Well, it's been about 2 months since I had planted a bunch of oxygenators, so I thought I'd give people an update in case anyone is curious. Cabomba: I must say that I am quite disappointed in the Cabomba cause it didn't last long at all. I don't know if the goldfish annihilated it, or if it had just broken off by itself, but the majority of the Cabomba managed to find its way into the skimmer net in short order. I had planted the stems in pebble-filled baskets spaced in different areas of the pond, and I think I've got 1 or 2 spindly-looking stems still in residence. Maybe someone else would have better luck, but I'm not planning on trying this again. Next year I think I'll try some Anachris instead, or maybe some Ludwigia. Corkscrew Val: The jury is still out on this one. I had planted about a dozen Val in an oil drain pan (Quickcrete medium sand with river rocks on top) and placed it underneath the stream output. Over a couple days the Val proceeded to shed it's cut/damaged/dying foliage, but then I noticed one day that pretty much every single Val was non-existent! I don't know what happened here, but I just left the pan in place and somewhat forgot about it cause I had a mass of watercress forming a floating mat overtop of the area. A couple weeks ago I had removed this mat of watercress and noticed that a couple of the Val were still there and were working on putting up new growth (3, maybe 4 plants). As of this morning the longest blade is probably only 4" long, but there are a lot of blades in the works so we'll have to wait and see how they do. The majority are also fairly "cork-screwey", so it should make a nice impact when swaying in the currents. I'm going to be getting some more Corkscrew Val in the near future and try planting them in some gravel to see if they fare any better, but at this point I'm still undecided - but am much more positive on the Val than the Cabomba. Of course the real test will be to see how it fares over the winter (I'm thinking it should be fine if it doesn't get trapped in the ice). Ozelot Sword: I put this in the pond just as an experiment to see how well it might work, and I must say that the results have been mixed so far. I'm betting that the sword will not survive the winter here (research has shown that the Echinodorus species are hardy to Zone 8, IIRC), so because of that I'm viewing it as an annual and therefore cannot recommend it to someone who experiences colder winters - the growth rate is not fast enough to make it worthwhile. We have had an unusually cold July so that might have affected it, but as it stands it has been putting out a good-sized rosette of new foliage - unfortunately the longest leaf is only about 3" long. My Colocasia will put up a brand new leaf in less time than the sword will take to grow even 1/4". If you live in the southern areas where the swords can survive year-round, then it could make a fairly interesting plant when grown totally underwater, or even grown as a marginal in as little as 1" of water. Another thing - I had chosen the Ozelot Sword cause it was variegated green and reddish, but in the pond environment the red coloration makes it look decaying/dead. An Amazon Sword or other all-green sword would be a better choice in this respect.

Posted by annie1992 "I don't like lamb in any form, so won't conjecture on the proper cooking of it. (grin) ----" Annie, I didn't use to like lamb at all, until they start charging a lot of money. Expensive = taste good ? LOL FOAS, thank you. I look forward to seeing more of your sous vide creations. Alexa, at the risk of being accused of anti Occam's Razor law, let's take a little time to chew the fat. First, the pictures might be a little misleading. I take food pictures using only the auto setting on my camera to save time. Depending on if the light is from the window (day) or from the CFL (night) or if the shot is wide-angle or close-up and the predominant color of the food item, the camera's built-in software takes charge and determines the red/white/blue balance for each picture. The colors on the first two are closer to the real thing. Rack of lamb, very expensive. If you take away the fat, and the bones, and shrinkage, it probably comes to $60.00 a pound here in NYC. Meat, bones and fat have different thermal conductivities, adding to it, the small size and the shape of a rack of lamb, it makes it very difficult to cook it perfectly unless you prefer the whole thing well-done. It is challenging to find a way to maximize perfection to every tiny morsel of this wondrous victual. At the temperature I set at 135F, it is too low to render the fat. Since I don�t eat the fat, it does not bother me just to scrape the fat off while I eat. But if I were to serve others who are not followers of the Paleolithic diet, I probably BBQ the fat a little longer and that will make the issue go away. No, you cannot make Schmaltz using a sous vide cooker. I think it needs to be emphasized that sous vide is merely a particular way of cooking with a special appliance. There is really no recipes for sous vide, no more than recipes for microwave, or cast iron frying pan, etc. It is unfortunate that the French word "sous vide" gives this concept a lot of unjustified mystique; the fact that top chefs and upscale restaurant use it makes it appearing un-approachable. It makes it seem like practitioners of this way of cooking belong to some religious cult. The truth is this: sous vide is just a water oven that can keep constant temperatures. If I were to name this appliance, I would call it "Cookware For Making Perfect Meats For Dummies" If you show a 10-year-old kid how to set the temperature, the kid can cook the meat sous vide just like a top chef. A sous vide cooker simply will not allow you to overcook or undercook, it makes no difference if your piece of meat is frozen on one half and the other half at room-temperature, thick on one end and thin on the other end. No doubt, sous vide is going to go thru similar fade as the microwave oven did. First microwave oven was scosting like $5,000 and there were many myths and fears surrounding these bizarre new electronic "radar ranges." By the seventies, more and more people were finding the benefits of microwave cooking to outweigh the supposedly risks, and none of them were dying of radiation poisoning, going blind, becoming sterile, or impotent. As fears ebbed, acceptance began pouring into the kitchens. dcarch

I have had Braziallian slate counters for 3 years. LOVE them. LOVE them. LOVE them. I REALLY wanted them for the new house, but our budget is going crazy. DH has talked me into doing honed absolute black granite instead. We're saving about $1000 on a large kitchen. And the slab is bigger, so I don't have to have a seam. Also, I intend to be a lot harder on the granite than I am with the slate. Yes, my slate counters scratch easily. I cringe when someone drags something across the counter. But they come out so easily. I've been told to use a wet, very fine grit sand paper. And I think I did that once when the counters were new. But I've had scratches that disappeared on their own before I got around to fixing them. If the material is soft enough to scratch, it doesn't make sense that it wouldn't be easy to fix. I've never had soapstone counters, but I grew up in native communities that used it for sculptures. It's SOOOO much more scratch prone. I'm told it's different stuff that's used on counters. But I imagine it's still at least as soft as the slate, if not softer.

"I designed the layout to have the kitchen at the front of the house......." What you might find helpful here is for you and any other decision maker(s) to sit down with a person of design talent and explore/brainstorm not only your ideas but look at other directions you may not have thought of. I do these all the time and call them "charrettes". They're highly interactive "nose to nose" design sessions that last a few hours where sometimes the client commands the pen more than I do. At the end we have dozens if not a hundred overlays and sketches, some great, others not so great but we've looked at a large range of ideas. I take a clients ideas seriously but at the same time they tend to be preconceived and centered on the obvious. These ideas, or parts of them, may in fact turn out to be perfectly valid but it's my job to weigh them against against other approaches. You don't know how many times a client has said "Wow! We never thought of that!". And when it comes to preconceived ideas, I've quoted these two creative people here before regarding those: Henry Ford observed "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have told me 'A faster horse'" and Steve Jobs mused "Often, people don't know what they want until they see it. Nobody could describe the Iphone before it came out but when they saw it, everybody wanted one". I think you would benefit sitting down with a creative someone for some "outside the box" thinking and to look at a range of alternate ideas. After all you're in an endeavor involving a healthy six figures of your hard earned money where there's no "do overs". So, with that said, I don't know where you are in Illinois (it's a big state!) but there's a talented designer I know that's based in Clarendon Hills, outside of Chicago. If you're a reasonable distance away, he might be willing to have a sit down charrette with you to do exactly what I described above. If you wish PM me and I'll provide his contact info and you all can take it from there. In any event, the best of luck with your build. Exciting times ahead!