andiesenji

Regarding the evaporation of water from a container with an immersion heat source, you can simply take the cover to a metal shop and have a section cut out of the edge of the cover to accomodate the immersion unit and then get a silicone edge seal (made in various sizes for applications in both extreme heat and cold) which are good up to 600 degrees and slide that onto the cutaway edge which will effectively cut down the opening to a very small area. The seal will conform to any shape and can be cemented in place with a high temperature sealant. We used to have a physical therapy department as part of our office and had several tanks for west hot packs and for the oversized ones we used a deep steam table pan with an immersion heater and had the cover cut the way I described. The pre-made silicone seals were not available at that time so we simply used the high temperature silicone "putty" that was available at the hardware store. It worked just fine to keep the water from evaporating.

I spent many days hanging out at Sano and Trestles, when I usd to work at the Chart House in Redondo Beach we would get up and surf our heads off get really sunburned and then go work making great food, still covered in sea salt from the ocean. There was actually a room at the restaurant where employees kept the surfboards. Surfer food is stuff that does not need to be eaten with knife and fork and can be consumed while doing a "surf check" of the local breaks. Pedro's Taco's in San Clemente was a must after any long session at Sano. They have fish taco's, tasty beef burrito's with tons of awesome hot sauce....man I could tear those up. Teriyaki is a must as well, after an early morning session in manhattan beach you could head down to the Beach Hut and get a chicken teri plate witth eggs, rice and some grilled Kings hawaiian bread....on man....that was the life..... Its been years since I have had the pure joy of times like that....on my days off, my wife works and I am on kid patrol....getting older, balder, fatter...it sucks! I have made a vow that I will start surfing again this summer when it gets warmer....we will see! ← We used to go to the Redondo Beach Pier back in the 60s and 70s. For us it was always Tony's on the Pier - the old one before the storm removed the rickety outside stairs and long before the fire that wiped out most of the pier. They had the best lobster and fantastic abalone steaks, probably the best I have ever eaten at a restaurant.

I don't live that far north, but am at a higher altitude (nearly 3000 ft) than L.A. or the San Fernando Valley and it gets cold up here. It also stays cold because the prevailing winds are out of the west or northwest and come right down from the snow-covered mountains. Last night's low was 36, right now the temperature on the south side of my house is 62 but on the deck on the north side (in deep shade because of the deck roof) it is only 48 degrees. I have a bunch of vegetables and fruit that ordinarily would be in my fridge. In particular I have 20 bags of cranberries that were on sale a few days ago. Later this afternoon I am going to start a big batch of cranberry sauce. Right now my housekeeper is doing her weekly cleaning and I have found that it is better to stay out from under foot when she is in cleaning mode, otherwise I might get washed and waxed also. Just so you know I am not a slave-driver, she decides on her own that something needs cleaning and goes at it. She does far more than I would ever require of a housekeeper (or myself, when I was doing it all alone). I keep telling her that things are just fine as they are, I don't mind a little dust, but she just snorts and charges into the fray. Her room is at the northeast corner of the house and she keeps her water bottles lined up in the window box outside her north-facing window. Sometimes they freeze overnight and she has learned to put them inside another container before leaving for school in the morning. I have an acquaintenance who moved from Nebraska to June Lake. The first winter they were there they also put food out on their deck to chill. Once only. They were visited by one of the local bears who not only stole the food but ripped the railing off the deck when he was startled by someone turning on a light. They thought bears hibernated all winter, however sometimes they wake up and go looking for a snack.

The roots of the ubiquitous, bland and unimaginative foods of the late 40s and 50 can be traced back to the Great Depression and dust bowl of the early 30s. Millions of farmers could not survive on the traditional family farm, if they could raise crops they couldn't get them to market and many people couldn't afford to buy anyway. Big corporations began buying up small farmstead and turning them into factory farms where crops were processed into canned goods at sites near the farms and shipped all over the country. Feeding the country depended on cheap, standardized foods. During WWII people were encouraged to have Victory Gardens, in their yards to augment their diets because so much of our regular food supplies were being shipped to the military. However after the war these gradually fell out of fashion because people had more money, more variety was available in stores and women, who had gone out to work during the war, did not want to retire to being the home maker as before. Some areas of the country, in particular the south, retained the tradition of the kitchen garden and also maintained a distinct regional cooking tradition, whereas the rest of the country became more homogenous. Then TV invaded homes all over the country and an enterprising food processory developed the "TV Dinner" - talk about HORROR, this was it! People who had never known the diversity of the ethnic foods of their parents and grandparents, (often it was considered "un-American" to cling to "foreign" foods), settled for the mass produced stuff that everyone else ate. They were suspicious of odd-looking or different named foods, particularly those with names in foreign languages. Pizza was an exception. The GIs who came back from serving in Italy began looking for restaurants where they could find the "pies" they had enjoyed in parts of Italy and the phenomena of the pizza "parlor" began to spread. It began in the cities where it had been known since immigrants from the areas in Italy where it was traditional and spread to small towns. People began to get the idea that there were other foods that were good, nutritious and not scary. Into this came Julia, just at the right time, when homemakers were beginning to look beyond regional and national food fashions and discovered there was a bigger world out there.

First I sauté some shallots or onions in butter and while cooking, slice the plantains in 1/2 to 3/4 inch diagonal slices then add them to the pan and sauté the slices until they begin to brown then sprinkle over them the juice of one lemon and the zest of the lemon, salt and pepper to taste. I then transfer them to a shallow casserole, sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and dot with goat cheese (or similar type fairly mild soft cheese). Put in the oven at 300 degrees for about 25 minutes. If you want them slightly spicy, add some hot pepper to the onions or shallots and sauté prior to adding the plantains.

Brioche. I started the dough last night, retarded it in the fridge overnight and baked it off this morning. All gone now, between my housekeeper and myself, we ate the whole thing along with poached eggs and some minced Serrano ham.

All the way up here in California, I buy "Marlborough Flaky Sea Salt from New Zealand, under the PacificSalt brand, certified organic, from the northern shore of South Island." I buy a lot of different salts and find that this one is terrific in salads, as a final addition to fresh vegetables and sprinkled on breads just prior to baking. I also knead it into my homemade butter for spreading on bread. Some of it dissolves into the butter but some of the flakes remain and we love the flavor it imparts to the butter. I should think that it would be readily available in Australia. I also use Maldon, as well as various French and other European and Mediterranean sea salts, in addition to a couple of domestic ones.

The link I posted upthread is for a "Black Forest Sundae" made with crushed chocolate wafers. Great flavor and no baking (unless you make the chocolate wafers yourself). I often used cherries cooked like preserves, as filling between layers in dark chocolate cakes, usually cutting the regular layers in half so I have 4 layers with the preserves between. Wonderful flavor combination.

All of these ideas are great. Contact with outreach organizations is the first base to touch as they already know what is going on in the community and know who needs (and who wants) help. I can tell you from personal experience that some people do not want help even though they need it and it takes a careful and diplomatic approach to get them to participate in such activities. Many senior citizen centers have good cooking facilities and often have shuttle service that will pick up seniors and return them to their homes. Another resource is the VFW, they have facilities in many places with kitchens and meeting rooms and they are organized. The service organizations such as the Elks, Moose, Rotary, etc., are also a good resource as many of their members are active in community affairs and I have found them to be endlessly helpful. In some communities the Chamber of Commerce will also be very helpful. A list of the things that need to be included in the instructions, along with the necessary implements to do what needs to be done should be the first project. Also, contact with community leaders who can help with certain roadblocks. Some municipalities do not allow restaurants to donate foods that are not served to patrons to organizations that distribute it to the needy. They are required by law to throw it away, which I have always though is absolutely ridiculous and an obscene waste of good food. Education on basic homemaking principles is also very important. Two years ago an entire family here in Lancaster died from carbon monoxide poisoning because they were using charcoal braziers in their home both for cooking and heating as their utilities had been turned off for non-payment. They were immigrants who apparently did not realize that the houses here seal tighter than those in their homeland where most people use these things. Also instructions have to be given orally for a lot of these people because there are a great many who cannot read, many immigrants understand and speak English but cannot read it. One last suggestion. It might be helpful to contact Homes for Humanity. Many of the homes that are built as part of this program are in the most disadvantaged areas and the recipients are, for the most part, eager to pass on help to others and in turn become volunteers with this organization and in their community. It might be advantageous to contact some of these people who could be instructed in how to teach others in their neighborhoods who need help with learning to prepare nutritious foods.

You probably already know about these sites. However I have an elderly friend, now living in Manchester,(lived near me in So.Calif. for many years) on a very limited budget and she has mentioned these sites as being very helpful to her - she and a neighbor in the same situation combine their resources and take turns cooking. She says these have been a great help. Frugal recipes/uk. She has said that she particularly enjoyed a couple of the wartime recipes as it reminded her of her childhood and all the "tricks" her mum used to make sure that their family was well fed. She says that the woman could do more with a cheese rind than many cooks could do with a joint. You are wise to buy whole chickens as after they are roasted and the meat removed, the carcass can go into a pot with the vegetable trimmings, tops, stems, onion roots and skins, to make a stock which can be the base of another meal. You mention white rice, cooked in stock, then with beans added, you have a good substitute for meat protein as rice and beans are a complete amino acid when combined. You can serve it as a soup or add other vegetables, reduce and thicken the liquid and you have a hearty stew. My daughter and her family were in Inverness for six months last year and she was surprised at the cost of meat, and often not of great quality or not well trimmed, with a lot of fat and gristle which is really waste. I think it is wonderfuly that you bake your own bread. I love baking and find it is very satisfying, especially at this time of the year. By the way, we have had quite a discussion regarding cassoulet on another thread but they involve more expensive ingredients. This one by Delia is one I have made. I have the cookbook, "Frugal Food" and it included a good many recipes that are filling, nutritious and very, very good.

After the '94 earthquake and the loss of several odd-shaped bottles that shook out of the "tinker-toy" type wine racks I had, I decided to try an idea I had seen in one of the shows on Food TV when they had the wine tasting show. For long-term storage, I bought some solid wood doors, drilled holes in them at an angle with a 1 1/2 inch hole saw, fixed the bottom of the door to the floor about a foot from the wall with a line cleat (marine hardware, won't rust) screwed into the concrete with a lead anchor, and leaned the top against the wall and fastened it to the wall with a cleat. I insert the neck of the bottled into the holes and they are held at an angle with the top down. I don't have a "cellar" but have a double wall concrete block storage room with triple insulation in the roof (tile) and it stays cool in there even in summer. I don't have access to it right at the moment because I have been having some work done in the garage and there is a pile of material that was moved into the garage when it began raining and is still there.

Chefzadi, I think your idea is admirable. It is true that a great many people need help with learning how to prepare inexpensive, nutritious food. I have done a fair amount of volunteer work with community outreach organizations. And there are a great many things to consider in addition to teaching people how to prepare nutritious foods. One thing that we found was that far too often most of these people lacked the means to prepare food, not just the knowledge of how to prepare it. My friends and I have donated quite a few items over the years so women with children, mostly, but sometimes seniors, both men and women, would have the utensils with which to cook and a clean place to cook. When I was still physically able, I helped to clean and disinfect kitchens that were in deplorable condition. Often the very poor, on limited, fixed incomes, have no way to get to markets where they can buy reasonably priced foods and must rely on the convenience stores they can reach on foot. Another worry for them is the use of appliances which increase their utility costs when the difference is being able to afford heat, or light, food or medications. Often they live without hot water because the gas that heats the water heater costs so much that it uses up what they would otherwise spend on food. Food banks help, when they have the resources, but again, there is a problem with transportation as these facilities are few and far between. It is an extremely complex problem and all facets must be considered.

If bleach degraded in water then there would be no point in using it to disinfect metropolitan water supplies and our swimming pools. I have a spray bottle of 5% bleach solution which I use constantly in the kitchen, as does my housekeeper. It certainly works like newly-mixed bleach solution, as it takes the tea stains out of tea cups and pots and it absolutely kills molds. SUNLIGHT degrades cholorine which is why water treatment plants have indoor treating facilities or enclosed tanks (and we have to add it to swimming pools on a regular basis) but if you keep your spray in an opaque bottle or out of the window, it should work just fine. Probably someone put this out so they can sell more bleach. Way back in the days when I did laboratory work, we used made-up bleach soluction to disinfect everything as we had to be sure to avoid cross-contamination of cultures. The petrie dishes were washed, dipped in a bleach solution then rinsed with distilled water and dried in a hot-air oven. We mixed the bleach in big containers that were connected by hoses to the lab sinks. We constantly did test cultures of swabs drawn along the bench tops and around the drawer and cabinet handles and on varioius pieces of equipment to make sure there were no stray organisims that might screw up the results of the cultures. If the bleach water had not been disinfecting, we would have had lots of bacteria growing in the cultures.

Yeah, and look how long she lived while some of those who adhered strictly to the low cholesterol, low fat, low sugar and no fun diets, died 20 or 30 years younger!

About 25-30 years ago, I was with friends in Napa who were doing a winery trek. We took a tour of one place and one of the execs or maybe an owner (a suit) decided to show the group how the barrels were moved from one spot to another and rather than have a worker do the demonstration he proceeded to get onto a forklift and punch a hole in one of those huge wood upright fermenting tanks. We ran for it as the thing emptied itself onto the floor and out onto the paving outside the building, down some steps and into the parking lot where it pooled. They had workers put pallets down so we could get to our cars without wading in all that red stuff. The fumes were so strong we could still smell it when when got out to the main road. I almost forgot. They had a couple of Newfoundland dogs, who were happily lapping up the stuff in the yard as we were leaving. I wondered how they felt the next day.

There are so many things you can do with them. Consider them as you would any sweet or bing or Queen Anne or Ranier cherry. This recipe works with brandied cherries. and this one You can also simply warm them and wrap them in crepes with creme fraiche or sweetened sour cream. (If you have never tried sweetened sour cream with fruit, take a little in a cup and mix sugar (I use Splenda) into it. It has a complex flavor that is much better on sweet fruits than whipped cream.)

Why not just make some really rich French vanilla ice cream and mix them into it just prior to serving?

Someone, who shouldn't be hanging over my shoulder reading this, just reminded me of last March, the day after my birthday, when I set a bottle of San Giacomo Gold Label balsamic vinegar, 25 years + on the kitchen counter, not noticing that a chopstick was laying on the counter (nearly the same color, blending in) and it tipped over fell forward off the counter, turning over in mid air so it landed square on the bottom, sat there for a moment then with a little "pop" cracked all the way around the bottom and the vinegar oozed out onto the floor. It was a gift and rather than confess to the person who had gifted me with it, I immediately bought a replacement bottle (around $200.00). I did feel rather foolish for some time, particularly since it was witnessed by a big mouth! (She isn't going to leave till I post this so here goes.)

How?

Several years ago I had come into a couple of bottles of Chateau d' Yquem, '81, given me by a friend who was clearing out his cellar before moving into a hospice. Some time later, a couple who have been friends for years, were celebrating their 20th anniversary and were having a party. I presented them with the bottle which was placed with some other gifts on a side table. Some time later I noticed the bottle was no longer on the table and mentioned it to the host. He walked into the kitchen to find that one of the catering help had apparently picked up, then chilled the bottle and poured it into some of the champagne flutes setting on trays. They at least got a taste as it was obviously a still wine but they had planned on saving it for a more private time. The caterer nearly fainted when she learned how much the bottle was worth.

Several months ago someone was asking for help in coating nuts with various candy coatings. This attachment for a KitchenAid stand mixer is now available and though pricy, should work well for small production runs.

I came across this as I was looking for a replacement for a plate rack that someone borrowed and never returned. It might fit your needs and is not terribly expensive. They have a stainless steel one for about twice the cost.

I only use vermouth in cooking, however it seems to me to keep just about forever. I have only one friend who drinks martinis and I have never heard a complaint from her. As long as it isn't subjected to extremes of heat and cold I don't see how it can be damaged.

Do you have an airbrush. An ideal way is to cover the cake with rolled fondant and airbrush on a bright color.

You might want to read this article about one particular disease with which I am familiar. Undulent fever My stepdad got it from drinking raw milk at the farm of one of his friends. He was quite ill for about 4 months and had some relapses (an old name was "relapsing fever") He was an opthamalogist and was unable to do any surgery for quite a while because he had a residual tremor in both hands for some time. I buy unpasturized milk for making cheese, but I have an electric pasturizer and always pasturize the milk before I use it to make cheeses. In the U.S. we have "certified" raw milk. That is milk from cows that have been examined and tested for various diseases and are certified by the county health department. The testing is expensive and it is not usually feasable for small farmers to have it done.