llaz Quote: "a clove of garlic and two or three anchovies" Garlic and anchovies on a BLT? What were ya thinking, Lou "pizza?" lol For you Lou I found someone who might just agree with you so smitten are they with anchovies they"ve penned an "Ode to the Anchovie" see link below. :D barkeater Quote: "You start with a thick slice of your favorite tomato, up against REAL mayonnaise, with a high quality, crispy bacon, on nonbleached italian white bread. Lettuce is insignificant and use the absolute minimum possible, and add salt and pepper to taste. Anything else is SOMETHING ELSE, not a BLT." YES, YEEESSSSSSSSS, that's it! lol So simply and eloquently stated, too. newbie_2007 Quote: "as many 1/4 inch slices of tom that you can wrap your mouth around (some have bigger jaws than others)" hehe, that's why I'm thinking you should really make your own BLT's who better to judge these things. If someone makes your BLT sandwich TOO big you gotta wonder what is it they are really saying to you, lol trudi_d Quote: "We had a spec book that gave instructions on how to make sandwiches-----we were requred to cut on the diagonal. Great thread, this is the first I've looked at it." LOL, sort of reminds me of cooking in the Army, kinda funny that. Thanks! :) cziga Quote: "I had a BLT (not made by me) the other day that had mustard on one slice of bread and mayo on the other. On no account does mustard belong in a BLT. Not that its a bad condiment, but it obscures the tomato flavor and it altogether a bad idea." Certain taste combinations don't even "sound" good together although I've been meaning to try the Elvis' "banana and peanut butter" sandwich sometime. :D moosemac Quote: "Hubby likes: A thick slice of any large home grown beefesteak tomato, iceberg lettuce, Armour Black Label bacon, Cain's Mayo and Wonderbread toasted golden brown." Brand loyalty (I love it!) and the Wonderbread is an excellent bread for a classic BLT it has no flavor doing what bread should do which is hold ingredients so you can get them to your mouth without too much "fuss & muss". :P Moosemac, just curious but have you tried anchovies with the garlic on your BLT might go good with the cibatta bread, check with Lou, hehe :P Here is a link that might be useful: Ode to the Anchovy

I also suggest seeing if you can get the DVD's. We missed a lot of the 1st season; hubby bought it for me on DVD.. wow, talk about being spoiled. It was awesome. I don't know if there is a way for me to burn it and upload online to share; I would gladly do it if I could.. I'm sure it's illegal. lol If you watch Grey's; you have to watch Private Practice too because you might miss something, like last season when Addison's brother had the brain thing and Derrick had to fix it. The men on Private Practice are also hunks. It's a great show, last season we liked it better the GA.

There are many factors that will determine how many cats become "too many." For some people, the answer is 1 - because they do not have the space or time or resources to dedicate to the wellbeing of their furry friend. I started with one cat (an adult rescue) and felt he would benefit from having a buddy. I got a kitten and they became inseperable. Only down side is the adult is a mellow, low-energy cat and the kitten was a hyper-active ball of energy. After much discussion, I got another kitten to balance things off... This sounded crazy to me but once cat #3 settled in, a perfect harmony existed between all three cats. Fast forward to today, I now have an additional rescue who is estimated to be about 15 years old. This was meant to be a temporary arrangement but it turns out that nobody wants to adopt a 15-year old toothless cat with all kinds of health issues (go figure!)... The addition of cat #4 has been a painful one and has thrown everything out of whack. This old cat is the nicest little ball of purrs when it comes to humans, but she terrorises the crap out of my other cats. Fights have broken out between my other cats as they are on edge and stressed. My youngest male (neutered) has begun to use the bathtub/shower/sinks to pee in despite having 5 litterboxes to choose from throughout the house. The old cat has brought with her fleas, which were a nightmare to treat and het rid of. Her vet bills have been enormous and she has made 1 of my other cats sick as well... She is on a special meat/pate diet that is a whole lot of fun because the other cats have an automatic food-dispenser that she cannot use (so going on holidays is never going to be as easy as it once was). I could go on. After a long, hard struggle of about 18 months, the last cat has finally mellowed out and now tolerates my 3 other cats. However I doubt that the average pet owner would have had the patience and understanding to allow this to happen. Moral of the story? Most people would have brought the first cat back to the shelter and not kept going (because he started off as a "problem cat"). You can have 1 or 2 or 3 or 7 cats... It all depends on how prepared you are to deal with inevitable problems that come with multiple pet ownership. In my case, there was an excellent balance with the first 3. A different 4th addition might have gone more smoothly, but then again the second cat could have been a disaster!

Thank you, remodelfla, for the soapstone comments and pictures. I don't think that the imperfections and scratches would bother me too much, but we know we will probably have to sell our house in 7-8 years, so I need to keep resale in mind. I love the look of it so much, but I need to decide if we can keep it looking good enough over the long haul. I do wish there were an alternative that had a similar look and feel, but that was harder. Granite just doesn't have the same look, and when a black granite is honed, as some friends of mine have in their kitchen, it shows every little fingerprint and oil spot. I recently heard that Caesar Stone is introducing a lot of new colors that are supposed to look more like natural stones, but I have a hard time believing that there will be any that really look like soapstone or marble.