Nicko started a thread titled, "How are you preparing your turkey this year?" Yes, I contributed to the thread. But to my shame I avoided the heart of the matter, only mumbling something like "smoking."

The non-answer haunted me. For one thing, my relationship with you is founded on honesty. For another, it's too important to keep dancing around it -- no matter how much we'd all prefer to keep silent about an unpleasant matter.

With maturity comes...

First of all, thanks to those who told me my web site was down. I forgot to renew my site registration in October. All is well now.

I didn't open on Halloween. The landlord didn't get his act together and get the building inspected, nor did he get the electrical work done. I went through **** with my equipment vendor and the delivery of my walkin was delayed 10 days which delayed my contractor. I'm going to have a heart attack or I'm going to learn ultimate patience. At this...

There's plenty more CFG knife, sharpeining and knife skills maundering to be posted; and I promise to add at least one more entry this week. But this whole baking by scale thing came up, and I thought it was worth an entry if only for the way the subject relates to my outlook in re CFG.

In relevant part this entry is also posted in a thread Dave (dscheidt) started in the Pastries and Baking forum here at CT.

Swimmers up. Take your mark. Bang!

Preface, Speaking...

MORE EDGINESS, MORE ANGST, MORE MONEY: MORE CHOOSING A KNIFE

OR, SOME THINGS YOU DON’T THINK ABOUT WHEN IN THE FLUSH OF ACQUISITION LUST, BUT YOU REALLY SHOULD.

Thanks in advance for bearing with me as I try and cobble all this stuff together. On the other hand, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.

For those poor souls reading this in the sort of piecemeal fashion in which it’s presented, and for those who have read me on the topic before, it...

Writing a coherent and reasonably short piece – say, umm, well “chapter length” -- about how to choose knives has stymied me for more than a year. I’ve made dozens of starts but haven’t finished any of them, while over the same period have written tens of thousands of words on all sorts of culinary cutlery topics in the form of board posts (on CT and other forums).

The subject of choosing a knife – particularly a chef’s knife (or gyuto, or santoku) – can’t really be separated from...