Martin Fisher

It's not unusual for wild rabbit to have an odor. Soak in salt water.

I haven't seem pasteurized eggs for sale here.

You got a lemon...buy another one. You shouldn't have to baby cast iron. I have several dozen pieces, I use cast iron every day and I've never had a piece crack.

Likely a hidden flaw. It's common with cast iron. Critical castings such as car parts are x-rayed to detect flaws.....I doubt Lodge x-rays pans.

Beautiful kitchen Nancy.....MUCH nicer than what I have to work with. Cute mousers!!!

My gut feelings echo many above - who in this day & age cares about uniform pieces? I think flavor has become the bottom line criterion. As to mashing up a fish or piece of meat in an attempt to debone or the like that of course is horrid. For something simple like a chicken vegetable soup, size uniformity plays as big a role as flavour does. If the vegetables look like they were thrown in a food processor, then they probably were. For knife skills in regards to simple butchery As a Chef and owner, if I get a case of whole chickens in, I know that: 1) the price per kg/lb whole chicken is cheaper than pre-fabricated 2)I can get the level of trim I want 3)I can generate enough trim to make stocks 4)I can generate "schmaltz" or chicken fat 5)Even with my labour calculated at $15/hr, I can still fabricate my chicken parts cheaper than ordering pre-fabricated parts Same goes with fish, and for primal cuts cuts of beef or pork Thank you! I totally agree!

I've been using induction and a stainless (but induction-ready) pour pot. Hard to control the flow with Pyrex but I may give 'wave' a try (and stir). Can you recommend a good stainless pour pot? Pyrex sucks since Corning dumped it.

I'm for uniformity most of the time....who wants carrots or whatever that cook unevenly? Having said that I'm not going to pretend to be an expert with a knife...but I do get by...I've yet to starve because of my knife skills...LOL

It takes some time to cure tongue without injection...not only is the skin tough...the meat is very dense. I'd skin it before curing.

ChefSteps on presearing.....

I wish they'd behave more professionally...like at least posting an estimated lead time. I ordered on the 31st....no word after the initial transaction but of course they charged my account.

Oh yeah!!!! Love me some garlic studded pernil!!!!!!!

The classification of all sauces into the four original mother sauces groups.....Bechamel, Sauce Tomat, Veloute and Espagnole.....was Marie-Antoine Carême's doing. Auguste Escoffier added the fifth mother sauce....Hollandaise.

I hope to formulate a low-sugar/low-starch sandwich bread that doesn't totally suck!

"...and slept it off during the meeting." LOL! Thanks for sharing!

We always start of the new year with traditional pork and sauerkraut, because, you know, a pig roots forward...while poultry scratches backwards and cattle stand still!

Yeah....you have to be a member...or ride along with a member.

DiggingDogFarm - I have never been to Sam's Club.. does the $12.88 price the website gave me sound right for that pack of 24 you linked too? Yep, $12.88 for 24.

I just looked at Fantes site...they have 2 mills listed as Omac...Made in Italy...the pictures are definitely pics of Macina-Legume mills. http://fantes.com/food-mills.html

FWIW, I think that JB Prince sells the Eurodib for about $120

Check Fantes.com in Philly....they carry, or used to carry, Macina-Legume.

I have indeed purchased thighs and boned and skinned them myself. It was a royal pain in the posterior and I have reasonable knife skills. In the following video Martin Gilligan demonstrates my favorite way of deboning thighs....with a bit of practice you can go through several of them in a few short minutes.... Starting at about 2:40 in the video.......

I've lived rural almost all of my life...around lots of LP....around lots of guns...lots and lots of guns. I've never heard of a propane explosion...natural gas, yes, several explosions but never an LP explosion. LP is just like natural gas cooking wise. Having said that...I hate LP.....it's expensive...the LP companies are known to be crooks....there are often delivery issues in bad weather....any cylinder that isn't fairly big is subject to theft...I just hate dealing with it. I would seriously look at a wood cookstove.....I recommend the no frills Amish built models....Baker's Choice and Pioneer Princess are popular.

I like bar mops. They're reasonably priced and hold up pretty well. Lately I've been buying the 100% cotton bar mops at Sam's Club.

First, an apology. I misread the post to which I was responding and thought you had said "I apologize if ...", a form of apology I find particularly maddening, when in fact you said no such thing. My mistake, no excuses. Second, I'm envious you can get good chickens at such low prices. (I assume these are the same ones you mentioned upthread as being $0.69/lb for legs and $0.99/lb for whole birds.) You do appreciate, I hope, that most of us don't have access to this sort of thing. Back when I was making my own stock (had a big freezer then), sourcing chickens worth the effort was the most difficult part of the exercise, and they were a good deal more expensive. Third, coming back to the topic, I would suggest you're explaining why you go to the trouble of making chicken stock when most of us just buy it. That's fine and I do similar things. For example, I make my own dijon mustard, because it's not hard and a heck of a lot better IMHO than commercial brands. But I don't have any trouble understanding why most people don't bother. I respectfully submit you should take the same view on canned chicken stock. I actually barter for the chickens so I do get an extremely good deal on them. The main reason I make stock is because I like my stock to taste like chicken...I make a very concentrated stock with a minimum of 'perfumes.' My main issue (there are others) with commercial stock is the flavor enhancers that are added....I do not like the flavor....I much prefer the flavor of natural chicken. I do understand why some folks use it and I don't have a problem with that. What I really don't understand is when my friends get commercial stock on sale they'll brag about what a great deal it is......those same friends (who claim to always be hunting for a deal) will toss out bones from chicken rather than make their own stock.....that I do no understand because it's extremely easy to make, it tastes better and it's a MUCH better deal.