[BakerAunt]

We had leftover stir-fry.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for the tip about Bob's Red Mill Baking Powder Skeptic. I'll compare prices, some day, when BRM also gets baking powder back in stock.

[BakerAunt]

Your dinner sounds delicious, Navlys.

[BakerAunt]

I'd settle for King Arthur getting baking powder back in stock!

Facebook trendiness has not done King Arthur any good.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I had no idea and guessed incorrectly.

[BakerAunt]

It used to be that a visit to a Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma, or the arrival of the Old Chef's Catalog (when they were out of Illinois), were so exciting for me. All three, however, began to focus more on the trendy and the expensive, or so it seems to me, rather than on the practical needs of cooks and home bakers. I've been trying to find replacement wire screens for my French Press. No one seems to sell them anymore; they want you to buy the entire French Press.

Williams-Sonoma does not even send emails anymore but is bundled into "The Key," yet sister brand Pottery Barn inundates my in-box.

Chef's Catalog was once a good practical place for cooks and bakers. Then the mail-order company was bought by Nieman-Marcus, then either someone else, and finally Target, which cannibalized and liquidated it. There was an attempt to bring Chef's back, but the offerings were the same narrow range as the other cooking and baking places.

And this is why I'm still looking for a dough docker without buying on Amazon.

[BakerAunt]

And we cannot imagine life without any of these!

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for posting these, Aaron. I read the one on chocolate. I'm saving the other one to read later. While the chocolate history is fascinating, I do not understand the author calling it cultural appropriation. Societies come into contact with other societies and information is passed on. It is we moderns who came up with the idea of owning information, which has its upsides and its downsides.

[BakerAunt]

Can you fit a full sheet pan into your oven, Mike?

I enjoyed reading about the Seattle store, Aaron.

Italian Cook reminded me that I also use waxed paper for making up salmon patties.

When I was at Gordon Food Services, I looked for large rolls of parchment but did not find any. When I want the 18" long piece, I'm stuck buying the Reynolds in the store. I'd like a less expensive source. For the half-sheet pan, I usually use KAF Baker's Bucks to bring down the price when I need to order it.

[BakerAunt]

I made another batch of yogurt on Wednesday.

Dinner on Wednesday night was a stir-fry with soba noodles using the leftover pork and the drippings I deglazed from the pan. In addition to mushrooms, green onion, and half a yellow bell pepper, the stir-fry included snow peas from our garden and two small red bell peppers. These bell peppers were on the plant last fall when my husband dug it up before the frost (we had only had two peppers off of it—we like them red). It sat on the enclosed sun porch all winter, and the plant looked terrible, as it is not warm out there, although not too cold. My husband re-planted it this spring. We expected the two little peppers to fall off, but instead they grew then turned red. Thus, we had our first harvest. The plant is now a good size and has four or five peppers on it, some of which are large, with more forming.

[BakerAunt]

I made my version of the KAF online recipe (revised from the Whole Grain Baking Book) for Maple Granola on Wednesday. We had a nice, albeit short, rain, as we did yesterday, which has cooled us from the heat, at least for now. I hope we get more rain.

[BakerAunt]

Here's another article about the baking increase during the Pandemic, including information on the increase at Gold Medal Flour:

https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2020/06/industry-rises-cater-home-baking-trend

Here is another on the cooking increase:

https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2020/07/mandated-stay-home-cooking-fatigue-sets?utm_source=brief

I wonder how much cooking and baking habits will actually change when "things go back to normal." Of course, Covid-19 is not over, even as places are opening up.

[BakerAunt]

I use waxed paper for the aforesaid re-heating in the microwave.

I sometimes use it to hold ingredients, such as grated Parmesan cheese--grate on then easily put into a recipe. When I buy a new can of the Vermont Baking Powder from KAF (will they ever get it back in stock?!), I sift it onto baking powder, then move it to my own tight-lid container.

I've used it to cover a pan while working with raw meat.

I used to use it to wrap caramels, back when I could eat those and had people with whom to share them.

I would never use it for baking now that we have parchment, but I do recall my mother using it to line round cake pans. She also wrapped our sandwiches in it for school--in the days before baggies and before re-useable Tupperware sandwich boxes.

I think parchment is more expensive than parchment paper, so where the great qualities of parchment are not needed, I use waxed paper.

It also comes in handy for getting seeds stuck into my crispbread. After I sprinkle on the sunflower and sesame seed, I cover it with a piece of waxed paper, then roll over so that the seeds adhere. (I have to do half at a time, as the waxed paper is not as large.) My concern is that the egg wash and seeds might stick to the saran wrap.

[BakerAunt]

The last thing I need is another "hard to find where I live" that I don't want to do without.

I just finished up a jar of some roasted tomatoes in olive oil in a stir-fry. I looked in Kroger today and was startled at the price for a small jar. I do miss shopping the grocery section at T.J. Maxx for this kind of delicacy.

[BakerAunt]

Ah, ha! That makes sense, Mike. I know that my mother always had celery salt on hand.

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