Porthos

My dislike of the curries I have eaten is simple. After having curried whatever for dinner I will wake up in the middle of the night in such gastric pain that being dead at that moment has appeal. So I pass on eating curry. The world is full of foods I do enjoy so trying to find a curry that I don't react to is quite unnecessary.

Some years ago my wife, daughters and I went to a "nicer" chain restaurant near our home. While visiting the men's room I watched a waiter use the restroom and leave without washing his hands. When I complained to the manager his answer was the waitstaff washes their hands somewhere else. What about all of the surfaces he touched before he finally did wash his hands. We never went back. I almost hesitate to post this but then there was the time I stepped into a restaurant's men's room and one of the waitstaff was pleasuring himself standing in front of the urinal. Haven't been back there either. Keep it private and away from the customers already. I think that was a Seinfeld episode. On my second entry: I could drive you to the restaurant in Tustin, Calif where it happened. I'm trying to be fair to the restaurant itself by not naming it. How could they know they were hiring sure a fool. Still, don't care to go back.

Some years ago my wife, daughters and I went to a "nicer" chain restaurant near our home. While visiting the men's room I watched a waiter use the restroom and leave without washing his hands. When I complained to the manager his answer was the waitstaff washes their hands somewhere else. What about all of the surfaces he touched before he finally did wash his hands. We never went back. I almost hesitate to post this but then there was the time I stepped into a restaurant's men's room and one of the waitstaff was pleasuring himself standing in front of the urinal. Haven't been back there either. Keep it private and away from the customers already.

Can I inject my favorite from fast food drive thru. I will have just ordered a light breakfast and they ask if I would like a brownie with that. I don't normally indulge dessert at breakfast. I am always polite when I decline since I know that upselling is part of the job. But really - dessert with breakfast.

I have an 8" clearance and also there is a rotating spray nozzle on the top surface of the machine so the the top rack gets sprayed from both underneath and overhead.

We have the largest Whirlpool we could fit into our kitchen. I put the Oster Blender in the picture to help give perspective on size. I easily put my 14 qt SS mixing bowl on the lower rack and the 6 qt bowl from our KitchenAid easily fits on the top rack. This is with the pieces on the top rack. Slight edit for clarity.

Do you know why they recommend hand-washing them? Dishwasher detergents can wreak havoc on the anodized aluminum. If you don't care about the appearance of the exterior (or, probably, the warranty), the dishwasher is fine. Thanks, Dave. I have a very utilitarian view of my kitchen equipment. Nice looking is fine but it's cooking with it that counts for me. And whatever it is it WILL be going into my dishwasher. That even goes for my favorite 30 year-old 10" chef's knife. I do place my knives so that they can't bang against anything that harm the edge but that's it. Some time back someone posted about working in retail and trying to help a person pick out cookware. Eventually they figured out the customer didn't really cook and was just looking for something "pretty" to put on display in their kitchen. I remember laughing and then reading it to my DW because is was just so opposite of us.

After reading your posts I have elected to pre-wash by hand (I do this for everything that goes into the dishwasher anyway) and then run through the dishwasher on the top rack with both the heated wash and heated dry turned off. Thank you all for your input. As a point of reference I don't even have a dish drainer in my kitchen. I like my dishwasher.

Do you know why they recommend hand-washing them?

We buy the 30-packs of 1/2-size aluminum catering pans at Costco and use them for many different things. In the spring and fall we have reason to bake a lot of brownies and bread puddings to transport then serve. Those pans, lined with parchment paper are our mainstay.

Yes. And sometimes without the spoon. Fingers were the original utensils.

Several year ago my DW bought me a 14 cup Cuisinart food processor that I was very happy with - until - the pusher cracked apart. After some very frustrating searching on the web I found the replacement part. When it arrived it didn't fit. I did my "I give up" trick and never dealt with it after that since trying to find the right part (which wasn't right) to begin with had so difficult. Since then I have only been able to use the chopping blade but none of the slicer/shredder disks. l always ran the pieces through the dishwasher on the top rack using the heated drying cycle. So Costco has a sweet deal right now on the 11 cup model and I just went and bought one. When I showed it to my DW in the store the other day she suggested that if I bought it I should probably hand-wash the bowl, lid and the like. What do my fellow eGulleters do about washing their food processor bits? As a side note: when we bought the 14 cup machine at Williams Sonoma (on sale with an additional discount - the only way I spend money there) it came with a spare work bowl. Turns out they accidentally gave me the work bowl for the 11 cup model. I just used it for storage of the discs and extra bits. So because of that I do have a second work bowl for the new machine.

He does seem to have a favorite 4-letter word I could do without hearing all the time. I enjoyed seeing him bring common sense and insight into the situations presented in Kitchen Nightmares. However, I've been without my DirectTV for about a year and have no idea what goes on these days.

RE RR's earnings: If I could get people to shell out $20.00 for a garbage collecting bowl I'd probably be very successful to. At home I simply keep the garbage can close by; in the volunteer kitchens I use a chipwood bowl from a thrift store that I spent $1.50 on because the shape was what I wanted and the garbage cans are not next to the prep areas.

I am not familiar with the model you're asking about. This one is complete to the best of my memory, the mechanism that clamps to the breadboard and 4 cones. For giggles I tried attaching one of the cones from my KitchenAid - no go.

I just bought a piece of my childhood for $6.00. I intend to clean it up and use it on vacation trips.

When I started cooking on a back-stage feed-the-rreenactors kitchen 10 years ago with mostly home kitchen equipment it only took me s couple of weekends to start buying larger gear. Now I and my wife run 2 of these kitchens, one in spring and one in the fall, and we use either equipment from restaurant supply stores or large equipment from places like Bed, Bath and Beyond. I can't imagine feeding 70 people using home kitchen equipment. Just my perspective.

I am still curious if anyone has used existing pickle juice successfully. If not for the kind rotuts is talking about how about dill?

My first experience with an almost-vegan (she couldn't give up cheese) was nothing short of horrible. We were both cooking in the same volunteer kitchen tied into feeding some renaissance re-enactors. It made me look at ALL vegans as people who must be nuts. The next one I met (one of the actors) was so arrogant and entitled that I wanted to truly avoid them all. Then a few years later I started cooking in a different volunteer kitchen tied into feeding some renaissance re-enactors at a different faire and found vegetarians and vegans who were nice and rather understated about it. It completely changed my perspective. My wife and I now run that particular kitchen and we happily serve many vegan dishes (10-12), vegetarian dishes and platters full of meat for those who want it (like me). I don't keep 2 sets of dishes but we cook things in sequence so that the vegan food is completed before those pans are used for vegetarian food, fix the vegetarian dishes and then move on to the meat. I have never once been challenged about how I do things. That is a far cry from the person (at a different faire) who needed salt but wouldn't use the kitchen salt because theoretically the anti-caking agent was animal-based. I don't know about that my self and I am an avid label reader. I wrote that out to express my belief that is is not the dietary choices that make a person an entitled boor, it is part of their personality,

Hanger 24 Orange Wheat beer. After drinking it on draft at the brewery, the bottled stuff just won't do.

Since I am not an adherent to organic methods of growing foods nor do I avoid GMOs for me this announcement amounts to finding out that they are changing the hours that they are open. If you have issues their use of GMOs by all means vote with your dollars and then please allow those such as me who want Chipotles products as is to continue to be able to buy them as is.

pastrygirl - I won't know until Fathers Day Dinner.

I am really a cook, not that much of a baker, but I just used a recipe my wife requested for a coffee cake. I do understand a few of the basics, why you cream the butter and sugar first and such, but not much more. The recipe I just used had you do the usual creaming first, add the eggs and vanilla, but then it wanted the dry ingredients added a bit at a time, alternating with adding milk. In my mind this was a bit "fussy" but if there is a good reason for it I'm all ears. I'm willing to do things that make since and I understand - but when something looks like "black magic" instructions it leaves me cold. Any insights you all can give me are welcomed.

I apologize if this topic has been raised before. I don't seem to do well searching the site. I'm not much of a baker over all but I have been cooking since the mid-1960s. I'm making a simple pear cobbler for my FIL for Father's Day and the recipe I'm using simply says "Ripe Pears." The question: what variety of pears do I want for baking? I'm in southern California and have all of the major supermarkets available to me so the only thing I would ask is for a variety that is part of the normal retail food chain. Thanks in advance for your help.

I cook using natural gas at home and using propane at the housekeeping cabin we rent each year. I've never noticed any difference in cooking on these 2 different stoves. Also when I cook at my brother's house (propane) I've never noticed a difference.