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.

Top shelf: I can't seem to give up on Jacques, Julia, and Jacques and Julia. I wish I had 1/10 the talent of either. Hubert Keller. My kind of cook. Here's the deal, here's how to cook it, here's what it looks like. Very cool. Sarah Moulton is also near the top for me, but I don't see her often in our market. Cute little (really little) petite girl too! Tolerate: Jose Andres. His cooking shows are more flash and travel than cooking, but I cut him slack because I live near his restaurants. His restaurants rock big time. And, his accent is funny. "Mmmmm. Berry, berry good!" Puzzled by: Eric Rippert. I suspect there is a good chef inside, but the guy is just a dullard tree stump on his show. Tasting fresh honey. "Wow, that's really sweet." Tasting artisan cheese. "Wow, you can really taste milk." Maybe they smack him on the head with a bat before each show? Or maybe the tele-prompter says "move stiffly to the left, then smile awkwardly." Alton Brown. Seems to focus more on the "show" part of cooking show. Last time I saw him, I turned off the TV when some dude in a chef's outfit started playing harmonica. Might know his stuff, but doesn't know that not EVERYBODY is ADD. Who ever said cooking had to be funny? Chris Kimball. I subscribed to Cook's Illustrated long ago, back when CI wasn't yet cool. But, they have really gone weird. I doubt Jacques watches their show. And the gadget ratings suck eggs. They don't like copper because it is too heavy and expensive. They like this gadget because it is cheaper, even though it is junk and falls apart after the 2nd use. They don't like the French Bron mandoline because it is too complicated??? Two levers? I love both of mine. Maybe just an overdose, but the overdose is SEVERE. Ina Garten. I truly suspect she smokes a joint after each show, and everyone holds hands. Kinda creepy, and I don't like the idea of her barefoot. Absolute dregs: Lydia. I cook like my Mama. I don't want to cook like her Mama. Nor do I want to see here Mama, nor kids. And she needs to buy a wig. Tod English. Everybody is his best friend. Not much about cooking. And he is a hunchback. Seems the most excited about getting on an airplane. Paula Dee'in. Horribly irritating accent, and no, thank you, I don't want a "dollop" of mayo in my coffee. Martha Stewart. I credit her with adding porno soundtracks to cooking shows. Nothing else. Giada. Never trust a skinny cook. Double never trust an anorexic cook. I want to force feed her bacon and cheese. Rachael Ray. I never tailgate, so I have no use for her cuisine. I also suspect she doesn't really know how to cook. Just about everyone on Food Network. Anyone who uses the word "Foodie". And anyone who's face adorns kitchen malware at Kohls, etc.

I have a Calphalon dutch oven. Would have thought that Calphalon would be a cut above. Complete piece of trash. Chipped right out of the box, chipped further after I looked at it. Chipped, cracked, crazed, and stained after first use. All my acquaintances (I have no friends) have Le Creuset and ridicule my pot. De-sinofication of my kitchen continues. I am too poor to buy cheap stuff. The equivalent Le Creuset may be close to $200, but it is a one time fee that I will happily pay.

An American can of Eagle is 14 ounces, or 396 grams. Says so right on the can so it must be true. If fluid ounces, that would be 7/4ths cups, but it is not fluid ounces. It is avoirdupois, though they do not say quite so. The can says about 20 tablespoons (two tablespoons per serving, 10 servings per can), and let's see 1 tablespoon is 1/16 of a cup, so... Darn. Ran out of fingers. I would guess that it is about 1 and 1/4 cups or 1.25 cups.

Hop Stoopid. Since the demise of Tupper's Hop Pocket, life has not been the same. Still searching.

Wikipedia says that walnut is bad for horses. I knew about chocolate and dogs, and parsley and parrots (maybe all birds?), but this is new. No suggestion that it is bad for people.

Wow. That Boardsmith board looks pretty sweet. I am impressed.

KA dropped off my radar when the price went from 2.99 to 4.99 at my Trader Joe's before disappearing altogether. Still available at Giant and Safeway in the $4.50+ range in the DC area. Unfortunately for KA, I can still get 25# bags of Gold Medal All Trumps bread flour at Costco for under $9. 25# bags of AP flour are $6 something. The animals, err, friends and family don't seem to notice the difference. Bread and blini are snarfed up with the same enthusiasm.

Blades look functionally the same to me. No wet dry grinder in my future, I guess. But the 'dry' grinder does work well as a stand. Surprisingly stable.

Pleasant Hill had an open box Gastro, so the price difference was even more. But, it would be a shame for this thread to become gastro vs swissline, pleasanthill vs bamix-usa. My Gastro is great. Smooth power, quiet, functional. A really nice piece of equipment. I don't really like to cook as much as I like to play with kitchen toys. The Bamix is a quality product, and that gives me pleasure. For friends that know how to cook, they are impressed. For friends who never ever thought of homemade mayo, it is magic. Bloop, blitz, mayo. Amazing. One day, I will pick up the processor, but for now, the "dry" grinder works just fine. I would be more interested in the processor if I could see the blade. The blade in the "dry" grinder is like a short steak knife. If the processor has a different blade configuration or does some other tricks, my interest would be increased.

I bought the Gastro because I wanted the extra horses - that's just me - and I found a good deal. While I don't find mine clumsy, I do agree the extra 2" is not a huge benefit in my kitchen. The Swiss line would have worked for me, but couldn't find it anywhere but bamix-usa. The dry grinder serves my wet purposes just fine, and I don't need the stand, dvd, recipe book, nor the silly plastic beakers.