andiesenji

I think what you are searching for are stroopwafels. these are Dutch. style, made here in the U.S. However the exact same thing can also be found in Austria as well as parts of Germany and in western Hungary. (My housekeeper is Hungarian and she gets these from home.)

I have been trying to remember where I saw one of the SS hand deodorizers that was also an interesting shape and finally remembered it was on the "gizmo" site. Kitchen Gizmos which has all kinds of unusual and hard to find gadgets by uncommon manufacturers. The thing I recalled was this WMF egg shaped odor eater.

There are several reliable websites which offer this teapot at a lower price one of these is www.zackusa.com ← good to know that it is available elsewhere. I had a credit to use up with H-S, otherwise I would have looked for another source. There was quite a bit of talk about this teapot on the TeaMail list about a year ago.

That's it! That's the one I saw -- I loved it but couldn't justify spending the money on it... Why use it only once? It looks like great fun! ← Because I love my TeaMate. And, probably because of my age, I forget about the others until I am well into my routine of measuring tea into the basket of the TeaMate. I usually do this on automatic pilot.

The knife is made by Dexter-Russell and Smart & Final also puts their name on it.

Smart & Final sells this knife for $14.95. As you can see, it has a 12 inch blade - it can be used for slicing ham, roasts, but I use it for bread because I bake some very large loaves and if I want to cut them diagonally or lengthwise, I need a long blade. When one gets dull I toss it and get another, however they last, with fairly heavy use, on very crusty breads, at least 3 years.

I have a huge collection of teapots I have been collecting for 50 years. My most recent acquisition was this German Tilting teapot that I saw in the catalog from this site. It is a neat design. I tried it once and it worked just as it should. Of course for my everyday tea I use one of my TeaMates, the great appliance that was sold in the U.S. for a couple of years then, because of slow sales, was discontinued in this country. Fortunately I had bought an extra for "just in case" and very glad I did. It was distributed by ChefsChoice, the people who have the great electric knife sharpeners/Edgecraft. They still do repairs if something goes wrong with the TeaMate. A good company.

How about the odd plants such as chicory, in which the part above ground is eaten as a vegetable or salad (endive) and the root is dried and ground and used as a substitute or addition to coffee. I believe rhubarb is classified as a vegetable and is interesting in that the roots and leaves are poisonous but the stems are edible. One wonders who it was who survived to discover which part was ok.

In botanical terms a gourd, inedible, is a fruit, just as many indeible or even poisonous berries are fruits. Therefore the "edible" classification is a bit dicey, even if it is the OED. In some cases the entire plant is edible, as noted the fennel. Also there is mustard, in which the young leaves are edible as are the very young, green seed pods and then the seeds themselves when fully developed and dry. Beet greens and the root, also salsify, celery root as well as the stems and leaves may be eaten or the leaves and stems used as flavoring. Perhaps the crossover of fruit to vebetable is more common in the summer squashes which are indeed fruit, but are usually considered a vegetable, but as pointed out earlier, some can be consumed as a sweet when incorporated into cakes or muffins. They can also be pickled and the very sweet type pickles or bread and butter types are more fruit-like than vegetable, but we are now entering the realm of condiment which is a whole other subject. A fun topic...........

Fresh or "cake" yeast, the stuff that looks like putty, can be frozen for a short period. It has to be well wrapped and preferably sealed in something that will keep it from drying out. I use a foodsaver vacuum system with it double bagged. At best, it will keep for about 2 months in the freezer and has to be slowly defrosted - first place it in the refrigerator for 24 hours then bring it out and allow it to defrost completely at room temperature. If you have kept it longer and it is still active, you are lucky. It does have some advantages in certain baked goods, brioche, for one. It does best in breads and sweet doughs that do not need a lot of handling. Very nice in slack dough products. It is not as forgiving as the dry yeasts and does not hold as well if trying a longer proofing time. Some bakers have experimented with working a dough with half the fresh yeast and 3/4 of the flour, then retarding the dough overnight for the long, cool method to develop more flavor, then adding in a sponge made with the remainder of the yeast and the flour and proofing at room temperature then shaping, proofing again and baking. They say that it has more flavor but when I tried it I did not notice that much difference. I use it primarily when making the "southern-type" "light" rolls, that have long been a staple in my family. Active dry yeast or 'instant' yeast simply does not produce the same flavor. It is getting difficult to find, but often health food stores will carry it and will special order it on request. I sometimes get some from a friend who owns a bakery when I need just a little and don't have time to wait for some to be ordered.

I like your review on Amazon, Curlz. I use several types of salt, most of which probably wouldn't go through the opening. However I am going to order one or maybe two. I think they will be great for Splenda. Splenda is so light that often some blows off the spoon as I am transferring it to the cup from the bowl - especially when the exhaust system is running or one of the doors is opened. Someone gave me a salt mill from this place for Christmas last year: Peppermills and I ordered the matching peppermill. This topic reminded me about it and I have to get them out and fill them so it looks like the salt mill has been in use, just in case the person who gave it comes around to visit.

I got to a Lucy Devereaux, or at least her answering service. She is apparantly a VP or something so I will keep trying. Only on eGullet could we get so obsessive about ss mushrooms. ← I have been thinking of calling a friend of my boss who owns a company that makes things from SS. He has these huge machines that will take a block of SS and carve it into whatever shape the customer wants. He gave my boss a bowl carved from a block of SS on one of the machines when it was first installed, when they were practicing. Then reality set in and I thought of the cost of just starting the machine and putting the data into the computer that drives it. whew,

I've got this ricer. It holds more and has a hook that goes over one side of a pan and with the handle resting on the near side your can push down against something solid, rather than gripping - which is difficult for me because of arthritic hands. Sur La Table has a smaller one for about half this price. Admiral Ricer

It is a conical measuring cup similar to laboratory beakers. It was touted as being useful for both wet and dry measuring but I have had one since King Arthur flour first began selling them 7 or 8 years ago and mine is not truly accurate in the ounces/cups, etc. It is off almost 3/4 of an ounce in the one cup measure. Perhaps the newer ones are more accurate, but this one is not. The one ounce marker is off - when measured with a truly accurate graduated laboratory pipette, one true ounce of liquid is well above the one ounce line in the "beaker". So one would be getting less than the specified amount in a recipe. This may not seem like much, but in a baking formula fractions count. The metric measurements are accurate.

I am not sure which Rival water heater you are writing about. As far as coffee is concerned. I have purchased 6 of the Senseo coffee machines at Costco as they had a 20.00 rebate - and these have the extra large water resevoir. I am giving them to friends who are single and have less than great success with brewing small batches of coffee in a regular coffee maker. And one is for a college student who has been moaning about the awful coffee in the coin-operated coffee machine in his dorm. Since this brews one cup at a time and turns itself off after a period of non-use, it should fit in quite well in a dorm room. I have been told that it is becoming very popular on campus where many of the students practially live on coffee.

Another note about Fantes.Fantes.com If you are assembling a stocking or gift box for a baker, do check out the parchment circles sized from 8 to 12 inches and the tube pan bottom liner. This saves a lot of time cutting these from a roll of parchment and the price is reasonable. I guarantee the giftee will bless you for them. They also have the liner cups for both mini and jumbo muffins, a hard-to-find item.

I have a bunch of Kuhn-Rikon implements and have yet to find one that is not superior to other makers. The various peelers are very well designed. I have their small, hand-held slicer (they call it a mandoline) which works better than the specialty chocolate shaver for shaving curls of chocolate off the edge of a block of chocolate. I use it for getting extremely thin slices of fruits and vegetables when I need just a little, not enough to warrant using the big mandoline. The heart-shaped sauce whisk is also very easy to use and gets right into the corners of straight-sided pans. The head swivels on the end of the handle so it will lay flat on the bottom of the pan. I have several of these types of whisk and some work better for thick sauces or gravies and others work better with the thinner types. This one is excellent for the thinner types and when reducing coulis. I also have a pressure cooker and the pressure fry pan made by this company and they are much easier to use than the old style pressure cookers.

Speaking of Amco. This place seems to carry a very large selection of their products so this might be the place to get info about the company..... chef's resource And this place has a bunch of silicone pastry or basting brushes from the small ones to a super large one. Anything you might desire. They also have the wood, mushroom-shaped garlic smasher.

I've ordered a few things from this place. after someone sent me one of the Bodum garlic slicers. (tried it once, it works fine but I keep forgetting about it.) I did get a couple of the salt pigs, cute and handy, keeps stuff from falling into the salt in the open dish. I also bought several of the salt & condiment servers as I am giving them as gifts along with some of my homemade mustard and/or other condiments. I also got a couple of sets of the Amco measuring spoons. here One advantage of these is that they set level on a flat surface so if you happen to have a tremor in one hand (my left) which makes it difficult to hold a spoon and pour a liquid into it, the spoon can rest on a counter and I can pour with my right hand then pick up the spoon and dump the liquid with my right hand. No shaking drips of stuff all over the place. Also the shape allows the spoon to fit into skinny jars. They also have a silicone pastry brush.

How stiff are the wires? I bought a similar one but the wires were too flimsy to hold onto anything with any weight to it. I tossed them out in the trash.

As soon as I can get back into the kitchen I am going to lay out my collection of whisks and take a photo. I have been banished from the kitchen for a while as my housekeeper and three of her friends from school are making some kind of Austrian or Hungarian pastry that involves a lot of stretching to get the dough paper-thin. And this is all I know about it so far. I have been told to keep myself out from underfoot - supposed to be "resting" after a busy few days. I could hear a lot of giggling a while back so whatever they are doing must be a lot of fun. She doesn't bother with my collection of vegetable peelers, she can peel a potato faster with a paring knife, very thin peel, as rapidly as I can with a peeler. She likes some of the gadgets but others get just a shake of her head. Like me she began cooking at about age 9 or 10 - she has 1 older brother and 7 younger ones and the small town in which she lived did not have stores with a lot of gadgets. She does approve of the whisks and can beat egg whites or whipped cream by hand in a copper bowl as rapidly as I can with the mixer. She also has an incredible grip. I certainly won't need one of those Black & Decker Lids Off appliances as long as she is around. I can't imagine having one of those taking up space on my counters, I do have arthritis in my hands but the old V-shaped thingy with the toothy jaws, on the underside of one of the cabinets, has done a good job of opening just about everything except bottles with caps less than 5/8 inch in diameter and for those I use an old-fashioned metal nutcracker.

I've had one of the serrated peelers for several years. Mine just says ACME China on it. It has a fat white handle that is very easy to hold, with a grainy surface that doesn't slip in wet hands. By the way, while trying to find the peeler, I found the SS mushroom. here. However it seems to have been discontinued at several vendors listed. Amazon will take an order to search for one. here. People keep giving me gadgets to deal with garlic - I have some odd ones which I should get out and at least try. Most are still in their original boxes or bags. This is a neat gadget that my housekeeper bought for me to join my collection of whisks for every purpose and I used it with great success in my T-Day gravy. whisk. I have several that are supposed to be perfect for gravy, including my old favorite, one that is at least 30 years old, and this one is better.......

The top-rated cocoa for both hot chocolate and baking was Van Leer 120 Cocoa, available by mail from New York Cake, 1-800-942-2539 ← The Chocolate Source, used to carry Van Leer but dropped it at least a year ago. Chocolate Source. Cake Decorators still had it last month - check here.

For my "black" cocoa cookies, I used King Arthur's black cocoa and the "Double Dutch Dark" half and half. I also use this same mixture in my cocoa fruit cake which turns out very dark and has an intense cocoa flavor, which, combined with the dried and plumped cherries and other fruits, has almost the taste and mouth feel of a bonbon. Lighter, regular cocoa products will produce a very nice cake, but not the same texture or mouth feel and flavor as these. I also use the Scharffen Berger cocoa and the Valrhona cocoa for other applications. from this vendor. When I get down to Surfas I usually pick up some of the Barry's Extra Brute cocoa powder Surfas.

Long before the "Ove Glove" was available in the U.S., I was using these Coolskins from England. Sold by the pair they cost a little more than the Ove Glove and, in my opinion are much better quality, certainly enough to justify the additional cost. When it comes to protecting my hands, I don't skimp. I have them in all three size, extras in the long length as well as the mitts. I have given them as gifts to friends who are bakers and like me, have to reach into a deep oven (My oven holds full-size sheet pans lengthwise) to move something such as a large bain-marie and before getting the long gloves, often burned the back of my wrists or forearm on the rails at the sides of the oven. The sizes are generous and fit even the largest hands, something you don't get with the one-size-fits-all Ove glove. If you have to handle things that are wet as well as hot, the coolskins are large enough that you can wear a heavy rubber glove under them to protect from steam.