I gifted a box of that earlier this month for a birthday. Cheffy friend.
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I have been very happy with my Cuisinart bought on sale!
Food wise, I gifted hot cocoa packets in the family’s stockings and the DIL received a gignormous LODGE cast iron Dutch oven from Mrs. Claus with a few handwritten recipes and a Weck’s preserving cookbook. We gave out a bunch of mom &pop local grocery and hardware store gift cards since everyone is dealing with inflated grocery prices.
We received a stick of REAL Spanish chorizo, which I’ve been searching for, for months. There is one recipe I love that has it as an ingredient and regular ol’ pepperoni doesn’t cut it as a substitute. Now I can make that. We were gifted numerous cans of store brand jumbo black olives. Maybe a gag gift— I don’t get it unless it was meant to say, “olive you”. Nevertheless, we’ll use them up. Oh, a big bag of non-salted mixed nuts from Costco, 2# of See’s chocolates and a few teeny chocolate snowmen came our way.
Off the food subject: Santa brought new seat covers for my car.* Santa brought the roomate a book on the Doobie Brothers and a few model train engines. Having the whole family around together, nobody away because they were working and behaving themselves was a treasured gift for me this year.
*the reason is in a border crossing story in another thread, another day
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Yep. I started with the blade grinder for coffee but my MIL got me a burr grinder, and after that I started grinding all kinds of stuff in the blade guy. Seeds, spices, even fresh rosemary (much easier than trying to mince it, which I hate doing). Mixed dried chilis to make chili powder. Toss in kosher to make finer salt when I’m out of the pickling type.
Christmas morning I cleaned it out very carefully and made confectioners sugar for the cinnamon bun glaze. I never use powdered sugar myself so the girls (primary users of the stuff) are supposed to tell me when we’re getting low, and as it turns out, The Not Me Ghost forgot to let me know.
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Great photos.
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Many Christmas related gift (self-bought-gift). I will name a couple interesting ones.
A steam basket with an aluminum pot
A Tengu mask Junmai sake.
A New Zealand wild sea beam (not that special, I know, but I am having it for early New Year celeration) along with other meals.
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Looks beautiful. Wish you make many wonderful dishes using it.
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I hope they realize how lucky they are to receive one of your knives.
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Thanks for the picture and the info.
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This is correct. However, the grind from every burr grinder I’ve used also contains a disappointing level of fines. I think it’s the nature of the beast.
Personally I don’t think blade grinders are especially bad for finer grinds–you avoid the errant bean halves and big chunks by grinding longer.; I also shake the grinder like a cocktail shaker Of course that up the fines %, too.
I’m waiting for someone here to invest in and investigate the Kruve sifter tool. https://www.kruveinc.com/pages/shop Sifting for grind consistency makes sense to me, although it would entail a fair amount of waste.
Anyone here get a Kruve or similar?
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True. And their presence it especially noticeable when using one of the mesh/sieve reusable coffee filters. The defunct brand SwissGold had the best fines filtering, but you still ended up with a bit of sediment in your cup. On one of my trips over to Denmark I picked up an excellent stainless mesh Green Genius coffee filter. It’s a very fine mesh in a double layer, so the coffee is very clean for a non-paper filter. The only drawback is that it’s a bit more fussy to get clean. I’ve not tried a cloth coffee filter, but I’d imagine the rinsing/washing procedures are similar.
Yeah, I do the cocktail shaker moves whenever I use a blade grinder. You still end up re-grinding previously ground coffee, compared to a single pass thru a set of burrs. I’ve seen the Kruve setup but haven’t tried it. I’ve got to draw the line somewhere… 
I’m at the stage where I’d rather spend money on food than on more tools. I have a few tools that I bought but have not yet used.
Fines in your coffee aren’t all bad, either. For some reason, fines contain more cafestrol, which has positive health benefits, e.g., supposedly protecting against Parkinson’s.
It gets to another point too. That is…when something exceeds the detection limit of human sensory system. Grinding with consistent participant size improves brewing result and taste, but is there a point with which “more consistent and more precise” grind cannot be detected by our smell and taste? Do you think today coffee grinder has exceeded/not exceeded human sensory need?
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Chem: I would say that it makes for more consistent extraction. Whether or not that improves taste (e.g., by reducing bitterness) is not the same question.
I posted on this over at eGullet, and received many replies to the effect that great coffee-especially espresso–requires a wide grind distribution. It didn’t all make sense, but a common point was that, without fines, the steam or water will flow through the grind too fast. It’s not a ridiculous idea on its face, but one would think that a fine-enough brew screen or paper filter would obviate that concern. Another group opined that different extraction rates and times from different particle sizes is desirable for “well-balanced” flavor. This point made zero sense to me.
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Thanks. I was about to bring this up for tea steeping. There is a school of thought that a mix of tea leaves (small and large) give a more complex taste profile - since different leaf size brew/steep differently. Some people want more consistent tea leaves to have better control. Others appreciate a wider leaf sizes for a mix taste.
Some and probably most people want clean spring water for steeping tea, but some people intentionally add iron to their hot water.
Well, that will be an interesting comparison over the years.
7.5 quart is pretty big, isn’t it? Your oldest daughter has more strength than me.
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The 7.5 is pretty danged heavy. But, well, true to our personal family history, her husband is doing most of the cooking! Even though she’s pretty good herself - she gives him info & tips.
When they got married he said he was interested in it (cooking) and has been pretty diligent, and learning stuff really quickly. My wife spent 3 weeks down there after the baby was born and he did all the meals, and she said they were all pretty good. (My wife can’t cook to save her life but all the kiddos are fair cooks.)
Maybe when my wife retires, she’ll learn how to cook. But I doubt it. It’s really weird - we have 5 of us pretty good cooks all around her, but she doesn’t pick any of it up.
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Wahine ruined one of these early in our marriage. Coincidentally, I finally resold its cover 2 weeks ago on eBay.
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Isn’t this known as remote control cooking? 
I heard my grandmother was like this. My grandfather, their 3 children could all cook. She could not.
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