andiesenji

Walmart has raised their prices mainly because transportation costs have skyrocketed because of oil speculators. Note the big oil companies have just posted first quarter profits that are record breaking so they are doing mighty fine. They also want to continue to get SUBSIDIES! and want more tax cuts. My local congressman keeps harping about more "drilling in America" but can't seem to understand that oil from the U.S. is not used here, it goes to the world market and is subject to speculation just as is oil from other countries. Walmart has to raise prices to continue to stay in business but their profits are not as big as they were ten years ago.

Here's a link to thePanasonic 2.2 MW with a better description than on Sears web site. I just spoke to my neighbors, who have it. They have 4 teens and one 9 year old, all boys, and their MW has to be up to some "vigorous" treatment. Door slamming multiple times, repeated use in a brief time period. Has held up well.

It looks like a tiered wall-mount, fruit or "grape" basket. Similar to this but 2-tiered instead of three. Have you tried cleaning it with steam? That's how I clean my vintage baskets. You might find something suitable where they sell wall mount plant holders. I've seen something similar at Pier One or at Cost Plus World Market - I was in both not long ago and one had a similar item with terra cotta tiles.

My Sharp combi Convection/Microwave is 900 watts and does just fine. (I have an extra in storage in case they discontinue it.) the other Sharp is 1100 watts. They both work about the same - that is, it takes the same amoutn of time to boil water in both. GE makes a 1500 watt MW that is apparently somewhat lemonish. I know of two people who had them and replaced them with something else because of problems when they were brand new. I know one was an over the range installation, don't recall if the other was. A recently introduced Panasonic MW offers 1250 watts and the person who has it likes it because it is big (2.2 CuFt) countertop and has "inverter" technology and power defrost (whatever that is). They purchased at Sears in the January sales.

I love my stainless. Daily I use the wipes that are made for cleaning stainless with a follow up with a dry soft towel. I have previously had black and it was a whole lot worse at attracting and holding fingerprints.

We had this topic some time ago. You can use them anywhere you would use parsley. You can dry them and use them to season almost anything, they will retain their flavor for about 6 months if totally dry and kept away from light. I grow lovage, which tastes like celery but has a lot more leaves. It is hardier and easier to grow than celery and does nicely in pots.

The shelving unit will rest on the floor with just the top, sides and front fastened to it. I know of one person who has one of the half height shelving units inside the shell of a Chinese lacquer cabinet - her entire condo is furnished in Asian design furniture that had been used in movies and purchased at one of the studio auctions. The interior of the Chinese cabinet was damaged when bottles of wine stored inside broke.

Was it one of these? No. The ones I have appear heavier. The ones I have are the same thing that Sam's Club and Costco uses in their stores to hold temporary items. It says Torrance, CA on the rail.

Linda, your small white spots may have been sugar crystals. With any syrup cooked for that length of time, crystal form rapidly. I've held fruits in syrup for months with no mold formation - but plenty of crystals. It is easy to test, lift out the part with the white spots and apply a few drops of warm water. If sugar crystals, it will become transparent after a few minutes, mold won't be affected.

That sounds about right. The one 5-shelf unit I have is rated at 70 pounds per shelf with casters and 150 pounds per shelf without. (It's stamped on the uprights.) The others are all 6 shelf units, some from Costco, some from Sam's club. I have one corner shelf unit that has 5 uprights, and the weight rating is different - I don't recall what it is but it is slightly more than the regular units. I've got some heavy stuff back in there, cast iron cookware, a big 3-head commercial malt mixer and a slab of marble on the bottom shelf that I can't budge. I think it has dented the floor!

I do a lot of container gardening but anything with holes in the bottom has to be on blocks. I also have some fruitless mulberry trees and they have extremely invasive roots that will grow up into any pot setting on the ground. Years ago, before I realized this, I had failure after failure of what should have been hardy plants that usually grow well in pots. I attempted to move one pot and it was anchored to the ground with a root that was almost an inch in diameter and the pot itself was filled with fine, cord-like roots after six months.

The shelves Costco carries are rated to 800 pounds per shelf. For $99 you get six 48x18" shelves, six back rails, and posts. They also come with optional casters, which I don't use. You can only get them in the warehouses not on Costco.com so I can't give you a link but they are awesome. I just assembled three sets of them for use in closets. I think they're fully as serious as commercial-grade Metro and they're certainly cheaper. They're significantly beefier than the Intermetro shelving unit we got at Container Store for our son's room a few years back. A set weighs 111 pounds -- very hard to transport in the box. With the casters the weight rating is considerably less. The casters can handle heavier loads but the threaded collar inside the bottom of the uprights, into which they fit, cannot. I can assure you from personal experience that they will bend and the unit will tip. I have a couple on casters in my storage room but they are only used for lighter items.

That's true. However, I bet i could take the back off one of the tall ones - the one in my bedroom is 88 inches tall and 26 inches deep and if I gutted it, one of the 48 inch wire units I have would fit inside easily. However, it did cost a wee bit more than $99.00

There are entertainment center cabinets that can certainly take the weight of kitchen appliances. I have seen these in use in loft style, open plan living/dining/kitchen areas and they can be quite attractive. They come in every type of decor, finish, etc., and unfinished so you can paint or finish to your preference.

It is the Walmart "superstores" that are exactly like other chain supermarkets with full produce and meat sections, dairy, deli and groceries. The regular prices are certainly less than at Vons and the specials are much better. For people who are dependent on food support programs, they sometimes offer specials that allow them to purchase more for less when using their EBT cards, sometimes two for one on store brand cereals and canned foods. There are a lot of military families in this area and they find it is more economical to shop at Walmart than at the base commissary.

I have a bunch of those blade guards from when I was catering and had to carry my blades with me. They are the Messermeister The other two-handled blade that lives on hooks is this Wusthof cheese knife with the 12 1/4 inch Messermeister blade guard This one absolutely will not adhere to parallel magnetic bars - the handles are too heavy for the blade to stick firmly. It might work with a third mag bar but I don't want to take the chance and I don't want to stick it in a drawer.

I like the look of metro type shelving bare nekkid. And I have hooks hanging from the ends of the shelves where accessible. I use sheet pans on the shelves so bottles and jars will sit securely and the largest glass "cutting boards" that I would never use for cutting, are under some appliances. The church school down the road from me has fitted canvas covers for their metro shelving units (not the "Metro" label, the ones sold at Sam's Club) I think it is to keep the stuff on the shelves dust free. I think the covers look a little tacky but that's just me.

I buy bulk herbs and spices locally at a health food store. They have a very rapid turnover and everything is always quite fresh. You can serve yourself and I do this if I'm just buying one herb or spice, but I usually am buying several things so I give my list, with amounts I need, to the clerk who is in charge of that area, go off to do the rest of my shopping and when I return everything has been weighed, bagged, labeled and priced so the checker doesn't have to do it. I have to say the clerk is very generous, she always seems to give me a bit more than I listed and a few extra grams of something as light as dried lavender, is a fair amount.

They should be okay but you should use them with caution if serving the stuff to other people. As pointed out in an earlier post, they may produce "reversible" liver damage. However, it is only reversible if someone has a healthy liver to begin with. For anyone who has had hepatitis in the past, has been a moderate to heavy drinker for many years or has been prone to binge drinking, the effect can be severe, if not fatal. If the person consuming it is on any of the blood thinning medications, regularly takes NSAIDS or aspirin or medications for rheumatoid arthritis or other inflammatory disease, ingestion of even small amounts of tonka bean products can cause severe internal bleeding, bleeding in the retina with resulting blindness. I know it's fun to play with some of these things and I do believe the FDA has gone overboard about some things in the past but this is something different.

I shop at Walmart because it is closest to me. They were not selling groceries until after Albertsons closed the market down the road. Then the Walmart became a "Superstore" and it is handy because I can do one-stop shopping. At one time there were two other markets here but they closed long before Walmart arrived in the area and I had to drive nearly four miles to the nearest Ralphs (now closed but not because of Walmart). There were no mom & pop stores in my area. There was and is a convenience store/gas station that charges outlandish prices for the few groceries it does carry. If I have bulky items, the checkers call for someone to assist in carry out and loading them and they do this routinely for seniors or disabled customers, one doesn't have to ask.

In another thread, I think it was Andie who suggested that you can verify your scale's accuracy with a US quarter or nickel. I don't think it was me. I have metric and U.S. certified weights for checking my scales, purchased 40 years ago when I was working with gems and minerals.

It melts plastic, so can't be used on it. I don't like GooGone or the other similar removers. For many, many years I have used Avon's Skin So Soft bath oil. If the sticker is on the bottom of a bowl and there is a depression, I dribble some on and allow it to soak for an hour or so then lift the label off, wash the bowl. If it's on a convex surface, I soak either cotton or a paper towel in the oil cover the label and check it from time to time. Plastic coated labels respond to gentle heating, but often leave a sticky residue that comes off with the Avon product.

You can check with this conversion chart The page is set to "cooking" up near the top. You can enter the teaspoon, tablespoon, cup measurements and when you click on "convert" it will give you the correct metric measurement in weight. It will also show the the equivalent in U.S. measurements. Example 4 U.S. tablespoons = .25 or 1/4 cup, 59.15 feMA nss 3.943 European tablespoons. Incidentally, Australian volume measurements are not the same as UK measurements. In the U.S. and U.K. a tablespoons is 15 ml. In Australia the tablespoon is 20 ml. (just to make it a bit more confusing). I have some recipe books from Australia (Australia Womens Weekly) and they helpfully put a conversion chart inside the back cover of every recipe book.

I take my own re-usable and labeled slide-closed bags to WinCo when I buy bulk grains and etc. The store bags are too flimsy to hold a good-sized portion of heavy grains (millet, for instance) and after having one experience with having a store bag (doubled) break just as I was lifting it onto the conveyor, I opt for the stronger (freezer) bags. Some of the millet found its way into my boots and I was extremely uncomfortable until I got home and could remove them. As they are re-used and already have the skew number I wrote the first time, I don't have to write out a new label. The checkers appreciate it because the number is printed large and is easy to read. I take my large honey jars to the store where I buy bulk honey.

Are you measuring the flour before or after sifting? Flour in those days had to be sifted two or three times to removed hard clumps and bits that were not fine. Mills did not produce a flour that was 100% finely ground and was sold in cloth bags that did allow some moisture exchange. With modern flour, if you are measuring AFTER sifting, you can just put the flour in a bowl and stir it well with a wire whisk. Then measure and whisk the other dry ingredients into it. Use a sifter if you wish, but it really isn't necessary. I have a lot of old recipes from that era and that's what I do. When I was a child, after sifting a quart or so of flour, there would sometimes be 1/4 cup of coarse bits left in the sifter - sometimes tiny bits of rock and other inclusions. The milling machinery changed greatly in the late '50s, early '60s. As others have said, use less baking powder - as noted in the previous post, single action baking powder was in wider use back then - and in fact in the '40s when I was a child.