The price is too much, especially when The National Clonal Germplasm Repository at Corvallis, Oregon, sends out plants for free. I put in an order on line there last year for two Rose de Cote d'Or raspberry plants, after David Karp raved about their taste in his article. Two tiny, rooted cuttings arrived a few weeks ago, after around a year's wait, and are leafing out nicely in their one gallon pot. There might not be enough chill here to fruit them, but it's fun trying. Several French websites report that it's one of the most aromatic raspberries in existence. Here is a link that might be useful: NCGR-Corvallis - Rubus Germplasm

Kitchen scraps are going in milk jugs and then set on top of the compost pile out back. This way they should go through several freeze/thaw cycles before being finally added to the bin. Late December in northern-Illinois and you don't know what you'll get - today was the first real snowfall of the season but tomorrow is supposed to be back to low 40s F. I thought about the reusable grocery bags but gave up on them after a while. I am thinking one would work well if I need to store VC before we thaw out for next season. For the most part the bags are made of non-woven polypropylene. UV from the sun will eat that stuff up before a season is over in the garden. As for a bin it would be a good test. It will have a high surface area to volume ratio though. Expect to water it a lot is what I think. Would a small bag like this make more of a batch process compost cycle than a traditional bin?

Reading the user guide for the Electrolux, it looks like it doesn't have shut-off timers on the burners (the timer is just a beeper). Competitor's models have individual shut-off timers for each burner as well as a beeper; that strikes me as useful. For example, when we are cooking Basmati rice on our gas cooktop, we let it simmer for 15 minutes then turn off the burner; with a shut-off timer on an induction cooktop, we could have the burner shut off automatically and avoid any risk of boiling dry and burning. If one believes the user guide, the restrictions on pan sizes are pretty tight on the Electrolux; however, I suspect that reality is different. When we tested the Bosch 800-series cooktop, it was noticeably more lenient on pan sizes than its manual said (pans that were smaller than the stated minimum sizes worked OK). I am dubious about the crosses instead of circles. Without trying it, I don't know whether that's really an issue. You could easily simulate that part by drawing crosses on a piece of paper and seeing how easy it is to get a pan centered. On the plus side, I like the look of the controls on the Electrolux - individual instant-set controls is about the best set-up I have seen, assuming that the instant-set part is not too fiddly (you still have +/- controls to tweak with if you don't hit the exact setting using the instant "dial"). The Electrolux has the largest number of power levels that I have seen on any induction unit - around 25! I don't know whether that is a plus or not; the Bosch has around 19, and that seemed to be plenty during our simple tests, but I don't have enough experience of these things to know whether even more levels might be useful in real-life cooking. FWIW, Wolf's induction cooktop only has around 9 levels. This post was edited by PeterH2 on Sun, Feb 17, 13 at 21:40

Debbie, I am so sorry for your loss, you loved your Al so much and you had done so much to make his life bearable with all his health problems, you are a wonderful person and a perfect wife to Al, he must have loved you so much too. I think it is absolutely disgusting that people would say that you are young enough to get another man, that is such a cruel thing to say to someone who just lost the love of their life. Yes, we are happy that our loved one isn't suffering any more but we still wish that they hadn't had to die for them to lose their pain. I hold onto the faith that I will see my darling husband in Heaven when I get there. I am glad that you have your children, they are a great source of comfort but the pain of the loss is excrutiating.There are a lot of things you have to take care of after a death and it can take months to get it all done but take your time. The best piece of advice I got from everyone was don't rush into anything, take you time and make sure the decision is right for you before you go ahead. My husband died three months ago and I still haven't taken his shirts out of the closet, I will soon, but when the time is right for me. The memorial by his apple tree sounds like the perfect thing and he will be smiling and saying "this is beautiful Debbie". God Bless you and your family, I wish you well. Mav. PS>If you can, find a bereavement group in you area, maybe the church or the hospital, I did and it has been a great source of comfort.