Rocknrope's Profile

That NY Times article was fascinating, but I think we're also talking about two different things here - cooking with "cheap" wine (i.e. Two Buck Chuck) and cooking with "corked" (off) wine.

I would think that cooking with corked wine would not be a good thing under any circumstance, because the reason why its corked may be because bacteria has infiltrated the wine, but this is just my opinion.

Glass as a cutting board surface is terrible for your knives.

Sometimes I feel like I lose too much asparagus this way. A few times I've had 4 inches or more snap off, and I'm pretty sure all of it wasn't "woody."

I resisted the urge to buy a bench scraper for the longest time, feeling that it was an unnecessary "gadget" for the kitchen. I rarely make dough, and use my knife blade to scrape mirepoix in the pan. After countless numbers of times of having onions/carrots/celery scatter on the floor from my narrow chef's knife, I bought the bullet and picked up an $8 scraper from BB&B.

The scraper is now one of my favorite tools. I can get much larger quantities of veg into pans without littering the floor, and I use the wide surface to smash up garlic as well.

I'm a huge fan of the Unicorn Magnum pepper mill. It was the one recommended by Cooks Illustrated, and I heartily agree, it's fantastic. I like the sleek look of it, and the shower of pepper that comes out is always satisfying. I thought the "Plus" model was abit large for my taste, and feel the smaller model is less obtrusive.

I previously used one of those squeezing "pepper balls" as well, which I always found frustrating because it never generated the quantity I wanted, even after 20-30 crushes. I then had one whose handle snapped off as I was using it - that's what made me switch to the Magnum.

For salt, I use kosher salt stored in a sugar bowl.

I'm in.

You all need to chill. Maybe you have 4 hours to make dessert, but I'd rather take some shortcuts using quality products. I'm making a trifle for our holiday dinner using a pound cake from a local bakery.

I'm disappointed, but not surprised, at the vitriol of some of the commenters as well.

Just get a rosemary tree, then after the holidays, eat it!

Cute, but my arm would get tired from shaking the amount of pepper I like from those three tiny holes.

How does a site like Epinions, whose entire premise is rating products/stores, deal with it? Ridiculous, and I'd love to know the stores to ensure that I don't patronize them ever in my lifetime.