Special K

If anyone can use an extra grill insert it's yours. Just tell me where to send it. Oh, and there's a nifty concave wok burner, too.

Well! We got the range installed, finally! They did have to enlarge the hole in the wall to the outside for the downdraft vent, but they did not have to chop a new hole in the floor, so that was a lot of worry over nothing. They also did some electrical work so that the dishwasher can be installed. Turns out the new dw backs right up against the wall, and for some reason there was a junction box sticking out about three inches, so they made that problem go away. The Luwa guy will be out to install it tomorrow (and I'll finally get it out of the middle of the dining room!). Many thanks to tsquare, again, for walking me through this. So, now I have a beautiful, working Jenn Air downdraft range -- which has no burners as yet but those should be delivered this weekend. But I do have the use of the oven, and the first batch of snickerdoodles turned out just fine! This oven is quite a bit larger than the old one, so I celebrated that by going out yesterday and buying (at a consignment shop) the biggest, baddest roasting pan (complete with a very nice roasting rack) that I could find. Now, finally, I can roast HUGE turkeys for the holidays! Aaand I can use my nifty new in-oven meat probe! I'm just amazed at all the new tricks ovens can do nowadays. And the clock works! I'm just giddy with excitement! I have the old grill insert from the Dacor range, and as soon as I can, I'll find it and post the details; if anybody here would like it, it's free to a good home.

Two more for me from the thrift shop: Real Fast Indian Food, by Mridula Baljekar - I am new to Indian cooking, and I think this one will be very helpful. and Pierre Franey Cooks with His Friends - This was published jin 1997, just after he passed away. There's a lovely tribute in the foreword written by his daughter, who is listed as co-author.

"First in, first out!" Why is that so easy to forget at home?

Thanks, tsquare. Yes, the current range (Dacor) is vented through the back wall and I'm hoping this one can be done the same way - through the same hole if possible! But since the salesman mentioned the possibility of having to cut through the floor I figured I'd better be prepared for that. I do have the install instructions; I just haven't had a minute to look through them. Last night we wrestled the old dishwasher out and the new Miele will be delivered tomorrow and installed Friday. I'll read the JennAir manual and call the contractor while I'm home those two days waiting for the dishwasher people. I really do appreciate your interest and help. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Maybe. The guy I'm thinking of calling has a general contractor license and is recommended by Albert Lee, so I'm hoping he can cut the hole and route the vent to the outside wall if he needs to. The range is under a window and the current one vents to the outside; it's just that the new range's downdraft apparently goes straight down. I guess they'll try to install it without cutting a hole in the (wood) floor, but if they need to, they need to. I will insist that this one vent to the outside. As you can probably tell, I don't know nuthin' about the process and I am at the installer's mercy here. Thanks, tsquare. And LEdlund, thanks for your recommendation. It's nice to have a back-up! On Angie's List, the contractor above got one very good vote and one very bad one (about showing up late, not about bad work).

The vent for the downdraft is different on this one; they might need to chop a hole in the floor . . . Albert Lee will take away the old range, but they don't do "complicated" installs. They gave us a list of installers, but only one is a licensed electrician - guess I'll have to go with him. Thank you for responding.

Amazon.com has 'em.

This weekend we orderd a new dishwasher and an electric range. The dishwasher will be installed by the Miele people, but I need to find someone to install the range. Has anyone in the Seattle area had a good (or bad!) experience lately you can share? Thanks very much.

One thing I don't think has been mentioned here is that your freezer has to work harder when it isn't full. I did a little search and found a suggestion that made sense to me. Freeze water! (Make sure you leave room in the bottle for the water to expand into ice). The person who suggested this said she did it to keep the freezer full so it wouldn't have to run so often, but she found that the water was a lifesaver when her water was cut off for several days after a storm.

A fictional meal you would like to have attended: Any meal shared at Nero Wolfe's table A memorable work of fiction set in a restaurant or a café: Reunion - Cheever - several restaurants/bars, in fact (they keep getting kicked out) Food you've tried that didn't live up to the expectations raised by a fictional account: Can't think of any offhand Food from fiction that you couldn't help but want to try even though you knew you would hate it: Haggis, can't remember where I first read about it - "knew" I would hate it but it was not bad An unappetizing food description from fiction: Mrs. Tebbins' "meals" in Angela Thirkell's August Folly, which I'm reading right now A recipe you've tried or a meal you've recreated from fiction: Nero Wolfe's scrambled eggs Food you associate with reading: Apples - Jo from Little Women is always reading and eating apples Your favourite food-focussed book/writer: Too many to choose from!

Thank you, TSquare. I was away for a while and just saw this today. I just got back from Albert Lee ("Major appliances since 1936") and after backing and forthing with a very knowlegeable salesman (I hope), I decided on the downdraft slide-in JennAir electric with the burner cartridges (It comes with the grill assembly, which we probably won't use, because we use the Weber outside in all kinds of weather, but that's OK). Yes, it would be nice to go for a higher quality vent, but money and logistics make the JennAir the better choice for me. The oven is much larger than my current Dacor, and it has "MultiMode" convection. I think I'm going to be happy with it (I loved the JennAir I had years ago). I got a pretty good deal, I think, because I also bought a new dishwasher (Miele Inspira). These two items, plus the refrigerator I bought a year and a half ago, are all I'll need for a while (Wait! Is that the microwave making funny noises now?)

Spam.

Yesterday I had the day off, so in between loads of laundry, I cleaned out the freezer (now that the job had become manageable). First of all, I was amazed at how many little plastic hanger thingies (the ones that they glue to plastic bags of things like shredded cheese to hang from hooks in the grocery store) I found in the freezer - I don't remember ever putting bags of stuff with those hangers in there, but there must have been twenty of them! Could they have migrated somehow from the cheese drawer? Spooky. Secondly, I found out I had a lot more individually-bagged meats (steaks, chicken pieces, etc.) than I thought (and here I was buying more and using it while these just got older, and older . . . ), and a lot of unidentifiable leftovers tossed in there who knows when - and tossed out again yesterday. (Note to self, #1: Don't over-fill the freezer to the point where I can't see what's in there, and #2: If it's just a little dab of something, and it doesn't get used right away, don't throw it in the freezer - it will never see the light of day again.) I wish I'd taken pictures to post here from work, but what I ended up with was a very neat half-freezer drawer with a goodly amount of meats, a pull-out shelf full of frozen veggies (and the martini glasses, shaker and gin), and the other half of the drawer full of goodies like spaghetti sauce, chili, various stocks (which I made yesterday from the bones and scraps I found), and other odds and ends. And now, everything is labelled and dated! So lovely! Even though I certainly have fewer items in there than when this whole challenge started, I feel very satisfied that I have plenty in my hoard, because now I can see what I have and it's more than enough. Same with the pantry - I used up, gave away, or tossed out all the stuff I rarely use normally, and have re-stocked only what I will actually use. This lovely feeling of being satisfied with having just enough of the right things on hand even inspired me to go through the rest of the kitchen cabinets and get rid of non-food items - duplicates and things I haven't used in a while. In my very small kitchen with its limited storage space, this really made a difference! Thank you, Fat Guy.

The Ballard TJ's opened last Friday (March 6th). I checked it out today and was pleasantly surprised - it's BIG! Nice, wide aisles and all the usual TJ goodies. And if you can't find what you're looking for there, check out Cash "n Carry across the street. I've heard bad things about the parking lot (small spaces), but I walked, so I don't know if those complaints are valid.

Thank you very much andiesenji. I'm just now seeing this - been away from my computer for the last week. I will look for kale and the book is on order!

Thanks, JTravel. I didn't make it clear that I was trying to come up with things that needed refrigeration in their normal form, but which exist in a shelf-stable "just add water" incarnation.

I'm making my shopping list for the first time back to the grocery store in a while. I need to buy perishables, of course, but I'd also like to buy some replacements for perishables in case of a real can't-go-shopping situation (like an earthquake or some other natural or man-made disaster) that might involve losing power. So far I've come up with powdered and evaporated milk and powdered eggs. But what else? I suppose I should have some dried soup mixes, too. I may make a trip to REI's camping food section to see what they have. We always do have stored water, but it might be a good idea to get one of those Giardia filters, just in case. Oh, and I'm definitely planting more edibles amongst my flowers! Lettuce starts are available now, and I'm going to be planting those in hanging baskets on the deck. I already grow and use an obscene amount of rosemary, but other than a few different kinds of thyme, some parsley, and a little bay tree, everything else in the garden right now is for show, not for cooking. I don't have a big empty yard space that I can dig up and make a "real" garden - it's all trees and shrubs and paths and way too many roses (no grass at all). I'm hoping it's pretty easy to grow chives from seed in pots, because I like and buy a lot of chives. I don't mean to go into siege mode, but this experiment has got me thinking.

I can't do gas or dual fuel because putting in a gas line is too expensive, and I don't want a glass top because I often use heavy cast iron pots and I'm clumsy. I can't do a vent hood because the range goes under a window. (Not too picky, am I?) I've been looking at Jennair, but the only one I see that would work for me has the downdraft down the middle of the cooktop, rather than in the back, as my current Dacor does. I don't want another Dacor (been very unhappy with the current one). I'm thinking that the downdraft down the center will take up valuable real estate. So, does anyone know of another brand of slide in electric with the downdraft across the back? Thanks. (edited to remove a stray comma)

And has anyone else besides me been making up a shopping list for next week that contains allll the stuff we missed so much and are determined never to run out of again? I found two pears (in very good shape) in the back of the crisper this morning and almost wept with joy! I will be treating them soooo tenderly tonight! And I'd just about kill for a cherry tomato right about now.

Way to go, Dividend!

Last night instead of the shrimp with rice I was thinking of doing, we had our version of one of the "20 minute meals" in the newest Real Simple mag. (We got home late and hungry). The recipe was for Lemony Shrimp with White Beans and Couscous and it reminded me that I always seem to forget about using couscous instead of rice, and I knew there was a can of white beans in the pantry. I had some little lemons in the freezer (someone here at eGullet told me I could do that - thanks!) and I just dropped one in warm water and it thawed beautifully (and turned out to be completely seedless). I used my shrimp stock to cook the couscous (and the new shrimp shells went right back with the rest of the stock into the pot so the new batch is even better). The only things I didn't have on hand were scallions (I used a regular yellow onion and it was fine) and fresh parsley (the parsley I grow out on the deck was under a few inches of the freak snow we had yesterday morning) The dish really needed something green, so I added some leftover cooked peas. They weren't really that beautiful - you know how re-cooked peas get sort of grey? - but they were nice and plump and tasty, and the dish was a success. Normally, when I cook from a new recipe I try to follow it exactly, but next time I do shrimp and coucous I'll do it this way again (with fresher peas). The wine last night was another Burrell School. This one was "Spring Break" Syrah, a 2005 Estate Pichon Vineyard - Santa Cruz Mountains. Oh, man. Heaven. So nice to have just for us, on a regular weeknight -- we could get used to this! Uh, oh. It was Doc's turn to make breakfast, and he found some more leftover low-salt Spam (I thought we'd seen the last of that earlier in the week) and chopped it up and served it with scrambled eggs in our new favorite vehicle, pita bread. We'll snack on cheese and/or nuts again for lunch, and tonight we'll be having a meal straight from the freezer - hamburgers (Costco sirloin burgers left over from a work-related party that was I'm embarrassed to say how long ago) on onion rolls, and something from the array of frozen veggies - I think probably broccoli, which we like with blue cheese dressing - and then I can offer blue cheese for the burgers, too. We'll miss tomatoes and lettuce (well, I'll check the salad mix that's been sitting the clear "plastic" box it came in for a while -- it might still be OK. I have found that the boxed stuff usually does hold up much better than bagged salad greens; I just wash it in the spinner as soon as I get it home, and put it right back in the box.) Tomorrow will be leftover biscuits, with sausage gravy (normally I'd use Jimmy Dean roll sausage, but I'm out, so I'll thaw out a couple of Costco's chicken and apple sausages and skin 'em. I'm out of milk and I'll want to save enough cream for Doc's coffee (!), but I've used plain yogurt and/or sour cream in sausage gravy before so I know that'll work). Leftovers from earlier dinners for lunch (if we want any) and an early dinner at a PTA function we will be attending. Eggs in some form Sunday morning, and the Sunday dinner roast beef will have to be braised stove-top (oven is out of commission). I'll use all of the rest of the fingerling potatoes and some of the carrots and onions and a can of fire-roasted tomatoes and some chicken stock for that. (So, even though it will be late, that's my Saturday potluck contribution.)

Poor Heidi. I hope she's better!

As I mentioned yesterday in another topic, I am in need of a new slide-in electric range with a downdraft. Would anyone who has experience with Jennairs or comparable ranges please give me the benefit of your wisdom? I'm expecting to spend about $2K. Thanks. (edetted bekuz ah kant spel.)