Porthos

I don't know the specifics of the science behind this but California Unified Retail Food Facility Law does recognize hot water as a sanitizing method: 114060. Requirements for Manual Sanitization (a) Manual sanitization shall be accomplished in the final sanitizing rinse by one of the following: . . . (4) Contact with water of at least 82 degrees Celsius (180 degrees Fahrenheit) for 30 seconds. As for me, I'm in the 100 PPM of bleach camp. Works for me. And, yes, I use test strips to verify the concentration. I respect the right of others to disagree, but I have known to many commercial kitchen operators who use this method to be deterred in my personal choice.

I lost my ATM/Visa Check Card this morning. Until the new one shows up I am safe.

I was so intrigued by this title I just bought a used copy on ebay using some gift money. Not being fat-phobic about your food intake is one of the cornerstones of the South Beach Diet. I look forward to reading this.

At least here in California, when you see signs saying "Propane tanks filled here." the product is LP, liquefied propane gas. Propane is in its gas state at room temperatures but liquefies under pressure and the liquid is easier to transport. I have no fear of propane tanks, but there are some common sense safety items to remember like not smoking near the tank. I use kitchen stoves that were originally natural but converted to propane (brands unknown) as part of my ren faire kitchens and have never had a problem, nor have I had any issues cooking at my brother's house with its propane stove. Just as car manufacturers make the occasional lemon I have to believe the same of stove manufacturers. I know that asking what "a wildly erratic stove" is is outside of your original question but that description intrigues me. Best wishes for a happy experience with your next stove.

Bought it the other night. Now I just need time to start reading it (and a couple of others that I've purchased recently).

I bought a set of the Bialetti (SP?) non-stick from Costco years ago. I won't know how long they would have held up because, 1) The aluminum was too soft and another family member managed to drop pieces and that took them out-of-round, and 2) 10+ years ago we bought a set of Vollrath PRO-HG non-stick cookware because the ceramic/titanium non-stick coating can take much higher heat without the toxic fumes worry (I'm a high-heat cook) and they are NSF-rated (I may not run a commercial kitchen but I have a preference for NSF-rated equipment). The Vollrath PRO-HG comes with a 25-year warranty but I'll never see 25 years from the pans I use the most, but I can live with that. YMMV.

I am a Tramontina fan. I use 14" Tramontina non-stick pans in my ren faire kitchens and love them. We use them on 30kBTU camp stoves and don't baby them. When one does wear out, I replace it with another Tramontina. I have used smaller ones in my home kitchen. I have an 8" hanging on my pot rack right now. It's the one with the blue handle in my avatar. Regarding other coatings, even my cobalt-titanium(?) non-sticks are slowly failing. When they die completely I will not replace them. ETA: I have a very good, competitive restaurant supply house that I use regularly and the non-stick pans they sell are about the same price as the Tramontinas.

We have either this model or very close to it. I find that I don't use the sprayer very often because the splashing from the sprayer goes way beyond the sink, including my clothes.

So ... Some things have changed, and one of my major sources of stress while I am at faire is no longer an issue, and I have decided to lead the feast team once again. I am, however, making sure that I do more self-care to not ended up feeling like I did last season. In the case of the terminally-ill in-law for whom I have been providing a lot of boots-on-the-ground support, I have been making moves for the children of said in-law to up their game and provide some of the support stuff that I have been doing. Part of my temperament is having a high level of ownership of the things I take on, so figuring out how to lessen the feeling that it all depends on me has been hard. I am making some procedural changes to spread out some of the tasks that can be done either off-site (I will steam the 15 dozen hard-cooked eggs I need at home) , or earlier. Last year my DW and I started driving separately so that I could finish closing the kitchen on Monday mornings before heading over to do some of the ill in-law support stuff I do. This year I will arrive at the faire site early afternoon Friday so I can do some of the tasks that can be done ahead, such as cubing 16 lbs of cheese.. I am simplifying the menu a tad to also help. I have the blessing of the "salad crew" who sit in view of the audience and cut up the raw veggies and fruits that are served on platters. I am taking an extra cooler of mine and will stage the day's produce in that cooler to I don't have to stop n the middle of other tasks to give them what they need. I wish I would have thought of that one a few years ago. So ... once again into the breach ... Faire as I know started it started in 1963. In the 19 seasons I have been doing it I have witnessed the passing of many, many people. Considering how long ago 1963 was, it makes perfect sense, but it doesn't always make it easy. The one I am not done grieving for was my faire friend that was a victim of the San Bernardino massacre in December 2015. He was a gentle, giving soul who loved life.

Mostly a repeater, and my attempts to use more recipes from cookbooks are looking for new things to add the to list of what I repeat in the future. Mrs Porthos has mostly given the new dishes thumbs up.

Do you substitute gun powder for baking powder?

Okay, you've caught me. I never have grown up. But back when the Irwindale debacle was going on I drove by the factory just to see exactly where is located.

I am not impressed with having to click on each title to find the price. Color me lazy. As an aside, I am a member of EYB and am happy with their service.

Sriracha is made about 5 miles from where I grew up. There was quite a governrmental brew-ha 5 years ago, which was followed by egullet members here. The end result of this happening is that Sriracha sauce gained in popularity among people who hadn't paid attention to it beforehand. The best example of that is that a California burger chain that brought out a Sriracha burger (still on the menu).

This was a no-brainer. I like the way I fix couscous, but I would like to add variety.

I have been known to cook naked - except for the apron I wear to protect myself from splatters and such. Ah the blessings of being an empty-nester.

I am embarking on their "Mastering Your Frying Pan" course next.

By the time I finished the Food Safety course I was weary of hearing over and over that, "Hand washing is an effective tool in preventing contaminating food with pathogens." That's not the exact sentence but they used the same sentence over and over. I didn't count but I would venture to says that it was no less than 15 times. I understand that repetition is part of the teaching process, but this was overkill. Every time they said that hand washing was the next step in a kitchen process they used the same long sentence. Conclusion: There is a lot of good information presented, primarily aimed at people who don't know much yet about food handling safety yet. Separate comment. There aren't a lot of courses to choose from, not enough for my tastes to qualify to call themselves a school. But hey, I'm getting it for free for two months.

A game piece from the current grocery stores Monopoly game gave me 2 months free access to Rouxbe, an on-line cooking/culinary school. I signed up. I decided to start with their Food Safety course aimed at the home kitchen. I'm in the middle of it and stopping for the evening. The course does a reasonable job of explaining the 4 main sources of food-borne illnesses and what they are associated with. Until last year, I had no idea of the risks associated with cooked rice and then a culinary-school-trained friend explained that transporting a cooked rice dish at room temperature was a bad idea. I now have a better understanding of why. I don't intend to blog the experience, but I will comment on things that I think are of note, positive or negative. In general the user interface is very straight-forward and doesn't require much of a learning curve. Learning from this course. Aside from the rice safety issues I did an exercise to see how many seconds I actually spend washing my hands. 20 seconds is the goal. My "20 seconds" was more like 14. I am going to work on that since it applies to my ren faire kitchen food safety as well.

Since we don't bake a lot our baking spices and extracts are relegated to a couple of tubs in the pantry cabinet. This is the larger shelf of spices. This is the smaller shelf of spices. When my DD and SIL were living with us their spices (lots of peppery stuff we wouldn't use) went on the smaller shelf and ours went on the larger shelf and a convenient foot-long stretch of counter space. Looking at these pictures made me realize that I need to re-organize these 2 shelves. Discovering my (relatively) local Penzey's has been a revelation in what spices can be. I never realized just how much potency spices on the supermarket shelf have already lost by the time they get purchased. Also, with all of the promotions that Penzey's runs I have been able to pick up spices for my DD's new kitchen at little or no cost to me.

2nded. I don't use the Bluetooth feature of my Anova at all.

That does sound very useful.

I don't understand the Kindle reference in regards to Eat My Books, unless a dead tree version of the cookbook doesn't have this feature.

It's interesting seeing this feature. I have been using Eat Your Books to find recipes to use up ingredients that I don't normally stock but bought for a particular recipe.