I'm thinking about letting the taxpayers subsidize me.

s that people don't shop around wisely when they get sick, so the free-mark et price pressure doesn't actually work.

In *this very thread* we had several examples of free-market Mike carefully shopping for health care (actually, physically, controlling prices and spending IRL), and free-loaders telling us it's impossible. "People don't shop wisely when they get sick" isn't supported, nor does it matter--most money isn't spent in dire illness. And, urgent care shares in economies gained from price-pressures on ordinary care.

So, it's nonsense, as is your ill-thought 'solution.' Centralized administrations don't shop for an individual in distress at all. They pre-issue Borg-like regs and demands, schedules, and what-not.

or free-market price pressures. They don't work perfectly either, but since even the most extravagant of the competition - the French and German syste ms - deliver much the same quality of health care for everybody for two-thi rds of the price per head of your system, they clearly work better than you r system.

That's just a load of blather. You've got no idea what's in Obamacare. I j ust spent another three hours looking through O-cr@p's 'healthy lifestyle' b.s. It's so laughably nanny-stupid, so twisted, it boggles the mind.

And yet you feel perfectly entitled to pontificate without knowing a damn thing about it.

Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat
Loading thread data ...

.

ses that people don't shop around wisely when they get sick, so the free-ma rket price pressure doesn't actually work.

Your irrational faith in the perfection of the utterly free market does lea d you to say things like that. There's nothing made-up about people being w illing to spend any amount of money when they - or their nearest and deares t - get sick, and I've got personal experience of being offered a "free mar ket" operation at a fixed price which it turned out that I didn't need.

No. I'm not telling you that it's impossible, merely that not everybody is in Mike's and my happy position of being able to say no. When my nephew was lying in hospital with a cracked cervical vertebra and there was evidence of pressure on his spinal cord, my brother was very happy to spend heavily on an operation that may not have been necessary.

t

And your evidence for this claim is? US medicine is half-again as expensive per head as German and French medicine, despite being rather more closely government regulated.

They might have done in the old communist states. The process that happened in the Netherlands was so consultative that it's amazing that anything eve ry changed, but it did. I think the last big change was a requirement that hospitals that didn't do enough operations per year to keep in practice had to ship the specialised cases off to the nearest bigger regional hospital that did. The smaller hospitals didn't like it at all, but it did make sens e.

for free-market price pressures. They don't work perfectly either, but sin ce even the most extravagant of the competition - the French and German sys tems - deliver much the same quality of health care for everybody for two-t hirds of the price per head of your system, they clearly work better than y our system.

just

s.

You would think that, wouldn't you. Obama is a Demoncrat.

I don't have your detailed knowledge - not that that is worth as much as yo u claim, since your ideological blinkers blind you to the significance of a lot that you know - but I don't need to know much to know that a system th at is half again more expensive than the competition, despite being selecti ve about those that it treats, is ripe for root and branch reform (not that Obamacare represents any dramatic change of emphasis).

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

You mean, instead of wrecking things, taking people's rights, privacy, and plans? For a start, how about "don't do that."

Second, there are plenty of excellent ideas that would actually solve the worst problem--cost--which mitigates all the other problems. Most of them involve getting the feds OUT, rather than deeper in. They built this.

Obamacare increases the cost. Cost was the reason people couldn't afford care. Obamacare makes the main problem considerably *worse*, and breaks lots of stuff that wasn't broken.

First, I have no responsibility nor obligation to do that. I'm not the one trying to take other people's rights, health, and property.

But why not let people buy whatever they want? Choose whatever doctor they want? Shop carefully, like Mike, and the price problem fixes itself. Actual insurance--instead of pre-paid healthcare--is then cheap.

Obamacare forces everything--including trivialities--through the insurance process, which adds about 40% right there. Don't do that.

Whole Foods' John Mackey elaborates on other GREAT measures:

formatting link

If it cost half, nearly everyone could afford their own, and the few(er) who couldn't would be easier for us to take care of.

That's no justification for cramming through a takeover of 1/6th of the economy, against the popular will, and based on lies.

Obamacare was essentially a coup de etat, a fundamental overthrow of American government. For the first time in our history (and contrary to our constitition), under the rationale in NFIB v. Sebelius the federal government can FORCE you to do ANYTHING--literally ANYTHING--or pay a fine.

The federal government can now and does spy on virtually every private aspect of your life, too, in real-time, thanks to Obamacare.

Instead of a government that serves the people, now the people must serve the government.

All thanks to a law passed over the People's objections, unread by the party apparatchiks who passed it, and based on a dishonest President's false representations.

How is that democratic? How were the People even represented, given that their representatives didn't know what they were voting for?

Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat

He's so stupid he can't even use Google (in the 113th congress: 2 Senators, 16 house members, plus two dentists, three psychologists, one psychiatrist, two veterinarians, one psychiatrist, and five nurses).

Reply to
krw

It's a good thing that we don't have that (yet, but it's coming).

It's a good thing that we don't have that.

We do have that, something that *is* one of the few enumerated powers of the federal government.

So there is no limitation to what the government can do for (or to) you?

Reply to
krw

With the number of US households at 123 million and 65% of these having a MAGI of $60,000 or less, receiving a subsidy of approx. $10,000, the math works like this.

123,000,000 x 10,000 = $1,230,000,000,000* Clearly, the subsidy will die, it can't continue if everyone signs up for Obamacare.
  • it will be less, this number is calculated on a one child family, some will be more, many will be less. Mikek
Reply to
amdx

It is almost nothing but a welfare program.

Yes, and it is detracting people from working and to "opt out" of the work force. I've seen that effect right here in the neighborhood.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

International? Oh-oh, your liability exposure just became bigger. Way bigger ...

It can happen when the big company folds or sells the rights to your product to a smaller one and that one croaks. The risks usually come from stuff like faulty parts that snuck in there or when the contract assembler in Outsourcistan cut a corner. If you signed as partly responsible for production you'll be named a defendant.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

Yes, way bigger and still very insignificant. You did see the $10 billion gorilla in front of me, right?

Lol. You really can't stand to lose an argument can you?

--

Rick
Reply to
rickman

ead

to do

and

d

It's difficult to see Obamacare as "wrecking" anything. There's no persuasi ve case that anybody has been deprived of any of their "rights", and the "p lans" that were "taken away" weren't all that good, which was why people co uldn't hang onto them - the old plans had deprived them of rights which the insurance companies could no longer withhold from their clients.

The right wing doesn't like universal health care. It deprive the wealthy o f one more thing that they could previously offer the less well-off.

m

A curious proposition - American health care has been expensive for a very long time, from long before the feds had much to do with it. Every other a dvanced industrial country has a cheaper system, with more government inter vention, rather than less.

One wonders where all these excellent ideas for making the US system cheape r have been aired. They certainly haven't got much international coverage, and the New Yorker hasn't talked about them. No doubt Tea Party lunatics kn ow more about the subject, and have declared each and every one of the idea s excellent, but have somehow failed to get mainstream journalists to take them seriously, or even the Murdoch press.

care.

By forcing the health insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, and stopping them from dumping customers who have the temerity to get sick, and start costing the health insurance companies money? the claim that the existing system wasn't "broken" is a bit of a stretch.

ne

No. But you are carrying on as if the existing system - which is half-again more expensive per head than it's international competitors - isn't deeply flawed.

ey

ual

Not enough people actually do that to support a system that works. Health c are systems aren't just for diseases that come on slowly and give you time to shop around carefully - a large part of their job is prevent plagues of infectious diseases. Every advanced industrial country except the USA has u niversal health care - in part because if somebody gets sick, they don't he sitate to go to the doctor. This does make sense for normal health care - e arly diagnosis usually means cheaper and more effective treatment - but it' s vital against infectious diseases.

Drug-resistant tuberculosis got to be much more prevalent in the US because the poor would stop the anti-TB drug therapy when they felt better, rather than when they'd killed off all the bugs in their systems.

e

Every other advanced industrial country does exactly that, and ends up with cheaper health care - the expensive end, in France and Germany, pay two-th irds of the cost per head, and the UK pays about half.

US health insurers may have high overheads, but national insurance schemes tend to have remarkably low overheads, and seem to be able to negotiate rat her better drug prices than US consumers can manage.

None of them make health care cost any less. Tort reform is way overdue, bu t malpractice insurance doesn't seem to be the main reason why US health ca re is as expensive as it is - Canadian studies laid the blame squarely on a n over-administered system, with the excess administration happening in the private sector.

Medicare and Medicaid are already influential in US health care, and Obamac are doesn't amount to any kind of takeover. Granting that the existing US s ystem is half-again more expensive than it ought to be, a "government takeo ver" to move the system closer to the French and German models would seem t o be a perfectly rational option.

A very strange coup de etat, negotiated in detail with the health insurance companies supposedly being taken over.

James Arthur rather perverse reading of the extremely antiquated US constit ution

e.

This seems unlikely.

pect

Interesting, but surprisingly undereported, if true.

How? They've suddenly got to pay their taxes? When they didn't have to befo re?

lse

Who were "the People" who were doing the objecting? If the Tea Party have b een promoted from a parasitic growth on the Republican Party to the only le gitimate representatives of the US people as a whole, a whole lot of Democr atic voters have been disenfrachised (Jeb Bush style).

As you keep on reminding us, the US isn't a representative democracy, but a republic. The defects of the US constitution were designed to let the peop le who owned the country continue to run the country - George Washington, i n his peace-time capacity as a real estate speculator, owned more of it tha n most - and complaining that lobbying got Obamacare carried is objecting t o business as usual.

The US tax system is riddled with loopholes that were voted for by represen tatives who weren't paying much attention to what they were voting for, whi ch is why the US has one of the higher rates of corporate tax around the wo rld and one of the lower rates of corporate tax collection.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

re

The government can conscript you to go off and fight in a war. Providing yo u with health care when you need it may be a liberty, but probably a less r estrictive and potentially damaging one.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

So, YOUR answer to my question is "nothing". If there are "plenty of excellent ideas" out there, I guess none of them are in the minds of REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS! Or, they are overly shy about giving them an audience. *MUCH* easier to complain about something that someone else has done than to actually try to *do* something original -- and get TAGGED with being responsible for it!

Young kids learn at an early age how to knock over a pile of blocks (i.e., destroy, criticize, etc.) It takes much longer before they learn how to *build* one (create, original thought, etc.)

Really? My first year in business, my *annual* premium was $700 (it was a *long* time ago). My *second* year, it was $2000. Mike complains that his premium went up 100% in 5 years -- mine went up ~300% in *one* year! I made no claims. Didn't even *visit* a doctor.

Have you looked at how other insurance premiums change? I spoke with my neighbor yesterday who recounted leaving Florida when his homeowner's policy (with no "improvements" to the property) went from $400/year to $4000 (can you spell hurricanes?) -- despite *him* never having made a claim?

I drive less than 1,500 miles per year. Never had an accident. Nor a ticket. My auto insurance (nothing "extraordinary") was $700/year many years ago (I took that car off the road -- I can hire a cab for ~the same sort of money) -- despite the fact that we had two cars and the house at the same insurer.

[When I hear what others -- esp those with kids -- pay for auto insurance, I can't understand why they *have* a car!]

Gee, each of my bills comes back repriced *downward*. Because *they* know that my lab tests are only "worth" $10 -- despite what the lab would *like* to charge me!

Insurance (multiple payers) forces everything through an unnecessary bureacracy: "We'll have to check if this is covered under your plan, submit it to see what the repriced rate is, bill you for any difference..." "We'll have to check to see if Dr Smith is in your network before we give you a referral to him." "We'll have to check to see if we *need* to give you a referral before you can see Dr Smith."

Great! Why not put them into LAW so everyone can benefit from them?? And, if the insurers don't like it, they can go into other lines of work. I hear there's a big demand for plumbers...

Summarizing, your answer to *that* question was, likewise, "nothing".

I guess you've not heard of the Patriot Act? Or read any of Snowden's disclosures? I seem to recall those things came into being under a REPUBLICAN administration. How loudly were you crying, then?

How much do you gripe about google and other online presences spying on your activities? Do you have a gmail account? Do you receive mail from anyone with a gmail account? Are you *sure* that google isn't the entity that is actually *processing* the mail that your MX domain handles?

Do you use credit cards? Store membership/loyalty cards? Do you use a tax preparation service (do you really think they forget who you are the moment they've finished processing your return?)

Do you use a telephone? Other electronic means of communication? (e.g., USENET) Do you send or receive snail mail (you *did* know that the USPS scans envelopes -- i.e., they know who is "corresponding" with whom)

And, these are ALL due to obamacare?? Really???

Sure. And you'd prefer the Republicans' -- "Keep your hand out of my pocket -- but, it's OK to go poking your will in how I live my life, what a woman can do with her own body, whether we should all have "invisible friends" as a sign of our "propriety", who can marry whom, etc." That's *far* less invasive in your life??

"...thanks to a war started under false pretenses, based on distorted facts and outright misrepresentations"

Gee, at least Obama *apologized* for his *error* in mistating that folks could "keep their current doctor". We're all still waiting to hear W's apology for sending all those men to their death and adding TRILLIONS to the deficit based on his (deliberate lies?).

But, then again, without Cheney's hand up his shirt to move his mouth parts, I see he doesn't say much of anything...

And, not surprisingly, your answer to this is *also*, "nothing".

You must, indeed, be *President* of The Party of No! "Trust us, we'll do better. But, we have No ideas of our own!"

Why don't you just make it REALLY SIMPLE for people to understand your position. List the portions of the ACA that you want repealed (it's not acceptable to say "all of it" -- you must, instead,

*enumerate* all of those provisions -- so folks can see what you are taking away from their current condition).

Insurers can/cannot refuse to provide coverage. Insurers can/cannot refuse to prohibit coverage for preexisting. Children can/cannot remain on their parents' plans. People must/may not carry health insurance. Employers must/may not insure their employees. Insurers must/may not cover this list of preventative care... Insurers can/cannot penalize for tobacco use. Insurers can/cannot consider age as a factor in premium.

etc. (the list is long)

THEN, think about what the consequences would be. Put *that* in front of the electorate and see how they swallow YOUR proposal.

E.g., McConnel's constituents "hate obamacare" -- because they don't realize that the plan THEY are on *is* obamacare! (oops! hatcha gonna do, Mitch, when they realize you're taking away

*their* healthcare??) *When* you have a solution to propose, I'll gladly read it -- instead of dismissing it as "...I have no responsibility nor obligation to do that." Yet, you *are* opting "to take other people's rights, health(care), and property"! Unless you don't think people *have* a right to affordable healthcare? That ALL (have you read the personal bankruptcy numbers due to healthcare costs??) of their belongings should be available for confiscation by an overpriced, underperforming medical (not HEALTH) delivery system.

I'm not at all happy with the ACA. Nor the Democrats. But, as the republicans seem to have NO IDEAS of their own, and, as I see the old "system" as being on a death spiral under its own weight, I'll stick with "the only game in town".

What will *probably* happen to "fix" the system will be something like a pandemic -- where 10% of the population comes down with something that requires hospitalization. And, insurers suddenly find themselves inundated with *big* bills from a large portion of their insured customer bases.

And, they'll either declare bankruptcy or require a "bailout". At which time, the gummit -- effectively becoming the "insurer of last resort" (are you going to let all those hospitals *eat* those costs? or, all those patients declare bankruptcy to dodge them??) -- may then be in a position where the electorate decides the gummit *should* be the insurer.

Sunday lunch. Finestkind.

Reply to
Don Y

(Sorry, I neglected to add "over a five year period" -- though, from his comments, I'm not sure if the $4,000 rate was *for* the fifth year or

*after* the fifth year)

We saw a 20% increase, here, this past year... never a claim in our

20+ years, etc.

*All* insurance is expensive. And, insurers go out of their way NOT to incur costs/losses!

It's one thing for a casino to refuse to allow a "winning player" to continue to play -- it's a voluntary relationship between player and house (player can just as readily walk away from a "winning house" as the reverse can happen!). This isn't true of healthcare. If it *was*, I would just say, "I choose to be healthy" and, as such, not *need* health insurance! :>

(Instead, folks implicitly choose NOT to be healthy and then gripe that healthcare as currently practiced costs so much!)

Reply to
Don Y

Yes, several years ago, my homeowners insurance tripled (Fl), I went shopping and found it at double the old policy price. Sense then the rates have come down a little. Mikek PS. The price of oysters did the same thing, tripled and then came down to double what they cost a few years ago.

Reply to
amdx

But, being there, you can at least have *some* appreciation for the likely cause of the increase (e.g., claims -- even if you didn't personally experience a loss).

The problem with things like health care is that *your* personal experience (as a "health care consumer") doesn't (usually) correlate well with the rate/price increases that you see. You have no sense of what claims *others* are making. Nor do you have any idea what is happening to *costs* (for those services) unless you are actually consuming them. (Unlike hurricane losses, you probably don't know how much healthcare your *neighbors* are consuming!)

So, when I think back and realize my "health care consumption" amounted to a flu shot and I see a large increase in my premium, it's only natural to think: "WTF???" (i.e., *who* is using all that service to justify what *I* am paying??)

[My "biggest" recent health issue was chicken pox (yes, you *can* get it more than once -- and, I still have shingles to look forward to!) and the "cost" for that was a single office visit... and four weeks of discomfort! I sure wish whoever passed it on to me had been to *their* MD :-/ ]

Oven timer. Cheescake must be done!

Mikek

Reply to
Don Y

Hey, Don:-

Howzabout sharing your biscotti recipe?

--
Best regards,  
Spehro Pefhany 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Don't you remember that the intent was for the subsidy as it is now to be a temporary thing? I'm pretty sure that has been said all along.

--

Rick
Reply to
rickman

3 XL eggs, room temp (!!!) 2t vanilla extract 2T Amaretto di Saronno 4/3C Sugar

3C Flour (actually, a bit less... experience teaches)

1t baking soda 1/2t salt

1C *sliced* (not slivered) almonds

2T Amaretto di Saronno (again) [I have no experience with other sources of Amaretto; "if it ain't broke..." We use A LOT of Amaretto! :> ]

Preheat oven to 300F ("slow" oven)

Using a large wooden spoon (see later), in a large (3-4qt) mixing bowl (glass or stainless), beat eggs, vanilla & 2T Amaretto. Mix in the sugar.

[Try not to get any more of the bowl "wet" than is necessary]

Mix dry ingredients together in another bowl. Then, SLOWLY add to the wet mixture using the wooden spoon to thoroughly wet them. (they will resist being incorporated into the wet mix, initially -- make sure you don't end up with "clumps")

[As you add the dry ingredients, the mixture will approach the consistency of wet cement! And, the stickiness of bubblegum! You will get a good upper body workout in the process :< ]

You probably don't want to put *all* the dry's in the mix -- this is something I have learned from (LOTS OF) experience. If you add it all, the dough (or is it "batter"?) will be fairly stiff -- hold it's shape -- but will leave you with a heavier cookie (and, one that doesn't fare as well to storage esp in damp climates!).

So, I try to force myself to stop adding dry's even though it looks like the dough needs more. I aim for a dough that *doesn't* hold it's shape -- this is very apparent later when you form the loaves (and discover that it kinda "oozes" instead of holding a nice square shape). Remember, you still have to add the almond slices so that firms it up a bit.

With the eggs I have been using, here (carefully selecting from the eggs in the carton!), I typically leave a couple of T of dry's out of the mix. But, this can make a big difference! With L eggs, you'd have to leave out a lot more!

[Sorry, this is one of those things you just have to learn from experience -- make a batch EVERY two weeks and it becomes second nature! And, your right arm gets to be twice the size of your left!! :-/ ]

Add the almond slices and mix them in thoroughly. You've probably invested about 15 minutes to get to this point (assuming you had all the ingredients ready).

Cover a cookie sheet (11"x17" is just barely large enough) with parchment paper. Arrange for the "curl" of the paper to be downward -- i.e., so it won't end up rolling itself back up onto the loaves! (I don't know any clearer way of saying that... "you'll see")

Make two "loaves" from the dough. Remember, they will grow (spread) so make sure you leave adequate space between them. I end up with loaves that are ABOUT 9"x5" -- but they are only an inch or so *thick*. Aim for a bit skinnier as they will end up "oozing" as you try to form them (and will "grow" once placed in the oven). You don't want them to touch each other! OTOH, if they happen to touch the sides of the cookie sheet (I use a sheet with lips on all four sides), the parchment paper -- cut OVERSIZED -- keeps them from touching the cookie sheet and the "lips" end up just squaring off the edges of the loaves.

+-----------------+ | | | XXXX XXXX | | XXXX XXXX | | XXXX XXXX | | | +-----------------+

As Emmett Brown would say, "Please excuse the crudeness of this model..."

This is a bit of a challenge because the dough is so sticky and there really isn't that *much* of it! Yet, you really want to end up with roughly even sized loaves (partly because there's limited space on the cookie sheet!). Of course, you needn't get it exactly in half "first try" -- I plop ~40% on each end of the cookie sheet and then try to eyeball how much of the remaining to add to each loaf.

[You will probably have to scrape the bowl with the spoon as a fair bit of dough wants to stay behind! Toss the empty bowl in the sink and fill with water -- takes a while to dissolve the residual dough!]

Wet your hands with COLD water and use them to gently form the loaves into as rectangular a shape as you can achieve -- without playing with them too much. The water helps keep the dough from sticking to your hands but it also ends up adding to the moisture in the dough making them even *less* likely to hold their shape.

[Adding ALL of the dry ingredients would have resulted in a stiffer dough which is easier to shape -- but produces less desireable results]

Once the loaves are formed (work quickly so they don't start losing their shape), brush the sides/ends of the loaves with the remaining

2T of Amaretto (you didn't think I was going to *forget* that and let you *drink* it, did you?? :> ). You'll need a pastry brush. You can also help reform the loaves by using a bit of force with the brush. [Sorry, when you *do* it, you'll see how annoying these "blobs" of dough can be!]

Place in oven near center (vertically) -- US ovens typ have 4 settings for the racks: A-D (bottom to top). You want "C" which is slightly above the center, vertically. Carefully pour the remaining Amaretto over the tops of the two loaves so all of the dough has a "glaze".

Bake for 35 minutes. Clean up while waiting. Ready two large wire cooling racks (the loaves will be about 11"x8", each, when they come out of oven).

Remove from oven at 35 minutes (no need to test them. "Trust me".) Promptly remove from the parchment paper and transfer to cooling racks. The edges of the loaves will tend to stick to the paper (because the Amaretto has pooled there and caramelized) so try not to rip the *loaves* in the process (the paper is too tough to rip!). They will be VERY soft and easily torn.

[I approach each loaf from the *outer* side/edge of the cookie sheet. Lifting the side of the parchment paper up to tip the loaf; then holding it with one hand while peeling the paper back *down*. Loaf will be hot so you'll want to be gentle with how you grab it. Then, sliding the cooling rack in under the loaf. The bottom edge of the loaf is still in contact with the parchment paper so must gently be coaxed free and the loaf slid onto the cooling rack. Repeat for other loaf.]

Toss parchment paper. Done with cookie sheet.

Wait 3-4 minutes. Using a serated bread knife, cut the ends off each loaf (personal preference) so you have a "squarer" end on each. Eat the "ends" while still warm and soft :> Typically, the most caramelized amaretto is present on the ends. This makes them extra yummy.

After another 5-10 minutes (ideally, you would wait about 15 minutes but then the loaves get too hard and cutting is more of a challenge), cut each loaf into 1/2" wide slices. Anything thinner will turn out really hard; anything thicker will end up feeling "heavy".

After a total of 15-20 minutes, lay the slices FLAT on a wire cooling rack (I turn mine upside down -- as you;ll see). Then, put the slices (on the cooling racks) back into the 300F oven for 13-14 minutes. This depends on how wet the original dough was; my current approach requires almost exactly 13.5 minutes to get the dryness that I want! You'll end up with about 12-14 slices out of each loaf.

Remove from oven. Let cool. Store in air-tight container for ~2 weeks (assuming you don't eat more than 2 a day). C has a fancy "mason jar" sort of gizmo that she uses -- but, most of the year, it's so dry here that it's not a big issue (e.g., popcorn left on the counter is still edible a day later). Large (e.g., 3 pound) resealable cans of peanuts are another option -- though you have to pay attention to the length of the cookies (final widths of the loaves) as those cans aren't very *deep*!

If you are very attentive, you can preserve the order that the slices were cut from the loaf (!). Then, after FINAL cooling, you can essentially reassemble the loaves (!). This is handy if you want to give them to someone as a gift: take two or three "contiguous slices", wrap them in Saran (cling) wrap, then wrap in tin foil. As the slices were contiguous, they will fit together nicely without leaving lots of hard, *sharp* edges that will make wrapping them problematic.

[This is actually the only "fun" part of the process -- as I invariably forget the "rule" I used when arranging the slices on the rack: "does the *top* of this slice mate with the *bottom* of the next? Or, does the bottom of this mate with thetop of the next, etc." You get clues from the almond slices that are inevitably visible on the surface of the slices: "Ah, this half of this almond slice lines up exactly with this *other* half..."]

The recipient can then unwrap one package (in my case, 2 cookies) and have "one breakfast worth" from that without "exposing" any of the others (they are hygroscopic and as they absorb moisture they loose much of their delightful crunch). If a second person wants to partake, a second package is unwrapped, etc.

Of course, be sure to caution folks to dunk them lest they crack a tooth, cut a gum, etc. in the process!

Be sure to leave ample crumbs on the counter so SWMBO can grumble about your failure to clean up (at which point, you can counter with suggesting *she* make the next batch! :> The wooden spoon is brutal -- sort of like kneading bread dough in terms of the effort required! But, I have been reluctant to try a mixer, etc. as I fear too much dough would be lost in the process. And, the flour potentially "overworked")

The whole process -- including both bakings -- is under two hours so it's not that big of a deal. OTOH, doing it every two weeks makes it *seem* like more! :-/

Verbose, of course. Did you expect otherwise? :> (My actual "recipe" is just a 3"x4" slip of paper with 8 ingredients listed and a time/temperature)

Good luck! You may decide it easier to just BUY them prebaked than mess with all this (OTOH, everyone who's had mine seems to thoroughly enjoy them! Though the *cheesecake* can be traded for sexual favors!! :> )

Reply to
Don Y

which is actually one of the loaf's *sides* ^^^^^^

...

I measured some of the cookies remaining in her "tin":

- about 5/8" thick

- about 7" long (so, the loaves ended up 7" wide)

- at 5/8" thick, 14 would be about 9" long *plus* the two 1/2-1" "ends" that you cut off (so 10-11" long loaf)

OTOH, I think the resealable peanut cans are 6" deep and that's caused problems, in the past. We previously used #10 cans at

7" deep (her current "mason jar" thingie is also 7" deep but the cookies don't always "stand on end" in it)

Bottom line: make the loaves as skinny as you can (4-5") without ending up making them too long to fit in the *width* of the cookie sheet. There's a store, here, that sells dinkly little 3" long biscotti but that almost seems like a toy -- you'd end up eating 4 or 5 in a sitting instead of two!

I've a different type of "biscotti" that *I* like but I haven't yet perfected the Rx -- not hard/crisp like these, etc. But, much *larger* (mass) so the Rx is much larger (and, more to risk while "experimenting" to get it right! :< )

[There's a shop, here, that makes a tiny version. But, uses WAY too much vanilla flavoring. And, having them shipped in from Massachusetts ($10/pound *plus* shipping costs!) is ludicrous! So, I'll have to learn how to do it myself...]
Reply to
Don Y

It actually doesn't avoid that point, so much as illustrate how we serve every other need, better, without total government control--we let people choose what they like.

That makes things better, faster, and cheaper, and government doesn't.

Everything government has, it takes from someone. Government is force, and should only be used where force is necessary. Government is good at killing people, not complicated / innovative / high-tech processes.

Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.