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Viva, who made my MeeMaw's pork cake, first making pork mincemeat and letting it age a week, said she is going to try some of the mincemeat in dressing. She has given me the idea to make up a batch and see how it combines with my chestnut and apple dressing. I have in the past added cracklings to the dressing. I love cracklings!!!

Here is the Froth 'n Sauce in action. 3/4 cup whole milk - I don't use low fat. Pushed button, everything automatic till it stops. Finished, a liter of foam from 3/4 cup milk. And it has good form, holds its shape well. All in all, I am very pleased with it. I did get mine at another vendor at a somewhat lower price. I will try to find the invoice, however it may have been a special offer from a vendor I use often.

I have the Froth 'N Sauce shown here. It is so simple the kids can use it with no problems. I use it also for making some sauces as there is no chance of them burning with this - It has different beaters for different applications. For instance I make a hot spiced and sweetened cream "sauce" for pouring over bread pudding, baked apples and etc. Foolproof. The one with the "Sauce" designation has a heater in it. I love it and so do my guests. The kids are wild about it.

Here is the same message from the University of Illlinois. I also called Amelia Stevenson, owner of The Punkin Patch in Wheeler Springs. She says that only the pumpkins that have the "Jumbo" designation before the name are unsuitable for cooking because the flesh is very woody. These are the monsters that can easily get to 200 pounds and many go way over that with careful selection of a single fruit on a vine and augmented feeding. Amelia sells over 80 tons of pumpkins each year, to jobbers or wholesalers, retailers in the area and from 5 area stands she and her family maintain each year plus the festival at the home farm. Next year they plan to add a corn maze to the home farm in Oxnard for the festival which will be during the last week of October. P.S. Amelia says she has baked so many pumpkin pies over the years that she can make one in her sleep. The smallest one was a 3/4 inch pie and the largest was made in a 24 inch cast iron skillet.

I am not much of an espresso drinker. My hot beverage of choice is tea. However, I do entertain a fair amount and almost all my friends are avid espresso fanciers. Some even fall into the "fanatic" class of being. Over the years I have had various machines including a Gaggia purchased somewhere in the early 80s that hung on bravely until 1994 - it died on 1/17/94 when the cart on which it was resting fell over at 4:31 a.m. (Northridge earthquake). I had to rely on the advice of others as I really have not bothered to learn much about the operation of the machines. I worked my way through several smaller machines which seemed to serve the purpose but I really can't comment on the quality of the product produced. Last March, after being without a machine since the previous Thanksgiving (gave the old one to the son of a friend who is attending college at Cal Poly and "needed" one) I, on the advice of my espresso-loving friends, bought this one. It has a much larger capacity water resevoir than a similar one for the same price, and it is supposedly fool proof. Meaning I can work it without having to read a book or practice tamping. Beans and water in one end, espresso out the other. There was a more expensive one that had a fancier frother, however I already have a bang-up frothing/heating gadget that makes a large pitcher of hot, frothy milk so I didn't think I needed to spend the additional 400.00. The machine has been used quite often when guests are here. My housekeeper loves it and has no problems operating it and says clean up is very easy (however she is a demon at cleaning so consider the source.) My friends love it and it gets a lot of "action" when I entertain. I bought a coffee roaster to go with it and they bring their own green beans when they come to play. I don't use it for myself. I have a Senseo that was given to me a few months back and it is small enough that it fits right here on my desk and I can have an instant cup of a beverage that is fine for me. I don't have the discerning taste of a true espresso aficinado so the niceties of the brew produced by the Jura would be wasted on me. Now if someone came up with another tea brewing machine, similar to the TeaMate which I love and which for some reason was discontinued in this country, I would certainly buy that in a heartbeat.

There are some "all purpose" pumpkins and a lot are grown around here. We have a very long growing season and with irrigation, they do quite well. To get larger fruit the farmers pick off some of the budding flowers with the fruit bulb at the base and sell them at roadside stands, but leave the male flowers (or sometimes pick and sell them too.) You can always cut off a 6 inch x 6 inch chunk of the pumpkin, scrape off the seeds and wrap it in the microwavable plastic wrap, (at least two layers) punch a couple of holes in it, and nuke it at 60% power for 5 minutes. Test it with a fork right through the plastic wrap. If the fork penetrates easily its done, otherwise give it 2 or 3 more minutes and test again. Remove it from the microwave (carefully) and let it cool until you can handle it comfortably. Then scoop up some of it and taste it and see how the texture is. Even if it is a bit stringy, I can guarantee that after it goes through a food mill or a food processor you won't notice the strings. There are only a few varieties that have been bred strictly for growing very large and most of the commercial growers do not bother with them, the common pumpkins are the ones that go to the packers to be canned.

Another great topic Melissa!! Right down my alley as I consider eating utensils much the same as gadgets and collect the same. I do tend to drive my friends up the wall, when watching a period film, where something appears that is an anachronism. Perhaps it isn't all that important but I think that the people who do the research for a film setting should know when some implement or utensil doesn't belong, particulary when a bit of "business" peformed by the actor involves the item. Studying how utensils developed is so interesting, and in particular, with the Victorians, who had a particular utensil for every purpose imagniable. Growing up in a household dominated by real Victorians, I saw this first hand. My great grandmother would no more sit down at the dining table without her fish slice in her array of flatware, than she would come downstairs without her corset. Quite a bit of my silver was inherited, including some pieces that had already been passed down several genrations before I got them. I have several pieces of Bateman silver, 2 by Hester, 1 by Peter and 4 later pieces by Peter, Ann and William. My family often mixed and matched silver services when there were a large number of people for meals. They didn't think of putting the "good stuff" away and only taking it out for special occasions. It was used every day and there was of course some rotation of the various services. I learned early on that silver tarnishes more readily if it is not used and washed and handled every day.

Here is a photo of a good part of my "collection" of measuring tools that I can lay hands on without digging through drawers and cabinets. These were all hanging up. Some are missing because they have taken up permanent residence in various canisters and containers of ingredients. Many liquid measures and a few of the dry ones are already in the tubs and on the trays with already measured dry ingredients for cookies and other holiday recipes as they will be needed for measuring liquid and perishable things. . I use the 2 quart Pyrex measures in the background for microwave cooking quite often which is why I have several.

I have them in every size from the mini 2oz to the 1 quart.

I stopped in at Linens 'N Things on my way home this afternoon to pick up some more cooling racks and took a look at the crockpots and slow cookers. That Rival one looks like a good deal at 39.99. Unfortunately they also have a new one by Cuisinart and I had to buy one. I don't have it yet because they didn't have one in a sealed box on the floor and I didn't want to stick around until they could find a guy to get one down from a high shelf in the stockroom. It is just gorgeous and it has a timer, something I can really use. See it here. I have a timer into which I plug my other slow cookers but having this one with it built in is a big plus. I had one of the programmable ones but it never worked quite the way I wanted so I gave it away. This one is much simpler to operate.

Fantastic floor, Dave. A truly bold statement indeed. Worth all the trials and tribulations. You do super neat work.

I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me - - - as having no will power at all when I pass the aisle where such things lurk.

It just occurred to me that I hadn't shown the Staples sorter when I posted the earlier photos. Here is the sorter next to a ruler so you can see the size. and here it is loaded with 5 cast iron pans of varying shapes and sizes.

I get all kinds of catalogs and earlier today was thumbing through the one from this company and came across these tool racks. I think they will make good pot racks or in particular, skillet racks and so have ordered two, one single, one double. I will report on how well they work. I think for someone with very tight space (or no ceiling from which to hang a pot rack) these should work very nicely. I have a spot in mind to put one up so it will be handy to the place I use the induction cooker.

Good news, the cheap sorter racks from Staples hold the cast iron corn stick pans just fine. I made some changes and switches some of my pans from one area to another so they are now on one of the shelving units and I used heavy guage, plastic coated wire to make dividers this allows for odd shaped, odd sized pans and cooling racks, pizza pans and even an odd-shaped Bundt pan. I have a bunch of snap hooks (from my dog-showing days) and put one on each end of the wire so I can move them when needed. It works great. close up so you can see how they are made. Using the heavy guage wire, which will support a lot of weight, means you really only have to make one turn around whatever you are attaching it to. It takes a lot to straighten it out.

Oh, that first one is me all right, except it was a sheet full of cookies. Not only did I burn myself twice, but cookes went flying all over the kitchen. The tongs, now, that's a new one. Thanks for a great picture! ← Have you seen the new thing made of Nomex that you snap over the leading edge of the upper oven rack. A great idea. I have the long cuff Nomex gloves from England, (much better than the 'Ove' glove. My oven is very deep and sometimes I have to reach far inside to turn a pan that is on a sheet pan and have bumped the back of my wrist against the rails on the sides of the oven. I was Ms. Stripey for a few days until I got the gauntlets.

The posts about salt really strike a note with me. I bake a loaf of seeded and nut filled bread with a mix of seeds and crystal salt on the crust. It's beautiful and tastes wonderful. One of the women in the office won't even try it because there is "too much" salt in it. However she will sit at her desk after heating a mug of water in the microwave and dissolve a boullion cube and drink that. About 100 times the salt that is in and on my bread. I do have a few serious food allergies but I can usually work around them. One hostess mentioned the day before a dinner that she was preparing shrimp scampi. I told her that I was allergic to shrimp but not to fix anything special for me. I know how she cooks and there is always loads of other food besides the main course. I mentioned that if she was making the potatos Anna that is one of her usual creations, I could make a meal off that any time. The dinner was fine, the other guests enjoyed their shrimp and I enjoyed the rest of the food. In fact we discussed food allergies and learned one guest was allergic to peanuts and another to lamb. Then our hostess mentioned that she had had a rash after handling the shrimp when cleaning them. I told her to get checked by an allergist because that is the way my allergy began, I only had the more serious symptoms long after I began getting the rash, especially between my fingers. Itchy and painful.

I generally check first at BizRate as they often show deals that are better than Amazon, not always, but sometimes. The 6 quart for 39.95 at Linens 'N Things is a lot of bang for the buck.

You certainly did a beautiful job with it. It looks perfect.

With just a cursory search I can't find the lavender shortbread recipe. However there are a number of excellent ideas for using lavender in various things on this site. \ Including lavender cookies and lavender lemonade.

Why not make lavendar shortbread? If you use the new Splenda/sugar baking combo, it has half the sugar and it works well in shortbread. I have the recipe somewhere on this computer, hopefully by title, because I have 3 huge hard drives and only one is fully indexed. If you are interested I can dig it out and post it. P.S. It keeps very well....

By the way, Viva, I am so pleased that you like the cake. As soon as I get caught up with my current tasks, I am going to fix some of the mincemeat also.

Regarding the "very stiff batter" in the pork cake. I think Meemaw used her hands to mix it. She did have strong arms. Even though by the time I knew her, they had had a washing machine for several years, the bedding always was washed or boiled, in a big tub in the back yard and Meemaw would work that tub full of sheets with a long handled paddle. She wasn't a very big woman but tough. She would go out to the woodshed and split wood for the wood stove if the "boys" weren't moving fast enough for her. I either use my hands (gloves, of course) or use the Danish whisk I got from King Arthur Flour a few years back. It is perfect for cutting through stiff dough. I always wear gloves because invariably, as soon as I get my hands in a mess of something, the phone will ring. This way I just strip off a glove and answer. Clean hand = clean phone.

Helen, It is post #8 in this thread. I can post it on the fruitcake thread if necessary. However I believe Viva has already cross linked it.

That's a great question. Mr. McGee, I too am interested in the answer. I grow a great many herbs and have been drying them as well as fruits and vegetables for years. I know the basics about the herbs, some are stronger when dried because of the oils. However I do not understand how that applies to other foods that do not contain the essential oils common to herbs. I know the effect by observation but would like to know the cause.