Cookaholics Bulletin Board

You can also speed things up by adjusting the date code in the URL. Example: normal search gives you: http://www.cooksillustrated.com/ibb/Sea ... &f=0&m=Any

The date code is where you see sd (start date) and ed (end date). If you change the first two numbers of the start date to 55 it will search back to the start of the board.

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/ibb/Sea ... &f=0&m=Any

This speeds up your search a little bit, but you still have to work through the CI search logic (which wasn't always very logical)

Hey, Kurt!

We gonna be seeing you around here more?

DHL might be a better carrier fo the P.I.'s I have better luck with them on most International stuff

http://dct.dhl.com/input.jsp?langId=en

Time is at a premium at the moment, but I do hope to be spending more time here in the near future.

Da Bull Man, thanks for the info, I have (for a second time) buttermilk, cheese, kefir, and other starters coming from the USA. I will advise my shipper to see if they can send DHL as first choice and FedEx as second choice. Last time it was Postal and the local post office let the package sit for two weeks in their office before letting me know it was here. My starters were non-starters at that point. Hopefully this batch will survive the trip since I am paying the higher delivery charge for a private carrier.

I'll have to reuse that!

Would it be possible for you to order from New Zealand? They might be faster, shipping-wise. I got starters from there when I was at the Pole.

BeckyH, thanks for the info. I haven't run into a New Zealand provider of starters but I did try an Australian one once. They were very nice and tried to help get the stuff here in a timely manner. The biggest problem is Customs. Stuff from the USA doesn't take that long, provided you are willing to pay the higher price. I have my starters leaving the USA today (was just woken up by a phone call confirming how I wanted it shipped). DHL said Dec 1st was their target delivery date but for another twenty, FedEx would try to have it here by Saturday. I went with FedEx. All that said, Customs can totally whack things around, holding shipments for a month if they want to. Just depends on who looks at it that day and how they are feeling.

If this shipment fails to arrive in good order, my next try will be the Australian supplier again, but notching up the delivery service as high as I can afford. I am about ready to start saving the shipping fees so I can just take a short vacation there and bring it back by hand. Actually that would be pretty feasible if there was a good supplier in Hong Kong for starters.