Darienne

OK. I'll do a citrus peeler search. I don't peel English cucumbers and I actually have to slice them in half length-wise to cut them in my food processor...but the cellophane won't cut along with whatever knife I use. I have to unwrap them first. Also, I use the entire cucumber at once. In fact, I use three cucumbers to make a salad which Ed loves. We eat at night a variety of long-keeping salads which I make as we run out of each one and we cut fresh the greens each time. But thanks for the information.

That is what I do, @lindag. But I seem to have a lot of trouble with the sliding the paring knife and slicing through... I've tried serrated and non-serrated, etc, etc, but I'm always frustrated. OTOH, my hands are less than working well at this point. I just wondered if someone, like one of those YouTube culinary hackers, had some brilliant method. ...oh, not suggesting you are not brilliant, my dear, ...but there's always someone who spends their time dreaming up these things.

Where I live in Ontario, English cucumbers come wrapped tightly in cellophane and it's such a pain unwrapping them. Nothing dramatic...just a nuisance. I wondered if anyone had some clever hack to get the job done.

Well, there you are. Those who misspent their youth when I was in mine, lo these many years, did not use that expression. They had other ones...

We have a Butter Tart festival in Peterborough. But there you have it. I don't like butter tarts...too sweet. Perhaps I am only a fake Canadian. Ed used to like them...doesn't any more...all that 70% Belgian dark chocolate will corrupt the true Canadian taste buds. Ed's Mother was French Canadian and like her entire family, had none of her original teeth by 40. Ed still has his teeth...well, most of them anyway. What can I tell you? We don't attend the local Butter Tart Festival.

I'm as Canadian as they come, eh? But dulse is the only one that I've heard of and personally I don't like it if I can taste it. But then, I guess I am one of the uneducated Canadians, eh. And I don't like Canadian bacon either.

And so we ask the same questions as were asked last time: were you in pain, drunk or on pills? (but said in affection....) And I expect the same answer...

As always I am grateful to CD and Toliver for keeping us up to date on the recalls. Beggars the imagination almost. But not quite.

Welcome to the forum, Nn,M.D. I've never tried to make ginger jam or jelly, but what I have done is to make other spreads and simply mix in an amount of grated ginger to the finished product.

The question then is: were you in pain, drunk or on pills?

I'm going to get out a copy of this book from our local library. I think it's something I need to read.

As Kim said, it was a wonderful blog and so much fun to see a photo of you and hear your voice. I am so glad that you have made a home in Ecuador and that you are happy there. And yes, I could do without the winters also.

Your freezer could be related to our cellar freezer. As for goopy things...mostly what I have done is weigh said ingredient one time carefully, and then when it is called for, I have simply to tare the container and then weigh the goopy stuff...but the container in which I weigh it can simply be a wide open ceramic bowl. So no more difficult scraping. I hope my tortured explanation is clear...

Went to the website and alas, they are not available now. Glad you got one when they were going. In a similar fashion, I bought for myself and friends a two-tablespoon measuring cup. Think of all the times one needs two tablespoons of this or that in a recipe...or maybe it's just in my life...I don't know. And then I never saw them again.

Would I be incredibly rude and nasty to laugh as my first response? It was a very quiet and short-lived laugh.

It used to be 'don't buy anything to eat made in China'...now it's what? King Arthur flour? What's next?

OK. We really do need a "wow!" button.

I might just have to try these. Smoked paprika with peanut butter is beyond my ken. I looked them up online to see what else I could find out about the combination and David Lebovitz loved them also. I up for them for sure. BD, you don't say how you or the family liked them...

Dear BD, Is there some reason you cannot move the smoke detector? We have a similar problem. The smoke detector outside the kitchen door shrieks if we have a smallest wisp of smoke also. Fortunately I can reach it easily (and do often). When our monthly overnight guests come with their nervous and high-strung little dog, we simply take it down. Last time it went off, the little creature went berserk and stayed shaking for ages. Our dogs couldn't care less. Why don't we move it?

All best...

Oh, kitchen scales which malfunction after about two or three years. I can't count how many we have purchased. No, it's not the batteries...it's the computer mechanism in the works. Ed and I use them constantly...at least three times a day if not more. We do weigh the dogs' food. Yes, they eat raw. We've fed raw for over 23 years now since we restored the health of a dog near death on commercial food. And as for electric stoves...I wish we could get gas...why does our stove have the slow small burner at the left front and the fast small burner at the right back. I have never ever used the slow burner. I could add that we own two chest freezers, the smaller one in the garage for the dog's food, ice cream, and oddments and the larger in the cellar for people food only...chest freezers were not designed for women who are under 5' whatever. I'm probably down to 5'3" or even less now and I have great trouble with the larger of the two freezers in the cellar. Yes, we have a cellar and not a basement in this very old house. However, this I have to tell you all...we bought it in 1975 when many of you were not even a twinkle...and it's still running perfectly. It will probably break down in the next month, thanks to my audacious boldness. A former of Ed's students who worked for years in a now-defunct appliance store told Ed a few years ago...don't expect a stove, fridge, freezer, etc to last more than five years. Hey! I'm running out of crabbiness. And it's not raining today and the sun is out and we don't need jackets and mitts to go outside. Oh, it's raining tomorrow and the next day. But my heart aches for the folks in the Midwest and Southeast.

I know the church key...but trust me, it's not a patch on the Lee Valley one.

Aha! Have one for tight jar lids. It's from Lee Valley (which Americans can get now) and it's wonderful. I've bought them for friends. http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=44271&cat=2,75357,75413&ap=1 Get one. You'll love it.

I am getting old and cranky. No, I am already old and getting crankier. We've had to buy several new kitchen appliances in the last few years and there are things about each of them I loathe and I feel like ranting today. Furthermore, I have severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and am awaiting seeing a surgeon (since February...this is Ontario and I live in an underserviced area) so some stuff is just harder to use. My new microwave has buttons which are too hard for me to push with any ease at all. Even Ed finds them very stiff. Our new toaster oven gives three tiny beeps when it turns off which you can't hear from very far away. (The microwave gives 5 loud beeps in its favor.) The wire shelf kept falling out if I wasn't careful and Ed had to fix it so that it stopped doing that. Otherwise I love it and scarcely use the big oven anymore. However, I've yet to find a regular 9x13 pan which fits into it. Ed curled the edges on a normal 9X13 pan so that it would fit and then I remembered that a friend had given me two stainless lidded steam table pans and they are perfect. The new food processor weighs as much as a big lead weight and has one part on it which will break if you more than breathe on it. (Ed, of course, bought the largest one on the market.) It's the strangest configuration you can imagine. I hate cleaning it. I'll say one thing for it...since the major onset of CPS, I have really learned how to make good use of the adjustable slicer unit and the two sided shredder. The carafe on the coffee maker drips when you are pouring it. It didn't when it was brand new. Then after a while it did. I don't know... There is no such thing as a food chopper which doesn't break after 10 or 20 uses. No point in saying anything about can openers. I ask Ed to open the cans. Our electric one hit the dust years ago. We actually have one from Lee Valley which is very unusual looking but works very well. I'm done for now. My apologies. I promise to read any complaints that anyone else posts.

No information whatsoever. Just thrilled for you, Shelby.