andiesenji

Southern California doesn't have a distinct regional cuisine. However I don't know of any area that hasn't embraced and celebrated every new ethnic cuisine or culinary trend to come along. Just a few days ago, driving through Chatsworth (northwestern San Fernando Valley) I passed a strip mall with a sign that featured two restaurants: Sushi Ichi-Ban and Jose Antonio Peruvian Chinese restaurant. The latter sign startled me - it never occurred to me that there might be a Chinese sub-culture in Peru. However there was this write-up in the Daily News Also, when I mentioned seeing this restaurant sign to the folks at my office, one said that when she was on vacation in Peru, to visit Machu Picchu, the bus stopped in a village where everyone had lunch at a Chinese restaurant, however she said the foods were nothing like she had ever before eaten.

Baking soda needs an acid to balance or act with it as a levening agent. With regular milk you should use baking powder or at least something with acid such as tartaric acid better known as Cream of Tartar. Too much of one or the other will produce a bitter taste. Even adding a teaspoon or so of lemon juice or white vinegar to the milk will work okay.

I had forgotten about the milk strainer I used when my neighbor had goats and I was making quite a bit of cheese. It hold a good-sized batch of cheese curds for filtering the whey out, and also is good for draining big batches of yogurt. This is a big strainer that has a couple of mesh screens between which is placed a special filter, made for filtering milk and which rapidly passes the high protein liquid without clogging. I use two filters when straining the yogurt. I have used it for lobster/crab stock, which I usually cook in 12-quart stockpot and by the time it reduces, the 7-quart capacity of the filter is just right. It fits one of the taller and narrower Cambro containers. Lehman's usually carries it but has it on backorder now. It is relatively inexpensive compared to one of the very large chinois. milk strainer

Here is a set of three for 86.95. Cooking.com has two pages of chinois, strainers and colanders. Check page two for the Norpro set for 36.95. They are smaller which might be handier for people who do not cook big batches. Or, you can take at look at this extremely overpriced item however, it is an Alessi design and they do appreciate in value - but it takes a few years.

A wonderful blog, JAZ. Terrific collection of cookware - Blue Le Cruset, Elizabeth David's color. Your kitchen is cosy and efficient and you use it to perfection.

andi - one of my dearest friends still HAS and USES on a regular basis the "pickle server". last time i was up and we had sandwiches she pulled it out of the fridge. ← When something works well, there is no need to change the design. The pickle server does just what I expected it to do.

You are correct. I use them for specific things, the tea, as I mentioned earlier, concentrated espresso, etc.

Have you tried using it for curling ribbon? It looks like ribbon could be pulled over the blade. I bought one of the ribbon shredding thingies a few years ago but could never get it to work properly. Now I just plop gifts in the decorated bags and shove in some tissue paper and perhaps tie on a piece of garland tinsel stuff. I don't have as much patience as I once had.

That melba toast slicer has been used by me since the late 60s. Back then, there was Van De Camp's who sold a very popular very thin sliced white bread but otherwise it was impossible to find very thin sliced bread other than rye or pumpernickle. This little gadget got a lot of use and still does.

I have more than one because I sometimes have two or more things going at the same time and don't want to have to take time to carefully clean stuff out of it before being able to use it for something totally different. I have one that has a tall tripod stand so delicate things can drip through slowly, rather than being pushed through. I have a steel one with fine perforations and a conical wood "reamer" or whatever the heck it is called. I have one that is a shallow cone with triple mesh layers and one that is perforated steel with a mesh "liner" that snaps in for catching tiny seeds but does allow some of the finer pulp in fruit to work its way through. I also have some of the old-type Chemex filters, large circles of coffee filter material that can be folded into a cone shape and which fits into the two taller chinois for super-fine straining - I use these for straining the liquid from concentrated matcha that I use in green-tea icecream. I think that once you begin using a chinois, you will wonder why you ever hesitated, particularly if you make stocks and sauces. Fantes has several types If you need Chemex filters, this place has the best price I have been able to find for the 12 inch circles - Chemex filters. I can find the prefolded cheaper but not much luck finding the flats.

Okay, it is officially "afternoon" here on the left coast, so here is the answer. Melissa came pretty darn close. It is a melba toast slicer. Usually you have to have bread with a very dense crumb to slice thin enough for melba toast. This gadget allows slicing of tender, multi-grained-nut breads that are impossible to slice thin any other way. A demonstration: This is a multi-grained bread with chunks of nuts in it.

I have one of the "spaetzle dumpling" cutters too. The one with the wooden handle.

I have a bean slicer very similar to the Krisk and I have a very old hand cranked one that still works and a somewhat newer one that works very well and makes either the long strings or the shorter diagonal slices (depending on which blade assembly is attached). When my garden is producing heavily, I prepare beans with the Frencher for freezing and for canning.

I have some of the "composition" or plastic cutting boards but I usually use wood. I have been cutting all kinds of things on wood chopping blocks for many, many years - I used to do a lot of butchering, wild game as well as home-grown beef and etc. I scrape, scrub and clean the block with a .5% bleach solution and since my kitchen was certified for several years, I had L.A. county health department inspections where they take scrapings from the counters, butcher block, sick, fridge, etc. I never got less than 100% and had my big blue "A" to display if I wished. One simple way to test if there is any residual blood or tissue on your butcher block or wood cutting board is to drip some hydrogen peroxide on it. If it foams, you have it, if not, you don't. I keep a bottle in the kitchen because I like to test my knife handles occasionally, which is where a lot of kitchens slip up.

My housekeeper just breezed through and said I should mention that she loves the onion chopper and ordered one to send to her Mama in Hungary - she has arthritic hands also.

French bean slicer?

I looked at the Twist-N-Chop also, there are several makers, some quite fancy - I simply couldn't understand how they could be "ergonomically" designed (in my opinion most engineers aren't all that brilliant about designing things that fit women's hands - I have lots to say on this subject, not now). I have arthritis in my hands, especially at the base of my right thumb and can't grip or pinch. This thing would be torture to use. I did get one of the onion choppers - chopper/box combination and it works great. It is larger and heavier than I expected it to be, considering the price, it is quite well made. There was some discussion about it on another thread and I am very happy I got it.

I have one of those Tupperware egg lifters. I also have the "pickle" server container with the built-in pickle lifter. I hosted a lot of Tupperware parties for a couple of friends. I had a huge kitchen and family room with lots of seating, plus big coffee and tea servers. They gave me a lot of stuff that were premiums never offered for sale. Some useful, some not so.

Actually, some people have said the same thing about me! If you look closely at the "wavy" edge of the knife, you can see that this was not stamped. Each knife edge was shaped by hand on grinding wheels, using a template. No two were alike. My mom had one and if you put them side by side the curves didn't match up. The one thing about it, it holds an edge very well - it just looks awful.

Rather than bump up an old topic, I am starting this new one after reading and posting in the topic started by gfron1. We had some fun in a thread last year about odd gadgets (and I have more than a few) with photos posted and folks guessing what specific task the gadget was designed to do. Here's one that no one who has seen it has ever guessed the purpose. After demonstration, they usually say, Dang! I will post it in use later today.

Me too! Me too! and then some!!! I made bean and corn fritters for breakfast!

Consider this "Frozen-food knife" which I have owned for 40 years. It rusts if one breathes on it, corrodes about five minutes after it is cleaned and polished. My knife man refuses to even touch it since an unfortunate incident ten or twelve years ago. He accused it of twisting and "biting" him while he was running it over the polishing wheel.

It takes a long time and a lot of effort pounding nut butters with a motar and pestle. I certainly don't have the energy today. The nut butter with the bacon and etc., is presently, spread on a toasted English muffin along with a small spoonful of chutney. There have been certain occasions when it was spread on two pieces of toast and sliced bananas carefully arranged between... I know it sounds odd but to me it tastes good. I also stuff it in celery and in the small pickled sweet red peppers known as peppadews. The nut butter with tapenade goes well on crisp toasted pita bread and also on rosemary/garlic rustic bread, sliced, buttered and toasted in the oven, rather like a crouton.

I feel I must confess that not all of my nut butter creations fall into the "health food" realm. In fact, one little jar that was prepared a couple of days ago combines cashews, toasted sesame seeds, toasted pepitas, dried black figs, a little very sharp cheddar with bacon drippings and just a bit of crisp bacon. I have also been known to combine hazelnuts with olive tapenade and cheese. Chestnut puree and dried apples with a bit of bacon. When I was a child I learned to make nut butters by "hand." Our cook would make "stewed" peanuts and crush them to paste in a mortar. I don't remember how she did the other nut butters. I didn't see a jar of store-bought peanut butter until I was twelve or so.

I don't think I have ever bothered to measure. I buy a lot of raw nuts in bulk - especially almonds when they are harvested near my home, then freeze them. If I am making nut butter for a recipe, I make enough and then some for the recipe. I try to make fairly small amounts because it will turn rancid much quicker than store-bought. I buy the half-pint canning jars - a case is very inexpensive and store in those. You want to have the containers as full as possible, tighten lid as much as possible and store upside down (on a tray, in case they leak) in the fridge.