http://allrecipes.com/recipe/old-fashioned-onion-rings/detail.aspx This is the one. :drool5: They're winners, every time! I think that the method matters too, so follow the directions to the letter. When it says to dip in flour & then set aside, make sure to set them aside, 'cause I think maybe that makes a difference. My dd and I had an "onion ring throwdown", and though the recipe she picked was good, this was better.

Yes, I've been thinking about that. I know that I can't do both. I will be very, very blessed if I can carry off even one of these two huge ideas. I've been trying to weight the pros & cons of each, but honestly, I've never ever had to make a big decision on my own, and I'm finding that my thoughts lack the clarity that I've been accustomed to via my husband for the past 25 years. We always bounced ideas off of each other, kwim? Anyway, here's what I've been thinking. House/rental property: Pros: It's beautiful, and the kind of home (vintage) that I've always dreamed of owning If I have to rent a place to live it will cost me at least $550 per month, and would be very hard to find. If I put that money into the pot with what the rentals bring in, it will more than cover the mortgage, property taxes, and would leave me with a little extra to save up for repairs/maintenance. If I can get the current tenants out, I'm pretty confident that I will be able to find some really good tenants. Apartments here are scarce, and because it's a small town, I will almost certainly know prospective renters (or at least their reputation). I will need to clean like crazy, and will need to paint interior rooms, but the apartments are amazingly functional as they are. It's a nice neighborhood, close to my current job and a prospective new job I've been offered. It's a place where I could see my dds living fairly happily; close to the library, close to dds work, etc. It's unlikely to an extreme degree, but might miraculously be possible to obtain a zoning variance, and use the first floor for my bakery/cafe, use one of the upstairs units to live in, and keep good tenants in the other two units. That would provide $850 towards the mortgage every month, and would help cover the location of the business until it was profitable. Cons: I will need to paint the exterior soon-ish. There's five thousand things that could be wrong with the house. It would change & complicate the idea of a bakery/cafe, but then again, I have been offered a full time job organizing & running a thriving catering business, and that wouldn't be a bad job. It will be both more expensive and more time-consuming than I'm expecting. I know this as certainly as I live and breathe. I would need to try and get the existing tenants out, and that could be a big problem. Even great tenants will need to be dealt with, and do I really want to be a landlord? It's a huge financial risk in terms of unexpected expenses. {sigh} Can I just give up on thinking big thoughts now? I'm trying to plan for eventualities, but honestly, I don't *know* what's going to happen in the next few months with regard to the business and my marriage/separation. I find myself trying to plan for a very different life, but the current life hasn't reached it's conclusion yet.

Well, I did mention it in my original post, but I buried it amongst the other 50 details that I included in my very long explanation. :tongue_smilie:

I tried to look for comparable properties, but there just really isn't anything similar anywhere in town. The fact that it's an income-producing property makes it entirely different than the much smaller homes in the area. I couldn't find much to compare it to.

Not sure about the bank/commercial property issue. The zoning is residential. My mom would be the buyer, and then would sell it to me when I was ready, probably a year or so from now after some major life changes are settled. The scraping together of the down payment would be something I would want to do eventually, but not something which my mom would need me to do. That is the money I would have for the beginning to cover unexpected expenses/repairs. I would be adding roughly $500 to that pot of money each month to cover repairs and/or save up for more expensive things like exterior paint, etc. I will check on all of those things though. Thanks for mentioning them!

Yep. Still for sale, because the asking price was ridiculous and the current owner received the house in an inheritance, lives in another state, and wasn't in any hurry to sell. The price has now been reduced from $250,000 to $175,000.

Yup. I'm very worried about all of that. At the same time, I will probably need somewhere to live, and rental units are hard to come by in town here. I just know it's gonna be a money pit. I heard that it had tentative approval as a bed & breakfast at one time, and I definitely have the skills necessary to operate one, but Orland, CA isn't exactly a hot tourist destination either.

Yes, I'd considered that, and also the impending bankruptcy of our farm. My mom is willing and able to buy the house and I would then buy it from her after all is said & done with marriage and business uncertainties.

I would take the 2 bedroom apartment that also has a really large living room and interior access to the cellar storage area. The apartment itself is roughly 900 square feet, I think. Sadly, my boys will not be moving with me, so only my girls. They are used to sharing a room, and I would give them the larger bedroom to share, and take the smaller one for myself. That, plus a large sleeper sofa in the living room, should be fine with regard to kids/guests, I think.

Leave for good. Four out of the five tenants pay regularly, and one is a slow pay. The problem is that pretty much all of the apartments are *stacked* with trash & garbage. There were even discarded items in the halls. I expected, looked for, but did not find, any evidence of rodent or insect infestation. Still, I don't think I'd be able to keep tenants who were used to hoarding garbage. There is also currently a shortage of rental properties in our area, and it would not be difficult to find more desirable tenants.

I know it's not probably practical. I know it's likely to be a money pit. I know I'm nuts to even be considering it. STILL... I want this house: http://www.zillow.co...124153453_zpid/ The description isn't really accurate. I think the house is probably older than what the records show. It's currently divided into 5 apartments. All of them have been continuously rented with no vacancies for as long as I can remember. Two of the apartments rent for $450 per month, a third is $475 per month, and the other two are $350 per month. They each have metered electricity. The owner inherited the house a couple of years ago, but lives out of state and hasn't been very realistic about the asking price (as listed). The real estate agent contacted me this week to let me know that the owner is looking for a sale now, and will take $175,000. According to my calculations, the monthly payment would be around $630 per month if I put down 20% (which I could probably scrape up from a variety of sources), with another appx. $250 that would need to be set aside to cover property taxes, etc., so...$900 out per month. I would need to probably pay for water & trash also. I'm facing the fact that I will probably need a place to live, and even if I used one of the units myself, I would, in theory, still be bringing in appx. $1,250 monthly from the remaining four rental units, probably more once they were fixed up. I would take the amount I'd be paying in rent if I were living somewhere else, probably a minimum of $550 per month, and use it for maintenance/repair. The house still has much of the original mahogany woodwork, has a cellar with usable storage space and access from outside and from inside one of the apartments. There's a lot of parking, and there is both the inside main staircase, and outside staircase access to all 3 of the upstairs units. There's a LOT of cleaning, painting, and shoveling out of trash that would need to happen, and because of the state of the apartments, I'd need to ask many or all of the current tenants to leave, one by one, so that I could clean out & repaint, & fix up the apartments one at a time. I think it wouldn't be difficult to find better tenants once the units were finished. There is another apartment building in our town that is always full of young marrieds from local churches, and I think I could get tenants of that type, probably mostly people I already know personally. The town is small, and though the house is much larger than others in the neighborhood, it's a nice neighborhood with smaller houses built in the same era. It's two blocks from the library, it's three blocks from the grocery store, and it's on a nice-sized corner lot. The roof looks good. Some of the panes in the windows have been replaced, but the original leaded window panels appear to be intact. The plumbing was put in around 1960 when the apartments were put in, but appears to be functional. I'm not sure about the wiring. It might be a problem, and I know the siding is what was popular in our area during a particular era--asbestos. We've lived in a house with asbestos siding before, and it was just fine as long as it's in reasonably good shape and kept painted. This house would need painting sometime soon, but there doesn't appear to be flaking paint anywhere, just fading. When I was walking through the house, I didn't see outward signs of structural problems. Floors were pretty much level and stable, I didn't see any cracking plaster that would indicate a settling/uneven foundation, and I didn't see much that would imply current water damage. Eaves are straight & level, porches are stable & level. How would I go about getting someone to go through the house and tell me just how bad it is? An inspector? A structural engineer? It's a big house, with a lot of possible (probable!) huge problems. If it's totally insane, tell me kindly, ok? I think it probably is insane, and I'm not sure if I'm thinking anything like clearly. {sigh}

My mom did baby food in oatmeal, but we also liked baby food with plain yogurt.

I make a great flourless chocolate cake already, but I'm not sure if any of the ingredients would be problematic. Would the chocolate be a problem? Here are the ingredients: Semi-sweet chocolate unsalted butter vanilla extract Kahlua (just a tiny touch) eggs

Wow, I really like this one. :thumbup1: Still looking at all of the other suggestions & printing out helpful menu info, decor ideas, etc. Thanks all!

I'm working on a business plan. what I have in mind is sort of an upscale (for my small rural town, lol!) cafe/bakery. Light breakfast and lunch menu, with baked goods in a beautiful pastry case. Not cutesy, and more sophisticated in decor and feel than the usual hole-in-the-wall breakfast joint. Is there a restaurant like this near you? Do you like it? If you're comfortable telling me the name of the restaurant, I'd love to look it up online.

The frosted flakes? Well, it's probably just an aberration. I don't think most people would do it, but it seems to be a local culture type of thing? -And if you haven't tried oatmeal with brown sugar, crumbled bacon, and maple syrup, well...I pity you. :svengo: :D

Do they have a website?

Really? Which ones? :p

I'm working on a business plan. what I have in mind is sort of an upscale (for a small rural town, lol!) cafe/bakery. Light breakfast and lunch menu, with baked goods in a beautiful pastry case. No joke, many times over the years, people have told me I make incredible oatmeal. :rolleyes: I'm always surprised when there's any sort of breakfast potluck and I bring oatmeal, how many people will choose that over other lovely (and more elaborate) breakfast dishes. I'd like to have oatmeal on the menu, with every topping I can think of as a possible "mix In", a la Coldstone Creamery/Marble Slab Creamery. I'm just thinking it through... I may never actually carry out the plan, but then again, maybe I will. ;) I will probably have a lot of questions to ask here, and I will be looking for lots of ideas and opinions, so thanks for the input.

Yup! Would have to be seasonal though.

In no particular order: brown sugar peanut butter mini chocolate chips toasted nuts jelly or jam apples blueberries raisins craisins dried apricots/plums agave cinnamon maple syrup caramel chocolate sauce apple juice white chocolate chips Splenda white/brown stevia bacon bits coconut pineapple milk cream mini M&Ms Frosted Flakes granola bananas banana chips cream cheese frosting crushed Oreos crushed shortbread cookies lemon/orange wedges toffee chips coconut milk almond milk honey marshmallows sprinkles pumpkin/ginger puree What else? :bigear:

I'd like to offer a paleo-friendly dessert to my customers, I just don't know exactly what would work well as an upscale restaurant dessert for them. The chocolate layer cake has possibilities...

In general, what's the idea with paleo, and are desserts ever included in that way of eating?

I have a Magimix--the large one with 3 different sizes of bowls. In my professional opinion, as someone who uses their food processor on a near-commercial basis, it's not worth it. I'd try absolutely everything to find the broken part. It really is true that they don't make 'em like they used to, and I've not had any newer appliances that lasted longer than the older models. I've had good luck finding obscure parts/pieces from here: http://www.thegourmetdepotco.com/ If you don't see what you need, give them a call and ask. I'd also be trolling on ebay for another food processor like the one you have, and I'd buy it for the parts. To be perfectly honest, I've been through several food processors, and found that price does not at all seem to indicate excellence. For quite some time I used this food processor: http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-70610-500-Watt-Processor/dp/B000SAOF5S/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1359038976&sr=8-4&keywords=Hamilton+Beach+big+mouth+processor In many ways I liked it better than the Magimix for really basic processing needs. Go figure. :rolleyes:

I'm very sorry.