Porthos

Same with me. I didn't have a clue what it was but figured I was odd man out.

Yum... rhubarb. Enjoy.

I do put my pans in the dishwasher, but I do this first. Except my CI,of course CI NEVER goes into a dishwasher. The CI gets a little bit of water brought to the boil, kill the heat, wait a minute or so, clean out with paper towels. A quick rinse, wipe with the towel of your choice and then heat enough to evaporate the leftover rinse water. Probably takes about as long as it took me to type this.

Cobalt-Titanium non-stick pans still wear out despite the "25 year" guarantee but I am happy with mine. I am a vintage CI fan for eggs and for searing meats.

Yes, there is a separate faire in the fall near Gilroy, California, The Garlic Capitol of the World. I posted about that faire some months ago. It has pictures if you scroll down. http://forums.egullet.org/topic/149513-what-we-cook-in-my-fall-ren-faire-kitchen/

So as I was re-reading what I had posted I realized that as of this coming season one thing will be different. I have been gathering pots and pans and hotels pans and such to leave there. I'm tired of hauling so much stuff back and forth. We have a fair amount of personal stuff to haul also so this will making packing up at the end of faire much easier. My knives, however, will stay with me.

Since I spend about 20 hours a weekend for 7 weekends in the spring in my faire kitchen I thought I would show the few pictures I snapped this year. This is the basic layout. The table to the lower left is the dishwashing station and the shelving to the right of that is for air drying. The large grill and the 3-burner 30K BTU/burner are outside. This view shows the regular kitchen stove and (sort of) my steel table. It was exclusively my table (I paid for it) before I took the kitchen over in 2010. The window in the picture looks out at the grill. We have two basic banquet table that serve as our main prep counters. I have made stilts for them so that they are more or less counter height. That is my daughter prepping 4 lbs of Brussels Sprouts for sauting.

I shall join the cocktail hour in spirit when I get home. A Tanqueray and Tonic is in my future.

That means that I am also a fundementally bad person because I have eaten while driving since 1971. But I can live with that.

Let the fun begin. Is Kerry's daughter along on this sojourn?

I will be leaving work in a few minutes. I realized there is one other thing that I regularly eat in the car. String cheese after I get on the road.

I eat in my car on a regular basis. For at least the last 25 years I have driven through for breakfast during the work week. I tend to get wrapped foods, burritos mostly, and eat while finishing my commute. I take medication that has to be taken on an empty stomach so I have to leave the house without having breakfast. By the time I am near my workplace I can eat. I mostly eat my veggies/cheeses/meats lunches at work. When I do choose drive-thru I have taken to coming back to the patio at work to eat. Rarely will I eat my lunch in the car. Dinners are mostly at home. Doing drive-thru for dinners and eating in the car does happen when we have errands to run and not a lot of time to get everything done. Again, I prefer to get wrapped food to minimize the "mess" risk. The biggest change in eating in cars for me is not actually eating but drinking coffee. I wear what I know as golf shirts to work and I have ruined many shirts with drippy coffee cups. Soda with a lid and straw or bottles water works ok. edit to add: Cell phone while I'm driving? No Way!

I found these 3 knives for a total of $9.00. They normally go for about $27 each at the local restaurant supply stores. They will be for my ren faire kitchens.

I found 2 new-in-the-package Dexter 10" chef's knives for a total of $9.00 while thrift shopping. At that price even if I only get a few seasons from them I'm happy. Yeah, I like my Forschners better but at tbat price I couldn't pass them up.

In the July-August CI there is a review of knife sharpeners. I was a bit disappointed that the article didn't really comment on the fact that there are other sharpening systems out there beyond the two categories they tested. I figure one sentence mentioning that and saying that for the purposes of their comparison they were limiting the testing to a couple of basic types would have been nice. Readers of CI who may be ready to take the next step in knife sharpening may not know that other choices exist. Just my 2 cents worth ...

The temperature alarm on/off switch of my 'about half the price' thermometer is flaky. I have overcooked meat more than once because of it. That's why this unit appeals to me. I purchased one of their Extra Big & Loud Timers in Charcoal and was pleased with the quality and ease of use of the unit. I am hoping for a similar experience with this. I am also happy with my Thermapen.

I chose blue. Thanks, rotuts, for the link.

a second thank you. I especially appreciated the quote from his daughter.

My S/S stock pots do have disc bottoms. I found a 12 qt non-stick pot I won that had been MIA. It's a rather crappy pot, read thin bottom, and it didn't get used much. If it gets gunked up I can toss it and not have really lost anything. I am intrigued about using oven cleaner.

I can remember as a teenager traveling with my parents in the late 60s heading back south from Saratoga and stopping along 101 to buy 50 lbs of onions for $1.00. It may not have come from our garden but it did give us several months of onions.

I know one mistake I won't make twice. I purchased a Smart and Final house brand Chef's Review 10" chef's knife a few years back. It just can't hold an edge.

Some eG EdgePro discussions include: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/104022-knife-sharpening-systems-edgepro-apex/ http://forums.egullet.org/topic/83987-edge-pro-apex-knife-sharpener/ And it is talked about in this: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/26036-knife-maintenance-and-sharpening/ I happened upon eGullet when searching for information on knife sharpening.

Ren Faire - in the spring it's the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, as in the one that started it all in 1963. In the fall it's the Northern California Renaissance Faire near Gilroy, CA. Hate to tell you but all of my knives get a new edge once a year - with my beloved EdgePro. Last year I did the sharpening while on vacation in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. About 2 1/2 hours on a beautiful afternoon. That's 2 knife-rolls worth and a few extras. The only complaint I would have, but I don't care, is that I can accidentally leave scratch marks on the knives but these are not things of beauty to start with.

I supply the knives that my kitchen crew uses in our ren faire ktichens. This runs the gamut from volunteers just cutting up some celery to a culinary student who is doing very well. We do a catering-style gig feeding about 80 participants, prepping and cooking fresh food to do it. Among my knives I have 2 Forschner 10" chef's knives that I have been very happy with. The other day I was in Restaurant Depot and was looking at some Dexter knives. They have a lower price tag than the Forschners I buy elsewhere. But they felt like less of a knife, not the weight and feel I am used to. Are there Dexter fans out there? Would I be reasonably happy with them in your opinion? Or are they indeed less of a knife than my Forschners? Just a note on why they will never see something like a Henkels 4-star knife available: I lost an 8" chef's knife when someone decided to borrow it and open a can of paint or something. The tip was bent over at a 90 degree angle by their thoughtless action.

Alex, I have a friend who is a forensic anthropologist who teaches college. Her FB posts make me chuckle and groan at the same time.