They are rather loud saxman. My pop bought one about 3 years ago with the Honda, and I too was VERY surprised on how loud the exhuast note was! Another thing, Honda has those leaned out to the point of you having to hold the auto choke lever open for an additonal 5 to 10 secs when you first start the engine cold on cool mornings, in the fall etc. This really peaved my Dad as he was about to trade it in when he first got it. He called back to the dealer where he got it and even other local shops, and they claimed the same thing. Cold natured, not to mention stepping back about 30 years as far as reaching over a running mower to hold a lever with the blade spinning around at your toes but then again, some of us ol' faithful LB owners wouldn't have it any other way, would we?!

I've grown each of these once, in different years. I loved Black from Tula. Large Red Cherry was one of the very few that I pulled out -- I found it just about inedible with a tough skin and no flavor. JBT tasted ok, but it didn't produce much the one time I grew it, and IIRC it did get some BER. I'm growing Cherokee Purple for the second time. The first time, the squirrels took a bite from almost every one before it was fully ripe. I think I got to taste one, which was good. This year, it's my best-producing medium-size tomato with a good, but very mild, flavor and great texture. Last year, Black Krim was one of the best ones I grew -- great taste, but very perishable, and it produced so much that I was giving them away until I cooked with one and discovered how incredibly rich and luscious it tasted as a cooked tomato. For a cherry tomato that is large and red, I haven't found anything better than Tommy Toe -- wonderful flavor and incredible production all season. (I've also tried Juliet, Camp Joy, Chadwick Cherry, Sweet Chelsea, Riesentraube, and maybe one or two more.)

I definitely have a Sous Vide Supreme on my want list but since I recently dropped about $700 on a VitaMix set at Costoc it will probably be a while. :D One dish that really fascinates me when prepared Sous Vide is Fried Chicken. Have you tried this before? I love experimenting with new techniques to improve fried chicken and this one is very promising. (My other favorite method is pressure cooker fried chicken but that's pretty dangerous if you don't have the right equipment!) To make Sous Vide Fried Chicken soak your chicken in a strong brine for 30-40 minutes, rinse and soak in seasoned buttermilk for 8-12 hours. Season the meat with your preferred spices, maybe a little hot sauce or fresh buttermilk. Put the chicken in vacuum bags and cook at 160F for an hour. At that point you can dry the meat, coat in seasoned flour and fry it. Alternatively you can chill the meat down in ice water and hold in the fridge for quick frying later. The benefit to that method is that you can do all of the prep work for fried chicken in advance. Also, there are no worries about undercooked centers or dried meat. The chicken stays incredibly moist and the flavors really penetrate the meat. It's great if you want to cook a large amount of fried chicken for a crowd in a short amount of time. It's also good if you want to fry chicken to order. One warning though, you might want to cook the chicken to 165 though since the USDA has recently revised their meat cooking guidelines. Here is a link that might be useful: Hacking Your Slow Cooker: D.I.Y. Sous Vide Setup

I got a very brief look at them - not enough time for a thorough investigation, but my first impressions were a definite letdown. The new cabinets, especially the drawers and pullouts, just do not have the almost high-end look and feel of the old ones. The sidewalls of the drawers and the supporting rods are no longer metallic silver metal, but rather a white enamel that looked like plastic though I don't think it actually was. The doors looked like plainer versions of the Akurum doors - Grimslov is the new Adel for example, yet they look less upscale and aren't obviously solid wood anymore. The available accent colors, not to mention the full-line door colors/styles, are more conservative - no more red, blue, or that retro light blue/green. The sinks and taps still look and feel cheap. I would have liked a finished-side option for the boxes (or available thin cut-to-fit panels in the common cabinet door colors) common in other cabinet brands as well as Ikea's thick panels used for exposed sides, which can sometimes complicate installation and cause width mismatches or infringe on adjacent wall cabinet doors from opening fully. I don't think the cabinet boxes are available in a light woodgrain anymore - I've seen just white thusfar, although I recall reading that a dark black-brown color would be another option (less attractive than the lighter color for most door colors IMO). The counter-depth SxS fridge is nowhere near as nice as the old one - the formerly wide-open freezer section now has the top shelf completely filled by the icemaker mechanism and ice storage rather than tucking both unobtrusively into the door. The fridge section no longer has LED lighting scattered throughout the walls, instead just having a big lighting bar at the top and bottomi. The door shelves now have a non-transparent frame. There are only 2 slide-out bins rather than 3. The controls, water filter, and lighting intrude upon the space more. It does cost hundreds less than last year's model, but looks it. The ovens have an odd part-stainless, part-black frame. A double-oven range is available only in freestanding, not slide-in configuration. The only distinctive appliance remains the nice built-in 24"w microwave (with included extensions to fit 27" or 30"w cabinets), which I think is a new model but looks similar to the previous Nutid model. It's basically the Kitchenaid or Jenn-Air built-in MW minus the convection option, but at 1/3 the price. There are also some obvious improvements though. There's now a base cabinet designed to hold their built-in microwave below the countertop, with a drawer beneath it, in 24" and 30" widths (if the KitchenAid and JennAir convection or speed ovens can be installed undercounter, they'll fit in the 30"w cabinet too). I'm guessing by ordering a shallower drawer at the bottom and relocating the divider shelf downward, a 24" or 60cm" conventional oven like my terrific sub-$1,000 will fit nicely in these too (help for such mods can be found over at IkeaFans..... NOT). Likewise, I think a Fisher & Paykel single DishDrawer dishwasher could fit nicely under the new shallow top drawer and above a shallow or deeper drawer below it - even the newer deeper dish drawer might fit installed as such in a 24"w cabinet - a great option for small kitchens The base cabinets can now be installed using a rail system just like the uppers. The cover plates in the drawers no longer have a big Ikea logo, shouting to resale buyers that these are low-priced cabinets. The full-height tall cabinets for pantries and ovens are now available in an 18" width as well as 15" and 24" (I can hear the applause all the way from the opposite coast). The horizontal wall cabinets with upward-opening doors finally are made in widths that match the common wall cabinets with side-hinged doors rather than in metric sizes (more applause). The interior fittings are a huge improvement in both design quality and variety available. The corner cabinet revolving pie slices now have solid rather than wire shelves. The built-in LED lighting should ease installation of in-cabinet lighting - it could be added to the old cabinets of course, but the new ones seem designed for easy interior lighting installation - I'll see if they are actually any easier to add lighting to, and if the Ikea LEDs give off good quality light. Electrical and USB outlets are also available. I didn't find the 15"d wall cabinets to be too in-your-face, and the added depth will be useful to hold large plates, two stacks of smaller plates and bowls one behind the other, or more glasses and cups. So some improvements and some backsliding. I'd be more forgiving if I didn't know Ikea was treating non-North American customers a much more versatile new Metod cabinet line that's much more in tune with Ikea's make-the-most-of-small-spaces philosophy that guides the rest of the store's offerings. I sure would like the tall 24"w refrigerators, 24" induction cooktops with 3 large burners rather than trying to needlessly squeeze four burners into that space, even a washer and dryer that hide behind cabinet doors, plus the variable-height base cabinets available in widths starting at less than 9" - with a broader selection of door styles to boot.