I love sashimi and sushi and found a wonderful recipe that layers the sushi in a dish, then is cut into squares for serving. Since no one I know is a sushi chef, I don't have to follow the time honored method of making those rolls, tediously. "Want it now"! The only problem is that I don't know which dashi it calls for in this recipe. It just says "dashi", so I leave it out, but would love to know which kind of dashi I should be using: katsuo (bonito flakes), kombu (kelp), or niboshi (dried anchovies or sardines). Or maybe using dried shrimp (ebi). That is easy enough to find in grocery stores in the Spanish/Mexican foods section, where the others warrant a trip to Whole Foods or Asian Market (30 miles either one). Perhaps someone here knows more about sushi-making and can help me out for an authentic flavor for this sushi? And, though I do not like hot spicy foods (karasugiru/picante), I adore wasabi. It bites then goes away, unlike habanero's that bite for hours. Go figure. Nancy Here is a link that might be useful: layered - not rolled - sushi recipe

We had a small gathering this year - no neices, nephews, or their children, and so it was mostly adults - except my sister brought her step-grandson who is 17. My SIL did not show up because she was not feeling well, but I don't think she has felt well in over two years. The worst part of it was the travel. We had a three hour layover in Dallas and got into Austin at about midnight. My sister would have picked us up at the airport, but when we called her from Dallas, she told us we would have to take a cab. I asked her how much that would cost, knowing she was very far from the airport, and so I decided that we should rent a car for the day, if the rental car agencies were still open, since it would be about the same price as the cab ride. I thought about renting one for a week, but nothing affordable was available. We were unable to call the rental agencies from Dallas (we got stupid recordings), and so we took our chances at the Austin airport and got lucky! Very lucky!! Since DS had to work on Tuesday and we would have been otherwise stranded at her house, we really needed a car for the day. It was extremely cold Tuesday morning (lowever 40s), and there was no way we would have wanted to walk to the nearest place to get breakfast from her house. As for Thanksgiving ... I bought much of the food at Central Market in Austin, including a free-range turkey breast. DM told me NOT to buy a whole turkey. I started the dry salt technique in Austin (not as early as I would have liked, but it worked anyway), and then started cooking on Wednesday as my parents' house. Wednesday, I removed the back and some excess skin from the breast so that I could make stock for gravy and dressing and also made two of my lime pies. I had brought nine limes from my yard. I also made some Chex mix snack, which DM loves and which I planned to use as a snack/appetizer the next day. I miscalculated how long the breast would take to cook, and so the meal was delayed by about 20 minutes, but it turned out okay. I didn't make that many dishes, and so it was very easy to manage. DS kept insisting on helping me prepare stuff, and so I let her slice the mushrooms for the gravy and prepare the lettuce for the Caesar salad. DM complained that I had bought anchovies for the salad, but she ate the salad anyway and liked it! I made my very easy grits faux cornbread stuffing, and that went over well. The next day DM reheated some of it in a plastic container, and I refused to eat any of that. For vegetable, we had broccoli. DS removed the florets and chopped the stems into small pieces, and I boiled the small pieces in a small amount of water with a bit of onion to make a sauce. I purd the stems/onions with the cooking water and a bit of cornstarch (normally I use potato starch) and S&P and then returned that to the pan with the florets to allow them to cook slowly. I guess I undercooked the florets because although they were hot, most of them were left on people's plates. I thought they were fine and could have been reheated, if necessary. The sauce came out the way I wanted it. DM insisted on opening a can of sweet potatoes, and most of that was left over. We also had canned cranberry sauce, which I really do not mind, and I didn't have time to make it myself. Besides that, cranberries are expensive in Texas! We had whole wheat rolls from HEB which everone but DM liked. The worst part of the meal was the mushroom gravy I made because I added a bit too much salt, but I was the only one who didn't like it. I got a lot of teasing for my lime pies from those present who felt obligated to torture me (proabably for Amanda's sake), but I could not be insulted. I could always threaten not to allow them to have seconds, if they irritated me too much. DM thought I should have made only one pie, but we needed both of them, since that was the only dessert. I'm in Austin now, and will be leaving for L.A. this evening. We got horrible flight times, since we are using DS's frequent flyer miles (She wanted to use them up before the airline went into chapter 11, which it hasnt'), and so next time we will buy our own tickets. We got these back in early June before I was working full time. Next visit we will allow ourselves more control and flexibility over our schedule and will probably rent a car for the entire visit so that we won't be stranded anywhere. Lars

I have a slight preference for the pegmatite granite (the one with the big circles, and to all the geologists on this site, I'm sorry if I'm mangling the name) for two reasons: 1. more color, thus more decorating choices and 2. the fossils might end up being limiting, esp. if a boy decides he hates dinosaurs. (I'm speaking as a mother of boys here. Both of my boys went thru the dino phase, then outgrew them, then rediscovered Jurassic Park and similar. Kids change their minds a lot as they grow. My kid had to have his room painted lime green, then 3 years later he wants to junk everything green and paint it red. Don't ask.) However, FB is so cool that it's only a slight preference the other way.

I've been thinking long and hard about the many good critiques that have been shared in this thread and I've made a first pass at a modification. First the image and then the explanation: The oven and the microwave have been relocated. The oven is now under the cooktop. I feel like an idiot for basically replicating a range, paying double the money for the same functionality, but that cursed wok on the cooktop is going to cost me a pretty penny - cooktop + wok + oven instead of just range + wok. I also lose the flexibility of having a kitchen that's workable for someone is a wheelchair but if that fate ever befalls me I can simply move the oven back to the original location in the wall cabinet, lower the cooktop and sink and then I've got a working kitchen that's good for a disabled person. The design can be modified without too much trouble if the need ever arises. So, now that the oven is underneath the cooktop all of the pots that I wanted handy for cooking had to find a new home. They're now in the island where the recycling drawers were. That was easy. They're still handy, behind me instead of below the cooktop. The microwave is now immediately below the countertop in the peninsula with enough space to have a cabinet drawer underneath the microwave. This is a pretty handy place for the MW because it's right across the aisle from the fridge and just a step more removed from the cooktop/oven. Now as I enter the kitchen I can grab something from the fridge, pop it into the MW, and then I can proceed to the banquette or take the food out of the kitchen. All of the bulk grains and baking supplies are now relocated between the microwave and the wall cabinet which used to house the MW/Oven combo. The side of the island facing the peninsula now has a top drawer and 4 vertical drawers underneath which will hold all manner of baking sheets/pans. The sheets are close to the bake prep area and they don't need to be close to the oven - I will transport what needs to be baked either to the oven or to the wood fired pizza oven. The wall cabinet now stores two recycling bins, canned food, less frequently used baking equipment, and other odds and ends. My fear was having a useless section of counter/cabinets attached to the peninsula, but as I thought about how the space would be used, it can still function as a secondary prep zone but with the secondary sink on the island, it functions well as the bake zone and all the equipment is close at hand. The suboptimal aspect that arises from this new layout has to do with recycling and garbage disposal - it's now a walk to get rid of stuff. Similarly, if I want canned good or boxed goods, it's a walk from the cooking area to this storage area. However, these inconveniences are not as mission critical as the impracticalities of the original plan - the use of the oven and microwave in the old layout were more of a burden than the need to get canned goods or to dispose of recyclables. Here's the exit question for everyone (besides anything new that you can find to comment upon): What are the inconveniences of having a microwave underneath a counter? I'm used to using microwaves either at counter level or in the upper cabinets.