Well, on Wednesday evening, I made pastitsio on my current radiant smoothtop to try to gauge just how much pot jockeying I do for certain recipes. For this dish, I need 3 saucepans and a saute pan. At some points in the process, I am using 3 hobs simultaneously. Also, onions are sweated & ground meat is browned (on MED/MED-HI)& then the contents are put on a low simmer while I make the Bechamel component. I would prefer to not have to reach over a simmering saute pan to whisk the Bechamel on a small back hob. I tried very hard to keep a mental record of what I was doing so I could transfer that time-motion set to the hob layout of induction cooktops I've considered. I also imagined doing it for a full or double size recipe which would require bigger pans. Then, I pondered on it over two night's sleep. In the end, I don't think an induction cooktop is right for me and the type of cooking I do and aspire to, at this time. I felt like I was twisting myself in a pretzel to try to make induction work when I want an indoor grill and have to worry about a backup generator. However, I want to offer my sincere thanks to all of you who took the time to post on this thread in order to help me out. Jo Ann

Posted by arkansas_girl "Wouldn't a piece of meat cooked for two days at such low temps(129F) be spoiled? I don't get those super low temps? The meat certainly looks like it would taste good but doesn't seem hot enough to even kill the bacteria etc." That is a very important question. Very important. Fortunately today with internet, you can check out all kinds of information, and you do need to go to multiple sources to confirm your information. I am not going to be very specific, just some general ideas here. The general guideline given by the authorities are safe to the extreme, they need to account for all those young, old and the immunological challenged. Furthermore, to make things simple, the guidelines do not take into account the time factor. In other words, when they say (again, I am not giving any specific information here, just talking about concepts) 160F is safe for chickens, they are not telling you that is also safe for 150F if you cook at that temperature for 30 minutes, and 140F for 60 minutes. For beef, (for me, may not be for you) it is generally very safe that you can eat raw beef, if the beef is handled properly. Since you can not be sure of if the outside of the beef is handled properly, you can sear/torch using quick high heat to sanitize the outside before you cook the meat in very low temperature. It is entirely not recommended to eat raw ground beef because you cannot sanitize ground beef. There are charts available showing safe temperatures for all kinds of meat based on time and temperature. dcarch

I agree, there are lots of ways to cook ribs because there are different desired results. There is the version with meat so wet and tender it is falling apart, just shy of being pull-able, sometimes with a lot of sauce - I think of that as the basic ''Q'ed'' rib. There is the version that is smoky and drier, with some texture and a bit of ''tooth'' to the meat, as in you have to actually use your teeth - I think of that as the standard grilled or roasted rib. There is the version that is chewier yet, with a lot of browning and crusting, even a bit of crispness, and a strong glaze, that may or may not be reddish - I think of that as a generic Asian street rib. And so on. Plus, there's different ways of cooking that, in the end, don't really make a big difference. For example, searing a piece of meat that is then going to be submerged in a strong sauce and slow-cooked for many hours. I think if we did a blind taste test, we'd be hard-pressed to reliably identify the ribs that skipped the initial sear.

Thanks, Ann, for clarifying the confusion. We refuse to eat longline caught fish & quality restaurants here won't serve it either. It's depleting our natural resources. That's probably why I only see yellowfin (ahi) locally...troll-caught with rod & reel. We live close to Montauk & Montauk is considered to be one of the best fishing grounds in the world. There are many fishermen here using just rod & reel to bring in tuna. Private tuna rigged fishing boats here are all equipped with huge fish boxes with proper refrigeration & because of restrictions when a tuna is landed the boat returns immediately to port to offload so rod & reel caught is also much fresher than longline. Quality east coast restaurants changed their menues to stop serving longline caught fish several years ago. Many either have signs in the windows or printed on the menues that no longline caught fish are served. Here's a quote from Wiki & the link to the whole article. "Overfishing Bigeye tuna are amongst the tuna species most threatened by overfishing. Juvenile bigeye tuna associate closely with floating objects such as logs, buoys and other flotsam, which makes them extremely susceptible to purse seine fishing in conjunction with man-made FADs (Fish Aggregation Devices). Bigeye mature at a later age than other commercially important tuna species such as skipjack and yellowfin tuna, and the removal of large numbers of juvenile bigeye before they reach breeding age is a major concern to fisheries managers, scientists and sport fishermen." From this article... http://www.hawaii-seafood.org/bigeye.html "Availability And Seasonality: The availability of bigeye tuna in Hawaii has increased as a result of an expansion of the domestic longline fleet and an extension of the fleet's fishing range to as far as 800 nautical miles from port." IMO, as consumers we need to stop supporting this mass killing type of fishing or our grandkids will never know the pleasure of watching one of these fish in their natural environment. Man...one on one with a rod & reel against the fish...is a fair fight. Longline hooking is not plus many other fish & ocean mammals are killed in the process. I guess because DH & our friends tuna fish we are very sensitive to this longline issue. There is some longlining here as well; but they have to sell to lesser restaurants. I imagine that most, if not all, of the rod & reel caught Bigeye tuna stay in Hawaii. /tricia Here is a link that might be useful: Hawaiian Bigeye Tuna