Porthos

I am a 60 year-old who is a native southern Californian and every few years we have an unseasonable warm Thanksgiving in the 80s. The traditional Thanksgiving meal is still wonderful.

I am going to make a batch substituting dried apricots macerated in cream sherry for the raisins and 1/2 tps vanilla for the nutmeg.

I live about 50 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

Fontana Farmers Market: 4 Persimmons ripe enough to make persimmon pudding 2 lbs of pencil-thin asparagus A jar of local Orange-blossom Honey

I didn't go low-carb but I did start avoiding as best as is reasonable highly-refined carbs. I still serve "real" pasta (just don't like the taste or texture of the whole wheat stuff) but not ever day and in very controlled portions. I have embraced healthy oils. I found that I like baked brown rice much better than white rice. It brings more flavor to the party. I discovered barley as something more than an ingredient in barley-beef soup. Upped my veggie intake. My biggest revelation this year is roasted Brussels Sprouts. I found that cauliflower can be made edible. Since I like several raw veggies I started prepping them for snackage. I used cooked, jarred salsa like La Victoria or Pace as a dip. Fortunately I really enjoy salads. I still allow myself to eat outside of this plan when I really want something. Tonight we will be going to Carl's Jr for the Western Bacon Burger. I eat maybe 3 of these in a year. My weight loss suffered a set-back during a particularly bad bout of depression but I am back to losing. Most importantly for me is that my basic blood chemistry is where it should be and my A1C is down to 6.0. One of the things I really like about mostly using the South Beach Diet is the freedom it affords in dining out.

Kerry, do you cream the butter and sugar? I'm thinking of trying this but using Craisins since we have some that need using up.

Sorry for the loss of the ribs but not sorry your insides won't be gambled with. My wife's comparison is simple: she would rather give birth to 10 babies in a row that ever have serious food poisoning again. Enjoy your steaks.

No money for the 7 qt right now. But I did add the scraping paddle for my 6 qt to my Christmas wish list. (having a very subdued Christmas this year)

I did not really know my maternal grandmother until she came to live with us when I was 12 and she was 91. She had been living in Brazil. Since there were plenty of young adults and me in the house she did not need to do any cooking. There are 2 of her recipes, however, that were passed to my mom and then on to me. Her baking powder biscuits are still a favorite both with my wife and with my grown daughters. What I grew up calling potato soup (I would call it bacon and corn chowder) still elicits happy comments from my daughters when I make it for them.

Costco paper napkins for everyday, also used in lieu of full size paper towels for small bits of wiping up in the kitchen. Costco paper towels for napkins when picnicking. Vanity Fair for holiday meals. We quit messing with cloth napkins for holiday meals about 15 years ago.

NSF - National Sanitation Foundation. Certifying authority that covers many different areas regarding health-related categories of products. California Unified Retail Food Facilities Law (CURFFL) calls for most equipment and kitchen tools used in commercial operations be NSF certified. It is not necessary for home kitchens. The reason it appeals to me is that the certification means that if you clean the item to the MFG standards and do that cleaning in a 3-part sink (wash - rinse - sanitize) that the construction of the item will allow it to be properly cleaned and not harbor bacteria and such. This is my layman's explanation. Where this really comes into play for me is in the volunteer renaissance feast kitchens my DW and I lead. While we have no legal requirement to follow CURFFL (we don't sell to the public, we feed volunteer re-enactors) I figure that for the health and well-being of the re-enactors following these laws as best we can helps keep down the prospect of ever being the source of food poisoning. Also, by and large, NSF items are easier to clean up because of the attention in the designs to not having crevices and such for food bits to get trapped in. The fibrox knife has no real places that food can be harbored in, whereas the clad-tang handles sometimes can have them. Going back to the ren faires issue, I supply the cooking gear we use and so I have personal control over whether that gear is NSF-rated or not. In my home kitchen I am not as hung up on NSF but most of my pots & pans and my mixing bowls are NSF-rated. Knowing what I do now I also am more particular about my hand-held kitchen tools. I look for construction that looks like it probably could pass the certification process. Subjective, I know, but still important to me. And with the arthritis in my hands, anything that is easier to clean is a bonus and of course that is in keeping with the topic at hand.

I have a few Victorinox Fibrox knives. I just bought a 6-inch chef knife from Swiss Knife Shop, but I couldn't help myself; I got one with a rosewood handle. Same blade as the Fibrox, though ...the rosewood looked so nice, I just couldn't pass it up. I have 2 of the 10" Victorinox knives, one fibrox and one rosewood. The fibrox is NSF-rated. IIRC the rosewood is not.

Lack of knowledge of how to prepare it coupled with how many pounds of a given meat I need to have to be able to allow 80 people a reasonable small portion.

Standard gauge for the really big birds like that and geese. You will not find swan being cooked in my renaissance kitchen.

No particular pattern. One of the 2 items I have been keeping my eye out for is available open stock at Walmart. The other item I am not picky about the pattern. I am not in need of these items, I would just add a few if I found them for cheap at a thrift store. Finding things in thrift stores is one way I have fun; the fun of the hunt.That is why it is a weekly event for me. I really appreciate your kind offer but I am going to decline. By the answers in this thread I know now to keep up the hunt.

As a resident of California I am wondering if there is some legal prohibition regarding selling used Corelle plates, bowls and such in thrift stores. I have a circuit of 6 thrift stores I visit once a week and I go to some others as the mood strikes me. I have been on the lookout for some particular pieces and don't seem to find any Corelle pieces at all. Stoneware, cheap china and good china can all be found. Does anybody know of any legal restrictions regarding Corelle Ware in California?

Thanks! Don't need that now, but someday .... I own a similar one from Pampered Chef (thrift store find) and I have arthritis in my hands. It is a good tool but you still need some grip strength to crank it. I have used it twice this week making a pecan-apple cake, once to test the recipe, the second to send along for friends to enjoy who are at a renaissance festival going on thhis weekend that the DW and I are not part of.

I picked up a 10" Tramontina non-stick saute pan in very good condition for $5.39 this week. Already used it several times.

Ambato, Ecuador is inland by at least 40 miles.

If I am not mistaken Panaderia Canadiense lives in the mountainous part of Ecuador.

I may enjoy the occasional McRib (still haven't had one this season) but I would wash it down with a red ale if I were going to have any kind of alcohol with it. Most likely it will just be my usual diet Coke.

Poached in dry vermouth. Did that with fresh-caught this summer. Olive oil and Lawry's (no substitutes) garlic powder and gently BBQed.

This is probably a culinary 101 question but I have only recently started thinking about it. I prep fresh veggies to graze on as healthy snackage. I like carrots, celery, and bell peppers of various colors. I also go through a lot of onion in my regular cooking. My DW does not deal well with peppers, sweet or otherwise, in her diet. I traditionally have just tossed all of the scraps. It seems to me that, besides the leafy ends of celery that I already know about, that some of these scraps would qualify as additions to stock-making, even just a veggie stock. I don't peel my carrots so there are no peels to consider. What can I use in the future to help make stock (kind of a yes/no list)? Feel free to add things I haven't thought of. Celery trimmings. (yes) Carrot tips and/or roots. Broccoli stems. Asparagus bottoms that get cut off when I bring them home and put them in water. Onion peelings. Green bean tips. Left-over whole-kernel corn. Zucchini trimmings.

I have read of Griswold pans but have never seen one. I have a "circuit" that I follow once a week for thrift shopping looking for goodies, mostly for my Ren Faire stuff. Cast iron rarely shows up in the stores I go to but I think I will keep my eyes open to see if I ever can spot any of the Griswold pieces.

Square makes sense to me. The ones I've seen there is a bit of a radius to the corners. What I saw on the octagonal pan looked like much tighter radius corners. It will be interesting to see if he can get the capital to go into production.