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Food Links from other sources. Recipe

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Batter Bread.

Views: 13

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Batter Bread.

This recipe has a blend of white flour and wheat flour. If you wanted to just use all wheat, though, you could (conversely, if you wanted to turn this into an all-white bread, you could just use all white flour).

INGREDIENTS
  • 1 1 /4 cup warm water
  • tablespoons honey
  • 1 cup buttermilk (use other milk if you wish)
  • 1 tablespoon or cake of dry, active yeast
  • 2 cups white flour
  • cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 tablespoons soft shortening
INSTRUCTIONS
  • Dissolve yeast in water, add honey, half the white flour, salt and shortening.
  • Mix well. Blend in remaining flour with spoon. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
  • Stir batter down and spread it evenly in a greased loaf pan, 9 X 5 X 3 inches
  • Let rise in warm place until batter reaches 1 /2 in from the top of pan.
  • About 40 minutes. Bake at 375 for 40 – 40 minutes. Brush top with shortening. Makes 1 loaf.

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Smokin’ Hot Smokies Recipe | Bacon-Wrapped Cocktail Sausages.

Views: 33

Smokin’ Hot Smokies Recipe | Bacon-Wrapped Cocktail Sausages.

The year is full of occasions for gatherings; weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, sporting events, or even as just an excuse to have fun and socialize! And whether you’re a host or a guest, with these Smokin’ Hot Smokies, you’ll be the hit of the party!

Smokin’ Hot Smokies

Ingredients you will need:

  • 1 (14 oz) pkg. cocktail sausages
  • 14 to 15 bacon strips
  • 1½ cups brown sugar, divided
  • ½ tsp. five-spice powder
  • ¾ cup cola
  • Toothpicks

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut the bacon strips crosswise into three pieces. The Rada Stubby Butcher Knife is ideal for this.

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Wrap cut pieces of bacon around individual cocktail sausages.

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Insert a toothpick through the bacon-wrapped cocktail sausages, securing the ingredients together.

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Place the bacon-wrapped smokies in a greased 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle with 3/4 cup brown sugar. Bake about 40 minutes or until sugar is bubbly.

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Remove pan from oven. Transfer smokies into a Crock-Pot or slow cooker, which need to be sprayed with nonstick coating.

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Add ¾ cup of brown sugar, ¾ cup of cola, and ½ tsp. of five-spice powder to the smokies. Add hot sauce as desired to control the level of heat. Cover the Crock-Pot or slow cooker and set to high, allowing the smokies to cook for four hours.

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After cook time, remove from heat source and serve!

Smokin’ Hot Smokies

Whether you’re a host or a guest, with these Smokin’ Hot Smokies, you’ll be the hit of the party!
Prep Time10minutes 
Cook Time40minutes 
Total Time50minutes 
Course: Appetizer
Servings: 40

Ingredients

  • 1 (14 oz.) pkg. cocktail sausages
  • 14 to 15 strips bacon
  •  cups brown sugar, divided
  • ½ tsp. five-spice powder
  • ¾ cup cola
  • wooden toothpicks

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13″ baking pan with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.
  • Cut each bcon strip crosswise into 3 even pieces.
  • Wrap cut pieces of bacon around individual cocktail sausages.
  • Insert a wooden toothpick through the bacon-wrapped cocktail sausage, securing the ingredients together.
  • Place the bacon-wrapped smokies in the baking pan and sprinkle with 3/4 cup brown sugar. Bake about 40 minutes or until sugar is bubbly.
  • Spray a 3-quart slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray.
  • Transfer sausages to prepared cooker. Sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup brown sugar and five-spice powder. Drizzle with cola and hot sauce.
  • Cover and cook on high for 4 hours.

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Coca-Cola Chicken Wings Recipe.

Views: 24

Coca-Cola Chicken Wings Recipe.

From game day to movie night, there’s no beating delicious fried chicken wings as an appetizer or snack. This garlicky chicken wings recipe brings restaurant-quality wings to your kitchen, living room, or backyard barbecue! Eat them during the Super Bowl, share them with friends, or bring them to a party to be the MVP!

Garlicky Chicken Wings Recipe

Ingredients you will need:

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 1/2 lbs. chicken wings
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup Coca-Cola
  • Garlic powder to taste

Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to skillet.

Kristy puts oil in cooking pan.

In a mixing bowl, combine 2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 3/4 cup Coca-Cola, and garlic powder to taste (we used 1 tablespoon).

Kristy combines ingredients, including Coca Cola.

Stir thoroughly.

Kristy stirring sauce mixture.

Heat the olive oil in the pan on medium heat. Place the chicken wings inside the pan and cook, turning to ensure both sides receive heat.

Kristy cooking chicken wings.

Once wings are browned on both sides, reduce heat to low and add Coca Cola mixture.

Adding sauce to chicken wings in frying pan.

Cover wings and simmer for 30 minutes, occasionally turning as they cook.

Placing lid on chicken wings so they can simmer.

Remove from heat.

Kristy places wings on a plate.

Serve and enjoy!

Kristy with completed garlicky chicken wings.

Garlicky Chicken Wings

From game day to movie night, there’s no beating delicious fried chicken wings as an appetizer or snack. This garlicky chicken wings recipe brings restaurant-quality wings to your kitchen, living room, or backyard barbecue! Eat them during the Super Bowl, share them with friends, or bring them to a party to be the MVP!

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 1/2 lbs. chicken wings
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup Coca-Cola
  • Garlic powder to taste

Instructions

  • Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to skillet.
  • In a mixing bowl, combine soy sauce, brown sugar, Coca-Cola, and garlic powder to taste (we used 1 tablespoon).
  • Stir thoroughly.
  • Heat the olive oil in the pan on medium heat. Place the chicken wings inside the pan and cook, turning to ensure both sides receive heat.
  • Once wings are browned on both sides, reduce heat to low and add Coca Cola mixture.
  • Cover wings and simmer for 30 minutes, occasionally turning as they cook.
  • Remove from heat.
  • Serve hot!

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Going Grocery shopping at a Salvage store.

Views: 46

Going Grocery shopping at a Salvage store. As some of the regulars here know, my wife and I are big fans of Salvage grocery or as some call them, scratch and dent.

If you need to make drastic cuts to your grocery bill and are willing to step outside of your favorite grocery market, shopping at a salvage grocery store could be the answer. Salvage grocery stores, sometimes referred to as outlet or discount grocery stores, specialize in selling items that traditional grocery stores can’t or won’t sell. Here’s a look at what salvage grocery stores are all about.

What Is a Salvage Grocery Store?

Most salvage grocery stores buy their merchandise from grocery reclamation centers, which include:

  • Food that is near or past its expiration
  • Items in dented or torn packaging
  • Items in seasonal or otherwise-dated packaging
  • Store closeouts
  • Manufacturer overstock
  • Salvage from truck wrecks

Unlike a traditional grocery store, which stocks the same items each week, salvage grocery stores stock different items weekly depending on what’s available. The prices at a salvage grocery store are typically half of what you’d expect to pay at the grocery store—but could be even cheaper.

Is the Food Safe?

As long as you follow a few rules, the food at a salvage grocery store is just as safe as the food you’d get at a grocery store. Salvage grocery stores are inspected and regulated by the government just like regular grocery stores.

All items are also inspected for serious damage at the reclamation center before they’re shipped to stores. Leaking or bulging cans and broken jars are tossed immediately. Torn or dented boxes are OK, as long as the plastic bag that the food is wrapped in is still sealed. If it’s something like macaroni, where the food sits directly inside the box, you should probably pass on torn boxes.

Tips and Warnings

If you decide to shop at a salvage grocery store, there are a few things to consider:

  1. Frozen foods are still safe after their expiration date as long as they’ve been kept frozen. If you see any evidence of improper food storage at the store, skip them.
  2. Sell-by, use-by, and best-buy dates all mean different things. Educate yourself on the difference, so you understand what you’re buying.
  3. Never buy expired baby formula and baby food at a salvage store. It’s the only food product that the federal government requires dating on.
  4. Avoid expired over-the-counter drugs. They may lose their potency or undergo an adverse chemical change after expiration.
  5. Dented cans aren’t always safe to buy. A small dent is fine, but if you see cans with big dents or any dent along the top or side seam, leave them at the store. Ditto for bulging or leaking cans. They could be a botulism risk.
  6. Recalled items shouldn’t end up at salvage stores, but it’s good to stay on top of recent recalls just in case.

Additionally, salvage grocery stores may not be as organized as a regular grocery store, but they should be just as clean. If a store appears dirty or you see signs of bug or rodent activity, take your business elsewhere.

 

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Food Recipe

Cheese Stuffed Meatballs | Meatball Party Appetizer

Views: 21

Cheese Stuffed Meatballs | Meatball Party Appetizer

It’s a simple recipe with some wonderfully complex and classic flavors. Like any meatball, a simple ground beef mixture is the base of the recipe, along with the right combination of spices. Once the meatballs are rolled up, you then place a mozzarella cube in the center of each meatball, taking care to ensure the cheese is entirely covered. Then all that’s required is popping them in the oven.

You’ve had meatballs before, but certainly not like this, and never this tasty!

Cheese-Stuffed Meatballs Video Recipe

 

 

Ingredients you will need:

  • 1 lb. ground beef
  • 3/4 C. plain bread crumbs
  • 1/2 C. water
  • 2 T. fresh chopped parsley
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 t. garlic powder
  • 2 t. BBQ seasoning (try Rada’s BBQ Seasoning)
  • 1 8 oz. block mozzarella cut into 20 (1/2-inch) cubes

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except for mozzarella cubes. Mix well.

Kristi adds seasoning to mixture.

Roll meat mixture into 20 meatballs.

Ground beef is rolled into balls.

Form each meatball around a cheese cube.

Cheese is placed in a meatball.

Cover each cube completely. Place on a baking sheet coated with cooking oil. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Kristi rolls meatballs.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

Kristi poses with completed meatballs.

 

 

 
You’ve had meatballs before, but certainly not like this, and never this tasty!
 

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. ground beef
  • 3/4 C. plain bread crumbs
  • 1/2 C. water
  • 2 T. fresh chopped parsley
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 t. garlic powder
  • 2 t. BBQ seasoning try Rada’s BBQ Seasoning
  • 1 8 oz. block mozzarella cut into 20 1/2-inch cubes

Instructions

  • In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except for mozzarella cubes. Mix well.
  • Roll meat mixture into 20 meatballs.
  • Form each meatball around a cheese cube.
  • Cover each cube completely. Place on a baking sheet coated with cooking oil. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.
  • Serve immediately and enjoy!

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Food Life Links from other sources. Recipe Reprints from other.

Beef and Noodles.

Views: 34

Beef and Noodles.

Looking for a quick and hearty weeknight meal? Megan’s got just the recipe for you in the Sparkle Eats Kitchen! There’s really nothing more filling and comforting than beef, noodles and gravy… especially on a cold winter night. This Beef and Noodles recipe is done in under 30 minutes and the whole family will love it! Just pair it with a salad or vegetable for a full meal.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. ground beef
  • 1 small onion diced
  • 1 8 oz. package sliced mushrooms
  • 3 cloves garlic minced
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • ¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 lb. egg noodles cooked according to package directions
  • 3 Tbsp. butter
  • 3 Tbsp. flour
  • 2 ½ cups beef broth
  • 1 beef bouillon cube
  • 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tsp. onion powder
  • ½ tsp. garlic powder
  • ½ tsp. mustard powder
  • ½ tsp. dried thyme
  • ½ cup milk
  • 1 10.5 oz. can cream of mushroom soup

Instructions

  • In a large pot, cook ground beef, onion and mushrooms over medium-high heat until browned and cooked through. Drain grease. Add minced garlic and season lightly with salt and pepper. Remove meat from pot and set aside. In the same pot, melt butter; add flour and whisk for one minute. Whisk in broth, bouillon, onion powder, garlic powder and mustard. Bring to a boil and let the sauce thicken. Add milk and cream of mushroom soup; stir well. Add beef back to pot and stir well. Add noodles and stir to combine.

Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Keyword beef and noodles, egg noodles, gravy, ground beef

 

Prep Time 10 
Cook Time 30 

 

Servings 4 people
Author Sparkle Markets

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Food Life Links from other sources. Uncategorized

My Amish Friends.

Views: 59

My Amish Friends.

My wife and I spend alot of time in the Amish country sections of Ohio. Reason being that it’s very close plus we get awsome grocery prices and eat at excellent restaurants in Amish country.

There is a small Amish community in Pennsylvania actually closer, but it’s not as large as the Ohio locations and the restaurants aren’t Amish. Go figure.

Below is a e-mail I get from a company in Holmes County which is Amish country. Enjoy the article below.

Dear Friend,


Greetings from the Amish community! I hope this email finds you in good health and spirits. I’m sure you are looking forward to the warmer days of spring, just like we are.

This week was highlighted by an annual winter tradition that the Amish families have practiced for generations: filling up the ice houses!

Amish do not have refrigerators or freezers in their homes, so they rely on natural ice to keep their food fresh throughout the year. Every winter, when the ponds freeze over, they cut large blocks of ice and store them in insulated buildings called ice houses. This way, they can have ice for their milk, butter, cheese, meat, and other perishables all summer.

This year, however, there was a bit of a challenge. The weather had been so mild until last week that some families began worrying that the ice wouldn’t be thick enough to harvest. They prayed for a cold snap, and God answered their prayers!

Last week, the temperature dropped below zero for several days, and the ice grew thick and solid on the ponds. The Amish families wasted no time and got to work as soon as possible. They cleared the snow from the ponds and marked the areas where they would begin cutting. They used a special saw to cut the ice into rectangular blocks, about 50 pounds each.

They worked in a team of 12 men and older boys, divided into two groups: one on the pond and one on the land. One man operated the saw on the pond, while two others used ice tongs to lift the blocks from the water. Two boys then used pitchforks to slide the blocks to the pond’s edge to one of the waiting wagons driven by one of the four men who were the designated wagon drivers.

Wagons were each loaded with approximately 80 blocks of ice and driven to the ice houses. Two more men were in charge of stacking the ice inside the ice houses while the driver unloaded the blocks into a wooden trough that allowed the ice to slide into the icehouse. This process was repeated until they filled six ice houses, one for each family in the local “ring”. A “ring” is what the Amish call a group of families that help each other fill their ice houses.


It was hard work but also fun and rewarding. They enjoyed the camaraderie and the satisfaction of preserving a piece of winter for the warmer months ahead. They also thanked God for providing them with this natural resource and blessing them with good weather and safety.

Besides crafting baskets and harvesting ice, here are some of this week’s other happenings in and around the Amish family’s farms.

Mast Family:

The Mast family joined in putting up ice this week. The men and boys helped cut and carry the frozen blocks, feeling the cold bite their fingers and toes. They look forward to the summer when they use the ice to keep their perishables fresh and make refreshing treats. They also made balona from the deer and hog meat they had preserved. The girls spent a day and a half canning the balona to make it last.

Yoder Family:

Yoder family welcomed their eldest daughter, who had returned from an extended visit to their kin in Missouri. They have a butcher shop, and she had gone there to help them butcher through deer season. She was happy to be home. The Yoder family had planned to butcher two of their hogs, but they had to wait. The ice harvest took a little longer than usual because some ice was thin.

Gingerich Family:

Gingerich family decided to treat themselves to homemade ice cream bars, using their farm’s fresh cream and eggs. They cranked up a batch of vanilla ice cream, and by putting the ice cream between two graham crackers, they created a sweet and simple dessert for the whole family. The Gingerich family also hopes to get caught up with the baskets that sold out over the past holiday season, so they are focused heavily on crafting baskets.

Featured Recipe:

Last week, we were asked for a butterscotch recipe, so we asked the Amish families for their favorite recipes that featured butterscotch in them. The Yoder family gave us this one that sounds unique and delicious.

BUTTERSCOTCH CRUNCH COOKIES


2 c. shortening

2 c. white sugar

2 c. brown sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

4 eggs

3 c. flour

2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. soda

6 c. oatmeal

Mix together shortening and sugars. Add vanilla and eggs, beat and add dry ingredients. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes. You may add coconut, chocolate or butterscotch or peanut butter chips. Whatever you like.

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Peanut Butter Pie.

Views: 26

Peanut Butter Pie.

The true sign of an unfancy recipe: when it gets shared via an article like this. This recipe isn’t original,but for me it comes via Mary Yoders Restaurant.

So try it and let us know how it turned out. You can use a store bought shell, or make your own Grham Cracker shell.

Ingredients

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup dark corn syrup

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

3 eggs

1 cup salted peanuts

1 unbaked pie shell

Directions.

Beat sugar, corn syrup, peanut butter and eggs.  Stir in peanuts.  Pour into unbaked pie shell.  Bake in 375o oven for about 45 minutes until crust is golden brown.  Cool slightly until center is firm.  Chill in refrigerator and serve with whipped cream.

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Food Life Links from other sources. Recipe

Saucy Game Day Meatballs.

Views: 36

Saucy Game Day Meatballs. There are so many different ingredients and ways for preparing meatballs. Here’s another. These game-day tips will help you prepare for game-day guests and the saucy meatballs will leave your friends begging for more. Be prepared to share the recipe for these amazing cranberry meatballs.

Saucy Cranberry Meatballs

INGREDIENTS (Makes about 25)

1 lb. extra lean ground beef or ground pork
¾ C. soft breadcrumbs
¼ C. finely chopped celery
¼ C. finely chopped onion
1 egg
1½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. garlic salt
½ tsp. black pepper
Cranberry juice
½ (14 oz.) can whole cranberry sauce
½ C. brown sugar
1 tsp. hot Chinese mustard (or yellow mustard)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 375° and lightly grease a big shallow baking pan.

In a big bowl, combine the ground beef or pork, breadcrumbs, celery, onion, egg, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, black pepper, and a splash of cranberry juice. Mix with a meat chopper (or your hands) until just blended. Shape into 1″ balls and arrange in the prepped pan. Bake for 20 minutes or until done.

In a medium saucepan, stir together the cranberry sauce, brown sugar, mustard, and ½ cup cranberry juice. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often.

Transfer the meatballs to a slow cooker and pour the sauce over the top. Set the cooker on “keep warm” or “low” for serving.

 

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Food Recipe

For the kid in you. Snickers Rice Krispie Treats Recipe

Views: 31

For the kid in you. Snickers Rice Krispie Treats Recipe.

Whether you call them Rice Crispy Treats, with a “C,”  Rice Krispie Treats with a “K,” Marshmallow Squares, or you have a very specific name for them like Grandma  Cereal Bars, these snacks have been popular in kitchens for generations. It started with simple cereal, a little butter, and some gooey marshmallows.

 

INGREDIENTS (makes 18)

8 fun-size Snickers candy bars
A big handful of peanuts
½ C. butter, plus more for greasing pan
1 (16 oz.) bag marshmallows
7 C. Rice Krispies cereal
2 C. chocolate chips
2 C. peanut butter chips

DIRECTIONS

Use your favorite Cook’s Knife to chop the candy bars and peanuts. Butter a 9×13″ pan. Set aside.

Melt ½ cup of butter in a big saucepan over low heat. Add the marshmallows and stir with a heat-safe, non-scratch spoon until melted. Remove from the heat and stir in the cereal and chopped candy bars. Press evenly into the greased pan.

Melt together the chocolate chips and peanut butter chips, stirring to blend; spread over the top of the cereal mixture and sprinkle with the chopped peanuts.

Cut into bars and serve.

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A Knife Forged in Fire.

Views: 29

A Knife Forged in Fire.

The author wanted a Japanese-style kitchen blade made for him by hand. What he witnessed was a combination of artistry and atomic magic.

JANUARY 9, 2024, 6:00 AM

Sam brought out what looked like a deck of tarot cards with nothing on them. No Hermit. No Hanged Man. No Fool. They were gray, thicker than ordinary cards, and clearly heavy in his hands. Inside of them a message waited. He had a long ritual to perform to release it.

As he shuffled the cards, they clattered together, revealing the first hint of their message: They were made of steel. He stacked them and squared up the edges so that all of the cards were nice and straight, nothing sticking out or crooked. Everything neat. The alchemical precision favored by Newton in his dim laboratories.

He clamped them in an industrial vise. Now the cards made a block about the size of a thick paperback book. They would never be individual cards again, these 12 pounds of two different kinds of steel, arranged in alternating layers.

The vise was mounted on a large metal table in the shop that Sam shares with his two brothers, who are fine woodworkers. The shop is in Skokie, which means “marsh” in the Potawatomi language, for these environs were once rich and populous wetlands before they were drained and turned into rows of low industrial buildings like this one and sturdy, modest residential homes. But the brothers have transformed this space into a marvelous cabinet of wonders in which to create whatever they might dream. Much of what is inside could have come from the 19th or early 20th century, great cast-iron machines of fabulous design, embossed with symbols no longer thought necessary to display on slick modern devices. In addition, some of the things in this sprawling realm of clutter might have come from another galaxy, like the ballistic cartridge for the table saw. If you accidentally touch the blade, it senses electrical conductivity and retracts. It’s gone so fast that it can’t cut you. It’s all part of the magic of this place of transformations.

Sam lowered his black face shield and picked up the MIG welder and pulled the trigger. The room lit up to an intensity such that Sam was cast as a silhouetted troupe of antic spiders dancing on the walls and floor and ceiling, sparks flying around him like a cracked nest of hornets and in his hands a burning blue hole at the center of things. All this to the roar of the forge’s fire across the room, heating up toward 2,400 degrees, and the insect chattering of the welder chewing away at liquid metal.

Sam bent over the light, his body curved around it like some sorcerer who’d caught a star and had it pinned there on the bench and was leaning over to examine it and chip away the edges. The bits were falling all around him and bouncing up in little arcs off the diamond floor of heaven. It was positively spooky the way that light stole the glory of the crisp and sunny autumn day outside the open roll-up door.

When he was done and I could look more closely without safety glasses, I saw that he had tacked the cards together with a misshapen bead of melted metal at each end of the stack. As a 12-pound solid oblong block of steel with runes inside, the stack would now be called a billet. To finish it off, he welded a two-foot length of steel rebar to one end to make a handle so that he could hold it.

Sam is afraid of some of his machines in the way that the lion tamer is afraid of his cats. You are confident. You know your skills. You have been doing this a long time. But you know that wild animals are always wild animals, and a false gesture, perhaps an unexpected noise, could set in motion events that could not be stopped. This pact requires utter honesty, complete truth. Sam is harnessing powers that few of us ever encounter in our lives. He’s directing them in order to reach down inside of this deck of tarot cards and transform the very atomic nature of its being. He’s doing what sorcerers do: magic.

John Maynard Keynes, a British economist, owned some of Isaac Newton’s papers. They were about alchemy, which was Newton’s lifelong obsession. Keynes gradually came to the conclusion that Newton “was not the first of the age of reason.” No, Keynes said, “he was the last of the magicians.”

Not the last. We have some right here in Chicago.

Sam Goldbroch is a knife maker. He was getting ready to make me a traditional Japanese-style kitchen knife.

Bladesmith Sam Goldbroch puts the metal he forged into a vise
Bladesmith Sam Goldbroch puts the metal he forged into a vise so he can cut off what isn’t needed for the author’s knife. Forging Damascus steel is such an arduous process that he made as much as possible in the batch.

I first met Sam when he was just a kid. I’d see him and his family — his parents, Claire and Bernie; his twin brother, Phil; and their older brother, Simon — at events in the neighborhood near Dewey Elementary School in Evanston where we all lived. My elder daughter, Elena, and Simon began dating in high school and are now married. The boys, as we came to call them, all went into the crafts — Phil and Simon into wood, Sam into food initially. He worked as a chef in various capacities at some of Chicago’s best restaurants, such as Blackbird, Elizabeth, and North Pond. But when he and his wife, Julie Zare, decided to start a family, they realized that a chef’s grueling schedule would not encourage the best home life. So in 2016 Sam began teaching at the Chopping Block, the Lincoln Square school for home cooks. As he taught his students how to use knives in the kitchen, he saw that he really didn’t know anything about them, though he had used them in professional kitchens for 12 years. And with a simple question from one of his students — “What makes a good knife?” — his life was swallowed up into the mysteries of metal and fire and force.

Both the Northeast of the United States and the Northwest have robust communities of knife makers. The American South has even more. Chicago and the surrounding area are just beginning to coalesce into a serious community of bladesmiths. You can see a sample of their wares at Northside Cutlery in North Center, a small and tidy shop of beautiful, handcrafted pieces displayed in a wall-size cabinet Phil Goldbroch made for that purpose. The knives sell for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars each. They are all one of a kind, made by a variety of local bladesmiths.

Sam recently hosted a group of Chicago knife makers for a potluck lunch at the shop. After the meal, Sam cranked up the forge, and one of them, Dylan Ambrosini, crafted a blade while we all watched. Dylan, at 24, is one of the youngest and most talented knife makers in the Midwest. He and Sam collaborated on a nine-inch chef’s knife, which sold for $950 before they could get it on display at Northside Cutlery. Top-end chef’s knives can cost even more. Anthony Bourdain bought one of his favorites for $5,000 from Bob Kramer, a popular bladesmith in Washington State. It brought $231,250 at auction after Bourdain’s death.

In Sam’s kitchen and in the shop, I had seen a kind of knife called a Nakiri. I wanted one. If you’re a knife nut, as I am, that’s all you have to say. Jacques Pépin, the popular French chef, once said that you need only three knives to cook well. “That being said,” he quipped, “I probably have three hundred knives at my house.” People who love cooking can’t always say what makes them fall for a particular style of knife. Most chef’s knives are at least eight inches long, which feels too big for me. Sam had already made me a chopping knife called a tall petty, whose blade was five inches long. “Tall” means that my fingers clear the cutting board, and “petty” means that the blade is short. I use it all the time for chopping, but sometimes it’s too short, as when I have a big onion. I wanted one that was a little longer. The nakiri is ideal for preparing vegetables, which is most of what I do. I have always loved the shape. And I knew that Sam would make his own Damascus steel for this knife. The blade and handle would mate to make a work of art that was an exceptional tool. When I had my first dream about this knife, I woke up and knew that I had to have it.

I decided that I wanted to follow Sam as he made my knife, to understand the process from start to finish. I did not expect that I would stumble upon a mystical and transcendent experience in the making of such a seemingly simple tool.

As my father used to say, there’s a mile of wire in a screen door.

Goldbroch twists the steel to begin shaping it.
After heating the steel to more than 2,000 degrees, Goldbroch twists it to begin shaping it. He would repeat this process five times until the twists tightened.

Sam took the billet of steel, holding it by the rebar handle in a heavy blacksmith’s glove, and he carried it to the forge, with its interior of tangerine flame. The forge is a black cylindrical furnace, 16 inches long, as big around as a gallon of paint, and open at both ends. Two propane torch nozzles entered the top to provide the fire. The floor of the forge was populated by glowing white rocks of fractured firebrick. And it roared like a lion. The heat rising from it was so intense that the waves appeared to be dissolving the brick building I could see across the alley through the open roll-up door. I sat at Sam’s workbench. Although I was 20 feet away, the heat on my face was like summer sun.

Sam placed the billet among the white-hot rocks and we waited. He talked of the metal’s need to heat all the way through and “relax.” As we watched, the dull deck of gray cards began to wake up and take on the qualities of a living thing. Among the glowing rocks, it seemed to stir and issued a low, dark color. He had put two kinds of steel in the stack that became the billet, 1095 and 15N20, because he was making Damascus steel, a special kind of steel for swords and knives that combines metals to form beautiful patterns by way of forging and pounding, crushing (called “upsetting”) and twisting. Damascus is not particularly superior to other steels. It’s just prettier. But it has acquired a special mystique because hundreds of years ago, as early as the fourth century B.C., it came into Europe from the East by way of Syria. That steel had a wavy pattern in it. So by analogy, people today call steel that has a wavy pattern “Damascus.” The Crusaders were armed with Damascus blades. It was said that theirs were quenched in the blood of dragons. And it was also said that those blades could do battle with the Saracens and afterward still sever a feather floating in midair.

If you want to know what rock is like deep in the earth, you can see it here in the shapeshifting of the metal. These are the energies that we are not used to in the quiet simmer of our daily lives.

I watched the forge. It took a long time, but it had our attention the way a green shoot would where only some damp sand had been seen before. Something was changing. Transformations were coming. If you want to know what rock is like deep in the earth, you can see it here in the shape-shifting of the metal. These are the energies that we are not used to in the quiet simmer of our daily lives. The energies of the deep earth and the high sun, the two sources that power our planet.

Half an hour passed, and now the billet was no longer gray. It had taken on the look of a bright confection of orange marzipan. Sam put on his blacksmith’s gloves. The billet was so hot that he wore glasses tinted against infrared radiation. He lifted the billet out of the forge for the first time to check the color of the metal. The rebar sagged like a fishing rod with a swordfish on the line. He wasn’t pleased with that, but he liked what he saw on the billet, and so he swung it over to the 12-ton hydraulic press just a few feet away. The billet landed on the compression platform. Holding the rebar in his left hand, he brought down the handle on the press with his right, moving the square metal die down to gently tap the mushy billet with a few tons of pressure so that he could see if it had been heated through and through. He had to make sure that his welds were holding the cards together. The smith calls this process of initial compression “forge welding,” because if everything is right with the stack, the cards will meld into one solid piece.

As the cards of metal were deformed and compressed, the surface of the billet rippled and changed color as if in emotional response to the extremes of heat and force, turning gray and deeper orange and shedding dark flakes of oxidized metal. Sam tapped the handle and added more pressure. Waves of dull gray cascaded across the surfaces and calved off and fell to the floor. But the billet held together. First success. It had cooled enough now that Sam had to return it to the forge to reheat it to a working temperature of about 2,300 degrees.

While it was heating, Sam unbolted the flat dies from the press using a socket wrench. Dies are the parts of the press that actually make contact with the hot metal. He exchanged the flat ones for more rounded ones that are called drawing dies. They would draw the billet into an elongated shape and help start to flatten it.

When the billet was hot enough once more, Sam began compressing it more aggressively to transform it into what he called a bar. In the middle of this, the rebar handle melted, menacingly clattering to the floor, ringing and dancing, and Sam stepped gingerly back to let it settle, then continued his work by lifting the billet with heavy tongs. There was no stopping now. He would succeed or fail by the skill of his hands and his knowledge as a bladesmith.

A natural, lifelong student of anything interesting, Sam got his start by trying to answer that question of what makes a good knife. He began to buy knives of good quality, but old and beat up, to restore them. He talked to knife makers and chefs who knew about knives. He took blacksmithing classes in which he began to acquire a feel for metal, not as the solid that most of us are used to but as a substance every bit as malleable as potter’s clay. He began to get a feel for taming the fire.

Heating and crushing now with more and more force, Sam gradually transformed the billet into a crude bar of steel so long, about a foot and a half, that it hung out either end of the forge. He then took the bar back to the metal table and clamped it into the vise. He put on his ear protection and picked up an angle grinder. At 1,000 degrees, the steel had gone dark.

Sam turned his grinder to cut from the other side, and an orange volcano shot up to the ceiling. He explained that you can tell the kind and quality of steel you’re working with by the color and shape of the sparks.

To make my little six-and-a-half-inch nakiri knife, Sam didn’t need all 12 pounds of steel that he’d started with. But the process of forging Damascus steel is so difficult and time consuming that he wanted to make as much as possible in a single batch. As he began cutting the bar in half, orange sparks cascaded down, elves of fire skipping across the concrete and dancing away into the sunlight in the alley. He turned his grinder to cut from the other side, and an orange volcano shot up to the ceiling. He explained that you can tell the kind and quality of steel you’re working with by the color and shape of the sparks.

Cutting through the bar took the better part of an hour, as he heated it to soften it and attacked it again and again with different tools. After destroying several angle grinder blades, he brought out a chisel he’d forged in a blacksmithing class and began hammering it into the cut he’d made in the bar. The making of Damascus steel takes a heavy dose of artistry and craftsmanship, and if one approach doesn’t work, you try another and another until the thing in your head becomes a thing in the world. At last he had the metal bar hot and nearly severed and clamped in the vise, and with his blacksmith’s hammer, he swung for the fences and knocked half the billet across the room. Fortunately, no one was in the path of the projectile, which landed, smoking, on the floor by the forge.

When the two black hunks of metal had cooled to a few hundred degrees, they took on an almost melancholy gloom of blue-gray, dashed with a distemper of rust, and their random-seeming warts and scars gave them the aspect of objects that had made a long and lonely journey through space, ending with a fiery entry into our world. Only the squared-off shape of these meteorites betrayed the hand of man.

Sam picked up one of the chunks with his tongs, saying, as unlikely as it seemed at that moment, “There’s a knife in there. That’s all that matters.” He also mentioned that the worst accidental burns in a forging shop occur when the metal has cooled off to black and is still at several hundred degrees. The visitor learns to touch nothing.

Now that he was working with a billet that weighed six pounds instead of 12, he could proceed much faster. Moving from forge to hydraulic press, heating and upsetting and turning, occasionally changing dies to different shapes, Sam gradually formed the bar into a piece about 16 inches long and an inch and a quarter square. Some time before, Sam had acquired a rusty old-fashioned monkey wrench. He had welded a piece of steel round bar to the head to make a long and heavy wrench for one specific purpose: twisting a bar of hot Damascus steel. Now he heated the bar and clamped it with the hydraulic press just enough to immobilize it, not enough to deform it. Then he fitted the adjustable wrench to it. Because the bar was now square in cross section, he could maintain a grip on it, as with a wrench on a nut. But when he went to twist it, he managed to turn it only halfway around. It wasn’t hot enough.

He put it back in the forge and this time heated it until it was in a yellow rage of photons. Again, he fitted the wrench to the glowing end. And then, using his entire body and the leverage of the long-handled wrench, he began twisting and twisting. The metal shed great gray flakes, and the yellow bar gradually turned orange, looking like a twist of taffy as Sam put all of his effort into the now-helical bar until it would turn no more. It was as if he were doing battle not so much with steel but with fire itself, placing the bright yellow bar in the press and then wringing the light right out of it, for that’s what it was, a blade of bright light that he strangled until it went black.

Then he put the bar back in the forge and did it all again. He repeated the process five times, and as the twists grew into a tighter and tighter pattern, the steel began to bend upon itself and undulate like an incandescent banded snake.

When Sam thought that the metals had thoroughly mixed, he placed the bar in the vise and picked up the angle grinder.

“I’m going to give you a nice center cut,” he said, meaning the place in the bar where he’d find the best pattern of steel.

He took a wooden nakiri template from a board on the wall where he kept the blanks of all the knives he made. He placed it on his anvil and traced its shape with chalk on the bar to get the length right for blade and tang. The tang is the slim projection from the blade that he’d fit into the handle. Using the heat, the press, and a hammer on the anvil, he flattened the metal into a vague, cartoonish semblance of a rude asteroid-black knife that my four-year-old granddaughter, Annelise, might have drawn in charcoal. He clamped it in the vise to let it cool. He occasionally pointed an infrared meter at it to check the temperature. When it was cool enough to handle, he took it to the bench and again traced the nakiri shape onto the rough alligator surface. Then he went to the band saw and cut away as much metal as he could around the silhouette. Even though I had earplugs, the noise drove me out to the alley.

Sam was doing all this after taking a weekend forging class outside of Philadelphia. He’d driven 12 hours home, getting only five hours of sleep. Then he wrestled this demon all day, almost eight hours of back-wrenching work, until he got what he had envisioned in his head. It was roughly the right shape. But it was still scabbed black and ugly. Day one was done.

As if in rebellion against the taming of the fire, all night long the lightning lit up the low gray udders of the clouds, the wind milking them here and there for their pitiful rain. What epic history lay beyond the thunder’s crack and groan?

Goldbroch chalks a template for the nakiri knife onto the rough-shaped steel.
Goldbroch chalks a template for the nakiri knife onto the rough-shaped steel. “I’m going to give you a nice center cut,” he says.

On the second day, Sam retired to the grinding booth, an enclosure he had built for his power sanding. The belt grinder is a machine of admirable complexity that can turn every which way while keeping a six-foot loop of sandpaper revolving on drums, allowing Sam to make shapes such as Western knife handles. He has to wear a respirator, a heavy apron riveted in brass, gloves, and noise-canceling headphones.

I saw Sam at his best in there. He stood in his armor, confronting a clearly dangerous and indifferent machine of stupendous mechanical capacities for removing any material that came near it, including human flesh in large bloody quantities if he slipped up. It’s a bit like a whirling wall of razor blades. Sam put both hands into this, holding something fairly small — it might have been a knife or a handle.

He is a big man, solid and steady on his feet, with wide shoulders and strong arms. He is soft-spoken, modest, and understated, a kind of gentle giant. I’d see him Saturdays at the summer farmers’ market with one or the other of his two children on his shoulder. If you met Sam, your first impression might be of calm and strength, control and competence. He’d happily show you what he can do with hammer and tongs, and you’d understand the deep dichotomy and even mystery that powers his mastery of energy and matter. What he does is simply so self-evident in the end that it cannot be questioned. When he’s done, what he puts in your hand is self-explanatory. He does not apologize. He does not explain or boast. He does not have to. It’s in your hand. And if you met him, you’d wonder: What gives him such a solid platform?

I think Sam’s mastery grew out of a catastrophic incident in his childhood. He had struggled with fire when he was young, and not in any artistic way.

I think Sam’s mastery grew out of a catastrophic incident in his childhood. He had struggled with fire when he was young, and not in any artistic way. The story of that struggle belongs to him and Simon and Phil, who went through it together, so it is not mine to tell. But I can say this much: They were trapped in an out-of-control fire when they were kids. They survived. Their parents did not.

When he came out of the grinding booth, Sam had the metal in the right shape and even close to the right size. This was called the rough grinding of the knife. Now he had to set the bevel, the angled portion of the blade that would terminate in the cutting edge. He did this with hammer and anvil, man against steel, as in images of 19th-century industrial infernos. The hammer rose toward the ceiling and then Sam put his whole back into it as it came ringing down on the steel. When he first brought the blade out of the forge, it was a tiger burning bright, and when he straightened up with the shape he was after, the black stubbly silhouette looked as if all it needed was a little stamp on the edge that said “Made in Hell.”

All morning long, a small heat-treating oven, actually a kiln that could have been used for ceramics, had been warming up. Now it had reached 1,650 degrees, the temperature at which to begin the process called “normalizing.” All of the forging and pressing and hammering and twisting of the metal had confused the internal crystal structure of the steel and introduced weird stresses among the grains.

But since the knife now had the exact shape that Sam wanted, he wouldn’t need to do anything violent to the blade again, except one final explosive act. To prepare for that, he first had to heat it back up to the point that the steel could, as he explained, relax again and release the tensions within, so that rather than being, at a microscopic level, like broken and jagged sea ice, the metal would be like a quiet millpond.

He placed the blade in the oven and closed the door. He set the timer for 10 minutes and went back to his bench to begin work on the handle. The artistry of this knife was all Sam’s doing. I had given him absolute control. But I’d spied a particular piece of wood among the materials he keeps for making handles. It was a rare Australian eucalyptus called vasticola burl, and when I’d first pointed to it, Sam smiled and said, “Oh, I love that wood.” He picked it up. It was just a block, perhaps six inches long and two inches square. He wiped some oil on it with a paper towel, and it seemed to glow.

“It looks like fire,” he said.

The fire again. He’d had his taste of fire when he was a child. And now it was in his blood.

The block was too wide for the Japanese wa handle that he was going to make, so we went into a giant room with an array of limb-snatching machines, and he cut it to size on a 1912 band saw that was taller than we were. Back at his bench, he searched in the drawers full of materials for handles and came up with a nicely patterned piece of buffalo horn for the ferrule, the protective ring between handle and blade.

“This is good,” Sam said. “It’s usually just black.”

The timer went off, and he took the blade out and put it in a rack to cool. He turned the heat down to 1,550 degrees, and when the blade had cooled, he returned it to the oven. After another 10 minutes, he put the blade aside again to cool and turned the oven down to 1,450. He repeated the 10-minute heat treating and set the blade aside once again.

“It’s still not a knife,” Sam insisted.

It was not yet good steel. It couldn’t be sharpened to take a cutting edge, and whatever edge you might put on it wouldn’t hold. It was useless for the kitchen, which was where I wanted to take it. To eat, let’s not forget. For what is a human but a transport channel for energy? And our energy comes from food. Lovely, gourmet food prepared with a fine knife. The qualities we need in a knife to create that food come from the atomic structure of the steel. But for the moment, what we had here was like a pig wallowing in mud and claiming to be cassoulet.

Sam stepped up to the oven, beside which the blade had been cooling. The oven had reached 1,475. He put the blade in and closed the door.

A slender, rectangular metal vessel sat upright on the floor by the oven. It looked somehow military, as if meant to shoot a rocket. It was filled with Parks 50, what’s known as a high-speed oil and designed for this purpose. After 10 minutes of heating to 1,475, Sam took the blade from the oven with heavy tongs and gloves and plunged it into the oil. A cloud of smoke rose to the ceiling, and a searing sound filled the room like a basket of snakes.

“This is the moment of truth,” Sam said, holding the tongs and looking away from the smoke. “This is when it becomes a knife.”

“This is the moment of truth,” Sam said, holding the tongs and looking away from the smoke. “This is when it becomes a knife.”

The quenching is a pressurized moment on which everything else turns. He cannot flinch. He cannot fake it. Like the free solo climber, he cannot make mistakes. The mere hint of a ping with the knife in the oil, and he’d have to go back to the other half of the blackened billet and start over. Because the knife would have fractured. Hard to believe, but at this point, if Sam dropped the knife, it could shatter. Some American knife makers have even taken to having a quenching ceremony to mark the birth of a knife. Some of them also think that you can quench properly only while facing north. Sam doesn’t hold to those ideas. You do your best and try to have more skill than luck.

The small heat-treating oven sat atop another oven that looked as if it wouldn’t be out of place in a 1960s kitchen. It was a tempering oven. Sam had set it to 400 degrees, and now he put the knife inside for many hours of tempering, which would finish settling the structure of the metal and would reduce its hardness to the sweet spot where it could be easily sharpened and would also hold an edge. Sam could do nothing more with this blade until the tempering was finished. So he would turn to other projects.

Before I went home that second day, Sam said, “I’ll finish the belt sanding tonight and leave about 10 percent of the hand sanding for the morning so you can watch. Assuming you like to sit there and watch people sand stuff.”

Steel is not steel. It is a chameleon, completely dependent on its environment. At temperatures such as Sam was using, it is a glowing portal to the world of the atom. Steel is iron mixed with carbon and some other elements, depending on what kind of steel you want. I had asked Sam to make me a high-carbon knife, which means that, by technical definition, at least 0.6 percent of its atoms are carbon. In practical terms, it means that it’s not stainless steel and will rust if you don’t take care of it. Sam and I like to take care of our knives the way some people like to take care of their motorcycles.

Taking care of a knife is pretty simple. You strop it before each use. You don’t throw it in the sink. You wipe it off and put it in a safe place when you’re done — a knife block, for example. And we would chop down telephone poles with it before we’d put it in a dishwasher. Then again, to qualify as a master bladesmith with the American Bladesmith Society, you have to chop a wooden two-by-four in half two times with a knife you made and then still be able to shave with it. The rules for that qualification test clearly state: “The test knife will ultimately be destroyed during the testing process.”

The knives that Sam and his fellow Midwestern smiths make, passed from hand to hand with care, from mother to son to uncle to granddaughter, could last a thousand years, by which time every speck of high technology we know today will be dust. But the reality is that if a knife maker has become too famous, you simply can’t get his or her knives any longer.

Iron atoms form crystals of various kinds, atoms connected electrically to one another. Iron atoms are like little magnets, having a north and south (positive and negative) end. So they can arrange themselves like those toys for children, magnetic shapes to create pleasing patterns.

When carbon mixes with iron, the smaller carbon atoms occupy the spaces between iron atoms. The crystal arrangement of the iron atoms changes to accommodate the carbon. Different crystal arrangements give the metal different properties. Think of it as bread. It’s like deciding what kind of bread to make. White bread. Sourdough. Hard Lithuanian black bread. Fluffy Mexican bolillos. So goes the saga of steel. The tarot cards Sam dealt at the start of this process were 1095 steel, which is iron with between 0.95 percent and 1.05 percent carbon, and 15N20, which is iron with nickel. Mixing the two is popular for making Damascus and produces an attractive pattern and a very nice edge.

As a lover of good food and good kitchen tools, I don’t need to know much about metallurgy. A bladesmith like Sam can take care of that. But I find this stuff fascinating, these amazing transformations. I like to know what’s going down in the atomic world that will blossom into these beautiful patterns of his blade.

As I watched Sam work, I kept having the impression that he was trying hard to erase something — the traces of the fire, the encroaching flames, the blackened body of the meteorite after its travels. But the erasing was also an act of creating. Michelangelo said that the block of marble contains a man, and all you have to do is remove the rock that isn’t part of the man, and then you will have your sculpture. So Sam said, “There’s a knife in there. …” And in this attitude of seeking, there is a humility that does away with the myth of the conquering hero or the towering artistic genius.

Sam does not see himself as the creator of the knife. He sees himself as having found it inside of this other, most unlikely object.

Sam does not see himself as the creator of the knife. He sees himself as having found it inside of this other, most unlikely object. As he worked, he let the steel tell him things. He followed what the material suggested rather than sticking to a predetermined plan. He was facilitating the process. He was the sorcerer. He did not invent magic, did not really make magic, but he employed magic. And with the rackety dance of hammer and tong, he was urging the knife into stelliferous being. In the process, he was also taming the fire.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, an ape not all that different from us created an edge by fracturing one rock with a blow from another. Make no mistake. Such a knife is sharp enough to shave with. And at a stroke, the woolly mammoth could fall apart into bite-size pieces. It didn’t change everything, but it laid a dense, high-calorie, protein-packed feast on our table that allowed the relatively small inner workings of our gut to extract the tremendous amount of energy needed to grow these giant billowing brains we have. In a sense, the knife marked the birth of civilization.

After being ground and cleaned of oils, the blade is bathed in etching solutions to reveal its Damascus pattern.
After being ground and cleaned of oils, the blade is bathed in etching solutions to reveal its Damascus pattern.

When I came in the next morning, while I did not feel that I had missed anything crucial (Sam sitting and sanding), the knife was now a revelation. It was the right size and shape, and it was all silver. It looked like a real knife awaiting a handle.

“Wow,” I said.

Sam smiled. Then, with a sly look: “Let me show you something.”

He carried the blade to the room of giant machines. Against one wall a sink was set up with gallon-size square beakers of colored liquid, one black or dark blue, one gold. “We’ll do a two-stage etch and see what we’ve got.” He washed the blade and cleaned it with Windex. He then put the blade into the dark solution. He set the timer on his watch, and when two minutes were up, he again cleaned and rinsed the blade and put it in the golden liquid. I knew that the dark fluid was ferric chloride. I asked what the golden liquid was. Sam reached to a shelf behind the sink and brought down a half-gallon bottle. It featured a cartoon alligator and was labeled “Gator Piss.”

“What’s in it?” I asked.

Sam shrugged. “Proprietary, I guess.” He left the blade to etch and went back to his bench to tidy up. “But it works,” he said.

The trade name might seem odd to those who don’t know the history of Damascus steel. Ancient Afghan makers, for example, quenched their blades in donkey urine. Some makers during medieval times believed that only the urine of redheaded boys should be used. Other Asian smiths prescribed heating the blade until it looked “like the sun rising in the desert” and then shoving it “into the body of a muscular slave.” About quenching by murder, Sam said simply, “I don’t make weapons.”

Half an hour later, he took the blade out of the Gator Piss and washed it. He held it under the lamp. We could clearly see the Damascus pattern, with its contour map of dark hills and bright craters, its sinewy valleys and far landscapes. And we could spot his signature, or maker’s mark, which he’d electrically etched on the blade. And as with looking through a microscope, the longer you looked, the more you saw.

Sam took the blade back to the bench for finer and finer sanding. “You don’t want to make it too fine,” he said. “Or the pores will close up and you’ll start to lose the sharpness of your pattern.” He would take this Damascus to 800 grit.

He had more polishing to do, more etching. The handle was a simple shape and Sam knew it well. He’d sand and polish it, and then the eucalyptus would really look like fire. He’d glue the tang into the handle. And of course, he would sharpen the knife and shave the hair on his arm to test its razor edge.

Outside the open door, I could see that the day was high and clear with light-year blue and upward-tumbling cumulus clouds that mirrored the Damascus pattern churning in the blade.

The knife, nearly finished
The knife, nearly finished: The blade had been etched, the handle shaped. Now the epoxy holding the handle in place was left to cure.

The quenching of anxiety and stress through ordered, repetitive, directed, and meaningful physical motions is an effect well known among neuroscientists and others who work with human brains and nervous systems. The rhythmic movement is soothing. Sam had tamed the fire inside and coaxed it outside to create a work both useful and beautiful. A palliative process that would give rise to a tool that would feed us and satisfy our sensibilities with its physical beauty while doing so. All of human history would thereby be embodied in a single work of art.

On the third day, when Sam presented me with the finished knife, it was so beautiful that it took my breath away. I brought it home and cut some onion for my wife, who was making dinner. The knife slid through the flesh with no resistance. It felt like cutting air. I rinsed it and wiped it dry and during dinner we propped it up in its black velvet case and we stared at it like early humans in a cave somewhere, watching fire.

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Breakfast of Champions.

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Breakfast of Champions. I went hog wild during the month of December. Gained almost 10 lbs. So, I went on the South Beach Diet. I’ve lost 8 of those pounds so far.

My Breakfast consists of five pieces of celery, I mix a pure natural peanut butter with a protein nut mixture of seven different nuts.

Lunch usually consists of a wrap of Low sodium Turkey, Ham, and a slice of Pepper Jack Cheese. Dinner can be chicken Mexican Soup, Chili, or fish.

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Have you ever bought Girl Scout Cookies?

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Have you ever bought Girl Scout Cookies? For me it’s been a while. I can’t even remember the last time. I know my daughter bought them last year from a co-worker. I always enjoyed the mint ones.

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Skill #1: Goal Setting
Girl Scouts learn how to set goals and create a plan to reach them, enabling amazing experiences for themselves and their troops all year long, while helping others too.

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Skill #2: Decision Making
Girl Scouts learn to make decisions on their own and as a team, whether it’s how to run and promote their cookie sale, interact with customers, or spend their earnings.

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Skill #3: Money Management
Girl Scouts learn to expand their money smarts while running their own cookie business and create a budget to fund the experiences they want to share as a troop.

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Skill #4: People Skills
Girl Scouts find their voice and build confidence through customer interactions, developing valuable skills that will help them succeed in school, in business, and in life.

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Skill #5: Business Ethics
Girl Scouts learn to act ethically—lessons that will stay with them for a lifetime of leadership and success.

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The only bad taco salad is a taco salad you don’t eat! Spice up taco night with these this scrumptious recipe.

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The only bad taco is a taco you don’t eat! Spice up taco night with these this scrumptious recipe.

INGREDIENTS

 

INSTRUCTIONS

 

1.Heat oil in a skillet over high heat. Add ground beef. Stir fry, breaking up the pieces with a spatula, for about 7-10 minutes, until the beef is browned, and moisture has evaporated.

2. Stir taco seasoning into the ground beef until well combined. If you like, you can also add 1/4 cup of water when adding the seasoning and let it simmer a bit.

3. Meanwhile, combine all remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add the ground beef. Toss everything together.

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie.

Peanut butter lovers, you won’t be able to resist a slice of this decadent pie. It’s shockingly easy to make and the result is a creamy, dreamy dessert you’ll crave constantly.

Ingredients

FOR THE CRUST:

  • 25chocolate sandwich cookies, such as Oreos
  • 5 tbsp.salted butter, melted

FOR THE FILLING:

  • 1 c.creamy peanut butter
  • 1(8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 1/4 c.powdered sugar
  • 8 oz.whipped topping, such as Cool Whip, thawed

Directions

    1. For the crust: Preheat the oven to 350°F.
    2. Place the cookies in the bowl of a large food processor. Process until finely crushed, about 1 minute. Transfer to a bowl and pour the melted butter over top. Stir with a fork to combine. Press the Oreo mixture firmly into the bottom and up the sides of a pie plate. Bake until set, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
    3. For the filling: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the peanut butter with the cream cheese until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add the thawed whipped topping and beat until smooth, scraping the sides as needed.
    4. Pour the filling into the crust, evening out the top with a knife or spatula. Chill for at least 4 hours before serving.

Tip: This is ultra, ultra-rich. Cut small slivers—your guests will thank you!

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Food Holidays Life

Homemade Sweet Potato Soup Recipe | A Different Type of Potato Soup!

Views: 38

Homemade Sweet Potato Soup Recipe | A Different Type of Potato Soup! Fall is here, and there’s no better way to usher in the change of the season than a bowl of this delicious Sweet Potato Soup! Featuring sweet and rich flavors, this dish will warm you up on a chilly day. Make a big pot for your friends and family!

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cup chicken broth
  • 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 cup sweet potatoes
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 cup milk
  • Salt to taste
  • Pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Peel 2 medium sweet potatoes.
  • Chop peeled sweet potatoes until you have 1 1/2 cup’s worth
  • Boil the sweet potatoes until soft.
  • In a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, cook 1 tablespoon flour and 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, stirring constantly until it achieves a light caramel color.
  • Add 1 1/2 cup chicken broth and 1 tablespoon light brown sugar. Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer.
  • Stir in sweet potatoes, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg. Bring to a simmer and cook 5 minutes more.
  • Puree the soup and return to the saucepan.
  • Add 1 cup milk and salt and pepper to taste.
  • Serve warm, refrigerate leftovers.

 

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Food Holidays Life

You can’t beat shopping in Amish Country.

Views: 49

You can’t beat shopping in Amish Country. Last week we celebrated with another couple (my birthday). Before we met them, we stopped at three of our favorite stores. A Swiss cheese factory and two Amish grocery stores.

You need to look closely at the best buy dates. Everything we bought was best by in 2024 and 2025. Sometimes the boxes have dents as do the cans.

The featured picture is one of my favorite desserts.

The 24 oz. size. The small individual boxes are $.10 ea. This was best by 062024.

Best by. 01-05-2024.$.49 ea.

How can you beat $1.99. Best buy 02-2025.

Saw this at my local grocery store on sale. $4.99.

I’ll post more in the comments section. If you live near Amish country stop in. The stores go by bent and dent plus Salvage.

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Food Holidays Links from other sources. Uncategorized

Christmas Cookie Club delivers memories annually.

Views: 49

Christmas Cookie Club delivers memories annually. These women have been friends since they were 7 years old. What’s remarkable is the fact that the women are developmentally disabled. 

Since 1992 they got together and baked their Christmas cookies. 31 years.

They enjoy a special connection which has become a testimony to the joy of the season, and an act which offers a deeper meaning — that the most important part of the Christmas holiday is being together.

The four starts at 10:30 am and bake till 4:30 pm. After baking, the group will go Christmas caroling at the homes of family members and then have dinner together. “They love that, they love going out to eat,” Bobbie said.

Article complete can be found here.

 

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Food Holidays Life Recipe

Mary Yoders is the place to be. Part 2.

Views: 41

Mary Yoders is the place to be. Part 2. Back in July I did an article on one of my favorite Restaurants. Mary Yoder’s. Since we’re going there tomorrow to meet some friends, I thought I would post a link and an Amish recipe.

We’ve had their bread, pies, pastry, plus jelly and jams. For those who don’t live nearby, they have online ordering.

Mary Yoders Amish Kitchen in Middlefield OH Bakery Banquets Gift Shop

143635_MaryYoders_DinnerMenu

CURRENTLY FEATURED AMISH RECIPE.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

1 pound ground beef

8 cabbage leaves

1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 eggs

1 can tomato soup

Wilt cabbage leaves by placing them in boiling water for 3 minutes and then drain.  Mix all other ingredients together except soup.  Shape meat mixture into oblong rolls and wrap in cabbage leaves.  Fasten with toothpicks.  Put tomato soup in a skillet and add rolls.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 45-60 minutes or until meat mixture is well done.  You may need to add a little water during cooking period.  Serve immediately.

 

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Food Holidays Life Recipe

Delicious looking Yule Log Cake

Views: 85

Found this at The Pioneer Woman sitehttps://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a33943671/yule-log-recipe/

Ingredients:

FOR THE CAKE:

  • 4 tbsp. 

    salted butter, melted, plus more for the pan 

  • 6 

    large eggs, separated 

  • 1/4 tsp. 

    cream of tartar 

  • 1/4 tsp. 

    kosher salt 

  • 3/4 c. 

    granulated sugar 

  • 3/4 c. 

    all-purpose flour 

  • 1/4 c. 

    unsweetened cocoa powder 

  • 1/2 tsp. 

    baking powder 

  • 1 tsp. 

    pure vanilla extract 

  • 1/4 c. 

    strong brewed coffee, at room temperature 

  • 1/4 c. 

    powdered sugar 

FOR THE FILLING:

  • 4 oz. 

    cream cheese, at room temperature 

  • 1/2 c. 

    powdered sugar, sifted 

  • 1 c. 

    heavy cream 

  • 1 tsp. 

    vanilla extract 

FOR THE FROSTING:

  • 12 oz. 

    semisweet chocolate, chopped 

  • 3/4 c. 

    heavy cream 

  • 1 tbsp. 

    light corn syrup 

  • Rosemary sprigs and pomegranate seeds, for garnish 

Directions: 

  1. To make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 12-by-17-inch rimmed baking sheet. Line with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on all sides. Butter the parchment. 
  2. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until frothy. Add 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar and beat on high speed until stiff, glossy peaks form, about 2 minutes. 
  3. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder. In a separate large bowl, combine the egg yolks, the remaining 1/2 cup sugar, and the vanilla. Beat on high speed until thick and creamy, 3 to 4 minutes. Beat in the melted butter and coffee until combined. 
  4. Add the flour mixture to the yolk mixture and beat on low speed until well combined. Fold a spoonful of the beaten egg whites into the batter until no streaks remain. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites until combined.
  5. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, gently nudging the batter so it fills the corners. Give the pan a little shimmy to even it out. Bake until the top just starts to spring back when gently pressed, 10 to 12 minutes (the top might still feel a little tacky). Do not over-bake or the cake will crack. 
  6. Place a clean dish towel on a large wire rack. Dust the cake with 2 tablespoons of the powdered sugar. While the cake is still hot, loosen the edges from the pan, then turn out the cake onto the towel; carefully remove the parchment. Dust the top with the remaining 2 tablespoons powdered sugar. 
  7. Starting at one of the long sides, use the towel to tightly roll up the cake with the towel inside. Position the cake seam-side down and let cool about 1 hour. 
  8. To make the filling: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer on low speed until just smooth. Add the powdered sugar and beat until smooth, about 1 minute. Gradually beat in the heavy cream 1/4 cup at a time, making sure the mixture is smooth before adding more cream. Increase the speed to medium high and beat until stiff peaks form, 2 to 4 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat for a few more seconds, just to combine.
  9. Carefully unroll the cooled cake and spread evenly with the filling, leaving a 1/4- to 1/2-inch border on all sides. Re-roll the cake, using the towel to help you. Cover the cake roll with parchment paper and then tightly wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 2 hours. 
  10. Meanwhile, for the frosting: To a medium bowl, add the chocolate. In a saucepan, bring the heavy cream and corn syrup to a simmer, then pour over the chocolate. Let sit for 5 minutes, then whisk until smooth. Let thicken at room temperature until spreadable, about 2 hours. 
  11. Unwrap the cake on a cutting board. Cut off one-fourth of the cake on a sharp diagonal for the branch. Position the branch against the remaining cake roll on a platter. Cover the cake with the frosting using an offset spatula, then drag a fork through the frosting to create a bark-like texture. Garnish with rosemary sprigs and pomegranate seeds. 

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