dscheidt

So have various grocers in inner cities. Very little of the produce imperfect et al sell was in any danger of going to waste, at least before they ended up in a consumer's kitchen.

Carefully block the spout (don't burn yourself) when it's boiling. If it it whistles, the problem is in the spout. If it doesn't, it's the lid.

I bought lots of used text books in college, saved lots of money. the markings in them told you a lot about the prior owners. Most had random highlighting and underlining, some had interesting marginalia. One, I was sure had never been used, until I got to chapter five, where nearly every single word was highlighted, as words, with gaps in the highlighting between them. Just the one chapter, which was on legislative process or something. Similarly, I mark up my cookbooks. Notes about "needs more parsley" or "leave out the parsnips", or cooking instructions, or scaling.

Everyone reuses casting sand. It's not just sand, it's sand with stuff in it to make it behave the way the foundry wants it to. Typically that's a clay, and water. As you pour molten iron into the sand, some of the clay gets cooked. As the amount of used up clay in the sand increases, it behaves poorly, so it has to be discarded. Most foundries discard part of the sand, and replace it fresh stuff, more or less continuously. It's possible to separate the clay from the sand, and just add the appropriate amount of clay back. That's expensive. It takes time, it requires expensive machinery, etc, and sand is cheap. So it's not commonly done.

Yes, I've seen it done. T&S brass sell a number of lavatory faucets that work like this (and parts to make others work, as well). It's possible to put kitchen spouts on them. I suspect most commercial faucet lines have the parts required to do this. I've also seen it done with with a check valve (probably a pair of them, but I didn't get under the sink to check it out), on a mainstream kitchen faucet. The faucet's mixing valve fed the spout with a hose, the valve went there, allowing the spout to get water from either the regular handle or the foot pedals.

It's possible to build a kitchen faucet that uses a standard two pedal mixing valve (what you see in medical settings, and some food service hand washing sinks) and leaves the regular handles or knobs intact and usable. So you can turn it on and off and set the temperature with either control.

A friend is waiting for a refrigerator, since like April. She reports her appliance store tells her that there's stock of fancy models, but not midrange stuff.

I'm sure it is, for the accountants.

I bought the oxo one, on the grounds that if my wife hates it, she can't blame me for buying some strange brand. We'll see how it works out. It turned up today, I'll use it later for dinner.

I need a couple small spatulas, suitable for getting the last of contents out of a small jar or can. Any recommendations? The last one, which worked pretty well, was from Tovolo, but it had a wooden handle that didn't last. I'd strongly prefer silicone.

https://camelcamelcamel.com/ will tell you the price history of an item. Because of the way amazon does short sales and garage sale day, their data may not reflect the current price, but it will still tell you if what you're seeing is a decent buy or not. There are lots of fake deals on garage sale day, black friday, etc. (The TV I bought a couple years ago was 100 more expensive as a prime day deal than it was when I bought it the month before. It was also advertised as a black friday deal, again for more than it had sold for regularly.)

Sure. I soak the toast as usual. Then it's bagged and sealed (don't pull too hard a vaccum, you'll squash the slices). The first time I did this, I did not have a vacuum sealer, so I used zipper bags and sealed them with an impulse sealer. Six slices from my pullman pans fit in the 10x15 bags I use. I get 13 1" slices from each loaf, so it works out well. It's also what we eat for breakfast. I think if I had bags that held two slices without horrible waste, I'd use that, because it's more flexible. When I'm doing it for a group, I will put more slices into a bag, in two layers. Then it's cooked at 147 for an hour or a bit longer. If you have two layers, I'd increase the time. From there, you could either hold hot at 140F, if you're serving it immediately, or it goes into an ice water bath and to cold storage. Serving is thaw if required, then brown (and make sure it's to temp internally, I sometimes heat it in a low oven, or in the water bath, before browning. Speeds things up, if you are doing a lot at once.) I first did this when I had to feed breakfast to 40 of my wife's relatives at the family cabin with a kitchen woefully ill suited for it. I bagged and cooked it all at home, hauled it to the cabin frozen, and used the circulator to thaw it and start the warming. Worked very well for that, so I've been doing it for home, and for a few other mass breakfast and brunches.

French toast from the cinnamon bread I made the other day. I make this in bulk and cook it sous vide, so we have three more batches in the freezer.

Baked a couple loaves of my cinnamon bread yesterday. I had some timing problems with other stuff, and it got over proofed on the first rise, and the second wasn't quite enough to fill the pullman pans. Still turned out okay. It almost all got turned into meal prep french toast, cooked sous vide, and into the freezer. (well, one batch is in the fridge for tomorrow....)

I doubt the cans used by a given canner are different based on what's going in them. Tomato canning is a "get it done now" operation, where the tomatoes come in, and processed, and canned as fast as possible to preserve freshness. many canners don't put the labels on cans until they ship them, because the same cans get sold under different brands. I use Escalon 6-in-1 tomatoes for pizza sauce. I have had several cans, which the canning machine labeled organic along with the lot and datestamp. The label was the normal one, as were the can and its contents.

My take on that is that the realtor wants a turnkey. They're easier to sell, they sell faster and at a higher price. The realtor does not care that you paid 100K in renovations so you could sell the house for 50K more. they care that you make their job easier, and they make more money at it. In most markets, renovations for sale do not make financial sense. Unless you can do the work cheaply, you will not make back what it costs to do the work. (Flippers can make money in three ways. If the market is rising, they benefit from buying low and selling high. Two, they usually buy houses that are such poor shape they couldn't be bought by someone who needs a mortgage. Three, they often do crap work, cutting every possible corner. )

Yeah, the only thing I find limiting with the the 215 is the width of bags it can seal. It's got a 10" bar. Also: you can use bags longer than the chamber. if you put anything with girth to it (a hunk of meat, say) you will use up some of the length of the bag going around it.

Better, just get a set of bits for your drill. Not only is cutting the bit in half a pain (do you think people have hacksaws and vises handy?), but most bits that come with furniture are made of cheese, and there's always one fastener which requres using the short side of the L key, because of clearance. I'd also recommend spending $20 and buying a set of decent allen wrenches (these are very good, made in the USA, and fairly cheap https://smile.amazon.com/Bondhus-20199-Balldriver-L-Wrench-1-5-10mm/dp/B00012Y38W/ Currently $18 for a set of both metric and SAE sizes.)

I figured it was too late for you, but I figured it could help someone in the future. No one seems to know about these boxes. They're not stocked by big box stores. Mine cam,e from a plumbing supply place, which had it in stock, but the counter guys had no idea they existed. (I called to check stock, guy asked what it was after saying thye had one. Guy who sold it to me also commented about never having seen one.) If you know what stove is going in, they're a great solution.

Most of the storage solutions are going to be for the person who has ten cans of the same thing, because that's the common and easy situation. Random access to small objects on shelves or in cabinets is hard problem to solve, that's why drawers are so much nicer. I did tour a house with a two million dollar kitchen[1], which had pull out shelves for cans, each shelf being two small (15oz) cans wide, and six or eight cans deep, with a little lip to keep things from flying around. I'm sure they were custom made. Failing that, the best solution I've come up with is stepped shelves, so you can see at least part of the cans behind the front row. Organization and inventory are important, so you don't end up with four cans of artichoke hearts. (I don't know what I'd do with one can, but we're prepared!) We have a real walk in pantry, about 3 x 7, and lots of cans on the shelves. (and more in the basement, for stuff we use in large amounts like beans and tomatoes, and for some #10 cans.) [1] the kitchen renovation had, according to the realtor, involved buying the house next door and tearing it down, so the kitchen could be expanded into that lot. I was with someone who was looking at it, way over my budget.

I heartily recommend an ox box gas valve box, like https://smile.amazon.com/Sioux-Chief-696-1031GF-Box-Outlet/dp/B003QSPUJO/ I installed one for my range, which greatly simplified installation, and got rid of the pipe coming through the floor. Plaster was the next step...

Buddy of mine bought a milling machine, about 3500 pounds, at an auction. He hired a rigging company to move it and install it in his basement. He was a little surprised when the truck showed up, and the only one on it was the driver. Dude had a collection of pretty impressive jacks, air bags, rollers, and big levers. (and a forklift to get it to the door.).

spec sheet says "Dry rocker vaccum pump". Rocker is a manufacturer (or maybe just a branding) of vacuum pumps, they're conventional piston pumps, and sucking stuff through them will cause damage. They work fine until they wear out, and for many applications that's pretty much never. That's probably the case for most home chamber vacuum sealers. When I bought my machine, the cost difference between the oil pump and dry pump version was only thirty or fifty bucks, pretty negligible compared to the cost of the machine. There are vacuum pumps that can ingest water, and which are oil free (scroll pumps, for instance), but they're not cheap, and even further over kill for the home kitchen.

seems to be https://www.lemproducts.com/product/maxvac-pro-chamber-sealer/all-vacuum-sealer-products this model. has an oil pump, which is a good feature. don't have a clear sense about how tall the chamber is, but it might be short. That's a limiation on my vp215 (not most of the time, but there's stuff I can't see I'd like to because of the height, particularly near the sealing bar.). it's probably a good buy for $600, given what tarriffs have done to prices. (I paid not much more than $600 for my vp215 about four years ago. )

I've never gotten a bucket from a food service operation with a lid worth a damn. No problem with the buckets, but the lids aren't good. They're not designed to be reused, so not really a surprise. Spending 6 bucks on a good screw on lid that will last years and years is worth it in my book.