annabelle

patrickamory, try eBay and Craigslist for used Macina-Legume and Foley food mills. They are listed as vintage, depending on the seller and prices vary widely. II bought my Macina-Legume in the Strip District in Pittsburgh, PA about 20 years ago for $24. No way would I pay $100 for a food mill unless it comes with a tiny chef to maintain it. Yard sales can be good too, when relatives move Mom or Grandma into a home and sell all her stuff that no one wants.

I'm doing Pennsylvania Dutch pork and sauerkraut with roasted potatoes and applesauce. I go Southern one year and Dutchy the next. Last year was ham, collards and black-eyed peas with cornbread.

Perhaps not, but I don't like getting seeds in my teeth and I like a smooth sauce. If I am making a chunky sauce, I still blanch off the tomatoes and remove the skins. I do it for salads, too, but my Grandmother was French and that's the way they do it. Concasse of tomatoes are also peeled seeded and chopped. I know because it was one of my kitchen slave jobs back in the day. A foodmill is a must (for me) for hummus. So much easier than trying to rub off the skins by hand.

My mother made Concord grape jelly. Once. I believe that was the first time I heard my mother swear.

Or "Old Wives Tale" since Granny didn't have a mixer.

I have a boatload of terry tea towels that I bought at Sam's Club. They are absorbent, can double as hot pads when folded, are large enough to drape over cooling cake layers (although I usually use flour sack towels for that) and are attractive enough to hang on the oven door. When they get too stained or singed, they become car washing towels.

I love mine (Macina Legume) and use it all the time. It takes a lot of the work out of tomato sauces since the seeds and peels get caught in the hopper, so there is less prep. Likewise for applesauce, hummus, "ricing" potatoes with the coarse disc and even making baby food with the fine disc.

The streets are so much cleaner than NYC and Philly. Your flight back appears to be more generous with the fruit, nuts and cheeses. Thanks! Now I need to make some bagels.

I taught my boys rudimentary knife skills when they were old enough to pay attention and not decide to "swordplay" when I turned my back. My 24 year old is a decent cook and is finally picking up some speed and time management skills. My 17 year old need a refresher course and I hope to help him with that this summer. He is currently working as a fry cook at a burger place, but that isn't exactly challenging. He's better with a mandolin than me and is a whiz at portion control (he's one of those math people) and time management.

I'm glad, David. Happy New Year to you and yours!

At the risk of insulting mothers everywhere, I think the trend toward prepared foods came after years of drudgery in the kitchen and accelerated in the 70s and 80s when women began working full time on a regular basis. Mothers (and some fathers) simply didn't have or wouldn't make time to teach their children to cook. Grandmothers were often hundreds if not thousands of miles away and of little to no influence. Thus, we have at least two generations who never really learned to cook and are more than pleased to find that Marie Callender makes pies and Stouffer's makes frozen lasagna. We here, are of course horrified by this, but it's just the way it is.

Some times you just want Favorite Brand of canned soup. Who wants to cook up a huge pot of (whatever kind of) soup when the cook is the only one who likes it? I agree that homemade is superior, but for one meal canned is sometimes just the ticket.

That's correct pbear. My mother buys stock in cans since she can never make up her mind about what she is going to cook. She also has RA and it makes it difficult for her to lift heavy pots with limited dexterity and strength (she is 80). Since she lives alone and doesn't entertain, canned stock is fine for her needs. I look at it as a step up, and an improvement, from the bouillon cubes she was using before. Baby steps, baby.

What Heidi said. It sounds like your kitchen its too hot or you weren't working quickly enough. Puff pastry needs to be handled quickly, in a cool environment and with cool hands and utensils. I have a slab of granite I keep in the freezer specifically for pastry and chocolate work.

Is this a fresh ham or a cured ham? Ham is awfully salty to start with, if you are talking about a cured ham. A fresh ham, you should be okay.

I'm glad you got it fixed, Edward. There's nothing worse than being without a vital tool.

I buy backs and necks to make stock (I can't recall the price off-hand). Not only do I get tasty chicken stock, but lots of schmaltz since backs are fatty.

Replace it. It's lived out its useful life.

I always make shortbread in the mixer. No way am I creaming butter by hand. My arm would give out first.

Sounds disgusting. No wonder it fell out of favor.

Maybe it was growing up not all that far from Selma ("Raisin Capitol of the World!") that put me off raisins. Seeing them lying out in the sun to dry, I was always leery of bugs. Everything up there in that part of California is the "capitol" of something. Gilroy is garlic capitol of the world and I still like garlic, so go figure.

I don't like raisins either. I'm always afraid it's actually an insect. Though if I'm feeling ambitious and make a Pannetone, I'll add golden raisins. They don't look like flies.

Hear, hear unpopular poet. I have always followed Julia Child's advice about rich foods and that is not to skimp on ingredients (no substitutions in classics) and to only eat a small amount of said item. If you don't have the self-control for that, it is best not to muck around with imitations of the real deal. They are never as satisfying and often have strange, unexpected textures and aftertastes. I've found that persons who must for some reason consume these imitation foods often eat more than they would of the real thing. It could be that the food itself is not satisfying to the taste memory you are trying to capture. The better idea is to switch to fresh fruit desserts and granites and gelatin desserts for sweets. You're on your own with substitutions in main courses.

I hope Santa brings you a new computer, Peirogi, so we can see all your hard work.

Are there many WF stores in NYC, weinoo? I've only been there on vacation and never went in a grocery while there. Shops at the Jersey Shore were high, but they are a vacation economy. So, I would shop at Shop Rite when we stayed for two weeks in Stone Harbor every summer and buy produce from the stands. Jersey corn and tomatoes. Yum.