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W-S often discontinues appliances when they no longer have an "exclusive" on sales or if other vendors begin selling them at a significant discount. Other "high end" vendors, such as Sur La Table do the same. As soon as an appliance "goes public" so to speak, they drop it. They have done that with some "exclusive" colors of KA mixers, as well as other appliances. Now I am really bummed that I didn't get the Magimix Michael Chiarello special from Napa Style last spring when it was $495.00 including the extras. Having the three different bowls plus the bread bowl would be a great replacement for my remaining Cuisinarts. Missed the boat there...

I've had an ongoing experiment with small amounts of dried beans that I purchased in '08, '09 and last year. Some I cooked immediately, or within a few months, some I simply stored in bags and some I vacuum packed. So far I have cooked three batches of the stored beans and the vacuum packed beans, side by side and by golly, the vacuum packed "old" beans turned out much like the more recently purchased beans (same variety). The beans stored in just a bag, in a canister, did not soften after prolonged soaking and cooking. Little marbles in the pan. From now on I'm going to vacuum pack all my beans as this certainly seems to have prolonged the life of the ones I treated this way. The ones from '08 did take longer to cook but eventually softened completely. The ones from '09 were just like the fresh ones.

While some beans do have a "potato" flavor, please note that this is not the flavor of plain potatoes. Think of the best potato you ever tasted and multiply it by a factor of four or more. It is not just a potato flavor, but a complex, rich flavor with a buttery hint that is excellent in plain bean soup and which marries well with rice. If you limit your selection of beans to kidney and pinto, you are missing out on a lot of great flavors. Some beans have a "meaty" flavor, some have a buttery consistency, such as the "speckled butter bean" a great favorite in the south, also known as the "Florida" butter bean. For years they were difficult to find outside the south (a lima bean was a poor substitute) but now several online vendors carry them. I consume a fair amount of beans and always have at least five or six varieties (or more) on hand. Read the info at Rancho Gordo's website for each variety of bean. There has been extensive discussion on this forum in earlier threads. I recommend the Good Mother Stallard and the Snowcap beans - don't let the "potato flavor" put you off. Another online vendor with excellent products is Purcell Mountain Farms Unfortunately, when the bean picking season ends, sometimes the supply of a certain variety is limited and they go rapidly because some people (like me) have been waiting and order as soon as they appear.

If you can, look at the tankless water heaters - for people on propane tanks, they save a tremendous amount of money, not reheating the same water over and over. Three friends who live up at Mammoth Mtn, where the propane costs are significantly higher than here, put in the tankless heaters not long after I did mine (and raved about) and noted impressive savings. One is a caterer so uses a lot of hot water all year long and estimates she cut her propane use by 1/3, which is a fair amount of money. I haven't had my tankless (natural gas here) water heater long enough to see how much I may be saving. However, there is great joy in NEVER running out of hot water! Baroness, that is one major reason for me also. I like taking long showers and even with filters on my water line regular water heaters will collect so much silt after just a couple of years that the volume of water is greatly reduced. A 50-gallon water heater might only hold 20 gallons of hot water. I actually have two, one for the bathrooms and one for the laundry and kitchen and can have the washer and the dishwasher going at the same time. It did require a larger gas line but that was a negligible expense considered how much I have saved in heating water. Friends who live in an "all-electric" home and got an electric tankless, have been amazed at their savings.

If you can, look at the tankless water heaters - for people on propane tanks, they save a tremendous amount of money, not reheating the same water over and over. Three friends who live up at Mammoth Mtn, where the propane costs are significantly higher than here, put in the tankless heaters not long after I did mine (and raved about) and noted impressive savings. One is a caterer so uses a lot of hot water all year long and estimates she cut her propane use by 1/3, which is a fair amount of money. As for gifts for the kitchen, I already ordered the Magimix Toaster I have wanted for awhile. I have just about everything else I could possibly want so have NO kitchen things on my wish list for this year. I was asked if I wanted a SousVide Supreme but turned it down. I really don't want to play with this at my age. I would rather spend my time perfecting some of my ancient recipes that need to be brought up to date.

I'm so envious. When I lived down in the Valley I shopped at a store with a deli counter where they produced lovely sub sandwiches and a favorite included Olive loaf, pepper loaf, salami, thinly sliced onions, provolone cheese, tomato, dill pickles and leaf lettuce and an Italian dressing.

Since Williams-Sonoma is offering free shipping today and tomorrow and a 10% discount on all electrics (notice came in an email), and since I have a W-S gift card that has been languishing on my desk for some months, I have decided to add THIS to my collection of cool toasters. I placed the order a few minutes ago and will have a few days of anticipation. I'm sure that, as so often happens, now that I have ordered it, the price will be discounted significantly in the not too distant future but I'll just have to live with it. As soon as it is in my hot little hands, I will take photos of it in action to see if it lives up to the hype. Too bad that it is just a single slot. I much prefer toasters with two long slots so will continue to use my Breville for my "regular" toasting agenda or my ancient Sunbeam for regular breads. I noted a few months ago that the automobile commercial that featured one of these as a "chestnut roaster" in one of their "too, too exclusive" segments, has omitted this toaster. I wonder if there was a complaint from the manufacturer...

I've purchased specialty items not available here in the US from Vick Cherikoff I registered on the website some two years ago and get periodic emails reminding me of seasonal items. I just got an email on Nov. 23 with a discount code. In the past I have purchased ground wattleseed, the Bluegum smoke oil, Alpine pepper and Lemon myrtle sprinkle. I've been extremely pleased with everything, especially the wattleseed.

I saw Denny's new commercial earlier today. They just introduced "Bread Pudding French Toast" -- Gee, I wonder where they got the idea...

That's the difference between a purely "celebrity" cook and one who is truly involved and tests every recipe that goes into the cookbook to which they attach their name. Julia Child was one who tested every recipe in her earlier cookbooks or made sure that the later ones, done with other chefs, had all the recipes tested by a knowledgeable cook or baker. She refused to lend her name to quite a number of cookbooks offered to her over the decades of her prominence.

I've discovered that many times the recipes are transcribed for printing by people who know nothing about baking and don't recognize errors and then to compound it, the proofreader also does not check it against the original to see if any ingredient is missing or the measurements are mis-labeled. I had one baking book with a recipe for 'potato' bread that had no mention of potatoes in the list of ingredients but instructions to "add the potatoes" in the method. I also had a translated baking book that had flour listed as 1.5 "cup" when it should have been 1.5 liter. If it doesn't look right, too dry or too wet, I check with known reliable recipes to see how similar the amounts and ratios are.

You can look for Indian recipes under the name "jowar" or "juwar" for sorghum flour. Here's one I tried a while back that turned out pretty good. You can also find it called milo. It is used a lot in gluten free baking because it behaves somewhat like wheat but you have to add binders to the mix, often xanthan gum, otherwise the baked item falls apart. I buy both the flour and the whole grain from Barry Farm. It is sweet so you can reduce the amount of sugar in a recipe - I'm diabetic - and when I mix the whole grain with others for breakfast cereal, I add no sugar at all. It's an interesting grain to work with. The farm on which I was raised grew a lot of sorghum, 90% was the "heavy" high sugar content, pressed for the juice that was cooked down into molasses and only 10% was the taller "light" sorghum grown for the grain. The dried grains were used to feed show cattle and game birds, pheasant, quail, partridge, etc., only occasionally was it made into people food.

That works. I used to use this method when catering. Of course I cooked larger volumes but as I described in my last post, after much trial and error (lots of error) I found that the 2/3 - 1/3 ratio worked best and they had to be cooked separately. I also put them in water to "soak" after peeling and cutting them, especially the russets - as quite a bit of starch will come out of the potatoes, making for a fluffier end result. It's also important to leave them in the pots (covered) after draining, so the steam has an effect - which makes them break down easier - also contributes to the fluffiness. During my years of catering, I cooked tons of potatoes and tried just about every known method. An old friend, once a chef at the Huntington Hotel, told me about this method at least 30 years ago.

The answer to your question is, Yes. The best ratio I have found was 2/3 russet potatoes and 1/3 "waxy" potatoes and they must be cooked separately, unless you steam them. If using a ricer, which produces a completely non-lumpy result, you don't even have to be super careful about removing all the skins. If you are going to mash them, start with peeling the white rose or red potatoes into less than 1 inch chunks and put them in water, then peel and cut the russets into 1 1/2 inch chunks and start them both cooking in separate pots. Test with a fork or thin-bladed knife to see if they are done. Drain and leave them in the pots covered, for at least five minutes. lightly salt them then mash the waxy potatoes roughly, then add to the russets and mash them together adding milk, cream or ?? THEN add salt and pepper to taste and finish mashing and fluffing. If using a ricer, prepare and cook them the same way, put them through a ricer and stir to blend and add your other ingredients and seasoning. I like sour cream, my grandmother used the thickest heavy cream, some people like yogurt and some only butter - and it has to be real butter! I don't like using a mixer, I think the potatoes develop a texture that simply doesn't feel right to me.

My Mexican neighbor says that the dried "galanga" root "chips" are used to make a "digestivo" tea. She has never heard of it being used in cooking. The "doctors" who sell it recommend it for abdominal complaints, liver problems and "wind."

In baking the powdered buttermilk works just fine. However, since buttermilk lasts for at least a year in the freezer - transfer it to a sealable container with the smallest head space you can find - and mark the date and use it within a year. Even if it develops a lot of ice crystals, you can still use it with good results.

I second Janeer's vote for stollen. I like stollen better than panettone because of the somewhat denser crumb. I used the same recipe for decades and was quite happy with it, however a couple of years ago I made THIS ONE from Betsy Oppenneer and found it to be superior to my old recipe. This recipe makes TWO generous loaves. The only substitutions I made was the use of Agave syrup instead of honey and I used the Splenda/sugar baking mix in the filling and did not put powdered sugar on the top.

Alex, I think he is referring to what used to be called a "Fait Tout" that is also called a "Windsor" pan. The sides are not curved but flare outward, the top diameter larger than the bottom as in regular sauce pans. I could be wrong, but this is what I think of when I see "slope-sided" as pan description. My jam pan (unlined copper) was described as slope-sided.

In the late '40s, after restrictions on "strategic metals" were lifted, and indeed into the 1970s, one could buy home kits for re-tinning copper cookware. I did this a few times and still have one of the pans with my amateurish results, done when I was living in my old house and had the Garland range with it's high output burners as it was somewhat difficult to get the tin to melt on a regular kitchen range. (The surface of the pan had to get to at least 450° F. and hold that temp for long enough to swirl the tin around and up the sides.) From time to time these kits show up on eBay. There are more companies doing re-tinning now than there were twelve years ago, the last time I shipped a couple of my pots off to a place in New Jersey (that kept them for 4 months) to have this done. It is costly so made sense to replace my most used pieces with the stainless lined. The internet has made these places much more accessible. I had never heard of Rocky Mountain Retinning in Denver until about three or four years ago when I saw it mentioned on a gardenweb forum. In the past I used a metalcraft place in Los Angeles but they had so much business that it could take up to a year for them to get around to working on my pans. They closed in the mid-90s. Photos of a little pan that show my unprofessional attempts at retinning. Bubbles, uneven ripples, thicker in some areas and thin in others. This is a little sauce pan I use only for melting butter so it has held up better than the others. A closeup of a "blistered" area that i smoothed out a bit with steel wool.

Freeze them. To bring them back to the ideal serving state, defrost them completely, pre-heat your oven to 375° F., place the muffins in a brown paper bag and put the bag in the oven for 8-10 minutes - for a dozen or so regular sized muffins. It's better to do them in batches. If they are jumbo muffins, it takes 12 to 15 minutes for them to warm through.

My SS lined Bourgeat copper is not "bias ground" on the edges. The edges are rolled or flared. On the left is a 5 1/4-Quart Brazier, on the right is a 3 1/2 quart saucepan. I bought the brazier in the 1990s and the saucepan in 2006. I don't have a micrometer but the edges are fractionally more than 1/8 inch thick measured with my glass ruler and both are very heavy. Bourgeat states that the WALLS are 1/8 inch thick and the bottoms are thicker. I have a Falk frypan and a Bourgeat frypan, both 11 inches in diameter. The Falk weighs 5 lb,11.2oz the Bourgeat weighs 6 lb,1.4oz.

My Mexican neighbors, originally from Durango, prefer the Canary beans, now called Peruano beans - the latter name has become more common in the past twenty years or so and in spite of the name they are native to Mexico. They grew them on their ranch as well as pink beans and a broad bean (no name). They like these because the skins are not as tough as pinto beans and they are creamier when cooked.

This afternoon I phoned a friend who is a gastroenterologist and she holds with the theory that rapid eating does more to contribute to problems she treats than any other eating habit. She later emailed me a couple of links to sites that have plenty of data on this but I'm just going to include this one, which I found on my own, as it is quite easy to understand. The others are far too technical and frankly graphic to be posted here. Consequences of eating too fast. The author of the article seems to have little though for people who must eat slowly or at least slower than he does, due to reasons over which they have little or no control. One does have to have consideration for others. I have to eat slower than most because I have an acquired defect in my esophagus and I can have serious problems if I try to eat too rapidly. My friend said she should thank all the rapid diners and tell them to keep it going. She needs a new car!

I simply do not understand the basis for his complaint. A dinner, particularly one with friends, is to be savored and bolting down the food is to me an insult to good food. I was raised in a time and a place where table manners were emphasized and one simply did not gobble the food on the plate as if one were a hog at a trough. If one doesn't take time to actually taste the food, then there is no reason to be eating quality food in a nice (not necessarily expensive) restaurant. Any old swill will do and if he doesn't like it, let him go to a fast food place and have at it. Truly, I do not see the purpose of this article. If it is a true rant, he doesn't give sufficient reason for it. If it was meant in jest, it missed the mark by a mile and I don't care if it was aimed at a British audience or an international one. It simply doesn't have enough humor to take it into that realm. From my side, I would say that I am most annoyed at people who bolt their food, talking almost non-stop, and not bothering to observe good manners. There have been times when I have been on the edge of my seat, ready to jump up and administer the Heimlich maneuver to people who eat in such a fashion. Then I can't enjoy my food.

I've got a very old (empty) tea tin that is identified as Osmanthus Romance Tea - an oolong tea with osmanthus flowers. From WiseGeek comes the following quote: And this.