Jacksoup

@suzilightning I have never heard of butter bean honey, Will you tell us about it?

One addition to the kitchen. Finally found a utility cart at IKEA to house the CSO and Instant Pot. Now they're off the countertop and everything looks cleaner. I collect aprons as souvenirs and decided to hang them up behind the CSO. I know fire hazard. Will roll the cart out to use the CSO. Just got a new apron from Silver Oak winery in Napa this weekend. Some others are from Paris, London, Cinque Terre, Culinary Institute in Napa, Florence, Telluride and Salty's Restaurant in Seattle.

Biba has a restaurant in my city. She's had it for 31 years. http://biba-restaurant.com/about-biba She's usually in there every day. She had breast cancer a while go and I believe her public persona did lessen after that. I did see her in the restaurant a few months ago.

@andiesenji thank you! Then this must be my grandmother's skillet. My son ruined one of the two I had and I was never sure which was which. I also have two small 6.5 inch cast iron skillets but they are 'Wagner Ware'. Now I'm ambitious to clean up the aged beauty. Thanks again!

This photo may be better

@andiesenji this is not a thrift store find but am curious about this pan. I believe it was my mothers. Any info on the age of this would be appreciated. Hard to read but it says Wagner Sidney at the top and 8 on the lower part

pulled out a hunk of pork shoulder and made carnitas in the IP. My new freezer part of the new counter depth fridge is so small compared to the old freezer space, I'm considering getting a stand alone freezer as soon as I make space in the garage.

Used frozen Pesto with Pasta. Chicken breasts with Citrus. Started eating in front of the TV before I remembered to take a lousy picture

@Thanks for the Crepes I feel unbelievably lucky to be able to drive to Trader Joe's, Safeway, Whole Foods and Asian, Indian, Mexican and so many ethnic groceries. I need to go more often just to enjoy my luck. Trader Joe's is the only one I go to regularly because they have my favorite wine.

I was amazed at the big difference in wine prices between Toronto and my hometown. Of course I'm in Northern California where wine is plentiful, but the price was pretty much double. My lack of math skills did not allow me to truly calculate the actual difference. And I was in Toronto two years ago so it may be different now.

Pork tenderloin with pomegranate glaze, Pasta with Pesto. Broccoli with anchovies, garlic and chilies. The alliterative items, pork and pesto were from the freezer. My son's plate before and after. He and his gf did all the clean up and were pretty funny cuz they're tipsy.

Enabled once again. Bought The Glorious Pasta of Italy and the Jacques Pepin books.

@ElsieD I'm using the ham bone from the Christmas ham for ham and navy bean soup. Also pulled frozen pepper strips out last night for sausage and Peppers over Polenta. Forgot to take pictures of that. The peppers were from last years garden and the sausage is Aidell's chicken with apple which is always in the freezer. Even though this is the boyfriend's freezer I feel I should get points since I stocked everything in the first place. If we ate from what he put in the freezer, it would be yakisoba bowls and burgers.

@Kim Shook have to agree with you on pork belly and bone marrow. Too much fat for me. I'm not anorexic or anything close to that but the texture is just off putting to me.

I finally decommissioned the old refrigerator and freezer. The new freezer is smaller than the old one. But I did throw away a bunch of old stuff. The turkey breast still wouldn't fit in the new freezer so we had turkey breast and stuffing with homemade cranberry/orange sauce tonight. Turkey Breast and Baked dressing. That's about as alliterative as I can get with this meal. My son's plate - mine was about half that

@Porthos. I have a couple of her cookbooks which I like. Her restaurant is in my town and although it's very popular, I've never been impressed. And I'm not that difficult to impress.

@gfweb your kitchen looks fabulous. Am jealous of all the room and options. My first meal was chicken piccata, mainly because I can do it well, ( Ithink)and my son loves it, mainly for the capers. But made risotto in the Instant Pot, per the NYT IP article, am not convinced it's better than stove top, but it was quick. Am still getting comfortable with the placement of dishes, utensils and pantry. The more I am in my new kitchen I will probably arrange placement of stuff to be more functional

Dungeness crab is still, happily, in season. We had this this with garlic butter and baguette slices on a sliced open garbage bag on the living room floor. It's messy and the dining room table is still filled with the detrius of trying to move back into the newly remodeled kitchen. So we roughed it. Still tasted great.

@Kim Shook I've missed you and your posts

This is right up my alley. Old refrigerator has a larger freezer than the new one and I need to pare down the stuff in the old one. I am taking tomorrow and Friday off work to put all the pots, pans, dishes, etc into the new kitchen and will be ready to cook! I have 3 gallon bags of frozen Meyer lemon juice cubes and two of pesto. Will probably make lemon curd since I have 2 dozen eggs from the boyfriend's chickens. But then I'll freeze that. Have a lot of meat - pork shoulder, ground veal& chicken. Meatballs? Seems like I can stock the freezer with prepared stuff instead of the basic ingredients. Am getting excited to use the new kitchen

@JoNorvelleWalker I lived with a semi functioning kitchen for about 5 years. After the stove/oven died, I decided to bite the bullet and build what will probably be my last kitchen. The amount of money pains my frugal soul, the contractor and his close talking and flirting(ugh!), pain me emotionally, the dust and general messiness pain me physically. All of the general unsettledness annoys me. But in the end, I love it and will enjoy it more than I was annoyed by the mess. And I know I'm truly lucky to be able to do this. First world problems indeed!

@MelissaH it does sound like the same range, gas stovetop electric oven. Nice to hear you like the warming light,, helpful about the faulty switch.

It's pretty much done. Some minor details like the microwave trim and caulking around the window. I plan on taking a couple of days off from work to move everything in. Had another cat inspection. She's very relieved things are getting back to normal.

@Thanks for the Crepes this fridge has a lot of technological whoop de doo that I guess I will have to acquaint myself with. It's rather intimidating. Glad I have a kid that can figure it out. Contractor is working on a set $$ amount so hourly is not an issue. Still need a change order from him since son did the electrical. Based on the photo I can't believe it will be almost done tomorrow

Some glitches today. The trim kit for the microwave/convection oven is too big. Contractor blames the supply house, but it's been sitting here in the box for at least 3 weeks and contractor never checked. I blame the contractor but verbalizing that won't get it here any sooner, so I held my tongue. Refrigerator is in and working. Stove is slightly in but contractor forgot his foamy test liquid so not fully functional. Contractor did tell me he had lunch with an old friend today so I think that is why things did not get done. Can you tell I'm really ready for this to be over? Promised to be functional tomorrow . The grates are kinda cool, they flip over and are concave to hold a wok