LOL, Kathleen, I cracked up at this being Spud's pattern! Smart bunny! By the way, I checked eBay again, and the big cake plates are still going for over $30 plus another $12 to ship one. I paid $12 for mine! Jane, as soon as I scooped up those pink pillars, I thought of all you guys. Its like you were there with me. I have a larger, clear lidded bunny dish from antique shop. I see them fairly often, along with the hen ones. And in colors. I didn't need this one from Home Goods, but that didn't stop me from buying it. Tho I sure liked the blue one a lot. LOL. Oh my gosh, Yacht, I can't imagine having a Home Goods 15 min away. I'd probably bankrupt us. Its bad enough Michaels, Ross, and Dollar Tree is that close to me. LOL. That is so cute about your GD wanting to do a table, and I can't wait to see pictures of what she does. I'm so sorry her shopping trip to DT was disappointing. hugs, Karen

Thank you jasdip! I've been wondering about it because my fluffy one is a rescue who had been living on the streets (they think, not me), and honestly, I think she misses that diet. She will come in the kitchen when I am cooking and beg and beg! for anything raw I am cooking. She only gets a nibble, but I'm just sure she'd love an entire steak if she could. She loves all food, but really, she seems to go crazy over meat. I feel like I've transitioned her to kibble, so she is likely to go back really easily.

When I'm being tailed too close I tap my break pedal just enough so the light goes on and they think I'm breaking. After a couple of times, they get the hint, but I love the window washer idea, will try that next time. One thing some drivers do that I just don't get is to ignore merge lanes. We have a lot of turning lanes that start out as two at the turn light, but after the turn, they eventually merge into one. Ideally, cars are supposed to alternate to form a single line, but instead a lot of folks here purposely speed up so the car from the other lane can't get in even though the lane is ending. Seriously? Where are they supposed to go? Over the curb? The same thing happens on the freeway too when there's an accident or road construction. It really irks me to no end.

Location is the most important thing for a warming drawer. Someone who is used to having one and can't imagine living without it can make do if it's at the bottom of an oven stack. For anyone else, that is a ridiculously inconvenient position. That doesn't sound like what you're talking about, but proper positioning is important even so. Wall ovens are usually placed outside of the work flow, because they don't take much attention. Warming drawers are the opposite--they should be smack dab front and center as much as possible without pushing aside something even more important--top level is most convenient, but you'll often see them under a utensil drawer because utensils are even more important to have where you can lay your hand on them. The best location depends on your needs and layout. The most favored possibilities are directly under or next to the cooktop, so it's easy to accumulate pancakes, or shift a pot of stew, or nearest to the eating area, so it's easy to serve and refill plates, or someplace on the path between the two to be less than perfect for both functions but not bad at either. As high as possible up to table height, to make it easy to get things in and out of. If you go for two, put them next to each other, or as close as you can, unless they're in completely different rooms for different functions. One by the stove and one by the eating area means running between the two as they fill up. It sounds much better in theory than most people will find in practice. One more thing to keep in mind is that 6" more width doesn't sound like a lot on the 30" vs. 24", but in practice, because of the way you can arrange things, it's likely to feel like it holds half again as much, rather than just a quarter. I agree with most of what Lascatx said, but it can make up for some lack of cooking space if you expect to cook in shifts and move things to the warming drawer. I've done that for feasts, and it can work for holidays. If by "big family dinners" you meant regularly, even once a week, it could be tedious, especially if larger ovens meant you could time it so everything came out at once. I rarely need to put bread dough in the warming drawer. If you have a cold kitchen, however, it works well. My ovens also have settings for rising bread. The point about the steam from slow cooking is good--you can slow cook in any warming drawer, even without the setting, but should you? Only you know the answer to that. Re models, I much prefer the really simple ones. They're foolproof, especially if there's an "on" light. They just do off and on and have a dial that changes the amount of power to control the approximate temperature. A $5 thermometer can check the exact temperature you're getting if you need to know--for slow cooking it is imperative that you get the heat of the middle of the food above the safety level by taking the temperature of the food, but if you're translating slow cooker recipes, you'll want to match up the approximate temperatures (non-digital slow cookers also adjust the power rather than having a specific temperature). Digitally controlled warming drawers work more like ovens where you can select a specific goal temperature (there's probably still a 25° variation from the set point). They also have features like automatic shut off after four hours (which you have to keep in mind if you think it's holding your food all day above the safety floor temp.) and "Sabbath Mode" lockouts that prevent the shut off but my also only do preset temperatures chosen by ritual custom. A useful gizmo is a steam vent. It's just a lever that opens and closes some slits that let steam out. Keep steam in to keep your meat from drying out. Let steam out so the crust on the bread you're heating will stay crunchy.