ethermion

So why not drink beer with a chewable vitamin? All the goodness of white bread, but it will not stick to the roof of your mouth. What is the bioavailability of a twinkie?

Certainly could be wrong, but that is my experience. The instructions, as best I recall were quite clear. Place on top of meat, push. Wash after use. That's what I do. I'm all ears for new ideas.

Not correct, eh? I own one of them, a 3 row by 16 unit Jaccard branded unit. Either you do not notice a difference, or you get cube steak. And it tends to smash the meat if you effectively get the blades into the meat. Commercial houses may use something different, but the hand held Jaccard that I have makes cube steaks.

I have had one of them there Jaccard devices for several years. It makes cube steak. No more, no less. Think chicken fried steak. That's the application, and it works well. If high end restaurants are using them on expensive steaks, I have not noticed in my area. And if I did notice, I would definitely send it back along with many choice words from many languages. I like mine, but accept it for what it is. Show me Pepin using one to make an average steak a great steak, and I will reconsider.

Many years ago, there were pickled feet and pickled eggs in separate jars a the checkout in 7-11. Reach in, drop a quarter, and be on your way. Never had the guts to try one. Never was *that* hungry. For stock, they are probably fine, but I do not keep pork stock in stock. Just two days ago, at Safeway or maybe Giant, feet were in the meat display. Not too hard to find in Virginia. If you look, they are pretty obvious. You see ears too. Just in those regular foam trays wrapped in plastic wrap like all the other meat. Much more common than beef heart. -e

Toaster Waffles. It is ridiculous how cheap you can make a big pile of waffles to freeze. Mustard. Tastes a treat and very easy! Mayo. With a nice stick blender very easy. But don't be just cheap. Also take comfort in the fact that you can pronounce all of the (few) ingredients, nothing is "mechanically separated", and the result shares no ingredients with shampoo.

100% agree with you. It is the same kind of tree hugging fools that prevent me from eating cheval here in the US. We can slaughter horses for export, we can slaughter them for dog food, but not for my dinner table. Foo! And the same foolery means that my county seems to have more deer than people. Does not matter to them that venison is tasty healthy food, yet dangerous when you hit the stupid creatures with your car, which I have done on three occasions so far. What next? If you drive through the rolling hills of Virginia, you will notice farms with collections of what look to be large dog houses. They are raising veal. Oops, it seems that they are starting to ban that too. I'm hungry. I want to eat. What could be more inhumane than eating a creature? Or will that be banned too?

Do not know if was mentioned previously in this long thread, but people should be aware that not all TJs are the same. I have three in my area. One is completely forgettable, the other two are quite nice with a somewhat different selection. Apparently each store manager orders what at will what is likely to sell in that area. Wine selection is different, beer selection is different, cheeses, meats, frozen meals, teas, snacks, candies, etc all different.

Gracious host that I am, I invited some friends over for dinner. Actually, I have no friends, and they were just acquaintances. I cooked a fine meal for them and all was cool. But, I proudly displayed my new Nordicware popover pan and was accused of having a Unitasker. I was told that I was not a real chef because I had Unitaskers in my kitchen. Really torqued me. So, I propose a list of useful Unitaskers - the Unitasker hall of fame. I can start with two: 1) Tea kettle. I use it to boil water. Nothing else. Just boil water. Use it just about every day. 2) Pepper mill. I grind pepper. Nothing else. Actually, I have two as one excels at coarse grind, the other at fine. Anybody else?

Don't know about the shoe repair shop, but the hardware store has a fancy diamond stone setup and does a very nice job. And if the knives are "affordable" to begin with, why not spend $15 bucks to touch up knives that are destined for the rubbish bin anyway?

I will second the Forschner knife suggestion. Probably the only reasonable choice in your budget for new stuff. Another thing to consider, is that more and more places are offering sharpening services. My shoe repair shop, a local hardware store, and a local cooking supply store all sharpen knives for $5 each for a passable job. Maybe your existing knives can be saved for a bit, putting the remaining money in the bank until you can get a real knife or perhaps a good steel for maintenance.

Sweet corn, is probably just corn. There are all kinds of corn, but nobody finds "sour" corn at the grocery. Canned corn usually calls itself sweet corn, and it may be selected like sweet peas by dumping corn in water. The sweeter corn floats, and is saved for canning. But, just a guess. Corn Syrup, in America, probably refers to Karo syrup. Karo is corn syrup (glucose), high fructose corn syrup, which together are approximately invert syrup, plus salt and vanilla. That is comes from corn, is probably irrelevant.

Baah-mix, like sheep would pronounce it.

People keep on talking about scratching pots. With my Bamix, you can puree a gallon of soup in about 10 seconds, without even touching the bottom of the pot. Freakin' amazing, it is, it just sucks everything in an blitzes it. If you are drawing the blender across the bottom of the pot, you technique is wrong or your blender is wrong. If you use the (right) blender right, you will spend more time plugging and un-plugging. If you go Bamix, and I am a very happy customer, go to http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/bamix.aspx rather than WS. The WS version comes with a beaker which you do not need. The Pleasant Hill Deluxe comes with the processor which is useful, and a real stand. Same price and free shipping.

Pretty funny stuff, but not as funny as the real thing. "Brilliant," she says.