kaszeta

I'm interested in seeing this as well. I've never found any small pull-through gadgets that are even in the same league as a full-size whetstone or similar sharpener. I use a 10" DuoSharp diamond bench stone that's fine on one side, extra-fine on the other, that I rigged to sit in place of a pull-out cutting board in my kitchen. For anything but nicks (which I take out using an older Lansky set of honing stones, starting with the coarse one), I can have any knife of mine sharpened enough to shave with in under a minute.

Another member of the "homemade pesto club". I make about 3 quarts of pesto ever season. I freeze most of it (mostly in ice cube trays), and then usually make homemade pasta with pesto when I need something in a pinch.

Indeed, as the others have mentioned, transit is closed, including the Underground (and the buses, the trains, etc.). If you have to get someplace on Christmas Day, you need to plan for it ahead of time. Consider getting a cheap PAYG phone. I have a crappy but functional Nokia that I picked up a few trips ago for 10 quid. Oh, and while the Underground is great, I highly recommend learning the bus system as well, at least downtown. During peak times it's often faster, cheaper, and more scenic. And knowing the night bus routes is crucial if you're going to be out late at night.

Care to elaborate what kind of "stuff?" Sure. A lot of the chain food places are open with reduced hours (most of the Pret A Manger and EAT locations, for example). As I mentioned above, a huge fraction of the foreign businesses on Edgeware Road were open. Brick Lane was mostly open after noon. Much of Chinatown was open. Enough pubs that those really wanting a pint or a meal could find such. Most retail is closed, as are most of the major retail areas (Covent Garden is mostly closed, for exaple).. Transit is closed. Train stations, and things in train stations, were closed.. And most every non-religious tourist site is closed (on the other hand, if you want to actually go to a service in Westminster Abbey, it's pretty much a matter of showing up in time to get a seat).

Having done Christmas in London several times, it's definitely way, way more dead on Christmas than most towns. Until about 10am the city is a ghost town (and for me, that's part of the attraction, it's really cool to wander around a London with no people in it, see my flickr set from last Christmas), but after that it starts waking up. People get out of church and stuff, and start to walk around, and a surprisingly large amount of stuff is open. (And a major change this year is that a *lot* of people did the same as I did: check out a Boris Bike and ride around town with only a fraction of the normal traffic, so by mid-afternoon Hyde Park was a hopping place to be) Most of the Middle-eastern places on Edgeware were open. In most areas, at least one larger pub was open, usually serving some sort of holiday set menu (I was in Pimlico, and the Queen's Arms was open at noon, we went there later for pints). As mentioned above, most of the major hotel restaurants are open as well, but reservations will be critical. Pretty much nothing touristy is open (the one exception I can think of is that I saw at least one of those open-top tourist buses driving about), and the lack of public transportation keeps most people close to home (taxis are available, but there aren't a lot of black cabs roaming about, and some of the hired cab services get cranky if you don't reserve Christmas Day transport ahead of time).

I use a Kyocera ceramic burr grinder to grind, and a vacuum brewer to brew:

I still have a the remnants of a bad tiny dried hot peppers that I bought from a street vendor in Naples, Italy, in 1993. These are some of the strongest, and most flavorful hot peppers I've ever had, since two little tiny inch-long ones are enough to add noticeable heat to an entire kettle of tomato sauce. The bag had maybe 700 peppers in it. Sometime in 1999 I move the remaining peppers to a small gladware container, and I still use them on occasion. There's probably another 50 left, before I need to go back to Naples...

I also first learned of this from Indian cookbooks.

A three year old jar of Bacon Jam from Skillet in Seattle.

I certainly wouldn't mind Philly. Plenty of good food opportunities there.

Yeah, I'm lucky enough to have to travel to NASA Glenn on a regular basis, and usually stay at that Marriott, although I haven't been there since the chef switch from Ellis Cooley to Jeff JErret. Obviously Jeff has kept a good thing going.

Wow, I was going to post a link to a review of Plow I did, and I realized I never finished writing it up... I agree, Plow was one seriously good breakfast.

Like jsmeeker, I mostly see this used for cheese plates, and it doesn't bother me there. Anything with any sort of real moisture to it, it would bother me, much as I am somewhat bothered by wood planks as a serving plate.

I find it hard to believe that the increased cooling you get from the sweat would offset the increase in body temperature you get from the hot beverage. Myself, I usually switch to iced coffee in the summer when I'm outside.

I feel your pain. Right now I'm trying to barter away all of my CSA eggplants, since the *only* dish I've ever found containing eggplant that has any enjoyment for me is Baba ghanoush. So I made a fairly large batch of that, and am now trying to trade eggplants for fennel and kohlrabi, since I seem to be one of the few people in my CSA that enjoys those.

I like the Grade A stuff as well, but generally prefer the stronger flavor of Grade B. And actually, my favorite stuff at the moment is "ungraded" stuff from early this season: it was too dark to be classified Grade B, but unlike the Grade C end of season stuff, it was actually good. (I own maple trees, that's where much of my syrup comes from, although my neighbor is the one with the sap boiler) I should also specify that I really prefer Northeast US maple over most of the Canadian stuff, not for regional snobbery, but due to the US stuff being thicker (higher specific gravity). Most of the easily available Canadian stuff is watery. I like my syrup, well, syrupy.

Being in Northern New England, real maple syrup is pretty much required. More specifically, I usually do grade B, with an extra sprinkle of maple sugar.

Two I'll throw out there as well, from my trip earlier this month: Dynamo Donuts (review here). While getting a lot of online mention for their bacon apple donut, I was really, really impressed with their caramel de sel and chocolate rose donuts. Seriously one of the best donut shops I've been to. Mission Cheese (review here). Fairly new place in the Mission focusing on American-produced cheeses, with good sandwiches, cheese plates, and raclette.

Yeah, if you can't get decent Shaoxing (I have to go down to MA to get it, unfortunately), a dry sherry is a decent substitute. The salted stuff can be pretty nasty.

I haven't been to the Park Ave location in years, but did the location by the WTC in 2009, and had a very good steak frites. Not what it once was, but still good.

It's a non-issue, since microwaves are very well shielded, and even if it leaks out, microwaves are non-ionizing radiation. It's not really different from, say, standing near a heat lamp.

Could be any number of wood stoves, but it looks a lot like the 1902 Heartland Wood Stove that the previous owners of my house heated the living room and cooked with. http://www.inglenookenergy.com/Heartland_Appliances/1902_Wood_Cook_Stove.htm

Like you, if I'm just craving ginger, I usually either make up some ginger simple syrup, or ginger infused vodka. But like Chris Amirault says, it has some nice subtle notes. Particularly, I use it instead of ginger beer in a dark and stormy. I've also rather enjoyed it in several drink paired with pear juice, or paired with Cynar.

According to several sources, Bianco is going to open for lunch starting on the 12th. In general, I think this will make it easier to get in, but could also make optimization more difficult (I had the existing system pretty well optimized) http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/morning_call/2011/03/pizzeria-bianco-to-open-for-lunch.html

Domaine de Canton Ginger. For some reason I've been drinking a lot of that.