This is the first year that I've tried insulating a bin. I took my simple round wire bin, and surrounded it with another fence that left about 16-18" between the 2. I then filled the space between with unshredded leaves. Piled some more on top of the pile. I didn't have enough fence to completely surround the pile, so one quarter of the outside is insulated with just stacked paper bags of leaves. I have found that the bags don't make perfect contact, however, so they admit a bit of cold air etc to the pile. I tried filling those spaces with trash firewood and unshredded leaves with some success. This pile was seeded with composting worms, and I wanted them to stay active this winter. Unfortunately my experiment was thwarted by the extremely warm weather earlier on. We are back to typical weather for this time of year, however, so maybe I'll get to see the results. Another pile that I made on Thanksgiving was covered with just a few paper leaf bags (no leaves in them). These seem to repel enough cold water that would cool off the pile, and to limit exchange of the air with colder outside air to actually provide some insulating value (or to allow the outer layers of leaves in the actual pile to act as insulators). Very simple, and as I said- not given a really hard test this winter yet. Pile is still cranking hot. I would (personally) stick with paper bags versus plastic. They provide some protection without completely going anaerobic (whether you care for aerobic piles or not- they do generate their own heat).

Well I will stop adding the drink cups then as I abhore finding small flaps of plastic film in my finished compost. Since we are on the topic, does anyone know if the same phenominon exists as far as there being some plastic film on what Taco Bell uses for the wrappers for burritos or tacos? Same question for McDonald's wrappers from their burgers or french fry containers.

I've made it twice since the original poster put it on the forum. Thanks, sushipup! What is amazing is how incredibly simple the technique is. I guess from a food science standpoint, the skin is frying in the rendered fat, and the flesh is steaming in the covered skillet so it's nice and juicy. While you wouldn't call this health food, I would imagine that it's probably better for you than regular fried chicken (just look at all that fat that remains in the skillet!) but still has some of the crunchy mouthfeel that you associate with fried chicken. While I have the greatest respect for M. Pepin's skill, I do find this recipe as written to be a tad too salty. And last night, I didn't bother making the sauce. I used just a light sprinkle of salt and a generous grinding of white pepper--turned out fabulous.

Okay, great to know! I didn't have any responses for awhile and thought this was a dead end question...ha! I'll be checking at Walgreen's too as well as our local Dillon's grocery store. It looks there are 3 lb and 5 lb logs and the 5 lb ones burn for 2-3 hours same as natural logs do. Leslie/KS