And open on Mondays for lunch.

The parking issue leaves most of downtown Chapel Hill (that run along Franklin St) right out.

I'm struggling to find a handicap accessible place with decent food, not too expensive (Squid's is right out), that we can park relatively close to.

Korean food is the only type of cuisine I know for sure is out. Oh wait, sushi and sashimi are also totally out. She doesn't like Korean and I can't stand seaweed and raw fish and all that goes along with that.

I thought of Elmos (because of parking, not that it's particularly wondermus, but it's pretty good diner food) but it's too crowded to get a wheelchair/handicap scooter back in there.

Any help? Anybody know how accessible Elements is? Parking there? Any other place that'll fit the bill?

I'm afraid my fav restaurant in CH (Vimala's) is closed Mondays. I don't get out much myself so I'm rather at a loss, and I've got a friend coming from TX Monday. Between her scooter and me and my cane, we need to be able to get in and out fairly easily and not have to park too far away.

I got a rocker knife from Amazon and while I had some inkling I was going to need to sharpen it, it doesn't just need to be sharpened - it's not just dull, it's totally BLUNT.

This is going to take somebody with a vise grip and a file. I've bought shovels off the rack that were sharper than this. In fact taking it to a tool sharpening service may actually be the better choice.

Once upon a time I could have done this myself but I no longer have the tools or the manual dexterity.

Does anyone know of sharpening services in the area?

That website does not review postings at all. Also, they charge companies $300 a month for a "membership" to respond to postings on the site. That's $3600 per year. Not really a reliable source.

I have quite thoroughly read and understood the review Consumer's Reports did, and the number of scenarios you describe are very small. As they note, such occurrences most often are the result of old damage, cracks that were already present in the bakeware. The difference between borosilicate and soda glass isn't that big; however, the annealing process in cheap factories in China probably IS a problem. Nevertheless the breaking-out-of-nowhere-for-no-reason-scenario is a vanishingly small proportion of the reports. Most boil down to the type of situation described above, somebody sets a hot glass dish on a cold metal or granite/marble/whatever surface and thermal shock shatters the glass.

Got any pyrex cake pans? As I said before, I'll take 'em off your hands anytime.

In the meantime I REGULARLY cook with pyrex for nearly everything that goes in the oven, for over 45 years, all my current pyrex is "new" pyrex (since the alleged switchover in manufacturing) and nothing has ever broken.

Consumers Report were only able to reproduce breakage due to thermal shock. I'm not saying there were no incidents of breakage due to less obvious causes - but they weren't able to make it happen.

I do think that the current situation with unregulated manufacturing in China (mostly) needs to be addressed, and soon. I do think it is likely that there are flaws in workmanship, materials, and processing (such as annealing, improper melting of the glass, bubbles or other occlusions in the glass, etc etc etc) that probably make it more likely - but still not very likely - that glass bakeware manufactured under these circumstances may break.

Nevertheless, people complaining that they didn't read the directions before throwing them away so how could you POSSIBLY expect them to know proper use and care really need to get a grip and take some responsibility. Even a rudimentary knowledge of physics should tell you, at least after the fact if not before, that hot glass set on a cold, possibly wet, surface, is likely to shatter.

The posting I responded to described a situation where the glass broke due to thermal shock. A little care is really all that's necessary to stop that from happening. Putting a hot pan of any substance on a cold burner isn't the world's best idea anyway - Every once in awhile (about as often as we hear about a Pyrex pan shattering in the oven) someone will have an electric burner break on them due to - thermal shock. I don't think we're all going to stop using stoves because of that.

YMMV, but I'm not really seeing a reason to throw out my beloved naturally non-stick Pyrex bakeware.

I am baffled that people are surprised when hot glass shatters when you put it on a cold surface. It's simple physics!

Maybe its just that I grew up cooking with glass cookware - we had the Pyrex cake pans, both round and square, that you can't find for love nor money now. I was taught ALWAYS to use a trivet, cork, towels, or wood for glass, and metal trivets only for metal pans.

There's nothing wrong with Pyrex - use it properly and chances that it will break are slim. If anyone has any of the cake pans they want to get rid of, just send 'em on to me. I have enough of the other sort.

I was EXTREMELY disappointed to find out that corningware isn't real corningware anymore, too! Seems truth in advertising ought to kick in there!

My most frequently used pots (not frying pans) are the 2.5 qt and the 6 qt dutch oven. The 1.5 qt pot is the next most frequently used.

How about for pureeing meat? I have a recipe for gyros that requires the meat to be pureed.

I've been using my new Borner mandoline to cut all my onions and no more tears. I don't know if it's because it's so sharp, or because it makes such short work of the cutting. I'm done with an entire large onion in under 10 seconds.

Best kitchen gadget I've ever bought. There is almost no waste with this. In fact I've been tossing the tiny little nubbin of leftover potato in with whatever I'm making - hash browns, cottage fries, that little nubbin is so small it's fine to just toss it in with the rest.

Perfectly safe as long as you use it with the holder, which is well-designed and easy to use. I'll never chop another onion! Now if it would just peel stuff for me as well . . .

K, so the Borner arrived yesterday and I have to say, I am VERY impressed! I look JUST LIKE the lady using it on the youtube video!

Well maybe not "just like", but close enough, LOL!

Sliced an entire Vidalia onion in less time than it took me to peel it, right down to the tiny little leftover root nubbin. Seriously, it took me all of about 10 secs.

I've found that when it seems to "stick" it's because I'm unconsciously putting totally unnecessary pressure on it. If I just lighten up and don't press and kind of waft the thing back and forth, I get these see through onion slices without even realizing I'm doing it.

Rinse it and put it away and I'm done.

Now I'm having to restrain myself from going in there and just slicing every onion and potato I have just because I can . . .

Now that's low! I guess somebody over there wasn't smart enough to figure out that some people might not like to buy your stuff if you're going to be mean about it! LOL!

I'll be HAPPY to take that off your hands!

*goes hunting Margarita salt*

So when you say "knuckle-rapping", do you mean OXO jumped all over you for criticizing, or literally you had your "knuckles rapped" trying to use the thing?

It has had terrible reviews everywhere I've looked. I never even considered the OXO.

I can't give you a citation, but it seems to me in my internet ramblings while researching which mandoline to buy, I read somewhere that "benriner" is just the Japanese word for "mandoline".

Can't confirm that at all.

Yeah, really thin slices I don't need. I'm happy with cottage fries and onion rings, julienned stuff for stir fry, and of course the hash browns (for which I had to buy the separate hash brown grater).

It should be here tomorrow. Maybe then I can get folks to stop coming home with the pre-julienned carrots for salad, LOL!

No, but based on what Kitchen Auditions had to say - and showed me - I went with the Borner 1001 rather than either the 4000 or the 7000, both of which have the same design with the weaker plastic and leaving too much waste because of the higher side rails.

Mandolines, if used improperly (and not using the holder or a kevlar glove IS IMPROPERLY) are WAY more dangerous than knives. At least get a Kevlar glove if you're not going to use the (admittedly very poorly designed) holder for that Kyocera.

People have LITERALLY sliced off fingertips because they thought they could just whip out a few slices of something real quick without "bothering" with the holder. A really good mandoline will have you down to the bone - literally - before you know it because the slicing goes so quickly and so easily.

I made my choice based on observation and numerous recommendations for and against, as well as the testing (which was clearly and COMPLETELY explained) on Kitchen Auditions. There were too many cons and not enough pros with the Kyocera and the Super Benriner, for my uses at least. My Borner 1001 is on the way, should have it by Friday.

I'm in the market for the same type of thing right now and I think I've pretty much settled on the Borner V-1001. I'm also picking up the Borner hash brown grater.

The Kyocera looks too flimsy, and there's a video on Amazon that show how hard it can be too use. It's really small, and apparently there's a ridge that catches your veggies coming back up for the next slice. The guard is also really poorly designed - between the ridge and the poor grip you get on the veggie, that guy had the potato he was trying to slice jerked out of his hand about every 3rd stroke.

The Borner V-4000 has higher edges and is made of softer plastic, so it flexes more and you end up leaving more waste. It dices automatically though - to do that with the 1001 you have to partially slice your veggie first.

Kitchen Audition just did reviews of all of these and they ended up liking the Borner V1001 the best. Here's the link:

http://www.kitchenaudition.com/?page_...

Dang! I had hoped someone might recognize it. Oh well. Thanks for trying.

I don't need a warming feature. We don't let the rice sit around in the pot anyway.

My old Panasonic rice cooker was great, but the one my son has sux rox. If it's plugged in, it's ON. There is no way to turn it off except to unplug it. If it's not on the cook cycle, it's on the so-called "warm" cycle. That means bad things if I forget to unplug it (and I'm getting on in years and not always as rememberful, to coin a term, as I ought to be). Plus, as with every other rice cooker with a "warming" cycle, it turns the rice on the bottom brown and crusty after not too long. Most rice cookers are made with this "feature" these days. I'd rather not have it as I don't need it and can't turn it off.

I've managed to lose this recipe, and I can't remember which Indian Cookbook I originally found it in. I've done a web search - I know this recipe was on the web in the past but I can't find it now.

All I can remember is a few of the ingredients:

6 oz dried peaches
6 oz dried apricots
12 oz red wine vinegar
sugar (I forget how much)
may have included some raisins

I don't remember what else, if anything, might have been in the recipe. It was a sweet, not a spicy, chutney.

The original recipe (the above quantities might have been slightly modified) would have been published at least 20 years ago.

I can't believe I've lost this recipe! Any help would be appreciated.