago. The thing she particularly remembers is that this winery gives tours and that their storage barrels were hand-carved so that the type of grape being fermented inside is depicted on the cask front: chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, and so on. Unfortunately, she doesn't remember the name of the winery. I'm sure it's one of the older wineries, and with a bit of luck it hasn't changed names and changed hands. Still, it can be a long search trying to find the winery by this description. So I ask the cogniscenti of the Northern wine country: help, please! Anyone know which winery this is? I DO know the difference between the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, by the way. I just don't know where they took their "wine country" tour although I suspect it was the Sonoma Valley.

This is a timely topic for me, since I'm starting to think seriously about my kitchen remodeling project and what kind of flooring I want. Today I was in the local hardware store, admiring laminate flooring as well as The Real Deal. I'm interested in reading what other people have to say - pros and cons. Dave, why have you decided against bamboo? I've been admiring that and thinking about it for my kitchen, if the budget allows. The only advice I can give comes from my cousins, who had a beautiful, sturdy and shiny hardwood floor installed in their kitchen. She skidded in a wet patch, fell, and banged her head hard enough on the countertop to justify an extended stay in the hospital. It was a very scary time. By the time she got home, he had had the floor refinished to a dull matte. It still looks lovely, but it doesn't look as glossy and it is MUCH safer because it doesn't get slippery when it's wet. Don't go with a gloss finish.

EGullet comes through again: The Stove Guard is precisely the kind of device needed! If the plug arrangement works, and if my mother's landlords agree with the installation, we're in business. Thanks, Darienne! Any other similar devices out there, in case I can't get the plugs to match up? Ray Goud, when I'm visiting I *am* the personal chef. However, the purpose here is to allow a senior citizen to continue her independence and cooking privileges in an assisted living facility....

I've been trying to dream up an alarm or a safety switch for stovetop cooking when a cook is busy. I have managed to ruin more than one batch of "boiled" eggs, and at least one stew pot, from distracted cooking in which the water boils out of the pot and wrecks the eggs, or the stew overheats and chars until the pot overheats too. In my household it's an embarrassing inconvenience. In other circumstances it might be a safety issue. The logic is fairly simple, I think: a probe measures the interior bottom temperature for the pot, or an infrared sensor measures the bottom exterior temperature of the pot. Either way, it can't go much about 212F unless it's boiled dry. (This would, of course, not work for a saute pan.) If the temperature rises above a certain point, an alarm sounds or a breaker turns off the stove. The infrared sensor could also be used to alarm a burner coil that was left on after the pot was taken off. I'm pretty sure I could kluge something like this together, given time, but it would look like a kluge. Has any clever company already invented and marketed such a device? Does anyone know of it?

Fattoush. Lebanese salad, very healthy, lots of greens, a nice tart dressing, and bits of stale bread. They don't add the crunch that croutons do, but they add a lovely texture and do great things with the dressing. Maybe not all that different than panzanella, now that I think of it. Panade. Bread casserole with layers of cheese, broth, greens, softened (or caramelized) onions, what have you. I picked up the original idea from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, read more about panades in a long-ago food blog on this forum, and never looked back. Bread doesn't last long enough to stale around here.

Sorry I haven't had any insights to offer here. I'm still pondering, however, and perhaps if I bump this back up someone else will have an idea. I don't understand the difference between your roaster oven and a standard oven. How much smaller is it? Is it more tightly sealed? More heavily insulated?

Pyrex, Fireking (same name, different language, different companies) and Anchor Hocking all make tempered glass mixing bowls, as far as I know. As noted above, you really need to look at the geometry of the bowl. Will it fit properly in your chosen pan and serve as the inner pot in a double boiler? If not, then keep looking. I am especially fond of the Pyrex mixing bowl set that comes with lids - 4 bowls, 4 lids, all color-coordinated. The bowls are relatively shallow and are especially good for, say, bread doughs or marinades. For years I've just used the white glass bowls (possibly also Pyrex) that came with my mixer way back when. Those bowls were perfect in their heft and capacity, until Pyrex came out with the more gently-sloped sets that are my current favorite. Sure, they have a bigger footprint. No, they will definitely not fit on the turntable of my Hamilton Beach mixer that's older than I am. But they are pretty, and they're great for hand-mixing.