Tropicalsenior

And the only decent canola oil that I can buy here only comes in a gallon jug.

Good idea, thank you. That I can get down here. I gave up on masking tape as too hard to get off.

I used to use them for homemade dressings and sauces but stopped it for the simple reason that sometimes I couldn't remember what was in them. Has anybody ever devised a good method of labeling them? If so I'd like to hear it because they are handy for this.

This topic is mean, nasty, and one of the most hilarious things that I have read in years. It deserves to be revived. My experience was a 10-year-long nightmare of meals at my ex-mother-in-law's. In other threads I have written about some of her most notorious failures, liver that you could sole your shoes with and pie dough that could double as eternal road paving but for the others, I could write a book. One gruesome creation was her refrigerator soup. Once a week she would take all the leftovers in the refrigerator, put them in a huge pot and pour water on them. She then proceeded to cook it for about an hour or two and serve it as soup. Fortunately, the leftovers were served to the dogs. They always had a pack of half starved mongrels that would eat anything. She did a lot of baking and for that she saved bacon grease in 3 lb coffee cans and stored it on top of her kitchen cabinets. Everything was made with rancid bacon grease. Pie dough, cookies, cakes, you name it. In fact, the whole house smelled of rancid bacon grease. One Thanksgiving, I gave birth, prematurely, to my youngest daughter and when I was rushed to the hospital early that morning I left the refrigerator full of turkey and all the trimmings ready to be cooked that day. She showed up at our house before I got home and decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner before I got there. She shoved the turkey into the oven, as is, and made her refrigerator soup from the sides that I had ready. The only way to describe that poor bird was unseasoned turkey jerky. And of course, you guessed it. The neck was still in the cavity and the giblets were still in their paper bag in the neck cavity. And the whole time she complained to me that the least that I could have done was to have put the turkey in the oven before I went to the hospital so that her son could have had Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving. To this day, I have a cast iron stomach. And I think it was all from the training that I got at her table.

I think if I were to buy any squeeze bottle with a lid I would check out these. They even have a really neat video with instructions on how to use them!

I have one pretty good sized squeeze bottle that I keep in the door of the refrigerator with mayonnaise in it. It is so handy. When I want to make a sandwich I pull it out, squeeze mayonnaise on the bread and put it back. No messy jar and no messy knife. My canola oil I keep in a decorative wine bottle with a bar type pour spout. And just now watching a video of Jacques Pepin, I noticed that he has exactly the same thing. I always keep my other oils in their original containers in a dark cabinet. I've had squeeze bottles with the attached lids like the one shown in the ad and my experience has always been that the bottles outlasted the little tab that attaches the cover. When that happened I usually resorted to using the top from a cheap Bic pen.

What on Earth did you ever do to that poor person to make them hate you so?

My Chopper that I loved was more like that except that it was all plastic.

No, it is definitely a ricer. My mother was a sucker for little gadgets. The Watkins Spiceman always seem to have a few when he came around and she couldn't resist them. The most ridiculous one that I remember was one that screwed into carrots and cut them into things that looked like Shirley Temple's curls. My dad teased her unmercively when she tried to serve him those.

I probably should have clarified more. I had one of those that I absolutely loved. The blade rotated as it punched down. The clear plastic base finally cracked and I held it together with packing tape until I felt that it was no longer very sanitary. I since tried to replace it and the first one had a hesitation glitch so that by the time it hit the nuts it barely caressed them. The second one does not have a rotating blade so that you have to shake it between punches to get it to find the nuts. They are both poorly designed garbage so they are going out with the rest of the garbage.

Now that is a recipe that I would love to have. Please?

I was sure I had an extra one of those in the pantry. Where did it go?

Call me nosy if you like, but one of my favorite things to do is to see what topics other people are reading, especially our online guests. It takes me down some very interesting rabbit holes. Some of them are very old rabbit holes. Occasionally I find one that I think should definitely be revived. This is one of them. Recently, our discussion of Wooden Spoons prompted me to clear out the ones that I never use. This one has sent me back into my drawers and cabinets and I can't believe the useless junk that I have found. Some things I have gotten as gifts, but most of the junk, I am guilty of buying myself. A tiny ricer, can't even put a quarter of a potato in it, probably used once. Two plunger type choppers that only work for chopping nuts. A donut cutter, probably only used once because it cuts the dough just fine but it wouldn't come back out of the cutter. And I probably haven't made donuts in 20 years. I'm just getting started pitching things so I can probably add more as I go along. How about the rest of you? What totally useless things do you have hidden in your kitchen?

I just want to say thank you. I spent many happy hours going down rabbit holes on About.com.

I seem to be totally incapable of cooking just a little bit of spaghetti. Short pasta, noodles, no problem. But give me a package of spaghetti and I'm going to make enough for us, the neighbors and the dog. And I don't even have a dog anymore. I've used measurements from the internet, those stupid little things with holes in it and every other trick. It just seems like when I get the spaghetti in my hand it just doesn't look like enough and I just have to throw in some more. So, now that I figured out how to weigh it on the scale how many ounces should I use for two small portions?

I'm even out of luck there. My last dog died last November and my cat won't stoop to touch human food.

Only for the well coordinated. I would have it in my hair and over half of the kitchen.

I always do with short pasta but the Spaghetti would always roll off the scale. And those pasta measures with holes in them are a big PIA. But as I said before, too soon old, too late smart. However, I am still learning.

Let's face it, you and your recipes are unique. But yes, it is a great way to make sure that they will be here forever for you. Too many other recipe platforms have crashed and burned. Personally, I use Drive to save my recipes but who knows if it will be there forever.

How to make your fellow member feel stupid. I never thought of using a glass. Perfect!

I never even thought of using it for that. I always thought it was just to let the water drain.

Although there isn't a chance in a Million that I could recreate any of your dishes here in Costa Rica, I enjoy reading them. Your repertoire is amazing and I do so admire your attention to detail in recreating the food that you love. In the late sixties I had an Indonesian neighbor and I saw the frustration that she went through trying to recreate the dishes that she grew up with. You are lucky that you live in New York and are able to find what you do. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to post the recipes.

I've had the plastic equivalent and believe me, they can't hold a candle to the wooden ones. I can see them being very useful as a back scratcher. Now that I remember, the first wooden spaghetti catcher that I had was actually a big back scratcher, made in Costa Rica. My husband stole it from me and I bought this one.

I've been reading through this topic from the very beginning hoping to somehow resolve my relationship with these nasty little critters. Had I started this topic I would have called it The Curse of the Spoon Holders. They are oh so necessary and yet none of them fit my needs. If I get one I like, I break it. If it's only adequate, it lasts forever. First, I have one like @Darienne's. I keep it in my baking area because it is fine for a whisk or for one spoon. Second, I have one on my stove that is adequate. Not that I'm all that crazy about Christmas all year long but at least it's big enough for a spatula and a tasting spoon. Finally, I have one from Belize that my husband brought back as a souvenir. It's hanging above my stove and I can grab it when I'm desperate. Other than that it's completely useless. For now I think I'm going to start using a small plate. It makes more sense to me and I don't know why I never thought of it before. As they say, too soon old and too late smart. I'm going to start looking for something like Fat Boy's. I've seen them in the stores all the time here and always thought that they look like a pretty useless little dish. Now that I know what they would be good for, I will probably never see one again. If I do, I will buy four of them because if they work and I like them I'm sure to break them.

You hit it right on the head. The spiky thing is for lifting spaghetti. Once you get used to it it works like a charm. I always wanted a spaghetti pot with a strainer but I never could find one that I liked or that fit my storage space so for small amounts of spaghetti, this is great.