andiesenji

It is a problem for people who do not familiarize themselves with terminology before going out to buy anything of this nature. Sometimes things are identified as "999. fine", "stirling" or "pure sterling" or "coin silver" (not identifying what coinage is specified as some countries "silver" coins are anything but.) It is the same with misidentifying gemstones. I have worked at and attended many gem and mineral shows where bogus material was being sold. I used to do demonstrations of gemstone carving and engraving and have had people bring me items that were identified as natural gems but were manufactured or created or the color had been changed or enhanced by heat or radiation. I would direct these people to the GIA booth to have their purchases correctly identified. Too many people are all too willing to take advantage of the gullible.

I had forgotten about this. I can stuff pleat and stuff and pleat some more. It is very calming. Some great tunes, a pile of filling and skins. I get into a rythm that just makes me happy. ← I also kind of "zonk out" when I am making cheese. Cutting the curd into cubes then gently stirring, then lifting the curd from the whey and turning it onto a draining pan. Making mozzarella is even more therapeutic, working the curd in the hot water and dipping my hands into cold water then back into the hot. It is as good as the hot/cold therapy baths at a physical therapist's office. And even better, when you are finished you have something delicious to eat!

You can adjust it from very fine to very coarse, It is an impact mill so will not "burn" the grain the way burr grinders will and it will produce very fine flour. I am extremely pleased with the way it operates. I have had several grain mills and this one is far superior to all the others. Because corn is a relatively high moisture grain and will often clump, I freeze it, then dry it in a dehydrator before grinding - I do have to grind it twice, first set at the coarsest setting, then grinding that again to medium (or fine if I want corn flour but even with the drying, that does clump). However burr mills do a very poor job on corn, beans, etc. It does a beautiful job on rice, burr mills tend to "burn" it and it will have a bitter taste. Not so with this one.

This is my favorite original recipe: carrots with marsala and lime marmalade It has been posted on this site for several years.

It sounds beautiful. I love the Georgian silver teapots.

That is the reason the 99% is in quotes. Some people refer to hallmarked silver as 99%. It is erroneous but appears in quite a few books to differentiate it from "German" silver and others, just as the description for gold, though seldom actually used is referred to as: "24-carat, absolute, accurate, actual, authenticated, bona fide, certain, certified, demonstrable, exact, existent, factual, for real, good, hard, honest, honest-to-goodness, indubitable, kosher, legit, legitimate, literal, natural, official, original, palpable, plain, positive, precise, proved, pure, real, real stuff, sound, sterling, sure-enough, tested, true, unadulterated, unalloyed, undoubted, unimpeachable, unquestionable, unvarnished, valid, veritable, very, whole Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright © 2005 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved"

This oven is a Cadco convection and the interior is quite easy to keep clean, however I have to confess that I personally do not clean it. I have a live-in housekeeper, a young woman from Hungary who is attending design school and working for me under a special visa/school/ work permit. She is a cleaning fanatic and maintains everything in pristine condition. She is the only person I have ever known that cleans and polishes the INSIDE of the dishwasher!

I don't know anything about the delonghi machine, however I have not had a lot of success with other delonghi appliances in recent times. I bought their top of line deep fryer which was returned after the first use. It did not perform as advertised.

I have had a couple of email inquiries about the mixing utensil. This is what is known as a "Danish whisk" and is ideal for mixing quick breads as it mixes the ingredients rapidly without working the batter too much. This is particularly useful with regular wheat flour batters where you do not want to develop the gluten. It is easy to grasp, for those of us with arthritic hands, as you can hold it as you would hold something like a potato masher. It is also great for working slack yeast dough. The first one I got from King Arthur Flour several years ago but they are now available at Amazon, just do a search for Danish Dough Whisk.

Silver is a very good heat conductor. At one time very high end copper pans were lined with silver for cooking delicate sauces and mushrooms (the idea being that if a poison mushroom had sneaked into the batch, the silver would instantly turn black). The "99%" silver which is in hallmarked English silver teapots (Georgian, Victorian, etc.), will not impart any metallic taste to the tea. Plate, if it has worn areas that allow contact with the base metal may do so, however you would probably notice the wear on the outside as most vessels were not polished on the interior just to avoid this problem. Some teapots were made of pewter and polished to look like silver and these can impart a metallic taste (and possibly a dose of lead) to tea.

I second Jason's motion. It is used to make a drink, mixed with seltzer water. Some people mix it with lemonade. You can also add some to a dressing for fruit salad.

In the thread about cornbread in Japan I tried to explain how the batter should look, i.e. not totally runny but still pourable. Difficult to explain so I decided to put it into photos, start to finish. I don't always start with the unmilled corn but did this batch just for illustration purposes. This is a white sweet "dent" corn - so designated because of the dent in the top of the kernel. First, the corn in the mill. How the milled corn looks, set for a medium grind. The ingredients: 2 cups cornmeal, 2 cups buttermilk, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 2 tablespoon hot fat (I used bacon drippings this time). Option is 2 tablespoons (or more) flour, this can be adjusted to personal preference. The buttermilk mixed with the cornmeal and salt. Everything added except the soda and fat. It should look like porridge that has just begun to thicken. Note that when stirred up, it will hold shape for a few seconds. The batter just poured into the hot skillet. Note the bubbling around the edges. In 400 degree oven at 25 minutes, nearly done. Done! Note that the edge of the cornbread has pulled away from the sides of the skillet. The crumb - desirable texture. Note how the color has developed. Cornbread made with yellow cornmeal will be much yellower. Corn has a natural sweetness, however if you like a sweeter taste simply add a couple of tablespoons of sugar. There is no need to add additional liquid for this amount. However if you add more than two tablespoons of flour and the two tablespoons of sugar, you will need to add a bit more liquid which can be water or buttermilk. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons of buttermilk for each additional 1/4 cup of dry ingredients to maintain the same texture.

Thanks, I will see how it performs as vinegar but am not going to waste much time on it.

I can make fire without matches. Growing up on a farm has lots of advantages, especially when you have a bunch of boys, near in age with which to play and uncles and great uncles who love showing kids all kinds of woodslore. I learned to make a firebow before I was 10. We used to go fishing a pretty long hike from home, start a fire early on and the first few fish we caught were plastered in clay (lots of clay in western Kentucky), put into the coals and by the time we had caught enough for dinner, our lunch was done. Crack open the clay and the skin comes off with it leaving the beautifully cooked flaky flesh ready to eat. While few islands would have all the resources of the one found by "The Swiss Family Robinson" there is usually something edible.

I have been gifted with 6 bottles of Zarafa 2003 pinotage from South Africa. I don't drink, or rather I can't drink alcohol because of a severe allergy that causes edema in my larynx, shutting off my airway so I can't even taste this stuff. What I would like to know, if anyone is familiar with this wine, is it any good. If it is good I will pass it along to my friend who likes red wines as long as they aren't too sweet or too astringent. If it is just so-so, I will use it for cooking. If it is less than so-so, I will use it to make vinegar or, if it is dreck, toss it. So, is it worth holding on to or what? I have never heard of pinotage. They have a neat label with a giraff on it. The back label says it is "a soft, easy drinking red wine for all occasions." Doesn't tell me much.

If you substitute oatmeal for 1/4 of the dry ingredients you will have a moister muffin. also add some crushed pineapple as noted by CompassRose or some applesauce as noted by chromedome. Also adding sugar will help because sugar slowly releases moisture back into the baked item over time. Oatmeal has the effect of holding moisture in baked goods. Any time you have a recipe that calls for high fiber ingredients that tend to cause dryness, adding oatmeal in place of some of the dry ingredients will give you a product that lasts longer, does not stale as rapidly and retains moisture. Think of oatmeal cookies that remain moist in the center weeks after they are baked.

If you think back to the reason some of these things were developed, it only makes sense. Some were created to cover up the taste of spoiled or nearly spoiled food, only later were they used to enhance flavors. I myself would prefer fowl rather than foul but to each his own. someone else used the same word earlier - Actually if we are talking about a "desert" island - there wouldn't be much, would there? I am picturing the island in the movie "The Black Stallion" --- After the horse trampled the cobra, I was thinking, hmmm, snake isn't all that bad if one is hungry enough. Chewy.

I think it is Hellman's in the east and Best Foods in the west. I have only seen Hellman's "flavored" mayo at Big Lots and their stuff comes from God knows where..... You have only three types of mustards? Geez, I must be weird because I have half a dozen types that are homemade - I have no idea how many I have that are store bought but there is a tray full in the pantry and a bunch in the fridge. Of course I have to admit I am a bit of a nut about mustard in all its many forms. My housekeeper is now laughing her head off. She says I need a separate fridge just for the condiments. She laughs at me because I section off a bratwurst and put a different mustard on each section before covering it with the top of the bun. I just like to get a different taste sensation with each bite, is that so awful??????

Here where I live, the electrical panels have to be a "minimum of 6 feet from ANY heat source or water source and that includes any appliances such as range, oven, cooktop, microwave, dishwasher, refrigerator, washer and dryer, water heater, furnace and similar installations. Failure to comply will result in citation and requirement that the violation be rectified within 10 days. If the violation is not remedied and emergency equipment is required for any reason the homeowner will be billed for costs and cited." In addition any insurance coverage will be voided. Mine was relocated from the near end of the pantry (external wall) to the far end when the oven was located 4 feet from the wall and the panel was on the other side within the 6-foot range. When the inspector showed up he did indeed check the distances to make sure the new (tankless) water heater was more than 6 feet away from the panel. The thing I was wondering, is, if the stove is hot, how are you going to move it in an emergency to get at the panel. This is generally when emergencies happen and I would be concerned about it.

Old Town Pasadena is definitely a walking and eating destination. The change in the area in the past 20 years is nothing short of amazing. This is one area where revitalization has taken a dingy and dirty area and transformed it to the point that people who lived in the area in the 60s can't find many landmarks with which they were familiar. There has been that much change. There was a time when one did not walk down Colorado Blvd. at night. The only time of year when it was safe was the night before the Rose Parade when there were thousands of people camped out and also Sheriff's deputies patrolling up and down the street. I used to frequent a used book store in the area and always took someone with me even during the day. Other changes in the area include a residential/commercial center that is very popular with young people. One friend says that in a way it reminds her of Greenwich Village in that there are apartments (or condos) above shops. One can live, work and shop without needing a car to get around. Further afield, there is Santa Barbara which is a great place for people who like to walk, shop and eat, visit museums, etc. The city itself is like a picture postcard and the weather is generally great, cooler than inland, it is part of the "banana belt".

What about the Marina district? Or does it still exist? When I was stationend at the Presidio, back in the late 50s, we used to walk out the Mason street gate and walk through the area. There were a lot of restaurants within a few blocks. Of course we walked all over the city. Sunday mornings a group of us had a routine, we would walk out the Lombard gate and onto the bridge approach, walk across the bridge and back and then have breakfast at the Roundhouse Restaurant (great waffles), then walk on down Lombard, up and over the "crookedest street in the world" to Van Ness, Van Ness to Broadway, then Broadway to Grant Avenue and Chinatown for sightseeing and shopping. By that time breakfast had been burned up by the walk and we were ready for lunch. We would either have lunch in Chinatown or walk a few blocks further to the Embarcadero (it was not as touristy-fancy back then) and buy steamed crabs and a couple of loaves of "that bread" and eat them and feed the seagulls and an occasional pelican.

Shaping dough, particularly small rolls, buns. I too go into a sort of fugue state where I am operating on automatic pilot and I don't have to think about the task because I have done it so many times that my hands know what to do without consciously directing them. Bow ties, pretzels, baby braids or twists, things I learned in baking school nearly a half century ago, all take shape under my hands as I zonk off into some other level of consciousness to the point that I don't hear the phone or even my housekeeper or guests when they speak to me. Many times I have solved problems that have been bugging me, during these periods of introspection. I have at times startled people around me by yelling, "Hey! I just realized something, etc., etc., etc.," and begin talking about my idea. Sometimes I look around and realize no one has any idea about my subject because the entire event has taken place inside my head. At times like that I think that I really should have a video camera recording what is going on in the kitchen. Some of these would be a natural for "The Funniest Video" shows.

I have so enjoyed all your photos and your blogging notes. Wish it could go on and on.......

I have been digging in my bookcases looking for the Irish Heritage Cookbook by Margaret Johnson. I do have several of Darina Allen's cookbooks but this one is my favorite. I also have a very small, very old cookbook titled A Feast of Ireland, by Diarmuid. Only one name, no date, apparently self-published. I got it as part of a library collection I purchased several years ago. I have never been able to find any references to the book. It has recipes for wild game, rabbit, grouse, etc., as well as trout, salmon, cod and another fish that I can't recall, that was supposed to come from Dingle, as well as shellfish and seaweed. I made several of the baked items. I will have to dig out my old notes and see what I thought of them.

home made mustard sweet chile sauce, preferably Mae Ploy home made mayo Actually these in combination, any two or all three can make just about anything palatable.