Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

A smallish thread about a smallish kitchen renovation


haresfur

Recommended Posts

 Yes, I’m afraid that might have been a dealbreaker for me. With a double sink I might just have tolerated it. But with the single sink and nowhere on that right-hand side… 

 

I am sure you will become accustomed to it. I have always said that life is a series of compromises. You will have a wonderful kitchen to make up for it. And it could well be that for you it is much less of an issue than it would be for me!   Enjoy your new space.

  • Like 1

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 Yes, I’m afraid that might have been a dealbreaker for me. With a double sink I might just have tolerated it. But with the single sink and nowhere on that right-hand side… 

 

I am sure you will become accustomed to it. I have always said that life is a series of compromises. You will have a wonderful kitchen to make up for it. And it could well be that for you it is much less of an issue than it would be for me!   Enjoy your new space.

 

We had a double sink previously and I''m actually looking forward to the single, since I always had trouble washing big cutting boards and sheet pans. We will just have dirty dishes on the island as before.

  • Haha 1

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a slight preference for a double sink, but I do appreciate the versatility of having one large one. My last place in Nova Scotia had the big old-fashioned sink, and I "doubled" it by the simple expedient of using a small plastic tub as my washbasin for dishes. The rest of the sink then became the functional equivalent of a second. When necessary (big roasters, etc) I'd just lift out the basin, and have the full space for oversized items.

  • Like 2

“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, chromedome said:

I have a slight preference for a double sink, but I do appreciate the versatility of having one large one. My last place in Nova Scotia had the big old-fashioned sink, and I "doubled" it by the simple expedient of using a small plastic tub as my washbasin for dishes. The rest of the sink then became the functional equivalent of a second. When necessary (big roasters, etc) I'd just lift out the basin, and have the full space for oversized items.

 

I usually use a large pot or bowl for this. Bonus if it was already dirty.

  • Like 4
  • Haha 1

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We tracked down the message to the cabinet guy specifying we wanted rounded safety corners on the bench top. "Don't laugh but I'll kill myself running into the island if we don't round the corners" said DB. He did the ordering for us and we had discussed what we needed to ask for with the fake stone company. So after sending him a copy of the message a few times, he talked with the bench guy who offered to come out. He rounded the corners with a grinder sans charge. He didn't want to take too much off because it would not look right and said this would keep it from catching if you hit it and make more of a glancing blow. "I have rounded corners and kids and can tell you, if they hit the bench, they're going down." 😄 I would have liked to see a bit more taken off, but it is certainly better.

 

The carpenter came out and finished the trim. Painting is done, so about all left is staining/varnishing trim and the backsplash.

  • Like 12

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Decided to give the oven a bit of a test with Modernist Cuisine's low temperature steak. Seared it first in a cast iron pan over the wok burner on full whack. Verdict is that the burner with the broader outside ring going as well as the focused flame is great for this. The ample smoke was handled very well by the exhaust fan with very little smell in the room. Put the oven's temp probe into the meat along with my needle thermocouple probe. Then into the oven at 60 C, which turned out to be too low so I bumped it to 65 then 70. However, the meat temperature stalled well beyond supper time and it barely reached 55 C. The temp probes in the meat were a couple of degrees apart, which is a bit of a problem if you were really wanting to have the oven turn itself off at temperature. Probably better for a roast where the oven's probe could be inserted all the way into the meat (I think it is an RTD). But the oven temperature was rock steady and within a degree of a separate thermocouple I put in. The oven temperature can only be set to 5 degrees but goes down to 30 C. I think that is sufficient.

 

Don't know why I had so much trouble getting the meat to temperature since the oven was holding the proper T. Anyway the meat was great cold today.

 

A couple of pictures. Sorry about the spill on the door.

20181216_160956.thumb.jpg.42a4a161a6e881b2ca69bf36560543a9.jpg

 

Spock gave it the seal of smell-approval.

20181216_173414(0).thumb.jpg.0ce296124f51a18ed0acff34f37a4ba6.jpg

 

  • Like 7

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, haresfur said:

Decided to give the oven a bit of a test with Modernist Cuisine's low temperature steak. Seared it first in a cast iron pan over the wok burner on full whack. Verdict is that the burner with the broader outside ring going as well as the focused flame is great for this. The ample smoke was handled very well by the exhaust fan with very little smell in the room. Put the oven's temp probe into the meat along with my needle thermocouple probe. Then into the oven at 60 C, which turned out to be too low so I bumped it to 65 then 70. However, the meat temperature stalled well beyond supper time and it barely reached 55 C. The temp probes in the meat were a couple of degrees apart, which is a bit of a problem if you were really wanting to have the oven turn itself off at temperature. Probably better for a roast where the oven's probe could be inserted all the way into the meat (I think it is an RTD). But the oven temperature was rock steady and within a degree of a separate thermocouple I put in. The oven temperature can only be set to 5 degrees but goes down to 30 C. I think that is sufficient.

 

Don't know why I had so much trouble getting the meat to temperature since the oven was holding the proper T. Anyway the meat was great cold today.

 

A couple of pictures. Sorry about the spill on the door.

 

 

Spock gave it the seal of smell-approval.

 

 

 

Very nice!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, haresfur said:

Decided to give the oven a bit of a test with Modernist Cuisine's low temperature steak. Seared it first in a cast iron pan over the wok burner on full whack. Verdict is that the burner with the broader outside ring going as well as the focused flame is great for this. The ample smoke was handled very well by the exhaust fan with very little smell in the room. Put the oven's temp probe into the meat along with my needle thermocouple probe. Then into the oven at 60 C, which turned out to be too low so I bumped it to 65 then 70. However, the meat temperature stalled well beyond supper time and it barely reached 55 C. The temp probes in the meat were a couple of degrees apart, which is a bit of a problem if you were really wanting to have the oven turn itself off at temperature. Probably better for a roast where the oven's probe could be inserted all the way into the meat (I think it is an RTD). But the oven temperature was rock steady and within a degree of a separate thermocouple I put in. The oven temperature can only be set to 5 degrees but goes down to 30 C. I think that is sufficient.

 

Don't know why I had so much trouble getting the meat to temperature since the oven was holding the proper T. Anyway the meat was great cold today.

 

A couple of pictures. Sorry about the spill on the door.

 

 

 

I don't get the value of MCs method here. The time to cook would be longer than that required for sous vide since heat conduction is less in air than water.

 

It might go better in a steam oven, but still there would be temp swings given the way ovens are controlled.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/18/2018 at 1:10 AM, gfweb said:

 

I don't get the value of MCs method here. The time to cook would be longer than that required for sous vide since heat conduction is less in air than water.

 

It might go better in a steam oven, but still there would be temp swings given the way ovens are controlled.

 

I agree. I probably should have used the fan-forced heat, but I'm not sure that would have made much difference. I mostly did it to challenge the oven.  The steak was really tasty, though.

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@haresfur

 

curious on how long that Steak a la MC was in the oven.

 

using a fan in a dry oven , well , dries things out.

 

convention bake , even w 2 fans , a fan for circulation , and a fan that circulates ' fresh heat ' from a hot coil

 

dont do a lot for cooks over a certain time.

 

they do give your oven ' even heat '

 

so you can do short cooks , i.e a bazillion sheet pans of cookies   

 

all at the same time w fairly uniform results.

 

the Combi-Oven Goddess's need to get over themselves

 

and do the right thing and set us all up w domestic combi ovens

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The steak was in about 5 hours. I think the meat temperature went up only a degree in the last hour.

 

Thanks for the thoughts on convection. My new oven has a lot of different heating options and I still need to figure out what to use when. I did the steak with top and bottom heating elements. I was impressed at how steady the heat was. You can also use either one of those plus fan or a convection setting where the air is heated as it goes through the fan. A number of ovens here have water reservoirs to spritz moisture into the oven but that's not really a steam oven.

  • Like 2

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, haresfur said:

I don't get the value of MCs method here. The time to cook would be longer than that required for sous vide since heat conduction is less in air than water.

 

True in a way, but ---

Once the surface temperature gets to, let's say, 130F, this temperature will travel at the same speed to the center of food. Thermal conductivity is a constant regardless of heat source.

 

dcarch.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Finally getting to posting a photo of the finished cooktop and splash-back or back-splash, depending on your country. I think the colour worked out well. I was worried it would be a bit much. We should swap the power points for black ones.

 

ETA: It really isn't that orange - more of a deep red

 

Picking flooring has been a challenge. There are a lot of different shades and tones including the wood floors surrounding the kitchen. I think we are going with a pale tufa look. We are concerned that it is a bit too close to the cabinet colour but nothing else worked for two sets of eyes.

20190113_112135.thumb.jpg.b40c5d837777d92a2962ed148b12147e.jpg

Edited by haresfur (log)
  • Like 7

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, haresfur said:

Finally getting to posting a photo of the finished cooktop and splash-back or back-splash, depending on your country. I think the colour worked out well. I was worried it would be a bit much. We should swap the power points for black ones.

 

Lovely renovation.  Now what about the CSO?

 

In this country of course power points are slide presentations.

 

  • Like 1

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

"Divided by a common language," as they say. :P

  • Like 1

“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...