Porthos

I added wire baskets to my upright freezer and both refrigerator freezers because I got so tired of frozen food landslides.

We will be dining with friends Sunday evening at the place linked below. The friend who picked it out is a life-long resident of the bay area, a very accomplished cook and a great asset in the Northern Ren Faire kitchen. Will you be at the Fancy Food Show on Sunday? The Fancy Food Show is why we will be up there. If you're going to be there on SundayI will keep an eye open for you. www.johnsgrill.com.

Humble additions this year via a Christmas check from my wonderful FIL: A hand-cranked nut chopper (choice inspired by posts in the I Say Nuts to Chopping Nuts. Anyone else? thread), 2 digital Thermoworks digital refrigerator thermometers and a Thermoworks digital Freezer thermometer/alarm.

Found this Lenox serving bowl that matches our pattern in a Goodwill yesterday. $7.99 USD. It had just come out on a cart to be put on the shelves. I grabbed it as soon as I saw it on the cart. (Goodwills in our area are happy to let people take stuff off of the carts - less labor for them)

Bar Keeper's Friend works well. If that is not doing the trick then a soaking in vinegar will loosen/dissolve most of the rust, then use the BKF to finish. I restore vintage cast iron and this has served me well. eGullet topic on cast iron care.

Could you provide a link the KA FP that dices? That sounds interesting.

Any opinions on whether pine nuts would toast well?

At Cathay Circle I had duck confit and one of the accompaniments was chestnut gnocchi which I especially enjoyed. Service as always was impeccable. We quickly discovered that our server knew part of the party from a renaissance connection. That just added to our pleasure

Dinner New Year's Eve will be mundane (two tired bodies coming home from work) but I will be breaking out the Hendricks for some nicer gin and tonics. We will be at the Disneyland parks NYD and dinner will be a treat. We have reservations for Carthay Circle (it's in Disney California Adventure) where we will dine with good friends. I have never had anything but great food and great service there (and yes I have dined there on the 1st before).

Kerrygold butter definitely made a richer-tasting shortbread cookies.

Covered or uncovered?

liuzhou, forget green with envy. I'm dry red with envy. What a great gift.

When I was young my parents raised rabbits for food. Chicken-fried rabbit was a Sunday-dinner treat. Hasenpfeffer is the other way I enjoy it but that is something I get in restaurants. gfron1, I will have to find out where I can get rabbit in southern California. I haven't seen any for maybe 30 years. I really, REALLY want to try your recipe.

My younger adult daughter had been going gangbusters baking bread. Kerry and Anna mentioned Gripspan bowls so I bought my daughter one from a thrift store. She lost interest in baking before ever using it and for the moment it's a fruit bowl instead.

I have added two items to my kitchen this year that I am especially pleased with. 1) I bought a Thermopen. I love that I finally have an "instant read" thermometer that actually is instant read. 2) I bought one of the Thermoworks large and loud timers. At last a timer partially-deaf me can here when I'm not in the kitchen itself. What have you added this year that has pleased you?

Biggest for me is not using no-name boubon for my Pecan-Bourbon Balls. Mind you, nothing over the moon, but typically I use Maker's Mark. This year I will use Jim Beam Devil's Cut. Chocolate chips et al: no house brand. I found a good price on Guitard semi-sweet chips so they went into my basic chocolate chip cookies. We don't normally use shortening for much of anything so each year it's a fresh can of Crisco - NEVER house brand. Butter is Costco house brand. I may break down and buy Kerrygold for the shortbread. Our audience is friends and family plus for my DW co-workers. No pastry chefs or chocolatiers in the group. We must be doing something right because our cookie tins (with about 16 varieties) are always anticipated.

I wish the weather were a bit more cooperative for you and your DH. But methinks that prime rib helped balance the scales. I showed great restraint in not trying to lick my screen. Is the west coast part of your plan for this year's journey?

Microsoft® Word Documents. I don't care to have pictures. I have a specific format I like recipes in so I transcribe them into a Word document Typically, because I'm arrogant, I edit the instructions because I find many recipes have at best marginal wording for what the author is trying to communicate. I prefer to have figured them out and express them in my preferred style. I don't own anything like an iPad and would never try to read a recipe off of my smart phone screen. I print a recipe when I am ready to use it, and after I'm done it goes into the recycle bin. So that's my storage system: Word documents on a hard drive. The rare exception is a recipe that I regularly scale. Then I start with a Word document and then recreate it in an Excel spreadsheet that allows me to put in the desired quantity and give me the new proportions. A simple example would be Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice. I simple weight the amount of rice I want to make, plug in the weight, and I'm good to go. edited to fix punctuation.

Added thought: Even my ren faire kitchen has a personal touch: I have a small stuffed Remy doll (from Ratatouille) who sits in a wooden bowl holding a small wooden spoon presiding over our kitchen.

Disclaimer: I did not bother watching the video. I just looked at the 2 pictures shown. This "Contemporary" kitchen has the visual feel of the kitchenette in a nice hotel. To my eye it lacks the personal elements that define a home kitchen. It may have wiz-bang features but it looks cold, cold cold and hence no interest in the details..

When our local TW opened a few years it immediately became my go-to store. Price, selection, knowledgeable staff + a well stocked humidor for us cigar smokers. I drink way less wine than I used to, but they have great depth and good prices on beer.

Fried green tomatoes - can't get them at the Whistle Stop Cafe anymore. I've had them once. They were not bad but did not particularly strike a chord in me. If someone serves them to me in the future I will eat them but I will not go out of my way to have any. Like Shelby I am envious of your travels. We are supposed to be moving towards doing that when we retire but retiring is farther off than I would have liked. I will most likely work until I'm seventy (if I can stay employed). While we are both southern California natives we don't plan on retiring in this state.

What little I did watch did not hook me. It takes a lot for me to commit to just about anything on TV Of course I shell out over $80 a month for my Dish TV and rarely turn it on. I got it for the 2014 Olympics. Since my contract runs only a few months before the 2016 Olympics I will keep it until that's over. Then my DW and I will decide whether to keep it or not. Food Network and their second channel (can't remember the name) do absolutely nothing for me.

My friend has been once since the renovation. The buffet is gone. Too Bad, I liked it. Her basic comment to the question of Club 33 versus Carthay Circle was that they are 2 different experiences. Carthay Circle has an extensive menu which changes seasonaly and you order what appeals to you. I have had only excellent meals there and can attest to the quality and the service. Club 33 is Prix Fixe wth multiple courses and several choices per course. If no choice for a particular course appeals you simply pick something else that is offered for another course. The food and service were impecable on her last visit. I hope to try Club 33 again as her guest in the future.

I have an unfortunate bias against WF based upon the people who I know who do shop there (my circle of friends covers a lot of California).I have never been inside a Whole Foods. None near me. Of course I've never set foot inside a Haggen store either. I didn't even get that they were a supermarket for a while. Having signage that looks like an upscale clothing store did not communicate to me "come buy groceries here." Here in southern California I have choices on top of choices as to where to buy groceries. I even have the luxury of choosing which specific store within a chain I want to go to. That last one is important to me because of uneven management from store to store.