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MJX, there are a combination of reasons, including both odor and chemical contamination. I don't know what kinds of toxic chemicals are released when burning building materials, such as insulation and vapor barrier, but I do know that burning just wood is very dirty, which is why you want to have a well-drafting flue. According to Dave, the board is bare, since the mineral oil/wax coating goes below the surface. "Odors and stains are more likely to penetrate an oil finish since it is so soft and only provides water resistance rather than repellency." According to a friend of mine, who is both an electronics geek and a fireman (volunteer, did investigations, and was captain before he quit volunteering), there are several issues with smoke. One is smoke is very corrosive, and will, over time, deteriorate the solder connections and the insulation on wiring and cabling in a system. Another is carbon tracking, where the carbon particles in the smoke can, and will over time, create short circuits and lower-resistance pathways on circuit boards. If smoke is dense, it can infiltrate sockets for processors, etc. It is virtually impossible to clean these unless they were encapsulated before the fire. People who keep their electronics will find that they will die prematurely, perhaps because of the smoke damage, but that is impossible to determine. Sounds to me like it's safest to get electronics replaced, from a financial perspective, and also from a further fire prevention perspective. I don't want shorts to cause ANOTHER fire. I think that the canned goods, both commercially- and home-canned, should be ok, and I'm thinking that if I can't smell my vanilla and other extracts with the lids closed, it's doubtful that any smoke got through, but I will start another batch next week, and use as little as possible of the batch that survived the smoking until I can find out further info. That's something that can't be replaced easily, and they're all in glass jars. We're pitching all the non-perishables that are in paper or plastic, though. Apparently, smoke is oily, and can bond with plastic, making it impossible to clean. <sigh> I think the aftermath is worse than the actual fire... I will post more as I learn more, and hopefully this information will help someone down the road.

We had a house fire on Saturday night. Luckily, we discovered it early, and got us and the dog out ASAP, and the fire people (don't wanna say firemen, because there was at least one woman there, too) got the cats out. However, they are telling us we have to replace a bunch of stuff, among them my rolling pins and Revereware, and my nice, thick pizza stone, and our knife blocks, and our cutting boards, and my Cuisinart, and everything plastic. They said they can clean my KitchenAid, though. Oh, darn on the Revereware. Apparently, they can't get the smoke stuff out of plastic or anything porous. Although they took my pressure cooker with plastic handles, so.... Anyhow, I'm wondering about the wooden stuff. Do I REALLY need to replace my year-old BoardSmith board?!? And do I REALLY have to replace my French pin? And this brings up the obvious question about whether stuff you can get at thrift stores and yard sales has ever been in a house fire, etc. So, what do you all think? I'm going to e-mail Dave and get his opinion on my wonderful, beautiful board, but I'd welcome opinions from everyone else, as well.

I believe Weston makes the Cabela's one that I have, and I've had it a couple of years. It's still going strong, and just packed two deer. What I like about it is that the parts are replaceable, rather than having to throw away the whole thing if something fails. And the seal is 1/4" wide, as opposed to the very thin strip that the Tilia ones make. Did I have to spend a lot of money on it? Yes, but as someone once told me, I'm too poor to buy cheap stuff. I'd rather pay a decent amount of money for something that will last and can be repaired, rather than shelling out money year after year for something that has to be pitched if it breaks. If you think about it, how much have you already spent on vac packers that have quit on you? Is it more than $400? If so, what would you be losing to invest in something that can be fixed, rather than tossed? The Cabela's one I have is not a lightweight, by any means, but it is movable. It's not as hard to move as my KitchenAid would be.

Do you all ever season the meat before grinding?

This is cool, Andie. I hate using (and storing) those plastic spatter guards for the microwave. I'll have to look for some of these.

Bob, I just saw this. Have you ever tried to actually can in a retort pouch? I only have experience canning in glass jars. I'm interested in the process. Is this something best not attempted in a home kitchen (with a pressure canner)? Thanks!

Ah, I see about the ground meat. However, we like sausage, so we'll probably put the trim up in breakfast sausage. I like the idea of making my own, so that I know what goes into it. I don't buy pre-made breakfast sausage unless I have to.

Why no sausage or ground meat? I'm in Kansas, where there is little danger of CWD, especially in the area we hunted.

My SO and I shot a couple of deer on New Year's Day. I got a button buck, and he got a doe. Firsts for both of us. Luckily, we had an excellent teacher to show us how to clean, skin, remove tenderloins and loins, and remove quarters. We've eaten the tenderloins from both deer, already. I cooked them in a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat until the surfaces were a nice caramel brown, and then sliced. They ended up about medium rare to rare. A little salt, and mmmmmmmmmmmmm. No pictures, unfortunately. The rest of the meat is in two coolers, on ice, until I can finish processing and vac packing the steaks and roasts, and gathering up all the trim to grind. Our teacher told us to get as much of the fat off as possible, as it doesn't taste good, and can go rancid quickly in the freezer. I hadn't heard that. I'm looking forward to cutting up the rest of the venison and, of course, eating it!

Knives will cut the coating on the dishwasher racks and make the racks rust.

Did you check the eBay supplier vanillaproducts? They still have them, but it seems they've doubled in price from when I bought some in 2009. I don't know why, except that all food seems to have gone up in price considerably from 2 years ago. I still think that's a good value, though.

I've got my smoker pre-heating, and my bird is still in its brine bath, waiting in anticipation. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tensile strength is pretty closely related to hardness, actually. The idea that bamboo is harder than steel (even mild steel) does seem quite odd to me, actually. Bamboo is not a homogenous material - perhaps there's long strands with high tensile strength surrounded by some other structure? Anyway I happen to have a bamboo cutting board in the kitchen and a portable Rockwell C hardness tester at work. I could do a test and post results if anyone cares. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be looking at. http://www.gordonengland.co.uk/hardness/hardness_conversion_1c.htm This page shows only a limited range of UTS so I assume it is for ferrous alloys only? What I intended to show is that hardness and tensile strength are directly related. There are even charts and calculators that will perform approximations between tensile strength and the various hardness scales (you shouldn't really try to convert one sort of hardness measurement to another, since different tests measure subtly different things, not that I have to tell you this...). The chart is for ferrous alloys, yes. However the same applies to alloys of copper, aluminum, etc. I haven't seen a chart that shows this for wood but I haven't seen a hardness chart for wood, period. I suspect the measured hardness of a given wood sample (including bamboo) would be different depending on whether it's measured parallel to the grain or perpendicular it, because of the way the fibers are organized. Blah blah blah, materials nerdery. I think bamboo boards are pretty nice. There aren't any Rockwell hardness charts for wood/bamboo, because it's not homogeneous, like metals or ceramics. There can be a big void, relative to the size of the structural material that it's right next to, and the human tester will never know. Take your board in and test it in 5-10 different locations. I will bet that you will get a very wide range of results. Much wider than you will with, say, a piece of steel that you test immediately before or after the board.

I'm not sure how I missed this. A dozen new jars will cost between $7 and $16, depending on where you get them. However, I look for used jars. I've been the lucky recipient of a couple dozen used quart jars, and have found, at one time or another, 5 dozen quart jars for roughly $5, umpity dozen half-pint jars for free, and most recently, several dozen mixed jars for free. I'm guessing it's not going to be so easy to find those either in France or England, though. But you can probably go to some boot sales and see what you can find. I'm not sure whether you have an equivalent of Craigslist (www.craigslist.com) in England, or Freecycle, but I've gotten jars from both places. I'm not sure whether the flageolets you're referring to are green beans or dry beans. Just be aware that the beans I've canned and talked about in my posts are dry beans, which require long cooking, normally. I just say this because I'm not familiar with flageolets. And by the way, I'm still savoring the beans I canned last time for cheap, but tasty lunches. My SO will not eat beans, but that just means more for me. It somehow doesn't seem right that something so cheap should taste so darn GOOD! I hope you have luck with your flageolets!

Looks like rust to me. I think you can get new lids for the old jars. Fillmore containers and lids. There are probably other sources out there, too. I've been giving some thought to getting some lids, myself.

This previous discussion or this one might help.

Do you have a link to the test they did? I'm interested in seeing what they tested and how. Typically, end-grain boards withstand a lot more than edge-grain. I have a large BoardSMITH board, which is end-grain, and a number of edge-grain boards. After extensive use, only the end-grain board still looks like new.

Seconded. I bought a board from him last year, this time. I've used it extensively, and it still looks brand new. I love my board from BoardSMITH.

Ok, small update: Re-boiled tapioca set up fast. And it did curdle. I'm wondering why it didn't set up the first time, when I followed the directions. The egg separation shouldn't have anything to do with it, as the idea behind that is to beat the whites and fold them in for fluffier pudding, which I didn't want. I guess the next time it doesn't set up right, I'll re-cook it, but NOT boil it. I'll just have patience and reheat over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.

I made some tapioca pudding with granulated tapioca yesterday, and it turned out great, as usual. Of course, I ate it all, and wanted more, so this time, I decided to try with small pearls. I used the Bob's Red Mill ratios and cooking instructions, with the exception that I didn't separate the eggs. Instead, I beat them with the sugar, and added them to the hot tapioca/milk mixture after tempering. I followed the cooking instructions (bring tapioca/milk to boil, then simmer at very low heat for 10-15 minutes, temper eggs, add to mixture, cook for 3 more minutes, cool, then add vanilla). I poured into bowls and popped it into the fridge. The granulated one was fairly firm after about 2 hours, and was mostly cool, but this small pearl variety, while it was cold, was rather soupy. Sooooo, I dumped it back into the pan, brought it to a boil, which seemed to thicken it, then poured it back into the bowls. However, it seemed to "break" the pudding. It looked decidedly grainy after this treatment, although I haven't tasted it to see what the texture really is like. Two questions: 1) Does small-pearl tapioca pudding take longer to set up? 2) Could I have truly curdled my pudding by re-boiling it? Tracy

Try a samovar. Oddly enough, I was reading about samovars, just today, for some reason. samovar

Ok, I canned 12 quart jars of beans, yesterday, using the quick soak method in the soup canning instructions. I actually ended up boiling them several times, as they were old beans, and kept soaking up water. I filled the jars with beans to 1" head space, then added liquid to come to the same level. I processed at 10 lbs pressure for 90 minutes. Seems to have worked well, but I think next time, I'll use less beans per jar (up to 1 1/2-2 inches head space), but still fill the liquid to 1" head space. It seems a lot of liquid siphoned out during processing so that not all the beans are in liquid in the jars. This is not a problem for safety, but could be a problem for drying out. Today, I boned and canned a turkey. Talk about your basic pain in the butt. The breasts weren't a problem, but the legs and thighs were a huge PITA.

Steven, YOU may not like melted-then-recongealed cheese, but PJ might. I would try any experiments out on the weekend, when he doesn't have to either eat it or starve at school, but just like I hate avocados, I wouldn't force my kid to NOT eat them, if I had a kid and he/she liked avocados. I might turn up my nose at preparing them for said kid, but I wouldn't keep him/her from eating them. You may feel responsible for his culinary tastes, but consider for a moment that you may be the one in the wrong, here, culinarily-tastily speaking . LOTS of people like cold pizza. It tastes a lot different than hot or warm pizza, but that doesn't make it wrong to like it. I used to love cold pizza, but now I'm less fond of it cold than I am of it hot/warm/reheated. So PJ may grow out of this without you doing anything to influence him. Granted, it may take 15-20 years.

No proof, but I imagine it's quality-based, as in making sure they're fully cooked. I have canned beans using the soup method, which does not call for half an hour of cooking, and the beans have turned out just fine: tender and tasty. I have done this with the 50/50 ratio of solids to liquids, but I will be canning beans this weekend, and will be filling the jars, as I have determined that the recommendation for the "soup ratio" doesn't really make sense for beans, as both canning methods call for the same processing time.

The problem with tempered glass, versus untempered borosilicate glass, is that it relies on heat treatment to temper it. From the reports of "exploding" glass, or catastrophic failure (in more ways than one), it seems the majority of cases (if not all) are of tempered glass that has failed in some way. This is leading many to wonder whether the heating and cooling cycles that these items have undergone may serve to de-temper the glass. I looked at your link, however, and it looks like most of Duralex's products are meant to be eaten or drunk from, and not cooked with or used as a casserole. I wouldn't be afraid to use tempered glass as dinnerware, and in fact, I do use Corelle. I just prefer not to use tempered glass (if I can help it) in the oven. Tracy