Annie, I used your method -- just heated some caramels and some water into the microwave. It worked fine, and I even got the amount of water right, quite by chance. We had it last night over vanilla ice cream. It was good, but.. these were the TJ "fleur de sel" caramels, and that saltiness became more noticeable in the sauce. So it was best with a restrained amount of sauce. I'm thinking it would be very good in something like turtle candy. Maybe a liquid turtle. As I was eating my caramel sundae, I thought again how much Haagen-Dazs vanilla has changed for the worse. Until the last few years, it was one of the truly perfect foods. Now it is much sweeter, and the vanilla flavor is different. I wonder if there's an ice cream like the old Haagen-Dasz vanilla.

Thanks for all the very helpful information, everyone! I learned a lot more from this than I did from trying to get it from Google searches! I was not really familiar with the Bialetti machine (although I had seen them, but not in use), and so the link I posted below was very surprising to me. I had no idea that it worked that way. I'm intrigued by the Toddy coffee maker, but it would require me to plan perhaps too far in advance, and I'm not good at that. However, it is very affordable, and if it will make coffee that will upset my stomach less, I think I should give it a try. I never drank coffee until I moved to San Francisco in early 1970s, and back then the Melitta drip was what everyone seemed to use. Coffee still upset my stomach back then, but I tolerated it better then than I do now! Peet's coffee is available at Bristol Farms, and the store is in my general neighborhood, but I will go back to the Venice coffee & tea shop where I used to buy my tea. I'll probably go back to buying tea there again as well, as they have the best selection, and I love their "Fancy Keemun" tea. Annie, it sounds like you have all bases covered, and I might eventually end up with multiple coffee makers! Lars Here is a link that might be useful: Bialetti cappuccino maker with video

I did copy, and paste, but their is some stuff other--- freezing thowing help fruit sofen I would say start off with store bought fruit, but not grapes to expensive(1)Prepare the wine making produce by cutting up larger fruit, busting skins on smaller fruit, chopping up fruits such as raisins, and bruising any produce like ginger root, etc.(sodium metabi"sufite)when crushing) Also, any large pits should be removed. It is also important to understand that you can over-process the produce. Food processors, blenders and such should not be used for this purpose. Doing so will cause too much bitterness from the skin and seeds of the produce to be incorporated into the resulting wine.--- you could boil fruit but just to kill germs, boiling long=starch that will cloud it up.I have half wine,and half fluff. (2)Stir together all of the wine making ingredients called for, EXCEPT for the YEAST(If you boiled hold of till cool pectic enzym), into a primary fermenter. Collect any pulp in a fermentation bag and submerge the bag into the wine making mixture(do so it's eayer). Add water to equal the batch to 5 gallons. Then add 5 Campden Tablets. They should be crushed up before adding. Do not add the wine yeast at this point in the process. Adding the wine yeast at the same time you add the Campden Tablets will only result in destroying the yeast.-- not true stuning wild yeast so inaculate yeast can over power(I have a funny story as of yeasterday about boiling wild yeast dead)--- you can also boil the fruit for a short time, or pour boiling water over it 180 degrees will kill the bad bacteria, you can also freeze the fruit breaking down the cells, and the fruit will crush easyer.-- first freeze On the vine is ice wine."WINERIES"let it rot. (3)Cover the fermenter with a thin, clean towel and wait 24 hours. During this waiting period the Campden Tablets are sterilizing the juice with a mild sulfur gas. After 24 hours the gas leaves the container making it then safe to add the wine yeast. (4)Sprinkle the wine making yeast over the surface of the juice and then cover with a thin, clean towel(or lid). Allow this mixture (must) to ferment for 5 to 7 days. You should start to see some foaming activity within 24 hours of adding the yeast. Typically, 70% of the fermentation activity will occur during this 5 to 7 day period(but can be(faster) slower depending on high acidic juice,-but who says you can't make lemonade out of lemon juice(a toping up thing)LOOK At Jackkeller.net for requested recipes even burdock won 3rd). *before syphoning or pouring(in a funnel to bottle=(*secondary** fermentation) add a campden tablet (5)After 5 to 7 days remove the pulp from the fermenter and discard(or save add sugar for second wine--I use 1/2 the original water(but I don't like light wine)). Siphon the wine into a secondary fermenter in a careful manner, so as to leave the sediment behind. You can easily remove the pulp by lifting out the fermentation bag. Wring out any excess juice from the bag. Siphon the wine off the sediment without stirring it up. Get as much liquid as you can, even it some of the sediment comes with it. If necessary, add water back to 5 gallons. (6)Attach a wine making air-lock and fill it approximately half-way with water. Allow the juice to ferment for an additional 4-6 week period or until it becomes completely clear. You may want to verify with your hydrometer that the fermentation has completed before continuing on to step 7. The hydrometer should read between 0.990 and 0.998 on the Specific Gravity scale. Be sure to give the wine plenty of time to clear up before bottling. (7)Once the wine has cleared completely, siphon it off of the sediment again. Stir in 5 Campden Tables that have been crushed and then bottle. When siphoning off the sediment, unlike the first time you siphoned the wine, you want to leave all of the sediment behind, even if you lose a little wine. (8)they usually don't add--after your wine is finished get a stirer after you syphoned off gunk(best to one of those stirers you attach to a drill or a wine saver(a attachment added) to release carbon unless you wouldn't mind a fizzy wine that will mask some of the taste= not a sparkling wine) If you guys do want a online brew shop to check out I found the cheapest I can find from searching time and time again.

O.K. I don't really think it looks built-in unless the cabinets go completely wall to wall, so the 1'-5" wall would need to be full depth to the cabinets or deeper. But does that really matter ? If you want to get rid of the 1'-5" wall anyway, it won't look built in. Also a under counter frig will be 24' d. so that won't fit in a 16" deep cabinet. What if you shortened it & didn't have it against either wall & make it look more like a piece of furniture ? I like your plan by the way.... Good Luck Here is a link that might be useful: granite countertops