andiesenji

I am bumping this topic up so I can post a link to a site that has manual for many appliances, including Vita-Mix. (I'm also going to post it in the stand mixer thread.) Manuals on line? I thought this source might come in hand for folks who have purchased second-hand appliances.

We have a local Indian market that sells palm sugar - I have written in other threads that this is the only sweetener I use when I make sambals, as well as several marinades - I have an almost full jar in my pantry. I also buy jaggery and have a couple of the big "cones" in my pantry. (I use a coarse carpenter's rasp to grate the stuff). I also have a bottle of sweet palm vinegar that is almost like a syrup. Note the jar of palm sugar in the center of this photo.

Thanks for the info. However, I do have an online source, and have found that this product from Newsom's in Princeton, KY is very close the homemade sorghum made on my family's farm. It is also Amish made so is probably quite similar to the product you mentioned. When I was a child, we were paid to feed the fire under the condensing pans - I think it was ten cents an hour, which in the mid-to-late '40s was not bad.

In my collection of toasters I do have a commercial "conveyor" toaster similar to this Hatco toaster However mine is much older and I don't recall the maker. It was given to me many years ago and is in my storage building as I never got around to having it restored and it isn't very pretty. It was originally in the kitchen of the small hospital across the parking lot from my office building that became obsolete when the new multi-story hospital was built - finished in July 1975. The toaster was in working condition and we used it when my entire family still lived at home. I also thought the digital image toaster was a joke. I certainly don't need one for my collection. In fact, I have decided that I don't really need to add any more modern toasters to my collection but am still searching for a "sweetheart" toaster.

You can see a close-up view of the flatbed toaster HERE and if you scroll down a little more than half-way down the page you can see the Fagor flatbed that was introduced last year. What's old is new again! This is an old idea brought up to date. I have a couple of flatbed toasters one from the 1920s and a recent acquisition made in 1931. Toaster Museum photo. These were designed to be used on the table and thus were intended to be decorative as well as utilitarian. However, unlike the new ones, that require one to physically pick up and turn the toast, the old Sunbeams had a very elegant design that included a rack between which the slices of bread were placed and when one side was toasted the grid could be lifted, swiveled and the untoasted side placed on the hot surface. The bakelite handles stayed cool. This new one has yet to be cleaned up but the Art Deco design can clearly be seen in these photos. I have tested it and it works perfectly - including the crumb tray on the bottom.

Fried bread is one of my worst indulgences! Fried bread with a hole in the centre and an egg in there will be close to nirvana - gotta try it. I know your friend didn't do the hole in the bread but I intend to give it a go. I always make fried bread for me and toast for hubby on those rare occasions when we have bacon and eggs! Fry-ups in my house when I was growing up was bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread - oh my there are tears in my eyes. ← Indeed yes! He did mention the addition of fried tomatoes and that led to his "discovery" of fried green tomatoes when he lived in Atlanta for two years. We used to have a small restaurant in town that served both fried green tomatoes and "grilled" tomatoes (on the flat-top grill) with breakfast - especially popular with biscuits and sausage gravy - but unfortunately they closed when they lost their lease. One of the owners was from Bristol, England and the other from Natchez, MS so both fried green tomatoes and bangers and mash were on the menu. The place was very popular with the many British ex-pats who live in the Antelope Valley as they also sold many UK food items, canned stuff, boxed and bagged snacks, soft drinks like bitter lemon, etc. And as an added note regarding the original subject of this thread: I haven't visited the place myself but I have been told that the coffee shop at the casino in Bishop, CA serves "Snake eyes" eggs in toast. They use "sheepherder" bread - double-size slices, with two holes and two eggs. I often drive through Bishop but my favorite breakfast place is Jack's Waffle House.

I forgot to mention that another of my book club members mentioned that his grandmother would fry large potato pancakes, cut a hole in the middle and fill it with egg that had been beaten with sour cream - sort of a potato pancake omelet. Our one ex-pat British member said his mum would make fried bread, break an egg on top of the bread then turn the whole thing over. The difference there was no hole in the bread. He didn't recall any name other than "fry-up."

I consider the quality jump to be equivalent to the difference between a Chevrolet and a Mercedes. (I've owned both.) It does have a large footprint. I like the manual seal feature because I can start the cycle and hitting the manual seal button will immediately seal the package so I can vac seal delicate stuff that I don't want to crush. This was impossible with my old unit. I practiced on bread - which is shown in the video on the site - to get the process correct. I successfully vac sealed a bag of meringues. Perfect results. Ditto potato chips and corn chips. I "marinated" a pork roast perfectly, with none of the mess I got with my old unit. The expense is significant but I have never minded paying for quality. When I added up all I spent on the earlier units, I spent quite a bit more on appliances that did okay but certainly not as easy to use as this one.

I've a recipe that includes steel-cut oats and bulgar wheat that requires overnight soaking - OR - "place oats and bulgar in a bowl and add 2 cups hot water mixed with 1/4 cup vinegar." Soak for 30 minutes and pour off liquid - do not rinse. I never thought about it specifically, just followed the recipe. Perhaps the purpose in this instance is to soften these two grains more rapidly. I haven't noticed any particular sourness in the bread but to my taste, whole grain breads are naturally sweeter anyway.

The traditional name for the sack carried by hobos or tramps is bindle. I have never heard toad in a hole used in any context except as the name for sausage in Yorkshire pudding covered in onion gravy.

Another facet to the discussion is the "multi-cultural" versions that may be found around the world. Saturday morning I had breakfast at a local café with my book group. The discussion included regional egg dishes and I mentioned this discussion (hopefully a few more members for eG) and everyone had a story about their version of this egg dish. One person pulled up the following web site on his laptop, noting that he had found it a month or so ago. Kitchen Parade and mentioned that his mother always prepared this version when he or his siblings were ill or otherwise not feeling up to par. The group to which I belong happens to consist entirely of seniors and several remarked that they seldom prepared eggs this way since their children left home. The various names they recalled (in addition to the previously listed names) were "window eggs," "framed eggs" and "pond eggs." The latter because one member said that as a child the product looked like a pond in the middle of a field. (She grew up in Oklahoma.) The most senior member of our group (age 90) opined that the dish probably originated soon after the invention of the bread slicer back in the 1920s. He recalls having eggs this way in the late 20s in Baltimore. Another member mentioned that she hadn't thought about them for years until she saw Moonstruck and began preparing them for her grandchildren when they visited and this began the tradition all over again for her family.

I have done that. You only need a few tablespoons per quart. It gets things going really fast, for almost instant fermentation gratification! ← I've only heard about lacto-fermentation. Never seen it. Never tasted it. Does it give it a sour taste?When I ordered my Yogotherm, it came with a packet of yogurt culture. Anyone prefer yogurt made with powdered culture over liquid yogurt? ← I do, although I use some of the resulting yogurt for additional batches, usually three or four, then I start the next batch with a "fresh" infusion of the yogurt culture. I order from New England Cheesemaking supply but have also used cultures purchased at the local health food store. The only purchased yogurt I use for a starter culture are the ones that have no additional ingredients other than milk and the starter and I prefer the "organic" labels as they usually have none of the additional ingredients. I buy several cultures from NECS because I also like their buttermilk culture and the cheese cultures. There are other online vendors that I have tried from time to time but have found this vendor to be the most reliable and I like their products. There is some excellent information on re-culturing your own product at Fias farm

I've had mine since the early 1980's, maybe even the late 1970s. ← I was off by a decade. B & D bought GE small appliance division in 1984. The only household appliance marketed prior to that was the Dustbuster in 1979. I have owned stock in B & D since I inherited several shares in 1976 and get a yearly report. I have always been a bit miffed because they chose not to continue production of the GE automatic toaster oven, in my opinion the best toaster oven ever made.

Then the original one was probably made by GE. GE small appliance division was bought by Black & Decker in the early 1990s.

It seems that other people have had a similar discussion ongoing at several sites: In the movies! Kitchen Parade The Blog that Ate Manhattan And these were just three out of ten when I did a Google search for "gas house eggs." And here is one from Saveur. And one that mentions a movie in the '40s in which gas house eggs were prepared and also other alternate names for the dish. Gas House Eggs A Betty Grable film that was recently shown on TCM. Odd convergences, don't you think?

Anna, Is the recipe you remember anything like the following? I recently came across a box of old paperback cookbooks, little ones, most with less than 100 pages done on mimeograph machines, etc., and pulled this one out because Salem, KY is close to the place I was born and raised. It has been on my desk and I remembered seeing this recipe when I thumbed through it a couple of days ago. Serendipity, I guess. Note that this was probably considered a very "exotic" recipe in that area at that time. Mrs. Jenkin’s Oriental Chicken from Salem Baptist Church Ladies Auxillary Cookbook, ca. 1951 1 1/2 pound boned chicken cut in 1” cubes 1/4 cup flour 1 tsp ground ginger 1 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp curry powder 1/2 tsp black pepper 1 Tbs. grated lemon rind 1/4 cup butter and veg. oil, half and half 1 large onion cut in large dice 3 cored and peeled apples cut in 1” chunks Juice of one small lemon 1/4 cup water Mix spices and grated rind into the flour. Dry the chicken pieces and dredge in the flour/spice mix. In a large skillet, heat the oil and butter until it sizzles. Add the chicken and brown on all sides. Push the chicken to side of skillet, add the onion and stir well and cook till it begins to brown. Add lemon juice and water, stir to break up residue in bottom of skillet. Add the apples Stir to mix all ingredients, cover skillet, reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes. Serve over rice or noodles.

It didn't include toast and the eggs were from banty hens but when I was little I was served flapjacks that had been poured around a sausage patty with a hole in the middle and that was filled with a little egg. They were called "bulls-eyes" and were a special treat.

The chemicals in garlic that produce the flavors and aromas are volatile enough to cross the barrier of the fairly permeable peel and acid will definitely speed up the process and will actually exchange molecules. You can try a very simple experiment, simply put a peeled clove of garlic in a little dish of vinegar and allow it to "steep" for an hour. The vinegar will have a distinct garlic flavor and the garlic, which you can wash in clear water, then dry, will have begun to be pickled.

While it's true that the darker roasts (French, Italian, Viennese) will generally have less caffeine than the same beans done to a lighter roast, let's not lump in "espresso," which is a method of brewing coffee, into the mix. The beans I use for espresso are roasted lighter than any of the 3 dark roasts I mention above. ← I am referring to the coffees marketed as "Espresso" roasts. There are several brands. At present I have one tin of D'Aquino Café Espresso, Product 100% of Italy and a tin from Trader Joe's.

I can't drink alcohol but am active on the Amber list, and one of the members posted the following link earlier today. Fossil Fuels Beer I thought someone might be interested.

My best friend, who is not a foodie, got a Rachel Ray Furi east-west santoku knife for 9.99, complete with blade guard. She shops at Tuesday Morning twice a month so as not to miss any good deals. (She has five sons and many grandchildren.)

There have been numerous studies regarding caffeine levels in various types of coffees. Also acid levels in various types of coffees. According to some studies, Mexican coffee has the lowest acid content of the commonly available coffee beans. One study compared various roasts and their findings were that the darker roasts, where the beans were exposed to heat much longer than others, had significantly lower caffeine levels. The findings that prolonged exposure to strictly-controlled heat would produce caramelization and reduction of caffeine content noted that the dark and espresso roasts could be consumed by people who have sensitivity to caffeine. Scroll down half-way on this page.

60 Celsius is not hot enough either (140 F.) That too is far below the safe zone of 240 degrees F.

The first time I had toast and eggs prepared this way was in Chicago in 1949. My grandfather had taken us there for the dog show and we ate at a restaurant that had these on the menu as "Gas House Eggs" - and I have always used this name.

Don't overlook Tuesday Morning. They have some incredible bargains on first line stuff, closeouts from department stores and stores that go out of business.