Sheri, Oh, it is drooling time! I can almost taste the tomatoes now. Sungold, Persimmon, and Cherokee Chocolate: if you get ripe tomatoes from only these three plants, you'll still think it is the best tomato year ever, taste-wise! Dr. Wyche's has always done better for me than Kellogg's Breakfast, but then, I have grown DWY for 5 or 6 years and KB for only 2, so Dr. Wyche's has had more opportunity to excell. Dr. Wyche's is a pretty heavy producer, and quite tasty. It also shows great disease resistance. Black Zebra is a very attractive-looking tomato, but I think Black Pineapple (which isn't really black at all, LOL) tastes much better. I have found that every striped tomato I've ever grown has looked pretty, and tasted no better than average. (sigh) Well, I take that back--the one exception is Indian Stripe. Momotaro is probably better than Carmello, but then, your taste buds and your growing conditions are different from mine, so you might find the opposite to be true. I do not think you'll be disappointed in Momotaro though. I haven't grow Alamo. We love Sweet Million and Black Plum, which is our postal carrier's favorite tomato ever since I started sharing them with her several years ago. You're right--I wasn't wild about Japanese Black Trifele, but lots of people love it, so maybe it was just me. Your Mystery Surprise is probably either a tomato that "lost its label" during the seedling growing process, or is from a new grow-out that DJ is trialing and perhaps hasn't even named yet. (I think mysteries and surprises are fun!) Yellow Platfoot Brandywine is yummy, and so is Black Pear. Brandy Boy is the best. If I could only grow one variety, this might be it. There are a few that taste better, but NONE of them can match BB's heavy production and disease resistance. And, even though there are a few that I think taste better than BB, none of them is loads and loads better, only a little better. I don't think I have grown Black Pearl, but isn't it a smallish tomato, more like Black Cherry? I think it is the Burpee hybrid that is said to taste more like a Concord grape after it has been refrigerated? If it even comes close to tasting like Black Cherry, it will be a real winner. I can tell you are ready to get the plants going. Have fun, but be careful and watch the weather. I feel sure we have another freeze or two to get through before Old Man Winter departs and lets us have Spring. I believe you will have more tomatoes this year than last. Remember that so much of last year.....the excessive rainfall, the continual cloudiness, the cooler-than-usual weather all combined to severely affect tomato production. Conditions like that are beyond our control AND exceptionally rare. This has GOT TO be a better year, right? By the way, my little container-grown Better Bush tomato has now formed a second tomato--it is just about the size of an English pea. I am so worried that a deer or possum will get my first green tomato that I carry this plant inside every single night. (It is a very pampered plant at this point. Today I picked up a lady bug and carried her over to the plant and sat her on a leaf, just so she could cruise around and hunt for any bugs that might be lurking.) I am SO looking forward to the first ripe tomato this year. No matter the size of the tomato, we always make BLT sandwiches out of the first ripe one. I am going to order the world's best bacon from the New Braunsfels Smokehouse just so we'll have it for the first BLT of 2008. (Most of the time we eat healthy and watch our fat intake and cholesterol, but BLT time is special and calls for a total disregard of the healthy eating rules!) Keep me posted on how planting goes. I hope to be out in the garden a lot the next few days if the weather cooperates. We are under all kinds of storm watches today, tonight and tomorrow, but so far everything is going either a couple of counties west of us OR a couple of counties east of us, and that's OK with me. Dawn

We have a regular sized faucet at our smaller prep sink in our island. You may regret a smaller faucet but I don't think you'll regret the regular size. Your prep sink is big enough to handle it.

My personal preference is the 1st layout. First for the wall oven. If you cook/bake much then having two ovens, especially gas in the range and electric in the wall, is really really nice. The oven stack can also include a warming drawer and a MW or CSO. Second, for us there'd be no benefit in the second layout. With our layout similar to your first we grab stuff out of the frig and put it on the island as a primary landing zone. From there stuff gets prepped and off to the range or ovens. Then often back to the island for plating or in to a warming drawer. BTW, I'd ignore the work triangle. Great bit of marketing but of little practical benefit. Third, I think a range and hood look better aesthetically when looking from the informal dining. Lighting looks much better. I'd move the two over the sink closer together and ideally over the outside edges of the sink to eliminate shadows in the bowls.

What exactly are you going to use the prep sink for? Size really does matter with a prep sink depending on its function, and knowing how you’ll use it will help determine how big it should be. I have a prep sink fairly close to my range (so the range and prep sink are on the same counter run) because that is the way I work in the kitchen. In between the range and the prep sink is my main prep area....that is where all the work happens. I am so happy to have the sink there, but it is way too small. It’s a 16” sink, but those dimensions are NOT interior dimensions. The inside actually measures only 13”....so ridiculously small. So make sure you get a sink with INTERIOR dimensions that make sense for how you will use it. I would much prefer a prep sink with an interior measurement of 21” or so.....would be much more practical and useful. Also, I am always putting goopy utensils and small dirty measuring cups etc. in that sink. I do not want to hand wash those items, so what happens to all the dirty gloppy things in the prep sink that need to be put in the dishwasher? Unfortunately unless you have a dishwater very close to your prep sink, you are carrying those dishes/utensils across your floor and counters (dribbling all along the way) in order to put them into the dishwasher that is way over by your cleanup sink. So, my two VERY big regrets in my kitchen design that I am now living with every day is that my prep sink is WAY too small (wish I had gone bigger) and I truly wish I had put a dishwasher (even just a small 18” one or a single dishwasher drawer) next to my prep sink. This is something that bugs me every single day.