My people were Scots who landed in Pennsylvania and migrated down into Virginia and the Carolinas.

Cornbread with apple butter.

Followed closely by Brunswick stew. Also country ham and biscuits.

And watermelon pickles.

Probably right that cycling is unavoidable.

But the Cooktek Apogee's cycling seems to be much more precise than the crude cycling of the low-end portable induction units on power levels 1 & 2. Which I'd hope and expect, given the ten-times-greater price.

The Cooktek unit's cost approaches that of built-in induction cooktops, but would make sense for someone who does any offsite catering, or who is stuck with an impossibly small cooktop, or (as in the OP's case) wants to make it easier for two serious cooks in a household to operate at the same time.

Portable induction doesn't seem to have much on offer in the U.S. market between $100 and $800-$1000.

If you need it to run on 120V (which makes it much more portable in residential and non-professional settings), the Cooktek 1800-watt Apogee unit should be able to handle the high and low temperature cooking you need.

Here it's described as going from 80F to 500F in temp control mode (no info on whether it cycles at lowest settings): http://www.dvorsons.com/cooktek/cookt...

Out of curiosity, I looked over the ebay listings; there's a 10.5" polished-finish BPS omelet pan now going for $35. I bet they show up pretty regularly.

My unknown-name pan, the same thickness and shallowly flared shape as the BPS, is the 'sand' finish. My guess is that either finish will work beautifully once seasoned, only needing to be wiped out after use. It's just a question of esthetic preference. I'm absolutely sure either version will last longer than one with a nonstick coating, while being just as non-stick in practice.

Copco cast aluminum skillets have the polished finish; they appear to me to be the same thickness as the BPS and my omelet pan, but I don't know that for sure. They were manufactured in Japan.

For your purposes, the regular saucepan is preferable. Some saucepans, like All-Clad's 2-qt, are a bit too too tall and (mainly) narrow for easy use of a whisk, spoonula, and/or blunt spoon, but the Calphalon's proportions are fine for that -- and 2.5 qt is a nice size.

The first paragraph of your comment is absolutely correct, DD, but this isn't: :: Mexican oregano is, believe it or not, more closely related to margorum. ::

Marjoram, Origanum majorana, is a close relative to (Mediterranean/"Greek") oregano, Origanum vulgare v. hirtum. Mexican "oregano" is in the verbena family; it's Lippia graveolens. Both marjoram and Mexican oregano are perennials that are tender enough to be treated as annuals in my climate, but it's a lot easier to find plants of the marjoram, so I very much appreciate the tip to try it as a substitute.

The Flavor Bible has been a great help when I'm looking for companion herbs and spices, or to do variations on a dish, and just as reading.

It's been particularly powerful in combination with Eat Your Books: when a combination of ingredients sounds intriguing, a search for them turns up recipes that give a better idea of ways to use them.

I was given a cast aluminum crepe/omelet pan for graduation decades ago, and it was a wonderful thing: no sticking ever, just wiping out for cleaning. It was similar to the Boston Potshop pans, but with more modern styling.

Then it was left behind in the midwest in a move for which I had to strip posessions way down. Last year, I had the eerie experience of seeing it on ebay, offered by someone a few hours from where I left it. Got it for $23. and I would swear it is the identical pan -- I mean numerically, not just the same model/maker (which I've never known; it's completely unmarked).

Anyway, I wouldn't spend $170 for one when Copco cast aluminum skillets are regularly offered for $25-50. There's not any special magic about the BPS pan that makes it worth the extra money -- but I heartily recommend thick cast aluminum as an excellent alternative to PTFE and other nonstick finishes. Even heating, easy care, eternal. What's not to like?

This morning a gardening friend and I sold herb plants (unsold at our herb club's sale a week ago) at the farmers market -- and I am reveling in the turn of the season. Finally! Bought knob onions to grill (per Rick Bayless, Cookbook of the Month) and local asparagus -- this is The Week, unless temps stay coolish. [They usually don't.]

Think I'll do soup with the asparagus (got a pound), making use of the newly arrived Love Soup by Anna Thomas.

Some cooks find it helpful to print out the recipe because a sheet of paper is easier/safer to have in the cooking zone, because the recipe usually ends up on one at-a-glance sheet, and it because it makes it easy to write notes and mark revisions.

But I admit most of those cooks are, like me, just more comfortable working with paper and pen.

Almost anything with spinach.

Into egg & cream going into quiche.

Potato gratins.

Pictures are excellent for instruction -- techniques, ingredients, cuts, what things should look like at certain stages of preparation.

In that line, I'd definitely recommend one of Jacques Pepin's technique books. I learned a huge amount from La Technique in the late 1970s-early 1980s, before I shed it in one of many moves. But I would have liked it even better with higher-quality, color photos -- which is what I understand is what's in the one that came out last fall, his Complete Techniques. Definitely take a look at a bookstore to see if it would be something you'd use; it's too big a purchase to make sight unseen. Or scout the used market for bargains on La Technique and/or La Methode.

The best of the how-to books include a lot of pictures -- Julia Child's The Way to Cook, Martha Stewart's Cooking School. But pictures of the finished dishes in regular cookbooks are not so important.

Beyond that, it's hard to conceive of a 'cookbook library' in the abstract. What kinds of books about food or cookbooks do you like to read and re-read? What kinds of food do you cook, or want to cook? Use the library to explore some of the suggestions here, and get a sense of what appeals most to you before spending a lot of money.

Aiyee, what is wrong with me? I succumbed to The Good Cook offer -- Ball preserving book, The Farm by Ian Knauer, and How to Cook Everything: The Basics (interested in comparing beginner books like Martha Stewart's Cooking School and the new Aida Mollenkamp Keys to the Kitchen).

Usually I make it into London broil, per Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food p. 63. Marinate overnight, then broil 3-4 minutes per side, let rest, and slice thinly across the grain. Fresh ginger is key to the marinade, which also contains soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, a little honey, oil, wine, garlic, and onions.

I would get the scratched-off pan retinned so that it's more widely useful. It's a shame to have such a great pot and then only be able to use it for occasional items. Most foods are acidic to some degree. Once it's relined, then 'season' the tin if you like -- but don't waste time with the bare copper.

Wrt to the carbon that's on the other one: fill it with cool water, let it sit for a while (an hour), and use a wooden or nylon spatula to scrape off what you can. Then do the alternating boils Kaleo suggests.

You don't have to do a massive amount of typing anything in, either -- you can quickly find the cookbook in the Library (by author or title) and click to add it to your Bookshelf, or you can enter the ISBN #s of a bunch at once.

Try entering five cookbooks that you have used a lot, and five that you haven't but would like to, and use those to get familiar with what EYB can do for you. My guess is that soon you'll be eagerly entering many more of your holdings. Have fun with it!

It isn't possible without access to the recipe to know whether it takes half an hour or four, but there is in fact a standard for indexers that there should be a Note to alert you to any significant advance prep (marinating overnight, e.g.).

The Occasion category 'Cooking ahead' is another negative flag for same-day meal planning.

Conversely, there's also a Recipe Type of 'Quick / Easy', but it's assigned only when the author specifically cites it as such. Could still be a help, though, when you're searching at work.

Congratulations!

Eat Your Books has been the biggest step forward in my cooking ever, and I thank chowhounds for alerting me to its existence. I joined back in the summer of 2010.

First off, it got me to assemble, dust off, and organize the cookbooks here -- a combination of my parents' books from the 1940s through the 1980s, and my cookbooks from early 1970s onward. That made the membership worth it right there, but it was only the beginning.

Like GretchenS, I have recipes organized by major ingredients that I get regularly or seasonally (pork shoulder, fresh chiles/peppers, beets), or that's on hand & needs to be used up while still good (saffron, preserved lemon, creme fraiche). Those keep growing and getting refined as great ingredients become available.

Another super-useful grouping is recipes for a given type of dish (cornbread, souffle, plum cake, slaw), which allows me quickly to get out the books that have those and settle on a (usually hybrid) version.

I have about 80 cookbooks in the house. My EYB bookshelf looks a lot bigger because I have Bookmarks (categories) like 'library' (available at our local), wishlists like 'cuisines' (Greek, Chinese, Moroccan, etc.cookbooks), 'preserving' (charcuterie, fermenting, skills), 'home/seasonal' (general cookbooks that fit my style of cooking), and 'reading'.

Since joining, I've cooked from my books roughly ten times as much as before. In theory, this could lead to cutting down on cookbook buying. In practice, particularly if you follow the recent notes by members on recipes and start studying members' bookshelves, it does not.

Have fun! Entering the books is satisfying and goes pretty quickly. Virtually all of the books here that I'm likely to use have been indexed, hope that turns out to be so for you, too.

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison

Art of Simple Food, Alice Waters

Vegetarian Epicure, Anna Thomas

Joy of Cooking, Irma Rombauer (1951 ed.)

Victory Garden Cookbook, Marian Morash

Have you asked those specific questions there?

Update: This is also a delicious method with veal. A local farmer is now selling pastured humanely raised veal ('rose veal' / 'early harvest beef'), so I got a couple of medallions along with a bunch of bones.

In a multi-day process, I made three quarts of veal stock from the bones (per instructions in Ruhlman's Ratio), and used some of it for this dish. Didn't curry the veal. Discovered that it takes a good deal more work to get veal as evenly thin as the chicken breast. Just as good as the chicken.

I couldn't wait, as it turns out, and ordered it a couple of weeks ago. But, strangely, I can't quite get interested. Part of the problem is the physical size of the book, bigger than is handy to use in the kitchen (along with pointlessly difficult-to-spot page numbers in center of the page), beautiful photos of some plants but not others, and the time of year -- I'm outside planting vegetables and herbs, not doing as much curling up with a book.

Maybe when the planting window closes, and it's too hot to be outdoors all day...

Update on the discontinued Mauviel 'Cuprinox Style' line: per a forum post over at egullet, the line existed as of 2007, so its moment lasted for at least four years, possibly significantly longer. Not many show up on ebay.

It was a brief window of time -- that ended in 2011, as far as I know: Mauviel's Cuprinox Style line used the same pan shapes as the 2mm items they still make for Williams-Sonoma, but with cast stainless handles that are longer than their brass or cast iron versions, and shaped and angled for the piece to which they're attached.

Having discontinued the 2mm copper-stainless Style line, Mauviel still makes those nice stainless handles, offering them as an option on 1.5mm pans (150s; the 150b & 150c have brass and cast iron handles, respectively).

Cast stainless apparently isn't strong enough as a handle for heavy 2.5mm copper, except maybe on the smallest pieces. It might have been problematic on the largest pans in the 2mm Style line: there was a 28cm (11") skillet, and a 24cm (9.5") saute, but I can't find any evidence now that there was a larger saute. I didn't start really looking at copper offerings until just about the period when Mauviel was dropping the line, so I can't say confidently that there wasn't a large saute or other large pieces, either.

Grateful for this thread as a place to kvell.

Patient scrounging pays off spectacularly: a Bourgeat 2.5mm copper-stainless rondeau/braiser, with lid, for $150. The seller didn't know what s/he had (it isn't marked, but is obvious to a copper shopper) and misdescribed the pan in the heading.

For my small stovetop and 24" oven, this 11" x 3" two-handled pan is a big step forward over the 2mm copper-stainless saute pan that I've been (happily) using for a year or more (and which itself was a pretty good deal): no big honking long handle to make it awkward on the stovetop and just barely able to fit in the oven in one position only. The lower profile of the braiser (a half-inch shallower, in addition to being free of the high handle) actually gives me the option to cook something else on a second oven rack while it's in the oven.

I've wished for this very pan for a long time, and here it is, for less than I'd ever imagined I'd have to pay. And I can lay off the hunting for a good long while!

Anigriv said what I would have.

Pressure cookers that can safely be used to can low-acid foods need to be able to reach and maintain 15psi while holding at least four quart mason jars -- the volume is important because it establishes a minimum amount of time during which the food will be heated, in addition to the amount of time that it needs to spend at full pressure (which is where it reaches and holds a high enough temperature to to kill botulinum spores).

In practice, that's 10-qt or larger models. The Fagor Chef 10qt is sold as a pressure cooker/canner. Kuhn-Rikon doesn't label it as such, but their 12-qt 'hotel pan' holds 5 quart jars and can maintain 15psi. Both of these cookers have indicators that allow users to make sure that the contents are at full pressure during the entire required amouint of processing time. Yet neither cooker is so large that it can't be used for regular family cooking -- unlike the behemoths that are sold as pressure canners.

For those of us with modest canning needs and who cook with a pressure cooker regularly, these models can fill both functions.

Must be something other than just hardiness zone: I'm also in 6b. Genovese and other sweet basils grow like gangbusters in our heavy alkiline clay (Blue Ridge foothills), but lemon and lime are nowhere near as productive.

Agree very much about the lack of real basil flavor, more just lemony.

Lime basil is an even wimpier plant than lemon! But if you get it to grow, it has a lot of uses in summer cooking and drinks - whereever you'd use lime, to start.