The food thread

Light beer is what is called "Folk beer" in Sweden - 2.8%. Strong beer < 3.5% and REAL "Light beer" - 1.8%.
How do you ever get the girls to giggle? Might as well be drinking Kombucha.
In Canada, where we use our beavers to cut down the dam trees, light beer doesn't drop below 4%.
You can take it from there. Trust me, we have to toughen our livers early in life.

Yes, the spelling is correct in the above paragraph.
 
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WE do hope to stumble upon great beer in Belgium as we did in Amsterdam many years ago. We even have a micro-brewery in our small place, a real craftbeer place. Must get some people together an go for a testing.

Todays dish was something called the Creole womens stew.

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Not food per se, but I'm sharing a nice little knife sharpener that gets both my most often used blades sharp enough to almost fall through ripe tomatoes with their own weight for translucent thin slices.
It's called a Bavarian Edge, is easy to use with both coarse and fine sharpening modes.
I have no idea how long it will last, but no trip to a knife sharpening service was needed, and it already cost less than getting 2 knives sharpened.
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How do you ever get the girls to giggle? Might as well be drinking Kombucha.
In Canada, where we use our beavers to cut down the dam trees, light beer doesn't drop below 4%.
You can take it from there. Trust me, we have to toughen our livers early in life.

Yes, the spelling is correct in the above paragraph.
Isn't kombucha a campfire song, where everyone joins hands and sings kombucha, m'lord, kombucha. Oh lord, kombucha?
 
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In Canada, where we use our beavers to cut down the dam trees, light beer doesn't drop below 4%.
You can take it from there. Trust me, we have to toughen our livers early in life.
I suddenly feel the need to sing the lumberjack song...

Small beer has been a thing for the past 400 odd years. More recently 'session' beers were popular (3.2%ish) when men my fathers age would have 4 pints before driving home. At least in UK the much stronger beers have only become mainstream more recently. When I brewed my own I went as high as 8% and made some fairly dangerous concoctions. These days I am a cheap date which is fine as wife was teetotal until her mid 30s so doesn't realise what a lightweight I am in my dotage.

In a country where light beer can be bought in the supermarket rather than going to the state liquor store I'd say it makes perfect sense. I did use to laugh that the booze stores in Finland are called Alko.
 
I have no idea how long it will last,
Careful with those, they are not what they seem. Good if you don't have electricity. They will seem okay while doing the first 20 or more sharpenings, but are actually pitting the edge and over time, wearing out the blade faster than you can imagine. Under a microscope, the damage a draw type sharpener does is shocking.
 
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I am a 15+ year user of the Chef's Choice "Model 15XV" electric sharpener, and I have been thrilled with the unit the whole time. It only grinds one angle: 15 degrees (per side), the Japanese knife standard. Hence the "15" in the model name. This gives you an edge which is both sharper and more fragile than the German standard of 20 degrees per side. I don't care, I re-sharpen frequently and since the unit is electric, it requires no effort from me.

The two initial stages will each "pull up a burr edge" (as the old salty sharpening gurus put it) and give you immediate feedback: this stage has done its job, move over to the next finer-grind stage. Then the third polishing stage gives you a scalpel worthy of eyeball surgery.

Best of all: sharpening using this device requires no skill, it removes minimal amounts of metal (only enough to pull up a burr), and it polishes the edge to scalpel-level smoothness. All for USD 175 or less if you find a sale. Highly recommended!!

(Manufacturer's web page) but you will NEVER pay as much as M.S.R.P. if you shop around.
 
I suddenly feel the need to sing the lumberjack song...
...

In a country where light beer can be bought in the supermarket rather than going to the state liquor store I'd say it makes perfect sense. I did use to laugh that the booze stores in Finland are called Alko.

In California... our politicians want us drunk and stoned.

There used to be a sayin': In California you can always get a$$$, grass and gas. Now, our gas is running 5 bucks a gallon.... a$$$ I wouldn't know, just had our 38 year wedding anniversary but growing grass is legal..

..and you can buy all kinds of booze, including 10% "beer" at the local supermarket. We have no State owned liquor stores.. the Lutherans and Southern Baptists never left much of an imprint out here.

A 1.75L of Bullett bourbon at our local Costco runs 40 bucks with sales tax. They are currently running a sale, if you buy two bottles, the 2nd is 10 bucks off.
 
We could discuss the difference between sharpening and honing.

I have a “steel” I use on my kitchen knives before each use session. I have not ground those knives in years!

At my shop I have a good assortment of sharpening tools. Most used is an older Darex drill bit sharpener. It uses a special bit holder and has two wheels, fine fast grind one for use with the bit holder and a coarse free hand wheel.

The second dual wheel grinder has guide shelves with fine and coarse wheels. The third has a buffing wheel used with rouge and a wire wheel. The fourth dual wheel unit has cups to hold water on the bottom of the wheels. Loaded with fine and very fine wheels.

The fifth is a single large diameter horizontal fine wet wheel.

I have two tools for dressing the grinding wheels. One hardened steel dressing wheels, the other a multi carat dressing diamond. (A black diamond!)

For really sharp I have a flat granite slab used with wet dry sandpaper. I can use up to 2,000 grit sandpaper.

Also have special holders to guide sharpening efforts.

Of course for hand use I have a number of sharpening stones, ranging from coarse to a very old one used for stropping razors.

Also have a small stationary belt sander for funny things.

Of course I strop almost every day and sharpen something once a week.

While working in my college’s shop it took me two years to really learn how to sharpen things.
 
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Chef's Choice
I have the Model 120. Bought it in '09 and love it. All those years experimenting with other sharpeners. First try and I wondered why I didn't take that step years before. Nothing like it. All others have been tossed. Steels, stones, rolling wheels carbide draw type, all of them out the window. Nothing compares to two stages of diamond wheel the a ceramic strop, and as Mark says, they are foolproof with the guide system.
https://chefequipment.com/products/...YKTzEQgkt41ROWRzFY5d2jdHVyk1GtOoaAlF3EALw_wcB
 
Bill,

I forgot to mention my newly acquired Brown and Sharpe surface grinder. It has the War Material Board plaque from WWII on the front. Relaped the ways and it is good to go. I got it to sharpen the punches from my CNC turret punch.

(Computer Numeric Control)

However I do not sharpen my circular saw blades. They get sent out.

I also don’t sharpen my carbide masonry drill bits. They typically get destroyed in use, although they are easy to sharpen. When used in a hammer drill, folks don’t seem to notice when they get dull and should be sharpened.

For some strange reason two of my guys come in on weekends to use my tools as they are renovating their houses.

The way I explain my shop to some folks is “My shop is not that big, it is only half an acre!”
 
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