Regina Lubbers writes:

>My mom gave me a Miracle Thaw some time ago. She bought it at Wallgreens
>in Florida.  It comes in very handy, but I never defrosted anything in
>15 minutes.  45 minutes is more like it for a thick hamburger or steak.
>I heard  a cast iron skillet is suppose to do the same thing (never
>tried it though).

Ah, someone with actual experience with the very item itself. And the truth
comes out: 45 minutes; someone else mentions that the space-age alloy is
nothing but aluminum; and you gotta heat the aluminum with hot water first
to jump-start the thaw. Figures! :-P

Still, 45 minutes ain't bad compared to, we'll say, 8 hours or so
otherwise. Somebody else mentioned just using a microwave. I have not tried
the microwave yet for red meat, but I have for fish, with poor results.
(Not that I'm a microwave maestro, or anything, though, baked potatoes
being the height of my culinary repetoire with the 'wave. :-) ) For a
former anti-cooker like me, the best I have been able to do is that the
edges of the fish fillet actually begin to start cooking a bit before the
center ever gets thawed out, and I have ruined more than one piece of fish
trying to thaw it in the 'wave. Not to mention the fish has tasted pretty
awful after one of my 'wave-thaw jobs. I 'spose that's why the miracle-thaw
seems attractive--hard to go wrong. Also I like the idea it's a
non-power-using, buy-once/use-forever, nothing-to-go-wrong-with-it type of
item.

Well, I'll hunt down the local Walgreens sometime in the next week or so,
and report back if I find one. Thanks everyone. Now if it will just double
as a chopping board in my cramped apartment kitchen space, we'll be in
biz'nizz. :-)

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]>