Thanks for the kind words. Lalitha! The induction is three elements. It's 2/3 of the 36" unit you can see in the stores (or was last year...). From the planning guide "Three cooking zones: One induction cooking zone ø 15 cm (1400 W, with booster 1800 W) [small ring]. One induction cooking zone ø 21 cm (2200 W, with booster 3300 W) [medium ring]. One induction cooking zoneø 18 cm (1800 W, with booster 2500 W) [center ring of large element] addition increases cooking zone to ø 28 cm (3600 W, with super booster function 4400 W) [outer ring plus center ring = large element]" The Wolf gas is "One medium 12,000 Btu/hr sealed burner with 800 Btu/hr delivered at simmer. One small 9,200 Btu/hr sealed burner with 300 Btu/hr delivered at simmer." The small, front one is about 9" square, and the medium, rear one is about 10"x13" I find this configuration very adaptable. Sometimes I'm trying to make a one pot quickie, which is often on the large induction element. Or I'll do a pot and a pan, with one on the large element, and one on the front medium element. These are things like pasta with vegetables, or a saute and a sauce. A few weeks ago I was making burritos to freeze. I had already made the meat in the oven and shredded it. I had the rice simmering in a large shallow pot (Le Creuset "braiser"), on the large induction element, and my Le Creuset small, square grill plate on the small gas burner for toasting the tortillas. It actually does work on the induction, and would have meant less fiddling with the heat, but it just seems wrong. Standing between the two really drove home how hot the gas is. It was on low-medium and my left side was hot, and my right side, stirring the rice, wasn't! For Passover Seder, I had the matzah balls on the back burner, the chicken soup on the large induction burner, smaller things off and on on the smaller induction burners, and the teakettle on the small gas. I did the large pot of tzimmis (roots and fruits) early and was holding it in the warming drawer. I would have done the same thing even if I twice the number of burners. Heating up the chicken broth is nothing. I wanted anything I needed to pay attention to over by that point. Meats in the ovens, and casseroles in the Advantium on oven setting. I just bought some chicken to make meatballs out of, and some red peppers for the sauce. I'll char the peppers on the gas (I even have a little mesh style barbecue grill that sits on the grate), and cook the chicken balls in a braiser on the large induction element. I'll probably make the mother sauce on the medium induction element, though if I do a saute as well, I'll do that there, and the sauce on the small gas. Most people rarely use more than three burners at once. As I said, even when I could need five or six, I'd rather use the warming drawer and three or four. And I have an electric kettle which I could use if I needed to free a hob. There are a few things which I make, which theoretically have half a dozen different pots all hot at once and combined only at plating, but even those can be done in shifts given a warming drawer or hot plate. I wanted the 24" induction because I wanted the big, powerful element and didn't want to devote the money or space to two Gaggenau dominoes to accomplish the same thing. For less than a quarter of what the two pieces would have cost me, I got the same function in 6" less counter, and a couple inches less vertical depth. The drawer underneath and the hood are both 48" wide. As you can see, I gained a couple of precious counter inches in the corner, and several on the right, which is my secondary prep area (by the clean-up sink). And I got the cool magnet knob. :)

The late dh and I differed on the chicken soup - based on our heritage - his Jewish style with a parsnip and mine Italian style with parsley sprigs and a tomato. I surprised him once by making matzo balls. I used the recipe on the matzo meal box and made them about the size of Italian meat balls...had NO idea that they would swell and grow...ended up being HUGE - like baseball size... He commented on how large they were - but ate them and seemed happy. He made them stuffed with a little carmelized onions. They were soooo good. -maria

I never used to make so many desserts, either -- I hardly ever make dessert all year, so why do it when they aren't even very good? But I could do the candy and frozen bonbons before I went to Israel, so I did them just for fun. Also, my kidz will be home for a few days, and when my daughter is home, the house fills up with her friends, so it's good to have some stuff around. lovestocookfor6, I don't have much experience with the frozen gefilte fish. My friend recently made a terrific dish with two frozen gefilte fishes, one salmon and one "regular," spread in layers in a spring form pan. She said it was really easy. I liked it so much I took home half the leftovers! I thought about it, but I have too many people for that. Anyway, I happen to like the stuff in the jar. My friend and I are not giving up on our quest to learn to make really good homemade gefilte fish. We need a lesson from someone with experience; recipes are fine, but we need to know the correct pre-cooking textures and tastes. The frozen strawberry mousse is really fun to make. I made it this morning. Be sure to use your very biggest bowl -- it is amazing how much this small amount of ingredients grows. The recipe perfectly fills my big glass trifle bowl. 2 egg whites 3/4 c sugar 1 pint (small basket) strawberries, hulled, sliced, and lightly sprinkled with sugar 1 T lemon juice pinch of salt 3 T "square wine" (kosher concord grape wine) Beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Add sugar and beat again to stiff peaks (that's what the recipe says, but think more like "marshmallow fluff"). With mixer on low, add the remaining ingredients and start beating slowly, then bring up speed. Beat for 15 (yes, 15) minutes. Cover and freeze overnight. It doesn't freeze very hard, and it melts pretty fast, but it refreezes pretty well. Garnish with strawberries or nuts. (Chocolate curls would probably look spectacular, but I can't stand chocolate with fruit.) Enjoy! I hope you find the afikomen --

Great thread! I saw the commercial for the first time last night. It was a young couple in a park, she brought him a popsickle. He said, "What's the matter, don't you love me anymore?" She said, "What do you mean?" He said, "That has hfcs in it." She said, "What's wrong with that?" Then he got this bewildered, foolish look on his face, shrugged, took the popsickle and asked if she had any more. That really frosts my cookies! If you've been around as long as I have, you won't trust anyone when they swear something is "safe". There have been so many instances where we have used or eaten something for ten or twenty years and then they come out and say it's been the cause of a birth defect or a serious malady for "some" -- which is nothing more than Russian roulette for "all". Of course the first instinct of anyone who produces something that contains a problem ingredient is going to be to swear it's safe. Their income depends upon it. As someone said in an earlier post, look how long it was considered safe to smoke! I speak as one who IS overweight. I know there are those who have never been overweight and those who, as soon as they gain 10 or 20 pounds they go on a diet and take it right off. I have been overweight since I was a child. And yes, part of it has to do with eating habits. My mother was a binge eater, and our diet was high in fats and sugars. Long before anyone ever said anything about hfcs, I figured out that if I was going to diet successfully, I had to get completely off all sugar. I would have a hard time for about three days, being incredibly hungry all the time. After the third day, the hunger pangs would stop and I would be able to remain on a diet. I hadn't made the connection with hfcs until hearing about the problems with it in the last year, and it was a real Aha moment for me. It is incredibly hard to be sociable in this country without ending up consuming something that contains hfcs, and there's always that person who has never been overweight, or who is grossly overweight and has given up on it, who says, "Oh, one little slice isn't going to wreck your diet!" Well, yes, it does, and I'm back into being ravenously hungry (and not able to tell when I've had enough) for three more days, IF I make myself have the resolve to get right back on the diet. If I don't, and I go awhile, my metabolism will have slowed enough that the lost weight comes back on a lot faster than it came off and I become one of those yo-yo dieters, which everyone knows is worse than just staying fat. It is very, very difficult for me. Certainly we should all take responsibility for our own maladies, but you wouldn't see someone trying to force sugar on a guest who is diabetic or peanuts or msg on one who is allergic, or --God forbid-- trying to "sneak" those ingredients into their food. So many folks that wouldn't even consider judging someone who has some other debilitating condition will say, "All you have to do to lose weight is to stop eating". That's true in a sense, but since eating is a part of nearly every social event it impacts your social life. Try even watching TV and see how long you can watch before someone's eating or advertising food. And of course you can't just *stop* eating cold turkey like smoking or drinking. You have to be vigilant every day for your entire life, even after you have lost weight. You can't just lose the weight and be done with it. Were that true, I'd have been slim all my adult life. I'm not one of those persons that gorges and I've been very careful not to continue the binge habits from my mother. I graze. I have a back yard garden and I get exercise that way, but I don't enjoy exercise programs and that's yet another unpleasant lifestyle change that people say I must make in order to lose and keep it off. I know lots of people who are not overweight who never exercise and they eat whatever they (and I) want. I want the key for THAT, for why they can do it and I can't. Oh, and by the way, on the bottle of corn syrup I have in my pantry, hfcs is on the ingredient list.