Great Emails

Great Emails

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---------Original Message---------- Question: Please share how you get your inspiration for your cooking, particularly your food photography. Tell me, are all those photos actually yours? They often look as good as the ones in magazine! If yes, how many dishes and serving pieces you must own! Are they all yours too? From: Missy Answer: I started collecting pieces while decorating in Parade of Homes Shows for our family's furniture store. I loved the trade markets and had a great time buying wonderfully unique pieces, way before such delightful dishes became more common place. I acquired quite a collection this way. Since I started focusing my artistic talents into my cooking, by way of photos. Now I've got so much great stuff, that I usually simply add eclectic pieces, rather than entire sets mostly. By way of mixing and matching, the sky is the limit, for more interesting pictures. Several fun stores might include: Target, Ross, Pier 1 and Stein Mart, to name just a few. I am an extremely visual person! As far as inspiration for starting my cooking photograph, I could certainly give Taste of Home Magazines loads of credit. The Kraft Magazine would be another, and being subscribed to their Website for recipe ideas. I love collecting "recipe ideas" more for great looking photography over the ingredients and recipe themselves. Another unique talent, which am blessed (unfortunately I am also cursed) with exceptionally HEIGHTENED senses; blessed in part, particularly with an extremely sensitive sense of taste. My hubby (or friends) and I will play a game, when we eat out, where I try to guess as many ingredients as I can in our favorite restaurant dishes. I will often try to duplicate these tastes in my own cooking. In addition to my experimenting, I can RARELY ever prepare someone else's recipe as written. I am constantly trying to "build a better mousetrap" so to speak! Many, many opportunities have come my way (over 25 years) to sharing my cooking talents with teaching classes. One day, I dream of publishing a cookbook (preferably with photos) but the start up costs and such hours of commitment are staggering. Now perhaps due to family genetics, my health has also refused to cooperate, so I have to limit and pace myself. This very Website came about from my desire to express the ideas that are always "knocking around in my head" and to increase my artistic side; the parable of the talents, comes to mind Matt. 25: 14-30. Warmly, Sharon Anne ---------Original Message--------- From: Melisa Subject: Cookbook Dilemma Question: We are thinking about moving and I have a gazillion cookbooks and more cooking magazines. Does anyone have a brilliant solution to thinning down my treasure trove without pitching all of it? Melisa P ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Answer: I thought Melisa's question was sooo valid, that I spent one day researching ideas. So I built a Webpage devoted to the terrific subject of Organizing Cooking Magazines, Cookbooks and Clippings! http://www.sharonanne.com/organizing_tips_recipes.htm Please take the time to visit the page; let me what you think. ---Warmly, Sharon Anne
---------Original Message--------- From: Lisa Subject: Cleaning up the kitchen Question: Sharon Anne -- My unofficial survey tells me that 99% of the 'introductions' on this site, lists "cleaning up the kitchen" as their least favorite task. So, what are your tips for tackling that job? Love this list! Lisa in UT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Answer: Hehehe, AMEN! (Okay, I accept your challenge, with 7 tips!) Click Here! ---Warmly, Sharon Anne ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> -----Another Message----- > From: phyl > Subject: Distilled vs. Purified Water Question: Is there a difference between distilled and purified water? I have always used purified but I am now wondering if I should be using distilled. Thanks! Phyllis in KY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Answer: The distilled water I've tested is usually 99.996% pure. This is because 99.996% of the foreign deposits (which are discarded) are left behind. The pure (.004) H20 evaporates into steam and collects into water droplets. As the steam travels through a coil, it drips into a water chamber. You do the math... 99.996% is fairly pure! ---Warmly, Sharon Anne ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ...Okay that's a 4th grade Science Fair Project explanation; my DD won both her school and district, (LOL!) but we also had a TDS meter, which we could proved distilled water was the purest water available. (But who has one of those lying around?) Anyway, there's an easy test she did and you could try it, to see the results. I won't say for any other "so-called" purified water, BUT the ones we tested with the TDS meter were (shockingly) far from pure. --- Warmly, Sharon Anne

Distilled vs. Purified Water and Tap Water (A fun test, for kids of all ages) Use 3 similar pans (preferably dark or black pans). Pour water into each pan (one with 2 cups of distilled and one with 2 cups of "your choice" of purified) and a third pan (with 2 cups of TAP water). Heat the pan(s) to boiling and let all the water(s) boil away completely. ...Please note all the water droplets, which collect on your walls above the stove and your window. Those droplets ARE now distilled water. Now quickly squeegee off your window and wipe down your walls, you just steam-cleaned your kitchen. Hehehe (one more added benefit to the experiment)... Now take a look at the pans. The distilled water pan is often "even cleaner" than it was before hand. Notice the gray gunk left (particularly in the TAP water pan). "It actually boils (pun definitely intended) down to your personal preference." Sharon Anne, Share Alike... Cooking! 2005© All rights reserved. (Permission granted, to copy and/or print, for your personal use only.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is why, when bottling peaches, you get all that hard water film all over your bottles, yuck. Well, that very same gunk is floating in your soup recipes and apparently stales your bread quicker (and worse yet... it's collecting in your joints, muscles and organs!). Do yourself, and your cooking a favor; COOK and DRINK distilled water. Every article I have read that disagreed; EVERY time had stock in reverse-osmosis (which by the way is fine, but not even a "close" 2nd best). Health professionals, who have nothing to gain financially from which water you drink, seem to all agree and RECOMMEND drinking distilled water! Now, I'd enjoy knowing how "your choice" of purified water faired in this little experiment. K? I personally don't distill my own water, I purchase it from a distiller, but I know many people who do. I do intend on getting a small one someday. I hear Sears offers very affordable ones. DON'T store distilled water in milk bottles. Water is a natural solvent and it will actually leach the plastic into the water. Only purchase distilled in the thick-heavy blue plastic bottles.
-----Original Message----- From: Cindi Subject: Re: Question on bread making I had an interesting experience with this. I have always used tap water in the 30+ years I have been baking bread. I have lived here with a well for the last 20 of those years. My whole wheat breads were as hard as a rock no matter what I did, and my white breads never had the texture I wanted. One night when I was teaching how to make bread at church, I didn't want to use the bleachy water out of the tap there, so I brought a bottle of distilled water from our storage that had the exact amount needed for the recipe. I was flabbergasted at the outcome; the only difference was the water. I ONLY use distilled water now even when I make up my milk and buttermilk. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I guess it must be the pH or perhaps the hardness of the water interferes with the gluten development or something. Cindi in NE Florida
-----Original Message----- From: sharonanne Subject: RE: Distilled vs Purified Water (and Tap Water) Oh and I forgot! Keep your distilled water COVERED at all times (air-tight) is the best; otherwise the water stales overnight! People who claim they don't like drinking distilled water, most often are either drinking water from plastic milk jugs (or stale distilled water). Like I mentioned in the prior email, I purchase distilled water for drinking and ALL my cooking in hard heavy blue plastic 5 gal bottles (from a distiller). I store 10 bottles year round, and rotate through these. I empty out "bottled water" into my plants (the bottles are more valuable to me than the water is, hehehe) and refill with distilled! Plants need and love hard (especially spring) mineral deposits. Whereas many people's (like mine) bodies often act as a filter itself and store these inorganic deposits in their tissues! It's just a thought (please, one I wish not to debate). Warmly, Sharon Anne
-----Original Message----- From: Mary Subject: RE: Distilled vs Purified Water (and Tap Water) I am looking to store distilled water in water bottles for years at a time. Question: How do I keep the plastic water bottles from leaching? Heavy-Blue polycarbonate water bottles will not leach for 3 years but they do need to be sterilized first. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Answer: To sterilize, add 1 capful of bleach to a 1/2 gallon water. Pour the mixture into the water bottle and shake around. Then carefully rinse thoroughly. This is one reason I purchase my distilled water from a water distiller. I purchased ten their bottles. I simply recycle (3) empty bottles, every 2 weeks, for (3) filled bottles from the distiller.* This way leaching has never been a worry for me. ---Warmly, Sharon Anne ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

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