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Big Joe the Pro

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    St. Louis, MO

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  1. Patience is a virtue.
  2. That KA 600 seems like an OK deal, assuming that it works. I usually prefer to buy new myself though.
  3. Does anyone else find that it's odd that Aldi has a store brand called 'Benton'? That name really seems more appropriate for the behemoth from Arkansas. Did my once-a-month trip to Shop'n'Save to lay in some decent meat today. They have a nice $10 off $50 coupon that is hard to resist. It's nice to go to a proper market from time to time. Aldi drives me a bit buggy with their limited stock. For example, they only carry tuna helper (my son's favorite) once a year. Wow, brisket costs a fortune here! Ouch!
  4. One of my favorite supermarket items comes from Aldi; their 'Specially Selected' (store brand) Italian bread. That stuff is GOOOOOOOD! Less than two bucks, take it home and pop it in the oven for ten minutes. Don't forget the brushetta to slather on top. OMG!!! Crispy on the outside, hot and doughy on the inside. If you want to thank me, and you will, send a check to your favorite charity! The Trader Joe's brushetta is apparently the same as Aldi's BTW. Get some Two Buck Chuck while you're there.
  5. Aldi gets my business 3x a month. They impress me a lot, but if I weren't on a fixed income, I wouldn't go there. Their whole thing is logistics and moving stuff through their small stores. Here in St. Louis we are very close to Aldi's US HQ in the Chicago 'burbs, so we get good stuff usually. Those complaining about quality may live far from a distribution center? Some of their products are inferior. Their ice cream leaves a lot to be desired, and their Asian sauces don't look too good on the label. They probably taste ok, but I'll drive up to the ethnic markets myself. I rarely buy meat there, but what I've bought was adequate. The store nearest me was recently redecorated and is always very clean. Their employees are taken better care of than WM's. That alone is enough for me to shop there. Peace, Joe
  6. Thanks. I think that that's the British publication date. I've got it in my Amazon cart in the US and it says October 2016. We really do need to go metric on this side of the sink, don't we? Too bad it didn't stick when we tried changing back in the seventies. There's an episode of America's Test Kitchen Radio with an interview with Ms. Dunlop here: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/radio/202-cooking-lesson-the-secrets-of-cooking-brilliant-chinese-food-at-home-with-fuchsia-dunlop
  7. Ok, I took your suggestion and used the flat beater to start to mix together the wet starter and drier autolysed flour, and it worked pretty well. The flat beater was 'dirty' already from mixing the autolysed flour, so it's not even any extra washing up. It was kind of a pain to get that gluey dough off of the flat beater, but nothing is perfect. It didn't seem to strain the KA Pro 600 in the least, but I just do single loaves.
  8. Yes, I also start with the flat beater with completely dry dough, but I'm a little afraid to use it at the point of mixing the starter and autolysed dough together. Like you say; you could break something. I'll have to give it a try. I never ever get those extended warranties either. The companies obviously make a profit on them, so the odds are in our favor, right? I'll never forget KA's offer of five years of coverage for $500 though. It didn't instill me with confidence in my shiny new machine.
  9. The bowl shape is one main reason I preferred my Kenwood over my KA. The Kenwood mixed my rustic doughs together much better than the 6 qt. KA. I always have to stop the KA several times during the first minute or two and 'nudge' the wet starter and dry flour together. Anyway, it's a minor annoyance. The KA does a fine job on everything else, and I use it alot.
  10. This reminds me of the extended warranty offer I received from KA soon after buying my unit. I threw it away in disgust, but if I remember correctly they wanted US $ 500 to cover it for five years? Can you imagine? I think I only paid about $ 300 for the thing. Crazy. First-of-all, if it breaks within five years it's going straight back to Kohl's.
  11. I used to eat there a couple times a month when I first hit town in the late nineties. There weren't so many choices like there are today as I remember, and I hadn't yet gotten a decent apartment with an oven where I could make my own pizza. It was worth going to Pizza Hut to me and my friends just to watch the locals pile stuff on their plates at the one trip salad bar. I'll never forget some of those people walking slowly back to their tables carrying those huge pyramids of very intricately stacked vegetables. I wonder if they still do that.
  12. Durian pizza was something I never experienced in my 15+ years in Beijing, but it does say in the article that it is something that originated in Southern China. Go figure, it is a tropical fruit!
  13. I thought that this was an interesting article about Pizza Hut in China trying out Durian fruit as a topping: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/03/11/china-real-time-tries-pizza-huts-new-durian-pizza-so-you-dont-have-to/
  14. I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment, but if memory serves there's only one other country of any size that is 110v besides the U.S. We're definitely in the minority.
  15. St. Louis is a fine city. It has problems and no-go areas like any other metropolitan area in this world. Don't take my word for it. 'The New York Times' put St. Louis on their places to visit list this year. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/07/travel/places-to-visit.html?_r=0
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