fearless many, many years ago I lived way up in Maine and I mean the edge of Maine in a tiny town and there was a small Mom & Pop store that made their own pizzas. They were so good! I have great memories of purchasing those on Friday nights and they were dirt cheap!:) We don't order out pizza much but I happened to know the price because a couple of weeks ago we did order one because it was late and I didn't really have anything in the house that I felt like pulling together (honestly, just too tired to pull something together). Prices of cheese and flour have really gone up (along with lots of other stuff).

For most people, spices they can purchase at the grocery store are often good enough. Then they often sit in the cupboard for years and years and soon impart not much more than a dusty taste and slight flavor to the food they are meant to season. I don't know any of you personally, not your cooking or shopping habits so please don't take anything personally. I personally would rather buy small quantities, 1/2 to 1 ounce at a time and replenish often. I have found bulk fresh spices at ethnic markets and ethnic grocery stores. They are often cheap enough that I take out what I can use and give the rest to friends. I am also lucky in that I take a class across the road from a local Spice House and so have frequent access to their selection and I have to honestly say that whether or not you are skeptic, once you've cooked and baked with their, or Penzy's spices, there is truly no going back. No matter how viral you think this is, it's because it's true LOL Any skeptics want to send me a shopping list. I'll be happy to send out some samples. Oh, and BTW, if you buy something from either vendor and are not happy with it they will replace it free of charge.

I boiled some eggs this morning and at the end of the designated boiling time (at a setting of 5.5), I turned down the hob into the lower settings. I had to choose a setting that was high enough to cause bubble formation because at the lowest settings the induced heat just conducted away. Settings between 3 and 4 would cause effects that could be easily observed. It was evident that the power to the hob was modulating at a roughly 1-Hz rate. Hence my experience is not the same as Gary's and it is possible that my E'lux clone has a different circuit than his. There are no noises associated with this modulation, and it occurs (for the particular pot and water level) at an energy input too low for bubbles to even detach from the pot bottom and potentially make noise at the surface. I don't consider this a defect; but rather a design choice that likely results from some trade-off that wouldn't be apparent to someone who doesn't design induction cooktops for a living. Perhaps switching at a higher frequency would induce additional circuit heating. In any case, induction ready pots and pans have thicker bases with longer thermal time constants, so this effect may not be apparent with their use. Sometime I'll try a handy Emeril pan and see what happens. kas

A few suggestions if you do not already have one. For most people just a basic one is all that is needed. For someone who is actively being monitored by a doctor or who does a lot of physical activity it might be good to talk to your doctor. Some would like to know what your levels are over a span of time. While you can write the numbers down it is easier to forget to take that list with you or if someone takes you they may not know where it is. Some of the ones have phone apps that the information can be transferred to. I have seen above where a phone has an app but not certain how a phone would connect to your body to make a reading. I would think you would still need another appliance for the app to be functional.