andiesenji

Last year I put one batch into some colorful xmas mugs I found at Pier One, cheap. Glad had just introduced Press 'N Seal and I covered the mugs with that and then held the edges down with some bright colored, shiny pony-tail bands (look like crinkly foil) I also found at Pier One up by the check-out counter.

Check out this list of Composed Butters lots of ideas here. I like Asiago cheese with sage and carmelized onion beaten into sweet butter - the cheese is salty enough. I mix butter half and half with cream cheese and add Thai sweet chile sauce to taste. This is good with anything but it is absolutely fantastic on hot gingerbread!

I have one, an old one from the 50s. I saw one (new) in a catalog a few months back. Apparently someone decided to bring back this handy stove-top baker. Potato baker.

I have most of my knives on magnetic strips, except for the non-magnetic ones that hang in a flat knife block at one end of a counter or rest in a knife holder in a drawer. However, I do have some very old carbon steel knives that develop rust if the humidity goes above 40%, which is not too often here in the desert but during the rainy season............. For storing just those knives, I took the advice of the man who made a couple of my knives several years ago. In my pantry there is a plastic container, about 8 inches in diameter, 12 inches deep, filled with fine "sharp" sand. Into this has been poured about 2 quarts of mineral oil. I do have to rinse and wipe the knives before I use them and they have to be washed and dried well before they go back into the oily sand, but they don't rust, which is my main concern and the blades are protected, which is my other concern.

There are several photos in my album (public) but ImageGullet doesn't seem to be working at the moment. I can see the group on each page but can't open individual pictures. I think someone else complained about this a couple of days ago.

In the kitchen microwave convection/microwave combination(Sharp) convection oven(Cadco) induction hot plate DLX Electrolux mixer Vita-Mix blender toaster (Dualit) toaster oven (old GE automatic) Teamate Senseo coffee machine electric tea kettle panini grill deep fryer Cuisinarts (3 - 11 cup,14 cup, 20 cup) plus a "Mini-Prep" Rice cooker Bread machine Froth Au Lait juicer Nutrimill grain mill Hamilton Beach malt machine - 3 head electric Dutch oven 8 qt Cuisinart slow cooker 6 qt immersion blender electric jar opener 3 spice/coffee grinders

I have one kicking around somewhere in one of the junk drawers. It was sharp only on one side. The military also had something similar back in the dark ages when I was in the Army. We had to use them with our mess kits when we were out in the field with a MASH unit (1958). Unfortunately they were not very strong and were soundly defeated by the various types of meats we were served. (Sometimes even the scrambled eggs were too tough!)

Does anyone here remember PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines). They had a combination spoon/fork/knife that was just the thing. Imagine being served a meal for the short hop from L.A. to Phoenix, or to San Francisco. Them were the days!

Check ebay. There are a lot of Vita-Mix units listed and you can find them with a "Buy it Now" price, no waiting for an auction to end. A couple of the vendors offer free shipping which is a good deal at the V-M is heavy. I can't praise it enough. The only "fault", if one would consider it such, is that after grinding really hard stuff for many years, the inside of the bottom of the container is a little scratched and no longer crystal clear. Compared to the problems other people have had with the glass containers breaking, I am happy with that little flaw.

Since this thread came up, I have been thinking about organizing my cookbooks a little better and bringing the catalog of my collection up to date (last done in 1999) as I have acquired quite a few books since then. I did have some new bookshelves built a few months back but they were filled almost as soon as they went up with the books that had been living in stacks around the house. My housekeeper suggested that I should just buy a bookstore and be done with it. Wholesale instead of retail, so to speak. Funny thing, that. Years ago I thought that when I "retired" I would like to own a used book store and spend my days dealing with books.

60 kilos. This post maybe belongs in the what to feed a sumo thread. What forks do sumos use when dining in your home.(yes I know they use chopsticks) ← Often they use their fingers. I met a sumo wrestler from Hawaii a few years back, while he was visiting in SoCalif and he went through an entire platter of ribs in a fraction of the time it took me to get half-way through one pork chop. I don't recall him using any utensils but he did use reams of napkins. That restaurant served "broasted" potatoes and for him they were simply finger food and he consumed at least 4 servings. I should add that he was extremely charming and the servers (all young ladies) were competing to bring him "seconds" - - -

This is one that is rather pretty and tastes delicious. Note that this is a rather elegant variation of a bread pudding. The marzipan filling inside the little buns elevates it to a higher plane. It is made ahead and served chilled. You can serve it with a small pitcher of warmed, sweetened and spiced heavy cream for each person to add if they wish.

Me too! It would be like losing a limb, or giving up a beloved pet. Occasionally I will donate one to the library if I find I have a duplicate. However, with some special ones that are signed or otherwise are collectible, or were gifts from dear friends and family, I keep a duplicate to use. I love books, always have, always will. Some are old friends, all are precious. This may be a genetic thing. My grandfather loved books and so does my daughter.

Fantes has a large selection of chinois/strainers for very reasonable prices. However, Linens 'N Things has some very inexpensive ones that are very fine mesh with plastic rim and handles. The only problem with them is that the white plastic discolors easily, particularly when straining blueberries, tomatoes, etc. If you need to strain things extra fine, one of the regular strainers with the addition of the extra-fine cheesecloth (nothing like the cheesecloth normally found in grocery stores) will do an excellent job.

Very cute CT. How about when growing up in a large family? No one has mentioned one rather important thing about holding the fork with tines pointing down. It is much easier to stab an encroaching hand sneaking toward your plate (which is holding the last pork chop) if you are holding the fork tines down. One needs to protect their own territory at table! I follow the same practice as *Deborah* in that if something requires cutting with a knife, the fork is in my left hand, tines down and other food is helped onto the back of the fork with the knife after the meat is speared with the tines. However, if knife is not required, I keep fork in my right hand, tines up and I too use my left hand to hold a book if dining alone. Fingers are used as needed for pick-up foods.

Instead of potholders, how about these for protecting your wrists from the racks. I have a very deep oven and use the extra long Nomex gauntlet gloves made by Coolskins Coolskins These are heavier than the "Ove Glove" and in my opinion are much better. I have ordered many times from this vendor in England and their services is excellent. My problem is with reaching deep into the oven to lift out large pans and burning the backs of my wrists on the racks on the sides of the oven.

How about this cute little item. Not very practical but really unusual.

It is difficult for me to part with some "stuff" - maybe it is psychological. There was an hour long report on (I think) CNN last week about "hoarders" or "collectors" and they showed some video of people who had piles and piles of all kinds of junk, papers, clothes they couldn't put away because they weren't folded correctly. I thought those were pretty weird. I grew up in a family who never threw anything away. I was born at the end of the depression and people, even those who were well off, had the mind set that one did not toss out useful items. Fortunately I have always lived where I could keep whatever I wanted and I love collecting certain things and can afford them. I save very few magazines, I get so many they alone would fill the house in a couple of years. I have given away a lot of small appliances over the years, mostly were gifts. If something doesn't work for me, I won't keep it, except for some oddball things that I think might become collectible simply because they aren't on the market very long. I never throw away books. Books are a particular passion and cookbooks especially. I still have books that were given to me when I was a child and they are in good condition. I never played with dolls and gave them away as soon as I got them. Kitchen gadgets are also a particular passion and I have a lot of really old ones and some extremely odd ones. It is amazing what people have thought up over the years and some make more work than they save... Anyway, that's my story and I am sticking with it, until they haul me away and stick me in a rubber room.

I am surprised that cooks are not allowed to take breaks unless they smoke. I don't think that is the case in California because the law mandates minimum breaks and employers suffer major fines if they are not in compliance and that is so even if they employ undocumented aliens and a complaint is filed by a 3rd party. The fast food place across the street from my office (a sub shop) was fined and closed for two weeks in 2003. The pharmacist in the building heard two of the employees talking about working without breaks and reported it. Shortly afterward the place had a new owner and the folks who work there now get regular breaks. Some California laws are ridiculous but we do have some good laws that protect most workers. Regarding taste, I have noticed that some people who smoke use a lot of salt in their food. After one acquaintence stopped smoking he remarked that his blood pressure had gone down quite a lot. I told him that I thought it had a lot to do with him using much less salt on his food. Apparently his doctor told him the same thing when he asked. His wife had some adjustments to make because he started almost obcessive exercising - to take his mind off nicotine cravings. He finally calmed down, but for a while would jump up immediately after a meal and jog around the block to make up for an after-meal cigarette! He says that everything tastes good to him now, and things that he really didn't notice have become very tasty. He can taste more subtle flavors now.

I got it for $79.00 more than a year ago but it is now $84.95 on all of the websites I have visited. Chef's Resource usually discounts stuff like this but they have the same price as everywhere else. I did both a BizRate and a PriceGrabber search and no one had it for less.

This built-in scale is on my wish list. I have so much stuff that most of my friends have given up on giving me anything other than gift cards. Many of the conversations I have with friends are somewhat convoluted when they are trying to find out if I have something or want something specific. It is often really funny because they mention that they have been looking at a particular item and I know quite well that they certainly aren't looking at it for themselves, because they rarely cook and would never use what they were talking about. I keep telling my friends that I would rather just go to dinner with them and visit, rather than get a gift, but they seem to feel that they have to do something in return for the homemade stuff I give. This year I have included a card in the baskets that suggests they make a contribution to hurricane relief, or for the doggy bunch, to pet rescue instead of a personal gift to me. I have reached the saturation point that I will either have to get rid of some stuff or add another room on to the house.

I ordered the Thermapen when King Arthur flour first showed it in their catalog and it is terrific. I also have one of the surface temp thermometers. This one has worked perfectly well and is reasonably priced. I find that it is especially useful in the barbecue grill and in the smoker where the temperature varies greatly from bottom to top and you can get a better idea of the temperature if you measure the temp of the inside rear wall.

With the cost of cigarettes going up all the time, I am surprised that so many people who aren't making big salaries continue to light up, including people in the food service industry. One local restaurant recently cracked down on all their employees and informed them that they could not smoke outside the kitchen door. A kitchen employee tossed a lighted cigarette into the dumpster after a break and a few minutes later there was a fire in the dumpster that spread to the back wall of the building. The place was closed for three weeks and lost money over a big holiday weekend. I stopped eating at another place where the main parking lot was in the rear and that entrance was right next to the kitchen door. One needed a gas mask to walk past the area where the employees smoked and I am very sensitive to tobacco smoke. I ran into the manager at Smart & Final last week and he asked why I hadn't been in for awhile and I told him my problem with it. He said his mother had also mentioned it and he is now considering how to handle the problem. Non-smokers far outnumber smokers in this area for some reason and people are used to going to restaurants and not have to contend with cigarette smoke. There are a couple of things going through the state legislature that would require smokers to stay at least 25 feet away from the exterior doors of any commercial building, 50 feet away from any medical facility. Personally, I am really put off when I see nicotine stains on the fingers of anyone involved with preparing or serving food.

Copper vessels should be cleaned well before using. If they have a gray or gray blue film or tarnish on the interior, scrub it off before cooking anything in it. Half a lemon dipped in salt and scrubbed over the surface will take off all this stuff right down to the bare metal.

I use unlined copper pots for cooking sugar and for low-acid fruit preserves. As noted above, minute amounts of copper are okay and even beneficial. Consider that the reason egg whites beat up to more volume in unlined copper bowls, with each bubble wall stronger because during the beating the whites pick up copper molecules. As I recall, this was described in detail by McGee in his first book. I have an ancient poaching pan (for eggs) with the large dimples in the bottom. It was tinned at one time but much of the tinning has worn away but I still use it because I use only water without the traditional addition of vinegar to poach a bunch of eggs. Incidentally, the depressions in the bottom of the pan were not to hold the eggs, one was supposed to swirl the water, with the handle of a wooden spoon, to form a localized vortex right above the depression and the egg was then slipped into the center of the vortex. I have seen these often in antique stores and some of the explanations given by sales people are comical. They have no idea how these were supposed to be used. It is indeed possible to get too much copper into foods if the foods are acidic. Oddly, if a person is taking iron supplements, the copper will not be absorbed. This was discovered accidentally when cattle fed on highly alkaline soil in ancient sea beds that also have high iron content, exhibited copper deficiency and were not gaining weight correctly. I agree with jsolomon. Heavy metal poisoning is nothing to brush off. I have worked for an orthopedic surgeon for many years and have taken x-rays and found lead lines near the ends of long bones in the legs and arms from people using vessels for foods that were made in Mexico with lead-based glazes. The chelation treatment is not fun. We also found similar bone deposits in stained glass artists who were using lead solder (which produces fumes) without any protection. Occasional exposure is not a problem, it is when one is exposed daily over long periods. Children are much more susceptible because body mass counts in how much can be unsafe. Heavy metal poisioning is not immediately symptomatic and we only found these cases because these individuals complained of joint pain unrelated to this. When other family members were x-rayed, we found they all had the same findings and all had to be treated. That is why many of these things in stores have a sticker that says "For Decorative Use Only" but when you buy them in Mexico, or at yard sales, these stickers are missing. There are test kits for lead available to check your pottery. On the other hand, I don't worry about glassware containing lead used only for serving food. I did engraving in leaded crystal for many years and wore a respirator because of the glass dust, not the lead. Several experiments have been done with various liquids, wine, liquor, beer, etc., leaving it in the vessels for varying periods of time. I wouldn't STORE wine or food in lead crystal but using a bowl or carafe for serving, or using wine glasses does not consitute a problem, the liquid is not in contact long enough to leach out an appreciable amount of lead. It took a minimum of 36 hours to show any leaching at all. High acid solutions took a minimum of 3 hours to show any leaching at all.