On 17/06/2014 11:34 AM, bluechick wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 12:06:43 +1000, Fran Farmer


I've become reasonably good at understanding USian but some of your
terms still evade me. I've recently discovered what Graham flour is but
every time I read that a recipe requires 'a stick of butter' I have to
go off and find out what that mean in terms of the weight of the butter.
Numbers and I aren't naturally good friends......

I completely agree with "a stick of butter" being confusing. I know
what it is but many outside of the US don't. Besides, I've started
using European butters more and more often lately and a "stick" isn't
interchangeable in quantity. It's more accurate to say "1/2 cup" or
"4 ounces" and avoid confusion.

Yep. I have a huge leather bound book which I've been using to record
my recipes since soon after metric measures were introduced in this
country. A lot of my recipes came from my Mum and of course she cooked
exclusively with Imperial measures.

In the early days I used scales that did either Imperial or Metric so if
I needed 4 ounces then the scales told me that. Over time and the
replacement of equipment, I've had to go through and update all of the
measures with metric.

Sometimes, even now, I will locate a recipe that includes only Imperial
measures so I know it's been a very, very long time since I've cooked
that recipe.