MelissaH

Actually, I teach. I haven't been a student for quite a few years. But I do have access to a university library, and I'll check it out. MelissaH

My thoughts/needs/wants in a dishwasher are pretty simple, I think: it's gotta clean the dishes well and use less water than I'd use to wash those same dishes by hand, have a stainless interior, and NOT have a long tube pointing up from the bottom rack. I want a relatively open interior, so that I don't have to worry about my large bowls fitting. And I want to be sure the top rack has enough space to hold my cheapo IKEA wineglasses so I don't need to wash them by hand. (That said, when we go looking I'll be bringing some of my large and tall items with me, to see if they go in without a problem.) Noise probably isn't as big an issue to me as it is to other people. I like the idea of LindaK's model (the post just below Jambalyle's post referenced above), with the adjustable top rack. LindaK, if you don't mind saying, how much of a premium did you pay to get this feature? What model do you have? We're getting our thoughts together so we can go back to the designer, firm up the cabinet plans, start to get cabinet and appliance quotes, and figure out whether our desires fit within our budget. MelissaH

Did you ever give any thought to coating the walls with a high-gloss polyurethane? That's one idea we've been tossing around, although we would definitely want to do some test panels to see if it works and if it will hold up to cleaning. MelissaH

That's certainly a possibility: use that stack of drawers to hold the silverware, as well as the serving pieces, and put the dishes . One question we keep going back and forth on is whether it's better to schlep clean dishes from the dishwasher to where they get stored, or to schlep clean dishes from where they get stored to the table where they're ultimately used. (No debate: definitely better to not have to schlep dirty dishes to the dishwasher.) We currently store our dishes in a cabinet that's the equivalent of just above the dishwasher, and the schlepping distance isn't onerous by anyone's count. Certain things will definitely be better in other places, though. For instance, the baking dishes should be near the baking area, and the stovetop pots and cooking utensils should be near the stove. We have a bunch of beautiful ceramic serving dishes that my mom made for us, and I'm not sure where they'd be best kept. I certainly envision the higher shelves everywhere for the things that don't get used often, like the gravy boat and the extra wineglasses. (There's only two of us. We have enough cheap IKEA wineglasses to serve sixteen of our friends, but they don't all need to be in easy reach all the time. We only have half a dozen champagne flutes, so it would be nice to keep them available.) I need to make a list. MelissaH

Here are the scans of the kitchen design we liked better, of the two our designer, Jane A. June CKD, did for us. Overhead view I realize the writing is tiny, and probably not readable. I decided to include the top view anyway, because it shows how things will fit into the kitchen. I like that the design is significantly different than what we came up with on our own, and I also like the fact that she listened to what we wanted and what we didn't want, and came up with not one but two designs based on our desires. To help clarify, here are the three elevations of the kitchen. (No need for a fourth elevation, because the dining room's there.) Wall with doorway (interior wall of the house): Short wall (in the old yucky kitchen, where the stove and oven are): The design on the wall is a Lion of Flanders, rising out of the counter. It's not so easy to see here because I scanned a photocopy of the original vellum drawing, and the lion was sketched in pretty lightly to begin with. (If I kicked up the threshold on my scanner to make the Lion more visible, everything else got too thick and dark.) The Lion itself is inside a pair of black arcs, which would form a circle if the cabinetry and countertop weren't blocking the top and bottom of the circle. Back wall (outside wall of house): Now, for a little explanation. Working around from the sliding door out to the deck, the small section of counter was left open on top, to give us a place for some art or a clock or something like that, as well as a place for light switches. The fridge should relocate here quite nicely if we don't have a problem removing the baseboard heater that's along this stretch of wall right now. (If our local inspector doesn't like that, we'll need to go back and start from scratch...or maybe just trade the range, or more likely in that case the cooktop with underneath oven, and the fridge positions.) The sink (possibly apron-front) stays in front of the window (if it's apron front we'll add a towel bar to the front; if not we'll put a tip-out to hold the sponges etc.), and the drawing shows a pendant-style light over. Dishwasher on the other side of the sink. On the other side of the DW, we have space for some more drawers and a cabinet in the corner. The back wall of the kitchen is the baking area. Accordingly, it has a countertop lower than standard, so I don't need to bake wearing stilts. We haven't gone through this plan yet to figure out what gets stored where, but I'm presuming these cabinets and drawers will be used to hold primarily baking goodies, both hardware and software (to borrow terms from Alton Brown). Note to self: how tall are my flour containers? Must fit in drawers. Stand mixer and food processor will tuck into corner, but not be hidden behind a garage. The tall cabinet next to the door not only will serve as a pantry cabinet, but also to hide said appliances from dining room view. We've already debated a little bit about whether it would be better to leave this cabinet tall, or to do separate upper and lower to gain another two feet of countertop space. My gut instinct is to get the countertop space, which could then be extended across the doorway with a swing-up if need be. We're planning on leaving our hall closet as a pantry closet, and before long we should have a shelving unit that hangs on the door to help us organize that. On the other side of the doorway, the design specs a 36-inch range with a 42-inch hood. I'm guessing we'll need a blower that sucks to carry the air up to the ceiling and then across to the outside wall, unless we could instead just go straight up all the way through the roof. We need more time to sit down and digest this. For one thing, we aren't sure where things will get stored, and if we have the right amount of the right types of storage space. We also aren't sure where the microwave and toaster oven will go. (The tambour to the right of the range is to hold the water boiler and coffee maker.) And finally, we aren't sure if the angles and the lowered counter over the baking area will make IKEA cabinets impossible to work with. But I do like the general concept, as well as the ability to use different countertop materials in different places. And I like the fact that there are relatively few places for the cats to get into countertop trouble! More thoughts later. MelissaH edited to clarify slightly

I seem to remember Gale Gand using tea as a liquid with flavor in some of her desserts. I don't have any cookbooks on campus, though, so I can't check. MelissaH

Not quite what we had in mind either. On a serious note: something we're trying to figure out is a way to get a Lion of Flanders into our kitchen. This is a symbol we first became aware of as cyclists: it's nearly impossible to watch TV coverage of a cycling race without seeing a Flemish flag. Then, when we spent some time cycling in the region during the summer of 2004, we absolutely fell in love. Our recent trip back solidified that even more. So, we'd like to get a Lion of Flanders into our new kitchen somehow. Here's what it looks like, on a flag flying on the city hall building in Brugge: One way we thought of was to do a mosaic, with lots of tiny tiles. In our designer's plan, the Lion would go on the wall backing my baking area. I tend to carry a fair amount of entropy wherever I go, and I'm concerned about keeping a mosaic in good shape. So we've also come up with the possibility of just painting it onto the wall (borrow an overhead projector one evening, to get the design up there, maybe?) and then somehow seal it in so we can sponge the wall down without a problem. Those of you with tiles, does your grout get disgusting-looking? (Light grout is almost a must, to me, with a bright yellow background.) Is there another way to get a fairly intricate design into a wall? Of course, if we could find someone making a tile with the design already there, our problems would be solved! MelissaH

We were lucky enough to be in markets in Brugge, Belgium, and Amsterdam last week. At both markets, we saw stalls selling live poultry of all kinds, as well as rabbits. I never did get up the heart to ask whether these were intended as pets, food...or both. MelissaH

Absolutely no help from me. We've all but ruled out the possibility of tile in our range backsplash, in favor of something that we hope will be easier to clean, without pesky grout lines. MelissaH Really, I am working on getting those pictures of the new plan posted!

Aaah, one of the great mysteries from when I was a kid! They came as flat sheets of translucent plastic, with designs printed on them. You'd cut them out, punch a hole through if you wanted, and color with colored pencils. When you baked them, they'd shrink and get very thick, and the colors got much brighter than your original colored pencils. We'd make them into necklaces, suncatchers to hang in your windows, and whatever else you could think of to do with a little plastic ornamenty-thingie. Click here to see what the manufacturer says.... MelissaH

It's not exactly a food usage, but we find that clementine crates work wonderfully to start fires in our woodstove. Put a bit of newspaper inside, turn it upside down, pile some small wood pieces on top, light a corner or two of the newspaper, and away you go! We, too, cannot recycle the yogurt containers. They're typically #5 plastic, and around here we only recycle #1 and #2. But in the event that you buy Dannon brand yogurt, there's still something really cool to do with them, or at least with their tops. Dannon brand yogurt comes covered with a foil seal, and then a clear plastic cover with a colored rim on top of that. Cut off the colored rim, and then sand one side very lightly with fine sandpaper. (Don't do this on a nicely finished surface.) Get out your colored pencils, and draw on the sanded side. Punch a hole through if you want. Then bake on a foil-covered tray at 400 degrees F (we use our toaster oven; my MIL doesn't have a toaster oven so we used her regular oven but found that we had to preheat the pan as well as the oven) for 10 to 15 seconds. Voila---homemade Shrinky Dinks! Are yogurt containers microwaveable? I've always been concerned about freezing them because I've had too many non-freezer plastic bags crack and spill their contents all over the deep freeze. But if they're microwaveable, I could see using them for short-term fridge storage. (Of course, there's nothing to say that I couldn't freeze my stock or whatever in the container, and then pop the frozen cylinder out and bag in a freezer bag for later use! Why didn't I think of that before? ) MelissaH

so enquiring minds want to know: just how does that work.... ← First, a picture (reposted from Page 1 of this thread) to show the yucky old kitchen (but now, take out the semicircular shelves and replace them with a cart to give us more countertop): The short stretch of wall is an interior, load-bearing wall. The designer's plan (she gave us two but we like one much better) puts the stove (in her design, a 36-inch range, although I suppose we could do a 36-inch cooktop and put a 30-inch oven down below, since we want the 36-inch space for the burners but the only 36-inch ranges that seem to be available are the pro-style ones with hefty price tags ) on this wall. The kitchen is on the top floor of our house, and she asked early on if we were planning to tear the ceiling down to studs as well as the wall. We are, which gave us the ability to put the stove on the inside. With the stove on this wall, the venting can go up and then across the ceiling: only one bend still. The designer said a previous client of hers, who does much wokkery, did a similar hood with similar distances, and it works fine to contain the oil and smells. Apparently the blowers suck enough to manage that sort of distance without a problem. Something else we've been mulling over: the design we like would make it possible for us to put multiple countertop surfaces in the kitchen, easily. I promise I'll post pictures sometime before the end of the weekend so you can see what I'm talking about, and I'll share our concerns as well. The designer's asked us to take a week and think about what she's given us, and then we'll talk some more to firm things up. MelissaH

We got our drawings from our kitchen designer this morning. All I'll say for now is that we have lots of things to think about. I'll post more later, once my husband and I have digested things a bit, because her ideas are different from what we'd been thinking of. (That's a good thing, in my opinion.) The most valuable thing I've learned so far: Even if you want to vent your hood to the outside, the stove doesn't need to go on an outside wall! MelissaH

There was a tip about this in the latest issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine: get yourself a cheap chisel from the hardware store, wash it up really well, and then chisel the chocolate hunk to pieces. I haven't tried it, but I like the idea. (Now, the real trick will be to keep my husband from taking the chocolate chisel downstairs into his workshop.... MelissaH

Hey, a keggerator! I keep waiting for my husband the homebrewer to decide he's ready for one. Then all we'd need to do is find room in amongst the bicycles, the table saw, and---oh yeah---the car! MelissaH

I just acquired a copy yesterday. I'm working my way through it, as if it were a novel, and I'm enjoying it greatly. To me, the photos add greatly to the ambience. MelissaH

We're back from a working vacation to Belgium and Amsterdam, and tomorrow morning (take advantage of the jetlag and our new propensity to bounce out of bed at 5 AM) we're meeting with our designer to see her drawings. I can't wait! MelissaH

Thanks for this. It will be most helpful to have the Chinese characters together with the English translations, so the next time I find myself in a Chinatown, I don't need to rely upon finding someone to tell me what's what! MelissaH

My husband made his first-ever quiche last night. And in the crust, he used 7 Tbsp. butter and 2 Tbsp. duck fat. It turned out quite yummy, although not excessively ducky. I'd describe it as more crumbly than flaky, but in the context of the rest of the quiche it worked fine. MelissaH

We already have another Weber: one of their propane grills, which has worked marvelously for us for many years. (It was a wedding gift from my uncle! We probably got our two most-used gifts from my dad's two brothers: the grill from his older brother and the pasta pot from his younger brother. And I'm not sure that either of them actually cook much!) What are your favorite sources of wood chunks? We have lots of maple and ash firewood, but we also have lots of poison ivy that grows in the local woodlots. MelissaH

We met with the designer yesterday. She came here, armed with pad, pen, and tape measure, and measured everything. We also talked about the sorts of things we like and don't like, showed her some of the pictures from our scrapbook, and lent her our latest IKEA catalog because they're difficult to come by in these parts (hours of driving from any of their stores). The way it works: she takes the measurements and our ideas back to her drawing board, and comes back to us in a couple of weeks with a few drawings. She'll go through the drawings with us, and when we pay her fee the drawings are ours. We can take or leave as much of it as we want. If we need more work, it's on an hourly basis. I particularly like that she's not trying to sell us anything except her services. Something that we do want to explore, once we have a firmer idea of cabinet plans, is the cost and quality of IKEA compared to what we can get through our local hardware store. While I like the IKEA cabinets, something we've become quite aware of since moving to a small town is buying locally from local vendors when the choice exists. (There's also the small matter of fixing things that don't go as planned: if the wrong cabinet gets sent, it would be a huge deal for us to ship back the old one and get a new one shipped in, compared to calling the hardware store a mile down the road.) If they have something in a style we find appealing and of comparable quality and price, we'd be inclined to go local. If not, we'll need to make plans to visit our friends in Connecticut again. I'm most curious to see how her designs are similar to, and different from, the ideas we've put together in this thread. MelissaH

The propane smoker has been returned. Both the manufacturer and the place I bought it from were terrific about the whole thing. The guy who helped me carry the rig from the car to the store was a little amazed at my husband's dremel tool handiwork, and wondered aloud how the burner ever made it through quality control with that sort of flaw. I plan to bite the charcoal bullet get a WSM, but probably not until after I get back from an upcoming trip to Belgium and the Netherlands. I'm already scoping out plastic waterproof containers that will be large enough to hold charcoal and wood chips, if not also the chimney starter I'll need, but that can also be weighted or tied down so as not to blow away in our winds. Another month or so and I should be back into smokingland. I'll have to try chicken thighs again, to try and get them properly cooked this time. Do I sense a brisket coming up for this year's seder? MelissaH

I'll try to remember to take a picture of my bag and add it to this thread so you know something that's not barley malt powder. MelissaH

I'm so excited! The kitchen designer's coming to take a look at our space and talk to us on Thursday morning! MelissaH

Post-mortem, test results in: I made my phone calls. According to the folks at King Kooker, I did everything right. It sounds as though we took all the necessary precautions, and managed to avoid the problems common to these burners, like tripping tank valves due to not getting the flame lit soon enough. (The mystery part, BTW, is apparently a piece that comes and goes with the years; as I understand it, it goes on the ground under the burner, to help protect the ground underneath from hours of burning. ) But all the troubleshooting we ran through related to the burner, not to the smoker. And my husband's a pro with this style of burner, since he's been using one for the past six years or so. Interestingly, they'd heard about me before I called them: the place I bought the beast from called the manufacturer earlier today, to let them know that someone had gotten the wrong instruction manual. Anyway, I got permission from them to return the beast to where I got it. I called them to give them the heads-up. We'd planned to make a trip down that way anyway, so we'll just add this to our list of errands tomorrow. If they have one in stock, a WSM may be very tempting. Those of you who are charcoal gods, how do you store it? We don't have much indoor space for that sort of thing, so I'm going to be looking for something that's weatherproof. MelissaH