Marlene

There is a triple cheese that I can get here that's really stinky. If I leave it in the fridge in its original wrapper, I can't even open the fridge before the smell hits. We have vacumn sealed this cheese very successfully and found no odor. I do suggest you try sealing some of your stinkier cheeses at home first to see how it works for you before venturing into the smuggling realm though.

We brought back wonderfully aged parmesan from Italy when we went. Just quietly didn't say anything. My friend wanted me to bring back some of that wonderful pork they have there, but I just couldn't bring myself to go quite that far - since the only ones we saw were full sides hanging in the market. I would have needed another suitcase.

How strange. My Dacor duel fuel has been nothing short of a delight. I've had it for almost 4 years now. I have no experience with Wolfe, but what about a KA duel fuel or a GE duel fuel, both of which have had great reports. ← Since purchasing the Dacor (seven years ago), we understand there will be issues, but we have had problems from the start. We use the stove-and all our equipment- with care (we don't rest things on oven door, don't kick or slam the oven door, etc ). Soon after installation we serviced the burners and oven. Then three electronic read-outs have been replaced, oven door hinges replaced, and now broiler won't function properly. Oddly enough, when we purchased the stove we also bought Dacor convection electric double wall ovens and they are perfect. When we recently visited a top end appliance shop the Dacor rep was there and heard us complain to the salesman about our success with the wall ovens and disappointment with the stove. He hid and offered no help. I have sent my life as a salesman (successfully) and would welcome an opportunity to aid a customer--his behavior was deplorable. I guess you didn't expect this rant when you were kind enough to respond, but I think we have been fair to Dacor in our comments. I am editing this because I was stewing over the situation and just called Dacor customer service who said nothing can be done, "have a nice day". I realize that a company cannot guarantee a product forever, but clearly there were issues with this unit from inception and any accommodation would have been appreciated. ← Rant away. I won't buy a GE oven for more or less the same reasons. although some people here swear by them. I am however, very surprised at Dacor customer service. I also have a Dacor wall oven and convection microwave and their coffee maker. I'd consider going higher up with all your documentation of repair problems since the beginning. Still, I can see how it would sour you on Dacor. I am also a big fan of Kitchenaid ranges.

The sandwich is 3.29 here in upstate New York, and the CFA sandwich is 2.55 where I used to live down south (Tallahassee). So .74, close enough. I assume your prices are Canadian. ← I'm not actually sure it's available here in Canada yet. I checked the McDonalds.ca site and there is no mention of it. Just the new Angus burger. I"m wondering if Cali got hers in Florida where she is currently vacationing. I suppose I could stop in to my local McD's. It's been a very long time since I've been in one, but in the interests of research, I could.

How strange. My Dacor duel fuel has been nothing short of a delight. I've had it for almost 4 years now. I have no experience with Wolfe, but what about a KA duel fuel or a GE duel fuel, both of which have had great reports.

yes, and he's using the same toaster oven I showed in post #21

But Stash. Where's the BEEF?

I'm glad it went well Randi! I'm over here cheering for you! This heat is ridiculous!

Do you have a link to the one you have? I can't find any smokers on their website . Propane sounds good to me, too, but I don't have any idea how much the things use. How much runtime can you get out of a tank? Though I guess over 18 hours would be probably be cold-smoking with continuous ice addition anyway, so maybe having to pop on another tank is no big deal... ← Just an update on the availability of the Vermont Castings Smokers. My dealer just delivered our second smoker to the house and we had a bit of a conversation about Vermont. I mentioned to him that the smokers didn't seem to be on their website anymore. He did say that Vermont has filed for bankcruptcy protection, but that the smokers are still easily available. If you have a Vermont Castings dealer near you, they should be able to order it for you, or you should be able to call Vermont directly and order it from them. it took about 2 weeks from the time we placed the order, till we got it, today. There are also some very good deals on Vermont products out there right now. There are apparently a couple of the big players in the industry who are considering buying the company so no one is expecting the company, the product or the availabilty of parts to disappear. We'll be smoking ribs at the cottage this weekend.

Zojirushi makes a 3 cup one as well. Sorry, this is a Canadian site rice cooker but you can probably find it in the US. I have this one at home since I have a small family and don't need to make much rice at one time.

Sorry. I just wanted to show both sides.

I have this cool fritatta pan that I got from WS. Grate a baking potato and mix it with salt and let it sit, then wring the potatoes out. Mix in a bit of flour with the potatoes and put in the bottom of a pan with a pat of butter. Start to brown the hash browns first, then add the egg mixture that has bacon and cheese and pepper in it. When it is set, you flip it over to finish the eggs, and then flip it back again to finish the hash browns. More or less. the actual recipe is on the WS site, I just used bacon instead of ham, and my son thinks it needs carmelized onions in it as well.

Hash brown, bacon, egg and cheese fritatta. Hash brown side serving side and sliced

Genius, man. Genius. That is exactly my hesitation to the onion exercise. There is only so much french onion soup one can eat in the middle of the summer! ← Somewhere in eG there is a recipe for onion confit made in the slow cooker. That won't add too much heat to the house and will be a great use for all those sliced onions. ← it's in RecipeGullet

When we were in Sorrento last year, I had a choice of buying an olive oil in a regular glass bottle or a hand painted one. Same olive oil. I chose the hand painted one, even though it was more expensive. But that bottle, now empty, sits on my mantle and is a nice remembrance of a great trip.

Ah well then. It's all good. And you can still make individual servings.

I like the buttered crumbs on top. I've never heard of mixing them in! Why not make individual mac and cheeses in large ramikins or individual gratin dishes? Then he can have his creamy and you can have your crunchy crumbs. You can freeze it without crumbs and just add when you are baking.

I love those beans!! I just made Green's Black Bean Chili with those same black beans. I really need to dog out my copy of Veg cooking for everyone. I've seen it mentioned in so many threads lately. ← I've heard rumours about how good those beans are. Stash has been a friend of mine for a long time, and I'm looking forward to following along this week.

All my pots are All Clad Copper Core, but I probably won't take pictures or measure them. I don't really care what the thickness is etc. All I know is that they I like how they perform, and I'm happy with them.

I have two Zojirushi cookers and I don't have a sweet\sticky rice setting on them. I use the regular setting for sticky rice.

It is a cool to the touch exterior. I was amazed at how wide those slots are. I've never seen any toaster with slots that wide. I imagine toasting kaisers and or hamburger buns won't be a problem!

My husband brought this home last night. He had seen it in a magazine recently and we sort of oohed and aahed over it, then I thought nothing more about it. He had to stop at Sherway yesterday to get some olive oil for me and he decided to pop into WS and buy this. I took it for a test run this morning. First, it's got the widest slots I've ever seen for bagels etc. Those little blue lights at the bottom? They blink and gradually decrease as the toast is toasting. There is no lever to push to put the toast down. You push the toast button and the toast just glides down and the little racks inside move in to hold the bread. There's a button you can push to lift and look at the toast to see if it is perhaps not done enough or too much. And a "bit more" button to continue toasting for a few seconds if it's not done enough to your liking. When done, the toast doesn't "pop" but glides silently back up and a discreet buzzer sounds to let you know it's done. It is die cast steel or some such and is heavy as lead and has rubber base on the bottom so it doesn't slide around on the counter. It also made very good toast. It's not cheap, but it sure is fun to play with.

yes but Amazon doesn't ship to Canada! So I rarely log on to it.

I know. Canadian Tire was selling Bradleys last summer. They had no pucks. They didn't know when they were getting pucks. I couldn't find them at any of our BBQ retailers here either. I suppose I could order them from Bradley, but then, I will always need pucks halfway through smoking because that's how my luck (or lack of planning) works. It's just easier to use wood chips rather than have to think about special ordering something.

Most convection ovens have a choice of regular bake or convection. Or there could be a switch to turn off the fan. My dacor has bake, convection bake, and pure convection. I use bake for delicate things like custards, convection bake for breads and pure convection for roasting meat and poultry.