kalypso

I own MasterCook 8 and am not that thrilled with it. Oh, sure, it serves it's purpose, but I don't find it to be especially user friendly and not particularly instinctual. I also understand my experience/preference may not be the norm. The CIA - the school, not the covert government agency - recently came out with their own recipe software i-PROChef. Has anyone used it? If so, how user friendly is it. At $80 it's not a huge investment of funds, but I'd like a few reviews from users before I plunk my money down. TIA

One of my employees submitted a tape for this season, clearly - and luckily for him - he was not selected. I would not want to see him subjected to what this current crop of contestants has been put through. I thought my employee would have made a great contestant, his cooking is solid, he's engaging, he's fairly telegenic and he's got a good head on his shoulders. I would not have wanted to have seen him ripped to shreds on television in the so called evaluation segment. No on deserves that. I think many of us watching probably do think about what we would do, or would have done, for each of the tasks. And, no doubt, most of us think we could have done better even though what we see is the final edited version and not what really happened. So Mark, I'd say go for it. Your management experience would probably be very helpful, particularly with regard to decision making and direction on the team challenges.

Eje, thanks, I will try the mineral oil. That thought had crossed my mind. Nancy, thanks for the comment about my former avatar. The cat was one of my Maine Coon cats (which I used to breed). His full name was GC/GP Lagunacoon Obi Juan Koonobi. He was quite large and the biggest chicken in the world. He reminded me quite a bit of Marmaduke the comic strip great dane. Unfortunately, Obi developed a very fast moving and malignant tumor in his mouth last fall and I lost him shortly before his 15th birthday. He may make a comeback at some point as my avatar

Well, if you believe Wikipedia she may be the next one to go. Wiki results There seems not to be any order or reason to their listing of the last 4 standing, but the elimination of the previous competitors is in order. If this is to be believed Amy and JAG would be the final two contestants.

I think the purpose of the Vin Santo is to add some sweetness to the livers. There is a lightnes to Vin Santo that I'm not sure either Port or Madeira have. If you decide to use Port I think I'd opt for Tawny Port over Ruby Port, as I think it might be more in the spirit of Vin Santo than would the Ruby Port. I like your recipe tho'. I happen to have an open bottle of Vin Santo and was casting about for a good recipe in which to use it. This sounds like it might do the trick. As for the term correct seasonings, yes, you are on the right track. I have always understood it to mean that you taste the dish near completion to see if the level of seasoning is satisfactory to your palate. You're looking for the overall balance of flavors in the dish. Since salt is a flavor enhancer for many things usually you're just dealing with salt but not always. Correct the seasonings is when you taste something you're preparing and your mouth (and brain) say "hmmm....needs something else". The something else are the seasonings you use to make it taste the way you want it. In the crostini recipe you posted, salt is probably the key seasoning but since it also contains garlic, ginger, orange peel and sweet wine, if you think it needs something else, you might also want to consider adding a little more garlic, or a little more sweet, or a little more heat. Generally if a recipe says correct seasonings it's more of a small tweak than a major adjustment. If the recipe is structurally sound to begin with any corrections should be minor.

My father was stationed at Pearl Harbor during WWII. While he was there he purchased quite a few pieces of Monkeypod wood dishware. The Monkeypod dishes were a fixture at many family, holiday and birthday meals throughout my childhood. There is probably more sentimental value than dollar value attached to these dishes at this point. My mother has 4 rather attractive serving pieces left. For being 60+ years old, and in semi-regular use for a good number of years, they're in pretty good shape, but they do need some attention. The finish has worn off in a few spots on 2 pieces and the other 2 have a rather lackluster appearance. The wood appears to be in good shape as there are no cracks, splits or other damage. I'm looking for ideas, suggestions, recommendations for conditioning, reconditioning or otherwise preserving these 4 pieces for the next 60 years. I know nothing about Monkeypod wood or how to treat it.

Drat! I will be in Mexico City on the 20th. My father was a big band musician so as a consequence I have an inordinate fondness for it. I grew up listening to this stuff and a lot of the earlier jazz that is part of the foundation for the entire big band era. I would go in a heartbeat if I were in town. If you guys aren't impressed with the way the acoustics will make you sound, I'll be very surprised. Let us know how the gig goes and what your impression turn out to be.

I'm sorry, I just can't get past those blindingly white, not to mention HUGE teeth. I don't care what size her chest is, every time I see her all I hear is the theme song from Jaws and flash on a visual of Bruce the shark from Jaws. Or perhaps she just gives new meaning to the term "land shark". After last night TNFNS definitely jumped the shark. Unless this show has been edited to make these people look utterly ridiculous, Bob and Susie should be worried right about now, very worried. Not one of the remaining 4 contestants is very likeable and none of them very marketable. I watch this thing every week thinking they'll get better. Each week I watch incredulously as they get worse...much worse. Alton Brown was right, send them back and start over again.

JAG? They ALL need Prozac. Last night went beyond train wreck. FNTV can't seriously think people will actually watch these folks...can they? Last night was painful.

So I made it to Anthology this past week. The owners claim they put $1 million into the acoustics/sound system...and I believe them. The sound was terrific in this small, intimate and oh so sexy and sophisticated (for San Diego) venue. Anthology is in a long, narrow space spread out over 3 stories and smartly decorated with lush fabrics, soft buttery leather and dark wood. Does the food match up with the decor and sound? For the most part yes, but I definitely have the impression that the kitchen is not yet living up to it's full potential and hasn't quite hit it's stride. Everything we ate was, at worst, good, most of it was very good, and there were a few things that really showed hints of brilliance. For starters we opted for the Duet of Maytag Blue Cheese Souffles and the Deviled Eggs. Both my dining companion and I are big fans of blue cheese and neither of us were disappointed, the souffles were airy and intensely flavored with the blue cheese. I ordered the deviled eggs mostly out of curiosity since they are one of those items not frequently seen on upscale menus, but often done incredibly badly by home chefs. So I wanted to see what a couple of high-end chefs would do with them. Well, here we are 3 halves each filled with some finely shredded crab, then topped with creamy yolks. The egg halves were nestled into some shredded greens that had been tossed with a little (Russian or 1,000 Island?) dressing. The pickled bell peppers on the plate were mild, delicious and still crunchy. It would be hard to say which appetizer was the better of the 2 because both were very good, but I'd probably have to give a slight nod in the direction of the blue cheese souffles. The deviled eggs were quite good and a lot of fun, but I think the souffles showed off what the kitchen is capable of a little better. For mains we went with the prime rib cap steak, medium rare, and the green tea soba noodles with vegetables and a few slices of steak. The cap steak arrived perfectly medium rare and was accompanied by a couple stalks of asparagus and a couple green beans - and I literally mean a couple, as in 2 each - a pile of crisply fried shallots and a small noisette of very dense (too dense) buttermilk mashers and a smidgen of the most amazing corn puree that, yes, made me swoon. Unfortunately, the corn was just a smidgen The green tea soba noodles were unusual and tasty; the green tea flavor was apparent and did not get lost in mix of things going on in the dish, as I think it easily could have. There was a tempura pepper that was really terrific and some grilled baby bok choy that looked terrific, but which I did not get to taste. 4 nice, meaty slices of steak complimented both the noodles and vegetables. This was a beautifully presented dish with a lot of color and visual interest. Sorry no pictures of the entrees (or desserts for that matter). And speaking of dessert, we did partake. Portion sizes have been designed to be smaller plates, about three quarters the size of a normal restaurant serving. This leaves room for dessert. I had the donuts filled with tangerine pastry cream and served with a chocolate sabayonne. My friend had the made-to-order tapioca with orange flavor. My friend thought my donuts were too sweet, cloyingly sweet. I did not, and I don't do cloyingly sweet well. The donuts are supposed to be the signature dessert and on the dessert menu they certainly do jump out as the choice to make. But I am here to tell you that tapioca is one of the best things I've tasted in a long time. It's rich, creamy and completely decadent. Served warm with shards of candied orange rind and a buttery cookie it seemed like nothing more than a mixture of luxurious creme anglaise and tapioca. Whatever, if the slight chewiness of tapioca doesn't put you off, this is the dessert to go for. I can guarantee you, grandma's tapioca pudding never looked or tasted like this. Service was extremely good. It showed that time had been taken to train and educate the entire waitstaff. Our waitress - Erin - was friendly, attentive and able to answer all the questions we had, and we had many, about both the menu and how the Anthology concept works, because, as a supper club with live entertainment, you can't exactly just walk in. Tickets are required for entry; they may be purchased through ticketmaster or through the Anthology box office. The box office is open the day of the show selling remaining tickets and what they call SRO tickets. SRO doesn't really mean you have to stand, it means you can sit at the first floor bar or have a seat on the 3rd floor. There is beverage and - I think, though I could be wrong here - only appetizer service on the 3rd level. So, I guess that you can just walk-in, but your seating and dining options may be a bit limited. For dinner service there is the option of a pre fixe dinner package for $65 which does not include beverages, or a la carte service. When I purchased my tickets I passed on the pre fixe dinner package and I'm glad I did. The menu is interesting and, as I found out, turned out to be the better value. 2 cocktails, 1 glass of wine, 1 cup of coffee, 2 apps, 2 entrees, 2 desserts and tax came to $129 before tip. The bottom line is that for dinner, drinks and a show it was a little under $100 per person, and no attempt was made to go "budget" for this evening. Our tickets were not the least or the most expensive, our drinks were not the least expensive, nor was any of the food. Not exactly a cheap evening, but for the quality of space, the food and the entertainment it really was a very good value. I left having been well fed and well entertained and plotting my next visit.

My guess would be that the contestants are shut off from the world so that they can't receive any help or coaching that could possibly give them an advantage over the others. To me it seems like FNTV is trying to keep the playing field level. I admit I watch this show with a mix of fascinated horror and guilty pleasure, but there is one thing that I'm discovering I'm tiring of very quickly, and it's not the contestants. The FNTV honchos talk about how the contestants have to be authorities on food (not likely) be spot-on on camera and command the respect and attention of their audience. Frankly, I'm getting tired of seeing the contestants being denigrated, belittled and basically made to feel insignificant during the "evaluation" portion of the show. I derive no pleasure and for me it certainly isn't entertainment to watch people being slammed for not measuring up to artificially contrived standards. The message coming through to me loud and clear from Bob, Susie and the judge du jour is that they have very little respect for the contestants and that the real objective isn't finding the next network star so much as it is being a part of reality TV and a ratings ploy. It doesn't really matter if a contestant can cook or if they have any level of viable food knowledge and/or ability to effectively convey it. The resulting show for the winner doesn't matter. What matters is that there is entertainment value in TNFNS. Watching people verbally abused and attacked doesn't float my boat and after last week's espisode I don't really care who wins because I won't watch. I dont' find any of the contestants particularly compelling or interesting. I do wonder, however, if FNTV has agreed to pay for their psychotherapy after the show

Oh man, I love this topic! There is not a potato on the face of this Earth that does not have my name on it #5 - My family's potato salad #4 - Potatoes au gratin #3 - and one of my 4 basic food groups - French fries #2 - a big ol baker with butter, salt, pepper, chive or green onions (sour cream optional) #1 - Mashers, the perfect blend of mealy potato, milk, butter, salt and pepper. Add-ins welcome. There is a taco shop here in San Diego, Mama Testa's , that does a mean mashed potato taco. They got other really great tacos on the menu but it's hard for me to get past the Empapados that put me in potato paradise

This is not a true statement. - School lunch programs are NOT self supporting, they are funded by the U.S. government, meaning they are funded by our tax dollars. - A school district that does not have significant portion of fee and reduced lunch eligible students almost always has to subsidize their food service operation. Every school lunch director has heard that their program can not "infringe on the General Fund" because that means the district has to pay, and many, many do. - Yes, food service operations have to pay their own food cost, but what they don't get from the USDA in the way of commodities is purchased by General Fund monies. USDA Commodities cost $2/case (they are NOT free to the school district) and any finished food product made from donated USDA Commodities is about 80-90% cheaper than retail. Commodities are not universally bad, they just aren't created equal...commodity cheese can take many forms, some of it is really quite good. Schools are offered commodities 4-6 times a year and their offerings are based on the percentage of fee/reduced priced students and what the Feds need to move off the market. Given the meteoric rise in cheese prices this spring, there probably will not be much available. - Food service operations in public schools do not typically pay rent to the district. Many cash strapped districts - particularly in the State of California - have tried to charge food service programs outrageous overhead fees for repairs, utilities, etc., to cover their own shortfalls. Many states have now passed laws amending their State Education Codes to preclude this practice. - Unless contracted, most school food service employees are District employees and part of the district payroll system, which really means that our tax dollars are paying these people. Many school districts do not employee food service workers for more than 3 3/4 hrs./day in order to avoid paying benefits, which is a very costly proposition these days. My information is based on my 10 years as a school food service director, including 5 years as Dir. of FS for the San Francisco Unified School District in the early 90s. It's a brutal way to make a living.

My grandparents owned and operated a poultry ranch when I was growing up. They, of course, butchered their own birds and we ate a lot of them. The advice given so far is right on, but I would like one thing. The age of the chicken is also a factor. Broiler (approx. 16 weeks) are suitable for preparations where tenderness is important. Older birds need different prep methods, more like braises and stews because they are tough. My grandparents sold their old laying hens as "stewers". If my grandmother sent my sister or I out to ask our uncle for "an old hen" it meant chicken and dumplings and she slow cooked that chicken for a couple of hours. If she sent us out after a "young bird" it meant ( YUM) fried chicken. I, too, have a local place that butchers live chickens. I made the mistake one time of not specifying that I wanted a young bird and ended up with an old hen (head and feet included) that really didn't take to well to being roasted.

Nancy Baggett's cookie cookbook is very good. I've cooked from it with good success.

Don Julio reposada is an excellent upscale brand of tequila. If you can find it Don Fernando is even better. It's probably the smoothest tequila I think I've ever had the chance to sample. It's also nicely flavored, most likely because it's aged in French oak barrels previously used for chardonnay. As for food, I think tequila compliments many foods. Keep it simple and keep it light. Seafood tostadas or cocktails (marisco coctales), grilled lobster halves, grilled chicken with a citrus based marinade, sauce or glaze or pork ribs with the same citrus based flavoring.

Unfortunately, I suspect they're serious, dead serious. Interesting how the contestants are expected to show and convey that they can: a) cook a knock-your-socks-off dish that actually tastes good b) do a magazine worthy plating each time c) do a verbal presentation worthy of a (Daytime) Emmy d) project the image of a food "authority" (whatever that really is) e) let their "real" personality shine through .......all in 30 seconds to 3 mintues HELLO.....most people I know can't even do that in 3 years, let along the artificially short time frames these people are being given It's just so Food Network. Good grief they let Nikki do 2 episodes wearing stilletos in the kitchen. Now SERIOUSLY folks...do you know any chef that would 1) wear stilletos while working (what they do on their off hours is their business) or 2) let any of their employees wear stilletos while working a station. FNTV must have really good liability insurance. And how deliciously and wickedly catty was Giada? This show is a train wreck in a fun way. It's so unreal and contrived that it's actually entertaining to see the hoops they'll set these people up to jump through and to see the contestants basically say "how high". Paul is too, too hyper-kinetic for his own good; he wears me out just watching. I get lost trying to count all of Rory's teeth. I like Michael (like the fish) Salmon, and think he should have won the Bon Apetite cover, but there's something disingenuous about him. Amy? Honey, I've got news for her, I live in San Diego too; the NBA Clippers departed SD for LA 20+ years ago and you won't find a chicken and goat cheese quesadilla with mango salsa at either the Charger's Qualcomm stadium or the Padres Petco Park. So that leaves Jag - if he'd quite trying to prove his cooking chops (he's the only one with them) - and just do Latin fusion, he'd win. And Adrien, who is smooth and engaging on camera, kind of like a Tyler Florence clone. So yeah, I gotta keep tuning in each week to see how wonderfully weird, whacky and awful they can be. This is the show to watch in all it's campy, kitschy splendor, not the show they winner will eventually end up with, that will, no doubt, be given the time-slot from H*ll and doomed to certain failure.

I LOVE this restaurant Casa de Madera. I returned there for dinner tonight with 2 friends. It was better than lunch a week ago. They've only been open 3 weeks but even in that 1 week they've made great progress. They've got an interesting drink menu, heavy on the weird and wacky martini incarnations, but also several iterations of the margarita as well. Plus they have a create you own margarita where you pick your tequila and pick your triple sec/orange liquor to customize your drink. My friend Pat had a Cognac and Tuaca cocktail that was remarkably light and refreshing. I had a Don Fernando reposado shooter with sangrita. The Don Fernando was about as good as it gets, possibly the smoothest tequila I've ever tasted. The sangrita was a purchased mix and far to sweet. Another friend joined us for dinner. We split a queso appetizer that was so satisfying, not remotely related to either queso fundido or Tex-Mex queso. A nice size round of queso fresco had been warmed through so that it was soft. It was drenched in good olive oil and garnished with crushed Mexican oregano and served with fresh, hot, house made corn tortillas which were about as good as it gets. All of us ended up ordering seafood. I had camerones and got 5 good sized shrimps (probably U15) that had been perfectly cooked and were definitely not rubbery. They were served with 2 sauces, an excellent tamarind one and a mango sauce that was tasty but just a tad too sweet for me. Pat had a chile relleno stuffed with seafood. The chile was a poblano, not the anaheim that is frequently used, and the sauce served with it light and a good match for the chile. Our friend Phee had the lobster crepes with an ancho chile and pine nut sauce. This dish was a real winner and Phee graciously allowed me to help sop up some of the excess sauce with one of those luscious tortillas. A lot of Mexican cooking is about the sauce, not the center of the plate protein. They are generous with their sauce and with good reason, so far every one of them I've tried has been quite good. We ordered 2 desserts the arroz con leche and flan. The flan was more like a cheesecake than flan, but it had a nice flavor. The arroz con leche was pretty good but could have used some additional flavor notes from raisins or citrus. We had questions about the food and our waitress was kind enough to get the chef to come out and talk to us about the dishes. She's very excited to be cooking in San Diego and confirmed that her approach is firmly alta-cocina (I am elated). From what we could gather they're going to do a grand opening in a couple of weeks. Be ahead of the curve on this one. Go now if only for those fabulous corn tortillas. What's not to like. Wood, leather, good tequila, walls with water running down them and a Diego Rivera mural into which Che, Sub Commandante Marcos, Ceasar Chavez and the UFW have all been, remarkably and seamlessly, inserted. If I lived closer I'd be a regular...

You have to remember that I travel in Mexico frequently, including off the beaten path. I've eaten all over Mexico in all kinds of venues from street stalls to alt-cocina dining rooms. I've been a more than serious student of Mexican food for more than 20 years, which includes classes with Rick Bayless, Susanna Trilling, Diana Kennedy, Marilyn Tausend, Ricardo Muñoz and more. My understanding and perspective on Mexican cuisine is not necessarily the same as other people, and what I consider authentic is probably not going to dovetail with what others think is authentic. And then there is, of course, the whole argument about what is authentic I'm actually more forgiving of Mexican food in SD than many other people I know, mostly because I've gotten over the authentic issue. I'm not so worried about something having to be "just like I had in Mexico". What I am looking for is how fresh are the ingredients, how close is the flavor profile of a dish to it's Mexican roots, has an effort been made to use traditional ingredients (i.e. using a fresh chile rather than a canned one for chile rellenos, or cabbage instead of shredded lettuce, or cotija cheese, not yellow shreds), and how much Americanization of the dish has happened. The other things that I really do take into consideration are the American palate, eating habits, customer expectations and business/operational limits put on some things by the SD County Department of Environmental Health. Cal-Mex and Tex-Mex are both viable cousins of Mexican cuisine and I have no problem with either. Are they authentic Mexican? No, they are a subgroup of a master cuisine. Both, however, can stand on their own as homage the first waves of immigrants who used creativity and ingenuity to take the products available in their new location and craft them into dishes reflecting their homeland and heritage. It's part of the path of transformation and assimilation. I grew up eating Cal-Mex Mexican food and love it. It resembles Mexcian cuisine, especially the cuisine of Jalisco, Sonora, Nyarit and Colima, but it's not the same. I probably could have used a different pharse than "clearly not authentic" because I actually didn't intend it to be a negative. But, for example, the entree I had was listed on the menu as a taco. It then went on to say the taco was served "enchilada style". Now, I've not been everywhere in Mexico, but I have been a lot of places, and I've never seen a taco labeled as this. Call it what it is, an enchilada. The restaurant has taken liberties with the menu items, the menu descriptions and some of the preparations. This is not necessarily a bad or negative thing; the dishes we had were really quite good and the flavors very close to what I would find in Mexico. Casa de Madera is in a high rent area, they will need to appeal to a wide range of tastes and an American mindset and palate that equates Mexcian food with traditional Americanized items like tacos, burritos, tamales and nachos. For them to be completely and 100% authentic would be very hard and very costly. I think the other danger is in equating traditional with authentic. Some of the best Mexican food I've had has been alta-cocina and it's no less authentic than a traditional bowl of pozole. For really good traditional Mexican food that is very close to authentic traditional as you're going to get in San Diego, check out Super Cocina in City Heights at the corner of 37th & University. Then walk down to the next corner and stop in to Fruitilandia for a Mexcian style fruit salad, which is very close, very close to the bionicos I've purchased in local markets. But everything boils down to what definition of authentic people are using. Okay, sorry, TMI...

Jaymes has a point, life kind of takes a toll on the body over time and when you reach a certain point bending, stooping and squatting to get stuff out of the fridge looses it's appeal. My mother's house was originally a model home and the cabinets were built in place. As a result, over the 40 years she's lived in this house, we've discovered that many walls, doors and other spaces aren't a standard size. Let's just say that finding replacement appliances has always been an adventure in this house. The current space for a refrigerator is smaller than the standard 36". The side-by-side she currently has was the only one my folks could find 12 years ago that fit the space; it helps that it's a standard depth unit. The freezer space is a bit narrow, but the refrigeration space is not. I mostly use half sheet pans which are a breeze to get into either side of her current unit, tho' it can be tricky in the freezer if she's been to Costco. However, everything is probably moot now. This afternoon we went looking at flooring and since the kitchen remodel is only the first step in a whole house renno, we looked at flooring options with an eye towards the rest of the house. We found flooring that is beautiful, would look amazing in most of the house and fits in the budget. The reality actually hit us both. We'll get a heck of a lot bigger return on the investment for good flooring than we will for any appliance we put in the kitchen. I'm pretty sure she's leaning towards going for the best all-round package deal on appliances rather than higher end so that she can sink the savings into things that will enhance the resale value of the house, like flooring, cabinets, paint and lighting. Strangely, I'm actually okay with that.

I realize rebates can be tempting, and everything 'matches', brandwise. But I wouldn't do it. (pssssst! look at the repair history - and the Consumer Reports recent ratings for Frigidaire refrigerators. You can get online access to CR for a very reasonable price; I've saved my subscription $ many times over.) Happy decision making.... ← Ladies, thank you both for your posts. Consumer Reports is my next stop this morning before I have to cart my mom over to Home Depot to look at tile and flooring and then over to a couple of other flooring stores. Unfortunately, after all these years with my mother, I've learned that the $$$ really does talk and is a bottom line factor with her. Yesterday while we were waiting for the technician that was helping us to get the pricing and spec sheets pulled together, I mentioned to my mom that just because it was on sale or had a rebated didn't mean it was going to be the best choice. Over the course of my career I've probably purchased somewhere around $5 million in commercial kitchen equipment and there are some brands I won't touch with the perverbial 10' pole because they have such a poor track record. I tried to explain to her that she needed to consider durability, reliability, ease of repair and frequency of repair when making her purchase. If you're always spending money to fix or repair a piece of equipment, you're adding to the actual cost of the unit. Clearly, she hadn't thought about that. The challenge here for me now is to try and make her understand why spending a little more up front on her purchases may actually be the more economically sound decision over time.

Thanks for all the comments. We made another trip to the appliance showroom today that was actually rather productive. No matter which brand she buys it will be standard depth. It doesn't matter how much she cooks or doesn't cook, she just doesn't like the shallow units. Most everything has pull out shelves on some kind of glide rack that even she can manage. She was able to eliminate the bottom mounted freezer units because bending over to sift through freezer baskets isn't her thing. Plus as a product of the depression and avid Costco shopper her freezer (and pantry for that matter) are well stocked. So side-by-side it is. She's narrowed it down to a Kitchenaid or a Frigidaire and I have more than a sneaking suspicion she'll go with the Frigidaire. Frigidaire is running a package special until the end of the month; for every appliance purchased, they'll rebate $100 up to $500. My mother needs a slide in range, microwave hood, the fridge and a dishwasher. That's a $400 rebate + her contractor's discount. What will probably seal the deal is that her 40 year old Frigidaire clothes dryer is just about to bite the dust, so she can get that too and bump the rebate up to $500. Remember Depression-era children do not spend their money willingly nor friviously. They are frugal to a fault and big fans of coupons and rebates. Frigidaire is built by Electrolux. We have a 40 year old Electrolux can vac that has outlasted at least 5 other vacuum cleaners and shows no signs of wearing out. I've heard some pretty good things about Electrolux appliances, let's hope their American unit is just as good.

I have both the Quintana books and all of Rick Bayless' books. The original/first edition of The Taste of Mexico was not particularly well edited and there are numerous errors. Some you can catch just because the recipe or instructions don't exactly make sense. At one time I had a list of errata and corrections but no longer do. I believe - but am not sure - that the errors were corrected in later editions. I think Mexico's Feasts of Life is a better book anyway. It's more approachable and easier to cook from. Authentic Mexican was Rick's first cookbook and it is very good. the recipes are traditional, cooking techniques are well and clearly explained. I have an original edition with the red dust cover. I believe it has been reissued and is currently being used in conjunction with his PBS series. I haven't seen the newer edition(s) so I can't comment on how much re-editing might have been done. Rick's recipes are generally pretty accurate and the resulting dish pretty tasty. If you're looking for a Rick Bayless cookbook I prefer his 2nd book Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen and Salsas That Cook. If you're simply looking for a Mexican cookbook go with Diana Kennedy, either My Mexico or The Art of Mexican Cooking.

That would be the poster known as Anonimo, who sometimes posts here on eGullet. Thank you, Kalypso; here on EG I'm known as PanosMex ← Oops, sorry 'bout that. I knew something didn't look quite right when I wrote it.

My mother is remodeling her house, starting with the kitchen. She's not exactly a spring chicken so a lot of the leg work has fallen to me. I've purchased a huge amount of commercial kitchen equipment for work, so figuring out what she needs for most of the kitchen isn't too terribly difficult. However,... My go to refrigerator (Traulsen) for work purposes isn't a viable option for home use. So I'm looking for recommendations for good, reliable refrigerators. My mother's preference is for a side-by-side with somewhere between 21-25 cu. ft. She does not want a unit with the freezer on top, but has expressed a little bit of interest in the new units with the freezer on the bottom and side-by-side doors on top. We're also interested in comments about counter-depth vs. standard depth My mother has pretty much ruled out GE. My sister remodeled her house - well actually, she rebuilt it - and put a GE Monogram fridge in her kitchen. She and her family absolutely DETEST it due to the lack of overall storage in it. Traulsen is now owned by Hobart, which also owns Kitchenaid. We've looked at the KA side-by-sides and they are on the short list, so any specific info on their durability and service would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks.