Porthos

We have the Executive membership. If I didn't do so much ren faire shopping at Costco we would probably go back to a regular membership, but in the spring I spend around $5,000 there and that alone mostly covers the membership fee. We buy our tires there, we get our meds from their pharmacy (a lot of meds - they know us by sight), and it is generally our first stop for our semi-monthly grocery shopping. They consistent.ly have the best prices on gas. It also helps that being in the (very) greater Los Angeles area there are 5 different Costcos that I shop at depending on where I am at and what I need; Faire figures into that. The card we are getting ready to drop is Sam's Club. It has never really paid for itself and now that we're living on less income it has become an unnecessary luxury.

Talked to a butcher at Ralph's (Kroger). I can ask for them in advance. They put Chuck eyes into the pile for ground beef. Ouch.

Until the first time I started reading SnowAngel's thread The Cabin I had never heard of this cut. It was several years before I saw some in an ad for a local market. It was love at first bite. This week the same store had them on ad, in the Family Pack size, so I went and bought a package last week. Put one meal's worth in the freezer and SVed the rest. I just went and bought one more package and again split it into two meals, one is now in the freezer, the other will be tomorrow night's dinner (or Thursday if I don't get back from Anaheim in time tomorrow). I realize that there are only 2 Chuck Eyes per cow, but that is still 2. Given the amount of meat my local megamarts sell, I wonder what they do with the chuck eye steaks? I am going to do my best to start asking the meat cutters at the supermarkets what they do with the chuck eye steaks. Does anyone here on eGullet have any ideas/insights on why they are so hard to come by here in Southern California. For me, marinated, SVed mediium rare and seared, they are a real taste treat.

Although I live in the greater Los Angeles area and have 5 major supermarkets within 2 miles of my home, only one of them ever has chuck eye steaks. These were purchased fresh today. I put 2 in the freezer and the other 2 were in the SV bath an hour and a half after being purchased. Because they are hard to come by this will be my first try at cooking this particular cut SV.

Chuck eye steaks in Lawry's Steak & Chop marinade, 133 F for 4 hours, then a sear.

In my experience of setting up potluck buffets with 2-3 6' banquet tables full of food I agree that it can easily take 5 minutes or more to get through the line, but people finish and walk away at the approximate rate of 60-90 seconds per person for single-sided. I prefer to set up for double-sided serving which helps shorten the time to more like 45-60 seconds per person to finish. ChocoMom should experience slightly shorter time-per-person because potlucks generally have way more items to choose from.

My DW doesn't care for the texture of the chicken breasts when at 60C. For me SV is all about what works for my DW. We just celebrated our 39th anniversary earlier this month and I am more than happy to choose times nad temps that she prefers. She is fine with steaks at 56C and then seared. I haven't worked up any enthusiam to try a roast.

As mentioned above you should read through Baldwin's work, as well as reading through the eGullet SV threads. Time and temperature are based upon pasteurization. I agree that your temperatures seems to be high. I can imagine ever going above 63C for beef. I do not SV whole chickens. I do chicken breasts at 63C and use Baldwin's tables for what the minimum time must be. I go beyond that because of personal preference. For steaks I use 56C and then sear in a hot pan. Best of luck and welcome to eGullet.

@Okanagancook a beautiful-looking wall.

@andiesenji Yes, it did an awesome job on the watermelon. I bought a Messermeister edge protector and the knife stayed in a drawer except for melon duty. Thank you so much.

The Southern season that ended last month was, for me, the season from hell, not only because of the demands of faire but rather all of life making too many demands on me. Unfortunately, faire is the only item on the list of things I have to be responsible for that I could stop doing. I don't talk much about my 12-step recovery here but the level of stress and pain in my life was upped so much that it put my recovery in jeopardy but I was not in a position to walk away. So, I am taking the 2018 Southern season off. I have been in the kitchen there for 15 years and I need a long break to help me get back to a healthy place. Since the other stressers are still in my life, most notably helping with my dying FIL, I expect getting back to where I need to be mentally will take a long while. I want to be back for the 2019 season. However, I am not completely abandoning my guild. My equipment will still be there to be used. All of the cooking gear you see in the pictures, along with the 3-burner camp stove and large event grill, are mine. I am not mad at the guild, I just need space, so the equipment will go out. Also, I will continue to do the feast shopping, which I already do during the week, and deliver it during the week. What I won't be doing is being anywhere near the faire on the weekends. Because I have not had someone come behind me whom I could mentor, I have been writing a thorough set of documents for how the feast works, and how the kitchen makes that happen. There are a myriad of little things that have to come together to make it happen. My daughter who was going to take over the kitchen management had a major change in her life between accepting to take it over last year and this past season starting up. She went from being unemployed to being employed full-time + mandatory overtime on a shift that doesn't start until 12:30 p.m. That job, along with being the mother of an active 3 y/o son, left her without the necessary time and energy to take over.

Yesterday's modest haul. An 8 qt Cambro with lid for $1.50 and a Farberware "professional" series 8" chef's knife for a dollar. I am more than a little addicted to picking up used knives, partly because they can be used in my ren faire kitchen, and mostly because I like putting new, sharp edges on knives.

I would rather they get it right than be rushed into something that isn't ready on the market. Engineering can be tricky and frustrating at times.

Oh yes, dangerous. Mine is 10 minutes from my FIL's house.

You have all given me a lot to think about. At this point I need to talk with my daughter and SIL but that can't happen until probably next Monday as they are house sitting for L while she is out of state. Their work schdule makes a phone call difficult, and doesn't really allow me to talk with them at the same time.

L has no idea that my daughter and SIL want me to put new edges on her knives. She is out of state at the moment.

A couple of years ago I misplaced (read lost in the house somewhere) the ceramic hone that came with my Edge Pro. Reading the responses here spurred me on the replace it. I ordered the 10" with the wooden handle. I am going to talk with my daughter and SIL but I think the idea of a touch-up with the hone has the most appeal to me.

I do use my Edge Pro. I don't know if I know enough to put less of an edge on knives than I do. Serious. I am not sure what I would do differently.

I have become reasonable proficient at producing good sharp edges when I sharpen knives. I have commented elsewhere about putting an edge on new knives because I can do better than factory-sharp (western knives). My daughter and SIL gave his mother a set of the International Henckel knives that were being sold at Costco. My daughter, who cooks at her MIL's house a lot, and SIL said that the knives need a new edge. Here is my dilemma. I know my daughter's MIL well. She is a past member of our guild at the Southern ren faire I do and she did a year as part of the cooking team a few years ago. She is not a particularly careful person and lives alone. I am not sure I want to put knives as sharp as I produce in her hands. I haven't talked to my daughter of SIL about this yet because, even though we live under one roof, we haven't had much face time lately. So: 1) do I put new edges on her knives and tell her to be very careful, 2) get feedback from my daughter and SIL about my concerns, or 3) go with my gut and decline to sharpen them because I don't trust L with really sharp knives. Your thoughts? Thanks in advance for the help and reality check this should provide for me. p.s. This daughter turned 30 last month and her main gift was a Zwilling Henkels 4-star 8" chef's knife. She prefers 8".

Contains pineapple, red papaya, yellow papaya and their syrup mixture.

No pictures but the significance is that this is the first proper meal I have had time to cook since sometime during March. My ren faire plus FIL took up all of my time. Thick cut boneless pork loin chops SVed for 2 3/4 hours at 143.5 in home-made BBQ sauce (rare for me) then seared in a CI pan, basic risotto and chilled canned tropical fruit. The canned tropical fruit is a favorite of my SIL.

My replacement blade finally arrived this week. Still in the box - but it's here.

Since I never use my Bluetooth Anova over 147 F I hope to have it for a while. The simpe heat versus electronics doesn't seem to me to be an issue. The heating element is in the thermally conductive solution (water), the thermal energy is being transferred to the water, and the temperature is very accurately controlled. However, I have no clue what they have done in the design to keep water vapor out of the electronics. That would worry me at higher temperatures. I wrap a towel around the body of my Anova setup as a poor man's gasket to minimze water loss. That may help with external vapor seeping into the control section. YMMV.

I thought of this thread when an ad for JennAir showed up in a feed elsewhere. The caption read, "Create the kitchen of your dreams." The kitchen of my dreams includes a Bluestar stove. Not working on that dream at present, but that is part of my dream.

I am disappointed. While I find this platter beautiful it turns out to be a fail for it's intended application.It is thicker than the other Wilton platters I own. When loaded up with enough cut up veggies and fruits for 10 people it is too heavy and awkward to easily pass around the table. Not sure if I will be able to find a practical use for it at faire.