dscheidt's Profile
First apartment - best cookware to purchase
No college student is going to take care of a cast iron or carbon steel pan that's given to them by their parent. (Unless they're asking for one, maybe.)
Stick to stainless, which can be scoured clean, and cheapish non-stick, which can't but rarely needs much, and is cheap enough to throw away in two years.
Recommend a 30" gas cooktop
depends entirely on where the electricity comes from. The original poster is in Ontario, where much electricity is from hyrdo; no heat energy there. The carbon cost of electrically powered appliances there is lower than it is somewhere where the power is from coal or gas.
There's also the waste heat aspect. If you have a 10,000 btu burner on full blast, you're dumping 6,000 of those into your kitchen as heat. That's 1750 watts. In winter, that's not much of a problem, but in the summer, that's several hundred watts of extra AC load. An induction range will dump only a couple hundred watts of waste into the kitchen. (I'm ignoring the heat that goes into the pot, because it's the same in both cases.) That's enough to change the efficency rankings around in a lot of places.
Old "can" opener -- How do I use this ?? (or is it broken?)
Sadly, current production swing away can openers seem to be made of compressed sawdust, and not steel. I broke the gear on one a year or so ago, trying to open a can. Another case of 'cheapen product, hope no one notices until we've made enough to do it to something else'.
CAMBRO containers, with drain for salad greens or alternative container???
All of the components in that kit are available as indivdual pieces, as are alternative lids. (They're also probably available in smaller sizes. That one is 18*26*9, which means it's 15 gallons. That's lots of lettuce. I'm pretty sure they're available as half-sheet sized; and might be quarter too.) Pick the lid you want.
Best Plastic Wrap?
Of course, CI aren't capable of testing what really matters, which is oxygen permeability. All of the household films these days, except Stretch-tite, are made of polyethylene or related plastics, and are very poor oxygen barriers. Polyvinyl or PVdC is much better. It costs more, and there are (real) concerns about it leaching into food if it's in contact in the microwave. (Real simple solution to that.) So, for consumers, who are willing to buy whatever junk they're told to, PE is what you get. Commercial users, who care about how well things work, use PVdC.
If you're storing something for a day or less, it doesn't much matter, but if your goal is to keep something for longer, oxygen permeability matters a lot.
Do you look for the UL mark?
Make sure it's a real UL mark, and not a fake. (Lots of cheap chinese crap has fake UL and CE labels on it.)
http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/offerings/services/programs/anticounterfeitingoperations/fake/
Bar Keepers Friend -- this stuff works.
If you're going to do the "oh no! it's got chemicals!" thing, at least get them right. BKF is about 10%, by weight, oxalic acid. Don't get it in your eyes, but it's not exactly fuming nitric acid. I don't know where you think the chlorine comes from, as there isn't any in BKF.
How can I clean sticky, tacky surface off pizza stone?
Most pizza stones are made of ceramics that are perfectly capable of withstanding self-cleaning temperatures. Any that aren't are junk, so it's no loss if it cracks.
There's no reason to season a pizza stone. Nor is there any reason to leave the crud that collects on it there.
What gauge aluminum is considered "heavy gauge"? -> need a stock pot
I'm not quite sure what your point is. The Titantic sank because her builder used defective rivets. What's that, or some oil rig failure, got to do with stock pots?
As I said, I've seen lots of discarded riveted pots, but not one with welded handles.
What gauge aluminum is considered "heavy gauge"? -> need a stock pot
I'ts not a recall of "all stockpots with welded handles". It's a recall of "these particular junk products." There's a non-subtle difference. I'm sure, if I could be bothered, that there's a recall for riveted handles.
Riveted joints have all sorts of sudden and catastrophic failure modes, too.
commercial refrigerators?
Never had one in a residence, but they do tend to be louder. They're also not usually the same sizes as standard fridges, they're all on legs (or casters), and they use more electricity to do the same work. They have no interior organization, nor any door storage, and typically come with only a couple racks. Most have adjustable racks, so you can add more.
What gauge aluminum is considered "heavy gauge"? -> need a stock pot
Bridge construction has nothing to do with stockpots. I've seen lots of large stockpots discarded because their rivets leak. I've never seen one with a failed weld. Not one.
What your antiques are like isn't relevant, either. If they've survived 100 years, they were of good quality when made. On modern stocks, rivets are sign of cheap junk, or in some cases, very expensive junk, but still junk. It's cheaper to drill and rivet, and poorly set rivets will leak. Most of the ones I've seen have been aluminum rivets; in stainless pots, that's a recipe for galvanic corrosion.
Veggie Roasting Pans?
You can get pre-cut half-sheet parchment, but it's sometimes hard to find. (And the brand the local people carry only comes in 1000 sheet cases, while they've got 50 sheet packs of full size.) It's also a little bit more expensive.
If you look a bit, you can also get parchment cut to fit other commercial pan sizes, like 8 and 9 inch cake pans.
What gauge aluminum is considered "heavy gauge"? -> need a stock pot
You don't want riveted handles on a stock pot that big. A welded joint is stronger, and will never leak. Rivets will.
Don't forget to buy a cover; stockpots this size are sold without them.
Can the Vitamix knead/mix dough? If not, a good entry-level mixer for pizza dough?
There's no reason to knead pizza dough until it passes the windowpane test. There are lots of reasons not to. Unless you're making a dough you're going to use in an hour or two after mixing, you don't want the dough at it's peak gluten development then.
But you can certainly make pizza dough by hand. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes or so, for a reasonable quantity of dough. You just need to knead until it's reasonably smooth. I'd use the Tom Lehman style dough from pizzamaking.com to start with, and use the dough calculator there to figure out how much you'll need.
how to remove scratches in aluminum baking pans
how awful. Cookware that looks like it's been cooked in.
to remove scratches from metal, you need to remove metal. You're a whole lot better off just living with it. It's a sheet pan, it'll work just fine.
Getting "sticky stuff" off of a new cookie sheet
Teflon has spectacular good chemical resistance. Nothing sold for household use is going to damage it, except scraping it off the pan mechanically, or overheating it.
Offset serrated knife for chopping chocolate
Generally, when you're cutting chocolate, it's to melt it. To melt chocolate, it's very useful to have it in small pieces so it melts quickly, with as little risk of overheating as possible. A serrated knife breaks the the chocolate into pieces as you cut, so you don't end up with slices of chocolate, but a bunch of pieces that can be melted easily. You don't end up with slices from a plain knife, either, but bigger pieces that need to be broken further to melt.
I use a bread knife. When I've worked with big blocks, a chocolate chipper, and a hammer, are much, much faster.
My first 'nice' cutlery set
"Sabatier" as a sole identifier is only slightly less useless as "knife" would be. It's not a brand. It never has been, nor will it ever be. Anyone, anywhere in the world can call a knife "Sabatier". And, no shock, there's a range stuff with the name, ranging from some nice stuff by long-established makers in and around Thiers, France, to utter crap from others in Franc, to utter crap from other countries, and pretty much everything in between.
It's only meaningful with another name or logo attached to it, and not always then, because the trademarks have changed hands, been abandoned, picked up by a new maker, copied, had periods when the stuff made under the name was first rate, and periods when it was junk.
is bon ami the same as barkeepers friend?
Oh no! Your cookware looks like it's been cooked in? That happens when you cook in it, and don't just hang it up to admire it. Your options are replace it (and the boyfriend/husband, because otherwise, he'll do it again.) or live with it.
My first 'nice' cutlery set
Knife sharpening isn't rocket science. It's not a mystical art that takes years of mediation to learn. Anybody who tells you it is is selling you something, or has just bought it. I've taught more than one person how to sharpen a knife inside an hour. Of course, they were nine or ten year olds that hadn't been told that it was hard to sharpen knives by hucksters selling stuff, so they didn't know it was supposed to take them years.
Need a mixer to make one cake. What should I get?
If all you're going to do is make a cake once a year, a 15 buck one will work just fine. Pick one that'll fit where you're goign to keep it when you're not using it.
Must have!
I just hold it over what I'm grating on to. One end is in my hand, the other in empty space. Works just fine, and still about five times faster than any box grater I've ever used. If I'm doing a lot, I'll put one end on the counter or board.
Cookie Sheet vs. Jelly Roll Pan
Aluminized steel (for older things and still a few applications, tin-plated steel) is the gold standard for commercial bakeware. Steel is preferred for its mechanical properties, it's durable and will last decades even in a factory setting. aluminizing or tin plating gives substantial corrosion resistance, which is the only real problem with steel bakeware. If you've ever eaten a baked product that came out of an industrial bakery, it was cooked on such a thing.
Cookie Sheet vs. Jelly Roll Pan
Don't forget that, for the rare thing that requires a side less tray, it's possible to use the bottom of a sheet pan.
Can ceramic knives be sharpened?
The factory can do it. A very skilled sharpener with very fine diamonds can do it.
I think ceramic blades make sense for a limited number of purposes, and kitchen knives aren't among them.
Peeling/chopping apples in bulk?
The substantially cheaper (like 25 bucks, not 700!) versions of that machine can be set to just peel and core, without slicing. They work just fine, if you're doing less than a dozen bushels at a sitting.
Victorinox Fibrox vs. D-R Sani-Safe vs. Mundial 5100
The difference betweeen the basic and sani-safe is that the sani-safe knives are intended to go through commercial dishwashing machines; the wooden handles aren't. Blades are the same.
I haven't used the Mundial 5100 knives enough to have much of an opinion about them. I've used other series, stamped, that show up in commercial settings. All of those, and the DR, and Forshner knives are pretty nice. They all take a good edge, and are easy to sharpen. I'd use any of them without complaint.
Heavy isn't really an advantage in a knife, particularly one used for general purpose knife work. It's nice in a meat cleaver, but for something you're going to do prep with, heavy just means tiring.
As for what's the common length, it depends on where you look. Home kitchens, you won't find many 10 or 12 inch knives. Commercial kitchens, you won't find many 8. The advantage of a big knife is that it's a big knife, and you can do more with it at once. 8" is already too big to do delicate work with, so the only downside is that you need a reasonably sized cutting board, which can be a problem in small kitchen.
Why did Julia Child use electric burners?
Very often the reason is "someone is paying me to do it". Top pro riders ride what their team tells them to ride, based on what the sponsors want to sell. Shills on cooking TV shows use what their sponsors tell them to.
In other cases, what's used is driven by other economic considerations. Restaurant kitchens in the US tend to have gas ranges. That's nothing to do with any inherent advantage of gas; it's because gas appliances have been cheap, reliable, and gas itself has historically been very cheap. Places where gas isn't cheap, or where the costs of dealing with retrofitting a space to have gas, or to do deal with the venting requirements that come from open flames are high, you find electric coils or induction burners. With very few exceptions, the customer can't tell what the kitchen uses, unless they can see it.
