Hello Butterfly! So good to see you:-) Thank you for your kind comments and for all the help over these past few years. I would love to see a few of yours too. I can imagine them beauties too. Yellowthumb: How have you been? How's the weather co-operating for you this year? Yes, you are right, it is wind burn. It was windy and dry. I shall have to give it its own protection spot in the yard in just dabbled sunlight:-) I will take more pictures today or tomorrow. Please join in:-) Mike

Okay, here I sit in February wishing I never did a Hey J search tonight to come up with all your garden pictures. Now how am I supposed to get through the rest of the winter after going through these gorgeous tours? I need so many more whiskey barrels that I can't even think about it. What a transformation from when you first came here. All I can think about is the awful backbreaking work you put in -- are you ever going to stop and one summer just enjoy such beauty? Oh, my head is buzzing with ideas and it's freezing outside! It is so kind of you to share your pictures with everyone. Pat

Christie, I have one of the older models of the Gagg combi-steam that I bought for about $2500 US as a showroom sample in the summer of 2008. (That was a lot of money on our budget!) It stayed in the showroom for six months, then in the garage for another six months until we were ready to install in the kitchen reno. I was pretty intimidated by it at first so procrastinated on actually using it, happy just to admire how pretty it looked! I finally got brave a few weeks ago, dug out that little paper wheel cooking guide from my box of appliance manuals, took a wild guess as to the settings, and cooked brown rice in it. WOW! Great texture and no boilover gunk on the stove! Then a few days later reheated half a quiche that had been sitting in my fridge for a few days. AMAZING! Crust was crisp, filling piping hot and still moist, like I had just baked it (maybe better!) I have also reheated dinner plates full of various leftovers, and each item comes out great with no stirring. Now, every time I think about popping something in my microwave, I consider the steam oven. I am not a gourmet cook but this unit is really interesting and inspires me to experiment. The neatest thing for me is my husband's enthusiasm about this unit. He actually has very little sense of taste and substantially reduced saliva due to radiation treatments 3 years ago. His enjoyment of food is based mostly on its texture and whether it "goes down easy." He has complimented me on every item I have prepared using the combi-steam and that made it worth every penny! Have fun deciding!

Just a note that I believe that Irenekay's post above, which resurrected this two-month-old thread, is spam. She signed up the same day of her post, provided two links to the same website, and her message says the opposite of her link. Irenekay, if you are not posting spam, I apologize, but your post gives all indications of spam. Juliekcmo - my first post above (I think it's about the 8th post) did discuss limiting the number of knives to just a few that are necessary (and providing a couple of duplicates for SO's). I am glad that part of the theme of this thread has been to advise not to get full sets of knives, since you don't need so many, those sets are expensive, and typically come with knives you will rarely, if ever, use. As an aside, I feel the same way about cookware sets!