The shade garden. Such as it is, at the moment.

Several years ago my mother gave me a Truffle cookbook (we love them and became addicted while traveling in Italy). The book is beautiful. With that book, she gave me a white truffle, black truffle, truffle butter, truffle oil, truffle honey and a truffle paste. OMGosh! We savored every last morsel of the truffles and every last drop of the oils. I licked the honey jar clean! I took my niece to Italy - ordered her a pasta with truffles on top and told her to trust me - it would be heaven. It was and every meal after that she scoured the menus for anything that had the word "tartufo" in the dish. That was the dish she ordered. You can pick up the book used on Amazon - cheap! M Truffles: Ultimate Luxury, Everyday Pleasure

I've visited this thread several times and it's interesting that it is still fairly active. I'm looking at the Cristadur waterfall 150 in Bronze. Wayfair carried them a few months ago with good prices but when I checked last night, there were no Schock or Houzer sinks listed on their site. I have found a supplier from Germany on eBay, his listings are rather obscure and you have to dig deep to find them. He carries the entire line including vintage models and colors; GREAT prices with a flat $145 shipping. I currently have a Swanstone in black that drove me crazy when it was new with water marks and looking dry, until I wiped it down with coconut oil a couple of years ago and I've not touched it again. It now wipes down and is cleaned continually from just washing dishes and looks brand new. I'm looking at Schock over Blanco for my remodel in a different house due to the unique look of the waterfall, but I'm worried that it might suffer from being less than utilitarian. They have a matching 15" prep sink which I plan to install as well. Anyone have any real experience with the waterfall design or Schock for that matter?

The water is pretty dumb where I live and can't find it's way to the drain unless it runs downhill. Probably 99% of the sinks these days are installed in dead flat counter tops, and spills easily drip to the floor. With top mounts, splashes have to jump over the rim to get into the sink. Even with bottom mounts (in addition to their other problems) splashes are just as likely to find their way to the floor as into the sink. My favorite sink was in my first house: a cast iron monster with 2 drainboards and a foot-high backsplash. No seams to gather wet gunk. My second sink was stainless, totally seamless with the counter top and backsplash -- a custom job by the former owner. In my current house, I've had to make do with a stainless sink that has only one drainboard. But I want something better. I love the Clarion Farmhouse Drainboard Sink. It's like my first one, but too overpowering for my current kitchen. Ditto the many styles of commercial sinks. Then I found the Elkay Lustertone Series. It has 2 drainboards and I can fit a dishwasher under one of them. It has a modified raised lip. It has an integrated backsplash -- though I wish it were a little higher so that I could install a wall faucet through it. And it can replace an entire 6 feet of countertop surface, thereby mitigating its cost. The kitchen is still in the planning phase, but I know which sink I'll be buying. Take a look at it before deciding on Silgranite or the more common stainless sinks. Here is a link that might be useful: Elkay double drainboard sink