[JOAT]

You're welcome. I can't imagine why anyone would but one of those. What's wrong with developing a few knife skills? Too little drawer space too many useless gadgets. :no:

Waking up early in the morning, and using knife skills to cut homemade bread will result in some wierd looking slices. I wouldn't buy one tho, I'd make one - out of wood. And a clue for you young uns, to properly cut a loaf of bread, you use a bread knife, not a butcher knife. A bread knife has serrated teeth, to saw the bread, and not squash it. Ah, nothing like the heel of a fresh, hot, loaf of bread, slathered with butter - real butter, not this artificial stuff. Used to get that from my great-grandmother, about 2" thick. Yumm.

My grandparents had a bread slicer, and a bread knife, but not sure if it had one slot, like the first one, or many, like the second. In reality, all you need is one slot, to guide the knife, and just move the bread with each cut. Plenty easy to make your own, and MUCH less expensive then buying one.

 

[JOAT]

Bravo. My wife makes bread on a regular basis and there is nothing like it on the supermarket shelves. Home churned butter makes it even better!!

After I watched those videos, seems to me I saw the bread cutter, somewhere other than my grandparents. Now I recall that they had a round bread board. Been a long time. Home churned butter is great, as long as it's someone else doing the churning. If you don't have a cow, the handiest I think I ever saw was a glass jug, with a top that screwed on with a crank and blades you hand cranked to make butter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72FKnwmncpQ They've probably got some electric version now. The first homemade bread my ex baked was like a large round brick, I don't think even the birds could eat that. After about the third one she got excellent results. Strange, because anything else in the world she could cook fantastic.

 

[JOAT]

Butter is very easy to make at home and is delicious. You don't need a cow just a market or, like us, a nearby dairy farm. I have made compound butter in this manner and it tastes wonderful. Here is a video should you like to try to make plain butter.

Daniel Patterson Butter-Making Demo - YouTube

I think you may have misunderstood me. When I made butter, it was around 60, yes sixty, years ago, and the churn was hand powered. THAT is why butter is not easy to make, not the technique. And then put it in a butter mold, using butter paddles, and a butter stamp when it came out of the mold. And, if you really want to make butter, learn to milk a cow by hand - now that is an art. And squirting milk to the barn cats was the only way I think I've ever seen to get a cat to fall over backwards. Loads of fun.
And it was not just a case of them falling backwards because they were getting wet, you'd raise the stream until they were standing on their hind legs to keep catching the milk in their mouth, and raise it high enough, back they'd go. And get right up and be ready to repeat, they did love that fresh milk. That was part of the ritual of milking, always give the barn cats a large bowl of milk.

 

[JOAT]

I think the best bread I have ever eaten was in Turkey. There was a bakery close to us, I think all they made was bread, they only sold it in the morning, and there was always a line, buying bread. Had a small window in a wall you bought your bread thru. Take it home, still warm, wonderful. They did something different than we do, maybe left something out, because if left out it would always be moldy on the second day. You could put it in the fridge, and it would be still be great for toast the next day, but it would still get moldy by the third day.

 

[JOAT]

Theo
I will agree with you on the heel it’s the pest piece there is and with REAL butter you know the kind made in a crock churn, and a plunger (no crank). I think you grew up on the same farm I did, the cats love you forever.

I was always told that only a goat would eat the heel of a loaf of bread. Not sure if they meant human kids eat like goats or what. And, yeah, I've used a plunger and crock churn too. I'd rather go with the hand crank on a jar.

And, I didn't grow up on a farm. Had relatives with farms tho. Have driven a team while haying, that's with men forking the hay on the wagon by hand. Driven a team haying with men picking up hay bales by hand and putting them on the wagon, and then one or two stacking the bales, have also stacked the bales. And learned how to milk by hand. And have hand cranked more than one ice cream machine too, good stuff.

 

[JOAT]

It is bad enough that people TALK on their cell phones while driving, but over many years and miles of driving - I've seen things that top that off!

I think this is the funniest I've seen. Mr Bean - Getting up late for the dentist - YouTube