It was $20, and that seemed like a lot for what looks like a large file, but in terms of good use for the buck, this is mine.

Apart from emitting a kickass blue flame, it also caramelizes sugar in a heartbeat.

I also love my coffee grinder and my little Melitta filter-holder thing (just a big funnel, really).

(Edited to add) Just remember, in Italian, the two-handled one is called a mezzaluna, or half-moon. Don't remember the English name though.

[ 17 January 2003: Message edited by: lagatta ]

I still like my knife block with the built in sharpener. One of the handiest things to have. I also bought myself a scissors holder. It's made of wood, like the knife block, and holds three different sizes. If you have kids, you'll know what a pain it is to find where the scissors are. With the holder, and three pairs, there's always at least two left where they should be.

I replaced the big huge tupperware plastic collender, a holdover from life with my ex, with a big deep stainless steel one. I picked it up from a seasonal store that was packing thier stuff up post Christmas, for one third off.

I know that this was ruled out in the opening thread, but I have been living with an evil clothes-washer for six or seven years now, and I just have to tell someone: I have a shiny new washing-machine!!!

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Smith, how brave do you need to be to use the torch?

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Not. Well, I don't think so. It's sorta like a little Bunsen burner. It has a little safety valve you have to push down before you can push the button that turns the flame on, and every time you let go of the button that turns the flame on, the safety valve clicks back into place. And the flame, when it's on, is good and far away from your fingers.

Here we go. The little flame, of course, is Photoshopped in.

I'm not supposed to store it or my fuel at temperatures higher than 120F, but fat chance of that happening in Canada.

[ 18 January 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

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fat chance of that happening in Canada.

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You have not worked in my 3rd-flr non-AC'd office in mid-August ...

Honestly, you people.

And this sugar caramelizer, it reminds me of the acetyline torch we picked up after getting our hands on a 45 gallon drum of hash oil. The torch and some aluminum paddles had us doing many a "hot oar".

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Oh, crockpot. I read it as crackpot at first glance, and I thought, HEY! you've already got one!

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The coffee urn is like a thermos, but has a push-button pour spout. I think I paid something like $15 for it at that kitchen stuff place on the east side of Yonge south of Bloor. You can get the unbleached cotton filters at the Enviro store on the north side of Bloor W. just west of Brunswick...sorry, can't remember the name of it.

Cotton is great, and you don't have to build a land-hogging, industrial complex to produce it, like you do for those nasty steel mesh and plastic ones.

Edited to add: just remembered the name of the Enviro shop - Grassroots.

[ 18 January 2003: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

But then, cotton has to be processed too, and I wonder what environmental impacts that process has in the land of cotton, where from what I've heard, old times there are not fogotten.

Tricky thing, this environment.

AHHHhhhhhhh... I just remembered something.

The world's largest and worst ecological disaster..hmm maybe short of Chernobyl, is the desertification of the land around the Ural Sea. More correctly, the Ural pond at the moment.

The fresh water was diverted to irrigate cotton.

(sitting here, with one eye brow raised, like Spock)

[ 18 January 2003: Message edited by: T. Paine ]

AHHHHHHhhhhh again.

And don't bother pointing out the stupid irony of whether it's better to use plastic or cotton to hold the grains of a non essential product like coffee, the land of which it's grown on would be better turned over to actual food production, 'cause I already thought of that, thank you.

Told you ya already had a crackpot.

[ 18 January 2003: Message edited by: T. Paine ]

Already we have the first two most basic liberated food groups ready to bump all the trad others further back on the list:

1. Coffee
2. Wine

Further submissions?

Oops. How could I have forgotten? Often before on this site I have proclaimed what I insist must now become Group 3:

The self-evident category 1 has got to be:

1. Cat food, dog food, bird food, fish food, etc.

(Those possessed by reptiles requiring regular feeding of still-throbbing bodies of other living creatures should make special petition to the moderator, [email protected].)

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Hrm. I bought a little kitchen gadget called a Microplane. It looks like a woodworking rasp because that's what it originally was, until someone realized it can reduce a clove of garlic to a smooth paste in about 8 seconds! Same with ginger (only a little longer), citrus peel (ground to a wet powder), and hard cheeses like Pecorino turn into fluffy, snowy fibres that melt the instant they hit hot pasta. I haven't tried it on hard chocolate yet

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I just wanted to jump in with this because I may never agree with Mr. Magoo again, but I heartily endorse this product. My Mother in law got me one for Christmas, and it works so beautifully and smoothly, that I actually look forward to grating things. No more skinned knuckles and sore fingers from an old fashioned clumsey grater. It's changed my life! Mine has a different name, as it came from the Lee Valley Tool co., but it's the same thing.

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And this sugar caramelizer, it reminds me of the acetyline torch we picked up after getting our hands on a 45 gallon drum of hash oil.

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Hehe. My food-related opinions are more 'palatable', I'll admit.

Doesn't anyone here use a French Press to make their coffee? Immersing the grounds in water, rather than having the water "pass by" on its way out the filter means a good rich cup with less coffee needed, and since it's not on a hotplate, you can leave half a pot sit there until you're ready to reheat it without it going bitter. I've owned a few Bodums over the years, but we just got a press from IKEA & it's just as good for less $$.

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Doesn't anyone here use a French Press to make their coffee?

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Mine has a different name, as it came from the Lee Valley Tool co., but it's the same thing.

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Lee Valley Tools!

I've also seen Bodums and Bodum clones at church bazaars and garage sales. Haven't had time recently. Often I'd map them out and bicycle to the upscale neighbourhoods of Westmount (far from me) or Outremont, Town of Mont-Royal (the latter two much closer to me).

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A 45 gallon drum of hash oil ?

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Well, in a that brief period of coherence once while under the influence, my old buddies and I noticed the paraphenalia we had for grams and fivers and began speculating on the equipment one would need for larger amounts.

My coffee maker gets a heavy workout everyday. I have a coffee bean grinder which I adore. My Amma (great-grandmother) used to use what she called a coffee sock instead of filters. This durable piece of cotton was sewn onto a ring that fit over the coffee pot (a corelle wear relic from the 50's) She put coffee grounds in the sock, poured hot water over them and kept doing so until the coffee pot was full. She saved the grounds in a container and used them in her garden for only what I assume to be some kind of fertilizer. I am now the proud owner of this sock, which saw service my entire life that I know of and is still good to go. She had made another one before she passed away which I also own. And the coffee....?? Hers was the only coffee that I could drink black, and loved it! It kicked anything Tim Hortons, Robins Donuts or any other coffee shop has to offer. And it was no special brand of coffee, plain old Nabob.

The screen unscrews into 3 parts that clean easily with soap and water. It's easy enough that a man could do it (I do).

Not to start a drift or anything, but there seems to be a couple mentions of Lee Valley tools... do folk here do a lot of woodworking, or just like the look of a fine tool?

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My Amma (great-grandmother) used to use what she called a coffee sock instead of filters. This durable piece of cotton was sewn onto a ring that fit over the coffee pot (a corelle wear relic from the 50's) She put coffee grounds in the sock, poured hot water over them and kept doing so until the coffee pot was full.

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Dishwasher - very very very very very very very very very very very very very useful.
Did I mention that my dishwasher is very useful?

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Doesn't anyone here use a French Press to make their coffee?

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Blond guy introduced me to French press coffee, and there is no going back. We have 2 "bodums", a glass one and a stainless thermal one. We make coffee in the first one for immediate consumption, and use the second pot a little later on.

Best of all, no filters to forget to buy! I once resorted to using the foot of a nylon stocking on my old coffee maker. And I don't disassemble the filters on the bodum, either, just run them under hot water, hand wash with soapy water or chuck into the top rack of the dishwasher.

My other must-have: A quality set of pots and pans. I have had extra-cheap ones, and it's really worth the investment in a solid, heavy set of stainless... I have often found one-off Lagostina pots and frying pans at Winners for way cheap.

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I have a shiny new washing-machine!!!

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I have a question. What do people do with their butter? Especially in the summertime? I hate hard butter straight from the fridge, and right now it seems to me pretty much ok to keep the plate out permanently. Much warmer, though, and it can turn very quickly -- and, of course, during the summer, left out, it fast becomes liquid.

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As good as TV, eh, Zoot?

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Better than most sit-coms, actually.

I leave mine in the fridge, and try to remember to take it out ahead of time. If I forget then I just use it anyway, ripping and shredding my bread as I go.

Did I get a bum Bodum, or do they all deteriorate like that over a year?

Goat butter is great, but very expensive.

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Did I get a bum Bodum, or do they all deteriorate like that over a year?

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They shouldn't. I did have one that got like that, so we replaced the screen in it -- happened to have a filter from a pot that got broken. That's what happens mostly to the bodums at our house -- breakage on the glass part.

Then it broke. I've yet to get around to replacing it.

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Did I get a bum Bodum, or do they all deteriorate like that over a year?

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Although I've switched back to drip-filtered coffee lately, I have a press that is so old it was made by the French company that Bodum then bought out (forget the name). The only original parts I still have are the metal frame and the lid plus rod. The glass has been replaced two or three times, and the filter assembly at least once. There are coffee shops where you can buy the parts -- I'm sure I've got mine at a Timothy's in the past.

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Have any of you succeeded in sharing any small appliances or other household goods that people only use once in a while?

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They taste way better too, since they're un-greasy.

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On one of our first dates here, back in the days when he did more cooking for me than the reverse (and he was an, ah, imaginative cook, too), he told me about serving up some sheep's testicles to some friends and only admitting what they were after they'd been ingested.

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Who knows you?
"There's about a 10 per cent chance you'll buy a food thermometer this year," writes Susan Condon Love in The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. "And, as you check the temperature of that roast, there's a good chance you'll have a few candles burning for atmosphere and soon will use the coffee-maker for after-dinner relaxation over a cup o' joe. How do I know, you ask? Because someone has done the research. You have no secrets. Believe me. All your home purchases are being compiled somewhere, somehow, by somebody, and all that information is being analyzed by the International Housewares Association."

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