Porthos

I tried to do a little regular grocery shopping this morning at my local Costco. Parking should have been my clue. I needed to get to the grocery section which is on the far side of the building. I saw a line of shoppers headed to the registers going up the main aisle and so I kept walking to the back of the store trying to get around "the end of the line." The queue continued across the back of the store and half way up the outside wall. After I got to the other side of the queue for checking out of the store I realized that I didn't really need the four items I was after: I had just come to shop as a normal part of my Friday. Eventually I abandoned my cart and left the store - not easily done. I went on to my usual grocery store, figuring if I saw too many cars in the parking lot I'd just head home. There were more cars than usual, but nothing insane. I went in and did do my shopping, taking note of things that were way different from a couple of days ago. Rice and beans had been decimated. the was maybe 5% of the pasta left. Flour was gone. at least 80% of the canned beans were gone. None of this was on my list except the beans, and they still had what I wanted. Cup'o'noodles were being snapped up. The best thing the store did to keep some level of control (they were getting busier by the minute) was to have a grouper a la Disneyland near the registers directing the flow of shoppers heading to check out. I had a pleasant conversation with the shoppers behind me. He started it by asking me if I remembered the gasoline shortage from decades ago. I smiled and replied, "red flags - green flags" and it went on from there. If we were quarantined for 2 weeks, we'd have no problem feeding ourselves from our pantry and freezer. ETA we wouldn't even have to use any of our disaster survival food.

I did not read the entire article but I have a question for you regarding overhead. I worked in the electronics engineering and manufacturing arena. Everything it took to keep the business running, it's overhead, was "funded" by the "overehead burden," simply a percentage of the cost to produce the items sold, typically 35%. In food terms if I could make a gourmet donut for the cost of a dollar, $0.35 would be added into the selling price to cover the overhead. In the restaurant business, is there a similar money management model to keep the business open?

MY bad. It was 1.99.

Offered right now is Fix-It and Forget-It Cooking for Two: 150 Small-Batch Slow Cooker Recipes for $1.99 US on Amazon. I've just bought it. Now the question is if I'll actually cook from it.

I posted about the titanium-ceramic pan line Vollrath Pro-HG a little over 6 years ago. We've now owned them for 15ish years and I'm still happy with them. The 8" saute pan died within about 5 years, whereas everything else is perking along albiet my 10" and 12" saute pans are starting to clearly show their age. A couple of years ago I was able to buy a second 10" Pro-HG saute pan for cheap at a thrift store. My original 10" saute pan is still serviceable but since it's my go-to size both hang on my pot rack. I still add butter to my non-stick pans when making eggs - for flavor as well as helping with non-stickiness. Eggs seem to have a mind of their own. I do have well-seasoned cast iron but I prefer the quicker heating and better heat distribution of my Vollrath pans for eggs. My CI finds most of it's use for searing sous vide meats just before serving. I've not had problems with rivets failing or spot welds failing with any of my cookware, some of it over 40 years old. Not sure what the difference between what I own versus what other people own but I've never understood that concern. Except for cast iron all of my cookware goes into the dishwasher.

A movie came out when I was a young adult about sharks titled, "Blue Water, White Death." That's what I call skim milk.

Living in southern California we have to be prepared for life-disrupting earthquakes. We have a store of food laid in for that, along with water. There's TP in those supplies as well. We buy Scott bathroom tissue by the 36-roll pack so running out of TP is not really a concern; I just bought more because we were running low, nothing to do with the pandemic. Running out of ice cream, however, would make me whiny. Even though I have quit both renaissance faires I had been part of, my wife and daughter are still active in the guild kitchen and I have started acquiring a few foodstuffs that can go in the freezer. It will be interesting to see if the covid-19 issue causes cancellation of the faire by the health authorities. Hoping not.

Yay! An excuse reason to not eat them. Oh shucky darns.

@Kerry Beal Are you on sabbatical, retired, or just insanely busy?

My DW and SIL went with a Samsung suite of kitchen appliances as well as their clothes washer and dryer. They had to have warranty work done on several items in the first couple of years, and a leak screwed up their flooring. It was replaced. No thanks.

I do wish Bosch would offer a replacement lower basket that had one even pattern of "fingers" since the varied pattern doesn't meet my needs quite as well. Like it otherwise.

I need to figure out where I put mine, though these days I use very few wine glasses.

My favorite restaurant supply store is about a 25 minute drive, but I have reason to go in that direction fairly often. I've looked (for grins) at commercial stoves at a Costco Business Center. On the price cards with the feature list they all, along with refrigerators and freezers, state the the warranty is void if used in a home. I lust after a Blue Star range, but that will most likely be all I ever do. Since we hope to move out of California in another couple of years, I wouldn't want to leave one here in this typical 35+ y/o track home.

I love this. It looks like a pot rack seen in the kitchen of Downton Abbey, and I liked seeing it there. Thanks for sharing.

@KennethT Do you have a "Blue Print" layout of your new kitchen you could share with us.

Another vote for Bosch dishwashers. MY DW and I are dead-set against ice makers. Too many leaks, too many fails among family and friends. We have a semi-automatic ice maker. When I ready to put together a load of dishes to run, I start by cracking 2 or 3 trays of ice into the ice-keeper we keep in the freezer, start more ice using our Britta pitcher, then re-fill the Britta pitcher with cold water from hot hot water pipe while waiting for the water to get hot. ETA: What's an m/w? Never mind, I figured it out.

Welcome back. I've read through a similar article that shows up on Facebook, I believe from Amazon. It was clear that it was written to stir up sales. I do agree with melted spatulas, and damaged wooded spoons. Like kayb, my cutting boards go into the dishwasher (I don't use wooden boards at all). My microplane is only used 3-4 times a year. Still very sharp. I don't replace anything on an annual basis, but rather when something is no longer in good condition. ETA: Paring knives? Really? Only if you haven't a clue of how to sharpen your own knives.

Here in the US we use the decimal point as the radix (integer to fraction) separator. Europe uses the comma.

I did add vanilla ice cream with blackberries and Chambord for dessert.

When I asked Mrs. Porthos what she wanted for a Valentine's Day dinner she requested meat loaf. So the traditional meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans it is.

My comments below are not meant to bash other's opinions, just express my viewpoint. After having the Demeyere pan for over a year and a half I've come to the conclusion that for the way I cook it wasn't a good investment. I rarely use it. It's significantly heavier than my go-to pans and with my health issues that figures into to it. It does clean up with relative ease and I like that. They recommend against putting it in the dishwasher because eventually it won't be as pretty. It goes in anyway. There are 2 knives in my kitchen that don't go into the dishwasher. Everything else does. I was expecting a noticeable difference in evenness of heat distribution and I didn't see that. That was the main "selling point" to me. I'm not saying that it's a bad pan. It just isn't worth the expense to me. I'm happy for those who like theirs.

Family Traditions Meat Company Recalls Ready-to-Eat Meat Stick Products Due to Misbranding and an Undeclared Allergen

I should have mentioned up-thread that when cooking things that could splatter I do don an apron. I don't do much that could splatter so I didn't think of mentioning it earlier.

This showed up in my email a couple of days ago: 9 Rules for Naked Dining: The Etiquette of Nude Resorts