Porthos

@gfweb When you move into the realm of the likes of Blue Star, you chose the least expensive.

Which model of Blue Star did you choose? Also, looking at the pictures you've posted I can't figure out where your refrigerator is relative to your sink and stove. Your finished kitchen is nothing less than amazing.

@paulraphael I use sponges for my pre-washing of things going into the dishwasher but not for surfaces I clean. They get clean cloths of paper towels.

If it was made prior to 1960, then no. After 1960 one choice MFGs have is a sticker. Most likely the sticker would have been long since removed.

I will be having a Sobon Estates 2014 Zinfandel courtesy of my FIL.

Since I chilled and refrigerated the CB without breaking the seal, as noted above, I did the 10 hours at 165 F, and served it for dinner tonight. The meat was tender and more of the fat had rendered, but the flavor wasn't that of my normal recipe. Since this was an experiment I have determined that I will continue with my normal recipe. FWIW: I see SV as another technique for cooking and am not at all committed to find ways to use it just because I own it. YMMV.

@HungryChris Love you wine chiller.

Corned Beef, Baked Brown Rice, Steamed Carrots.

The last 2 emails have gone into my spam folder. I added the email address to my contacts to hopefully avoid that in the future.

Sorry, @TicTac, I amnaged to miss the question the first time. I found it at Megathrift in Rialto, CA. It's the same store I picked up a Wusthof 6" Classic Chef's Knife for $2.00 last November. That knife went to my wife at her request.

I received my "well, it's going to take even longer" email. I wonder if my 14 cup machine's (put away until I get an complete new bowl assembly) blade would fit and if it has rivits. I will have to wait until I can pull it out to check on it.

I chilled and refrigerated this CB Tuesday morning thinking it would be dinner Wednesday night. Life got in the way. I decided last night to set the SV rig to 165 F and re-run it, still in the unopened bag, for 10 hours. It will be dinner tonight.

Looking good, very good.

Thank you both. A Shun for $4.00. I can live with that.

I recently picked up this knife and can not determine if it is or is not a Shun. Can anyone tell me if it is or isn't?

Bought a lid and pan yesterday for a specific purpose. This is a 4 qt Reverware pan. I bought the pan in one thrift store for $2.54. I knew that I had seen the lid in another store and picked it up for $0.89. Less than $3.50 total. The pan needs a bit of TLC to restore the surfaces. I actually love that challenge. Based upon some reading I have been doing and some videos I have watched recently I realized that the 6 qt stock pot I typically use for pasta is overkill. It is a tallish pot so when I put it on my 16K burner the flames are at the edge of the pot. Since I generally only cook about 7-8 oz of pasta at a time 2 to 2 1/2 qts of water should be more than enough instead of the 3 1/2 to 4 qts I have been doing. This pan will have the flame farther away from the edge of the base of the pan which should increase, albiet not a lot, the effeciency of heating the water. As an aside, 16 thrift shops in 2 days and besides this pan I picked up a cookbook and a plastic knife for a task in my ren faire kitchens. The pan, book and kinfe were still under $5.00 total.

I've had one serious cut. Several years ago, before I adopted the pinch grip, I was trying to hurry and sliced across my left thumb pad deeply enough to need 5 stitches. The urgent care Dr had me soak the thumb in some solution for what was supposed to be about 40 minutes. 2 1/2 hours later he comes in and puts the stitches in. I still have no feeling in the part that had been hanging loose. RE: the pinch grip: whenever I get someone new in my ren faire kitchens that doesn't have much in the way of knife skills the first thing I teach then is to use the pinch grip.

Years ago on a TV show called Ultimate Kitchens the husband of the couple featured in this particular episode had to take to wearing a straw "cowboy" hat when cooking to keep from hitting his head on the exhaust hood.

@Darienne I cut the pad of my index finger but not horribly, taking out a tiny chunk. However, having the Bandaid on it interferes with so much. I am having to wear nitrile gloves to wash dishes, my smart phone doesn't recognize that finger, etc.

I will never again haphazardly grab a slicing disk for the food processor when pulling it out of the dishwasher. What I will do is go back to my "top rack only for food processor parts" mantra.

When we had a Fresh and Easy down the street I didn't really shop there much. My DW and I were not their target demographic. One of the large banners hanging down in the store proclaimed, "Food with ingredients you can pronounce." I would always laugh to myself and say, "I can pronounce Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. I'm not too worried about your ingredient lists."

I pulled the bag out of the bath after it's 18 hour cook, chilled it, and now it is in the fridge waiting to be dinner tomorrow night. One thing is certain. I can tell just looking through the bag that very little fat was rendered out of the meat. I have one more CB in the freezer and I will pull it out in a couple of weeks and try a higher temp/shorter time to see if it comes closer to what I am looking for.

The corned beef that was supposed to be for tonight has been delayed due to pilot error. I realized about 10:30 last night that I had failed to buy the guinness. I will start it's 18 hour cook in a few minutes, then tomorrow morning it will get chilled and put in the refrigerator for Wednesday night's dinner. I won't be home tomorrow night. The goulash from jaz's The Healthy Pressure Cooker Cookbook has been moved up to this evening. I am off to look at the instruction book for the Instant Pot since this is my maiden voyage.

@Toliver I have a weakness for real pieces of paper. I am doing screen grabs, editing in paint, and making PDFs I can print. While technically this is a violation of copyright, since I am not distributing them in any fashion, and I own the book, I don't feel that it is any form of piracy. I will be making one of jaz's recipes Friday as my first foray into using an Instant pot. I routinely trash my printouts. If I want to make something again, I print it again. 3-ring binders didn't work out for saving the pages. ETA: The cloud reader I am using on my PC doesn't allow for downloading and then using that.

A few years ago when we were having a brutal summer I set up a complete kitchen (as far as cooking goes) on my patio. Is that, at some level, an option for you? Large BBQ, main stove and sink, lower-power stove, and small BBQ.