At 10:19 am 11/14/2004, Totton Heffelfinger wrote:
Last night for dinner I oven roasted a 3.95 lbs chicken in our *clay baker*.(I put one whole onion in the cavity of the bird, placed the bird on a bed of sliced mushrooms, seasoned the chicken well with salt, pepper, dried thyme,
savory,
covered with the lid and...but.... I digress.)
Using my trusty kitchen model soroban and Kojima's method for solving problems of
multiplication, I calculated 3.95 lbs @ 25 minutes a
pound (unstuffed bird) = 98.75 minutes on rods CDEF.
(u= unit rod)
u_____u_____u____ A B C D E F G H I 9 8.7 5
Then I subtracted 60 minutes from 98.75 as many times as I could to end up
with hours and minutes. This left me with 1 hour on rod A and 38.75 minutes
on CDEF.
(This is normally as far as I go with my soroban calculations. From here I usually
look at the clock on
the wall and calculate forward and make a note of the time
dinner
will be
ready.
Yesterday for the first time I went these extra steps.)
u_____u_____u____ A B C D E F G H I 1 3 8.7 5
I pre-heated the oven to 400F. and at 5.40pm I was ready to put the chicken in the oven. Once again, with my trusty kitchen soroban in hand, I rounded up 38.75 minutes to 39 minutes on rods CD and placed the time (5:40pm) on rods GHI.
u_____u_____u____ A B C D E F G H I 1 3 9 5:4 0
Then I added 1 hour (from rod A) and 39 minutes (from rods CD) to 5:40 = 6.79 on rods GHI
u_____u_____u____
A B C D E F G H I
6:7 9
Since one hour has 60 minutes, I subtracted 60 minutes from 79 on HI and added one more hour to rod G leaving 7.19 on rods GHI. With this last calculation I knew that at 7:19pm the chicken would be ready.
u_____u_____u____
A B C D E F G H I
7:1 9
At 7:19pm I took the *clay baker* out of the oven and removed the lid. Perfect! The chicken had a golden crispy skin and was beautifully done.
I carefully put away my trusty kitchen model soroban for another time.
- Totton
Toronto, On
P.S. Along with the cooked mushrooms there was about one cup of golden
liquid left in the bottom of the *clay baker*. We poured it into a sauce
bowl,
skimmed off any fat and served that with the chicken and mushrooms on
steamed rice. Steamed broccoli on the side.
P.P.S. Hey? Where's this group headed anyway? <:)
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At 11:18 AM 11/14/2004, Gary Flom wrote:
"Tottons' Guide To Fine Dining By Abacus"
Release Date : 3.5*2 April, 5*(4*[5*4*5]+1) .
Bead Publishing Co.
This will "complement" all your cooking needs.
Don't miss this outstanding
"addition".
:) Gary
Atlanta, Ga
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At 12:19 AM 11/16/2004, Torsten Reincke wrote:
Hi Gary,
Thanks so much for this valuable hint, Gary! I went to
Amazon.com and searched for this book and ... hey ...
it is
already listed! Why didn't Totton tell us???
Unfortunately my computer broke down after this, so I don't
have the link any longer and was too lazy to look
it up again.
But I saved a screenshot of the front cover of Totton's book.
Have a look here :
===> Click here for a link to 'Fine Dining' <===
Quite cool! I will try to order it as soon as I get the time.
Please Totton: will there be an enhanced edition with more
meals some day???
Torsten :-)
Kiel, Germany