Trash talk and dead bodies.

I don't want to keep dwelling on things that are different in this alternate universe to which I have moved. But I will. The thing is, it's just close enough to the old life I had that it throws me off. 

Take the trash pickup. Longtime readers of this blog -- all good-looking and tasteful, with powerful intellects and enormous patience -- will recall that in New York, I complained a lot about the free-for-all that was our trash situation. People put everything short of dead humans out for pickup, and maybe they disguised a few of those. You could use any ol' trash receptacle you had handy. And the garbagemen came by on Tuesdays and Fridays, with a "recycling" pickup on Wednesday.

Here, the trash pickup is one day a week: Monday, You don't dare miss it because they won't be back. So people have their stuff out Sunday night, although I haven't seen a pickup here before noon Monday. It's one of those towns where you get two large trash cans when you move in, one for garbage and one for recycling garbage, and everything has to fit inside. The truck comes by and picks up the can and dumps it into the hopper. Another truck comes by later and gets the other can. It cuts manpower by two thirds, and it keeps people from trying to leave a sofa or a piano for pickup. 

Well, they wouldn't try it twice. 

My main problem is that I don't know what the hell day it is. I had tuesday-wednesday-friday tattooed on my consciousness. When a holiday would bump the week forward a day, that was bad enough. Here, around Wednesday I do not know immediately what day it is, because the trashman would not be back for days. I'm a rudderless boat on the sea of time now. 

And I'm scared of my sink.

This is the first time in my life I've lived somewhere with a garbage disposal. The InSinkErator came with the place. I am glad to be able to get rid of most food garbage instantly -- so I'm not stuck with it until next Monday! -- but man, it's scary and loud. 

All I ever heard of these things were what happened when you let utensils fall into them and what HORRIBLE things happened to YOU when you tried to get them out. 

Stone cold killer

I mean, the way this thing goes through a head of celery or a chunk of beef has to give you pause. I could easily see Steve Buscemi's leg sticking out of the sink in a remake of Fargo. 

Wish me luck with the InSinkErator, and that I do not forget what day of the week it is when Monday arrives. Last week the truck dude failed to completely empty my garbage can and it's got some bad juju going on right now. If I miss him tomorrow, I'm going to have to shove all the garbage into the disposal. And I think that may work no better than trying to get Steve Buscemi in there.  

When life gives you lemons…

…smash them lemons, I say! And make iced tea!

My iced tea skills have improved over the years. I abandoned sun tea for fear of bacterial contamination, and traded orange pekoe for black. But fresh lemons instead of bottled lemon juice really seemed to put me in the big leagues.

The question today is: Which lemon abusing tool gets the most from your lemons? The extractor or the reamer? 

Yellow to make you think
lemony thoughts

You’d think the extractor would be better just because of the more technical sounding name:.exTRACTorrrr. But is it? Let’s put them to the test!

I shall juice two lemons with each—1 small, 1 large, as seen at the top of the page—into the measuring cup. That should even out any tiny deviations among the test subjects. Then we shall see which tool yields the most lemon juice.

First, the extractor, which uses a lever action to squash the lemon pulp flat. It is fast-acting and seems to leave nothing behind.   

The pulp remains in the peel and any seeds are generally left in there as well. 

After the large and the small lemons, we have just 

Slightly under a third of a cup. 

Now the reamer. 

This definitely takes more effort, requiring a twist action to get the most out of the fruit. The colander-like basket catches seeds and any large pieces of pulp. But the lemon half does not seem to be as crushed by the reamer as by the extractor. 

To my surprise, however, the reamer is the victor with slightly more than a third of cup of lemon juice produced! 

This may seem unlikely, but the difference can be explained by one small problem with the extractor that I did not take into account -- it has a bad habit of shooting juice out the side when you initially press the lemon. The only way to catch the loose juice is to hold the extractor's head in a bucket, and I'm not making tea or lemonade on an industrial scale. 

On the other hand, the extractor is faster, so if you were to want a lot of juice, that would be the better way to go. Maybe you want to become the next Nedick's or Orange Julius. Just make sure to get a food-grade bucket -- those Home Depot buckets just won't do the trick. 

Counter culture.

It seems like there are more and more small kitchen appliances on the market all the time, and less and less counter territory for them to occupy. I've blogged before about the preponderance of small appliances and the value of kitchen real estate. Appliances of this sort, in my experience, are ranked into one of four categories, and their category (and even rank within their category) are crucial to their survival:

1) Constant Companions 

2) Close Advisors 

3) Occasional Agents 

4) Whuh?

Constant Companions are always on deck, ready for action. In our house, we have five appliances on permanent display, and no one who knows us would be surprised that three of the five are coffee related: coffee grinder, coffeemaker, coffee pod machine (for Kcups, of course). The other two are used almost daily, those being the toaster oven and the microwave oven. Except in the cold months, I hate to use the big ol' oven if I can avoid it. 

Close Advisors are appliances whose location you always know, because while they don't rate permanent residence, they are used a lot. For me those include the slow cookers (Fat Man and Little Boy) and not much else. Some people have really gotten into the Instant Pot, and I can understand its appeal as it has many functions that take the place of other appliances--pressure cooker, slow cooker, steamer, fryer, rice cooker, and such. I don't know that it does any of them as well as the originals. I do know that Instant Pot recipes always look more complicated than slow cooker recipes. ("Set pot to Sauté. Sauté onions for five minutes. Add spices. Add chicken. Set vent to Sealing. Avoid death-dealing steam as you do a quick pressure release." Etc. Etc. Versus "Throw everything in the crock and set to Low for five hours to six days.")

Occasional Agents usually make appearances for special events, like the stand mixer for birthdays or the food processor for particular recipes. I don't always know where they are, but I can find them without too much trouble. Some Agents are other people's Constant Companions, which says something about them. If a blender has Favored Nation Status on your counter and no one in the house likes smoothies, maybe your rum consumption is a wee bit high. 

The Whuh?, of course, are the things you used for a while and gave up on but figured you'd get back to. Sometimes these appliances, sold to make jobs easier, involve so much cleaning that the net work benefit is canceled. But mostly, you get tired of the novelty quickly. Things like the pasta machine or the George Foreman Grill or the espresso pot or the or the electric grill or the sausage maker or the sandwich press or... You know what they are. You'll see them again at the yard sale. 

In thinking about this topic today, I realized that among our Close Advisors are the backup coffeemaker, the backup coffee grinder, and the tiny coffeemaker for rare times when one person wants more coffee than the pod machine will dispense when needed. That does not even count the Melita cones to make coffee if the power goes out. I'm starting to think we have a drinking problem around here -- a coffee drinking problem. 

Stages of Watermelon.

1. See watermelon in the supermarket; feel glad that summer's coming back but think it's maybe a little too early.

2. Break down and buy watermelon (such a good price!) and haul it home. 

3. Watermelon is too large to fit in the fridge whole, since you just stocked it with food from the supermarket, so it begins to migrate around the kitchen as it constantly gets in the way.

Migrating Watermelon

4. Finally have the time and the drive to cut watermelon into edible portions, becoming keenly aware with the first cut of the knife that now the CLOCK IS TICKING.

5. After fighting for what seems like hours, chunks and wedges and slices of watermelon are now stored in the fridge, and a few pieces in yourself, and it was tasty and refreshing, and you're content.

6. New day! Enjoy some... watermelon! Can't put it on corn flakes like bananas.... Maybe have toast instead, with a side of your new favorite fruit.

7. Dinnertime! Maybe grill some watermelon as a side dish? Easy! But that balsamic reduction that was recommended to go with it? Maybe not so easy.... How about some for dessert?

8. New day! Enjoy some more... watermelon! 

9. Third day. Everyone said they were happy you bought a watermelon, but no one is pulling his weight on eating the thing. Hey, do you all want this to go bad? There's still a lot left! Mmm, tasty too!

10. Okay, that's about enough watermelon until next year. Should have bought a pre-cut wedge, but come on -- it was the same price as a whole one. 

11. Watermelon starts to get a slick feel and a vinegary scent. This isn't right, is it? You consider: Man, we just took out the trash this morning and we'll be stuck with it until Thursday now....

12. Dispose of remaining watermelon, vowing never to buy a whole one again, because others in THIS FAMILY will not put their appetites where their mouths are. 

Repeat in July, August, maybe September. 

Terror in the streets!

Longtime readers may recall that late Golden puppy Nipper had a pathological fear of garbage cans, so bad that I could not walk him on Tuesday or Friday mornings, when the garbage men were due. I could sometimes get away with it on "recycling" day, which was Wednesday -- those little box-like cans didn't set him off so much.

New Golden puppy Izzy, I'm glad to say, does not fear the garbage cans. He's wary of them, and I think that's fair; they're a lot taller than he is and they must put off the smell version of a KISS concert in terms of sensory overload. But he does not fear them.

However! Yesterday morning we encountered something on the street so terrifying, so horrible, that he recoiled in panic. I thought he might break free and run all the way home, if necessary dragging my bloody arm still attached to the leash. 

I got a picture of the item that scared him so badly. I include it below the break for informational purposes. If you are easily alarmed, I caution you, proceed only if you must. 

Kooky copper clad cooking.

Remember when I used to post wacky recipes from promotional pamphlets I'd inherited, like the Coca-Cola or Creamette pasta cookbooks? No? Well, you can find links to all of them at the last one I profiled here, when I thought I'd reached the end of the cookbook line. 

Well, I found another one.

This one was filed with product manuals rather than on the cookbook shelf, and what a surprise! It has recipes!

Yes, the Revere Ware Copper Clad Collection pan book came into the family many years ago along with the pan itself. The booklet has care information for your genuine copper bottomed pan, but also contains 20 recipes. The booklet is not dated, but going by the condition of the pages, the typefaces used, and the presence of a zip code, I'd guess this came out in the late 70's.

As you might guess, the recipes are almost all egg-related. Here's one that caught my eye, but is unlikely to ever get hold of my stomach:

Yeah, nah, I don't think so. Not a big chicken liver guy. 

I'm glad to say we still have the pan:

Ta da!

Definitely a good quality pan. Perfect depth for many uses, mainly omelets of course, and has put up with abuse from me and others through the years. You could do a nice job whacking someone in the face with it in a pinch, too; lightweight but strong.  

We don't use it for eggs that much, because when we make a batch of scrambled eggs we will do half a dozen at a time, and that's too much for this pan. What it is also totally awesome for, though, is toasting spices quickly to bring forth their flavor. Works beautifully and makes the kitchen smell awesome.  

Alas, the history of Revere Ware is not nearly as shiny as the pan itself. It was a branch of the Revere Copper Company, founded by American legend Paul Revere in 1801. Wiki says, "Initially Revere Ware was the culmination of various innovative techniques developed during the 1930s, the most popular being construction of stainless steel with rivetlessly attached bakelite handles, copper-clad bases and rounded interiors for ease of cleaning." But the company fell to hard times, like everyone, in the seventies, and started getting aluminum from foreign sources; by 1982 the company was bankrupt, and then bought by Corning, which sailed it along like the Titanic, and by 2018 Revere Ware was gone.

In case you were wondering, yes, here is the copper bottom:

The trademark, once stamped on all these pans, is almost entirely scratched off from use and can barely be seen. 

Since Revere Ware is no more, I'm thinking of adopting "Copper Bottom" as my nickname. Like FDR's pal Hugh "Iron Pants" Johnson, Fred "Copper Bottom" Key could be a man to be reckoned with. It goes with the Key name, and might help me peddle Fredcoin! And hey, Revere Ware's not around anymore to sue. 

Organizing junk.

My wife'd been after me for a little while -- maybe six or seven months -- or years -- to organize the junk drawer. 

Now, I feel in my heart that the junk drawer, a staple of the American kitchen, ought to be as full of junk as possible. After all, if it doesn't have a little something for everything, how can the thing you need be there when you need it? But I gave in on the issue when it got to the point that pulling open the drawer led to flying projectiles or unknown objects being dumped into the cabinet below. 

I intended to follow the four-step plan for organization:

1. Empty the contents into an area in which I could sort them;

2. Categorize the contents;

3. Throw out obvious garbage; 

4. Organize the remainder. 

The kitchen table was up to the task, so I got to it. 

The challenging part was categorizing the contents, because, let's face it, junk is by definition an amorphous mass that defies division into categories. But digging around I began to detect patterns, and those emerged as:

Tools: Screwdrivers, pliers, scrapers, box cutter, Allen wrenches, scissors, shoehorn, etc.

Batteries: AAs, AAAs, miscellaneous button batteries

Things that join other things together: Tape, plumber's tape, electrical tape, Command hooks, paper clips, twist ties, rubber bands, thumbtacks, superglue, string 

Keys and key-related objects: The latter being color-coded key caps, mostly; one (1) padlock too

Things that were supposed to help but didn't: Reflectors, napkin rings, toothpaste tube squishers, etc.

Things that were related to things that may have been thrown away: Charging wire fixed with tape, instructional booklets, etc.

Things that have been superseded: Chair leg floor protectors, tiny Post-its, etc.

Things that should go on my workbench instead: Many, many wood and metal screws, nails, pieces left over from furniture assembly

Things for writing: Chalk, Sharpie, pencil, pencil sharpener

Car stuff: Tire pressure gauge, vent air freshener (unopened), de-icer

Garbage: Everything else

The last category was joined by many things that were in the other categories as I went. I kept about 10 percent of the twist ties, for example, and half the Allen wrenches. Most of the rubber bands had dried out. A set of three napkin rings is useless for entertaining. The Post-its were bunched up and dirty. And so on. 

Car/key related things. Plus shoehorn.

Stuff for the workbench. I don't even
know why those wrenches were upstairs. 

Here is the completed junk drawer, with approximately a quarter of the mass inside previously:

The problem is, so much of that junk has to go in the cellar, and now it's all in a bag waiting to go down. So ultimately I've moved the problem from the kitchen to my workbench, which is also an unholy mess. So therefore the problem is in one regard not solved, but relocated. 

On the other hand, my wife is happy. She never uses the workbench. So really, the problem is solved. Hooray for me!

The most valuable real estate.

If you live in a domestic situation, as many people do, you may quibble with this point, and I welcome such lively debate. But I wish to set down the case as I see it. The question is: What is the most valuable real estate within the home?

Someone with small children can certainly make the case for every bit of open floor space. Even more than pets, kids are notorious for leaving objects and sometimes food any old place on the floor. The naked foot / LEGO connection is the stuff of legend. But except in the case of the most awful hoarders, or the kids' playroom, the actual space is mostly space. What makes it dangerous is that the small things are unexpected because the floor is mostly bare.

Similarly, the garage, cellar, or attic may seem valuable because they are cluttered, as Manhattan is valuable real estate because it's already built up. But the comparison doesn't apply; people live in Manhattan, or used to; nothing human can live in those clutter bins. I've seen a number of attached garages that not only can't be used for cars, they can't be used as an exit from the house. 

Then there's the bathroom. Many men find out in adulthood -- sooner if they have sisters -- that a lot of women are fascinated by products. What products? You have to ask? Hair products, skin products, beauty products, soothing products, aromatherapy products, and so on, not to even mention the small appliances like hair curlers and dryers and straighteners and all kinds of various tools for removing unwanted hair or blackheads or whatever else is unwanted. A guy goes in his girlfriend's bathroom and reels in shock at every horizontal surface being jammed with stuff. Meanwhile, at home, his bathroom has a razor, shaving cream, deodorant, and this:

Shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in one. It could be used as shaving cream, like any soap; if only it could be used as a deodorant he'd be all set. 

(For the record, I have known men who also made large collections of products; it's just mostly women that these things are marketed toward, and for a reason.)

The bathroom space can indeed be crucial real estate, but I argue that when it becomes very tight it is usually because the bathroom is old-fashioned and tiny, or too many people use it as a primary grooming station, or some other issue -- that issue being that too many products have proved disappointing or unhelpful and have not been pitched, even if they have passed their expiration date. In other words, a little planning, vigilance, cooperation, and a second bathroom could solve the problem. 

But there's only one kitchen, usually, and that's where we hit the skids. 

A kitchen, even a large one, only has X amount of counter space, but if you add up all the possible countertop appliances one might want, you find it comes to X ✕ 2, or even X². Here's a list of all the kitchen countertop appliance types on Bed, Bath and Beyond (a store that doesn't even mention Kitchen in its name): 

• toaster oven
• toaster
• blender
• juicer
• air fryer
• food processor
• waffle maker
• stand mixer
• slow cooker
• coffee maker
• coffee pod machine
• electric grill
• electric pressure cooker
• microwave oven
• electric steamer
• pizza maker
• espresso machine
• vacuum sealer
• electric kettle
• meat slicer
• dehydrator
• coffee grinder
• fondue pot
• deep fryer
• ice crusher
• wine refrigerator
• popcorn maker
• infrawave oven (!)
• pasta machine
• mug warmer
• grain mill
• cotton candy maker (!!)
• rice cooker
• ice maker
• deep fryer
• electric griddle
• electric skillet
• ice cream maker
• bread machine
• cupcake maker (!!!)
• baby food maker
• snow cone maker
• electric teapot
• electric burner
• electric induction burner
• quesadilla maker
• electric wok
• convection oven
• soda machine
• soy / nut milk maker (!!!!)
• sprouter (don't ask)
• water reviltalizer (no idea)
• yogurt maker
• empanada / churro maker
• cake pop maker
• pressure cooking oven (?)
• hot dog toaster (you read that right)
• hot chocolate maker
• Bundt cake maker
• mini pie maker

Sixty appliances. I didn't even include handheld items like electric knives and immersion blenders that would typically not be left out when unused. 

Obviously no one would need or even want all of these things, but you can just imagine the kind of ridiculous pileup that would be caused on the kitchen counters with even a handful. Now throw in the Ronco Rotisserie & BBQ Oven and you see why kitchen counters are precious land. 

You literally cannot make a kitchen large enough for all possible countertop appliances. Any kitchen close would be so huge it would be impossible to get a meal cooked and served at a proper temperature. Besides, if you have an oven and stovetop, most won't be necessary. 

So we have to pick and choose. This can start early with something like the wedding registry. Take it easy on the registry! You don't really need a popcorn popper if you have a microwave oven, do you? Especially in your starter apartment?

Since I got rid of the Sodastream (for reasons detailed here if you're interested) and retired the Mr. Coffee Ice Tea Maker, we have these appliances permanently stationed on the counters:

• toaster oven (for toast and for light cooking in the summer)
• microwave oven
• coffee grinder
• coffee pot
• coffee pod machine

And that's all. We love our coffee; can you tell? 

We also have an electric vegetable steamer, a large and a small slow cooker, a food processor, and a waffle maker. These are tucked away unless needed. The waffle maker has not been used in years, actually, not since my wife decided she was sick of waffles for dinner on Friday during Lent. Sad!

So that's how we allocate our valuable real estate in the kitchen. How about you?

That sink feeling.

No spring training. No Mass in the Archdiocese of New York, at least this weekend. No St. Patrick's celebrations. Too early to worry about the lawn. Too crippled with spinal issues to walk the dogs. Too scared to go out to eat or go shopping.

Might as well fix the sink!

I've been threatening to fix the kitchen sink for some time. Even before my hospital visit last month, I had finally ordered the part I needed. These modern Delta faucets are very nice, but you can't stop the drip by changing a five-cent washer. Oh, no, like every other freaking thing these days, it's much more complicated. And expensive.

$30

And this fixture is only about three years old.

The problem was somewhere inside this sealed valve cartridge case. You must replace it in its entirety. Probably if I took it apart and tried to fix the thing, I would void the warranty on the faucet and my house would burn down. Anyway, the instruction road map that came with the faucet said that if your faucet is dripping, you need a new RP50587, and nothing less will do. Naturally, neither Lowe's nor Home Depot had it in stock, so I had to order it. Then, with one problem after another, including the hospital thing, I wound up having to wait a few weeks. Meanwhile, I slapped that damn dripping faucet a few times to show it I wasn't fooling around. You can't lose the respect of your plumbing, or you're sunk.

Maybe I slapped it around too much over the last three years.

So, yesterday I got to the job, and I have to say it went well. No floods, no puddles, no problems at all. Well, it was tricky to get the hot water turned off to the sink. I was noodling around with a wrench for a while until I got it totally sealed. The cold water was much more cooperative. Then I was able to pop off the faucet handle after I found the tiny hex screw, wrench off the big ol' ball nut (har!), and remove the offending party.

Here's your problem.

I soaked all the old bits in CLR and got them cleaned up, then installed the new valve, and no leaking! Better yet, no more dripping! Got it right the first time.

My dad could do any household job, but his son did not inherit that talent. So every successful repair is a victory. However, I've often thought that if I'd been wise enough to enter one of the trades, it would have been plumbing. Less chance of having to work on a roof or girder, and I hate heights. Less chance of electrocuting myself or others. And I think plumbing is exceptionally valuable. Ask anyone if he'd rather have electricity or running water in the home. Some may say electricity at first, but ask again a week into the experiment. Human beings survived about 200,000 years without electricity, but not one single year without water.

I know plumbing is not a pretty job, but that's why it pays well. And sure, I know the first rule of plumbing -- crap runs downhill. But I've found that to be true in all the other jobs I've worked, too.

Meme Sunday!

By long tradition, Friday was Meme Friday (okay, we did it twice) but now Friday is Fiction Friday! so it's Meme Sunday. Except for tomorrow's Very Important Meme (V.I.M.).

"Sun-dried" has a hyphen.

That's most of a busted-up play set.
P.S.: They apparently took it, because the next time I went by it was gone.

I

Whee!

Lucky hamster.

Okay, this one's not mine, but I love it:

Finally, life's eternal mysteries...

Knife crisis!

The tool you see in the lower pictures is the Jelly Knife, a strange creation of Compac. Compac is not the people who make the disks, or the capsules with tiny time pills. Compac makes products for the home, for pets and children and healthcare, and they came up with this amazing tool that is perfectly designed to dig out what's left in your jelly or PB jar.

Jars are funny shapes these days, aren't they? I'm sure they have their reasons. But the various knobs and lumps on the spatula-like Jelly Knife are perfect for getting those hard-to-reach places. I got mine a few years ago, either at Walmart or Shoprite (don't remember which), and it has proved to be helpful for all sorts of weird food-related tasks. It says "patent pend" on the handle, but a search of the US Patent Office system didn't turn up a patent issued for it. Come on, Patent People! Get off the stick and on the jelly knife!

I see on the Compac site that they are a company dedicated to "Our faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ," but although I applaud their open declaration of faith, that's not why I wanted to write about the Jelly Knife today. I just think it's a clever thing. We know that the vast majority of patents are issued to giant corporations, and are for complex things beyond the layman's understanding, so we love it when some little guy or runt of a company comes up with something so simple, so smart, that you're amazed that A) no one thought of it before and B) we got by without it for so long.

I salute you, Compac! Good luck with the patent. You've saved us from a lot of under-served PBJ. That makes you A-OK in my book.

Scrubbing history.

If you're old enough you might just know who these guys are. And if you do, and your brain works like mine (and you're not under medication yet), you might know what they have to do with Sprint and Verizon.

First, the easy stuff. This is an animation cel on sale at Etsy from an ad for S.O.S soap pads. For a while in the 1970s, S.O.S ran a series of commercials wherein its blue hero "Big Blue" combated "Pink Pad" (a not-even-barely-disguised Brillo pad) over whose soap held out longest. Pink Pad usually lost his pink soap after a single shot from a water pistol or the like. Blue Pad had no such difficulty. He had endurance. I wish I could post one of the old ads, but despite my belief that YouTube has everything, it doesn't have any of them.

S.O.S pads and Brillo pads, interestingly, emerged the same year in American history, 1917, as a pad made specially for use in scrubbing hard-to-clean pots and pans. (The last period in S.O.S was left off intentionally, Wikipedia tells us, so that the name could be trademarked.) In time a fierce battle arose over which steel wool pad would become the king of America's kitchen sinks. In 1967 (according to Betty Bock's 1968 edition of Mergers and Markets) the two brands accounted for 98.6% of the steel wool pad market. Families generally were loyal to one or the other, as they were to Coke or Pepsi, Tide or All, Hertz or Avis, Crest or Colgate. We were a Brillo family.

The S.O.S animated commercials were fun, and certainly caught the eye of any kids watching daytime TV (we were starved for cartoons). I have read that no less than Oscar winner Broderick Crawford himself did the voice of the pink pad. As he later said of all TV work: "To pay the rent and keep your face up there, you do TV. Hell, if they're stupid enough to pay you for that junk, that's their problem.''

I hated that my family's soap pad was being humiliated by that blue goon, though.

In time the ad campaign ended, and here's where things got odd. As part of his campaign to do anything for a buck, Broderick Crawford then made a TV ad for Brillo. He was seen in person scouring pots with Brillo, and heard saying, "Hi, I'm Brillo, the pink pad. You remember me from that -- blue pad commercial... Well, you haven't seen that commercial around much lately. That's because, due to a new Brillo formula, my soap now outlasts that blue pad's. And I couldn't say that on TV if it weren't true. So if that blue pad claims longer lasting soap than Brillo, don't you believe it!" (Thanks to American Radio History's archive of Broadcasting newsweekly for filling in all the blanks in my and my family's memory.)

Which brings me to Paul Marcarelli, the actor who for years played the Test Man for Verizon commercials and now plays, I don't know, Revenge Guy for Sprint commercials. It's a curious thing when commercial actors are turned loose and go after the competition. I wonder if Lily (Milana Vayntrub) from AT&T will wind up doing ads for Boost Mobile, or if Flo (Stephanie Courtney) will ever be tossed from Progressive and wind up making ads with that gekko. Could happen.

As for Brillo and S.O.S, despite being the biggest soap pads on the block, things have been challenging for those veritable brands since the 1970s. Miles Brands sold S.O.S to Clorox, and Brillo's parent company was bought by Dial, who sold it to Church & Dwight, who sold it to Armaly Brands. Store brands and other competitors have taken Big Blue and Pink Pad down a few pegs.

Will Sprint and Verizon wind up the same way? And what does this have to do with anything?

Beats me. I just love this stuff.

Hot stuff!

Brace yourself -- this is terrifying:

WHAT IS THAT BEAST?

Well, it's another kitchen gadget from Santa! Yes, I got the Oven Pull Monster, a helpful if fearsome silicone chap whose mouth is perfect for pulling out the oven rack without burning yourself. He's heat resistant to 500 degrees, can move racks, pots, pans, whatever you have in there, and keeps you a hand's length away from the heat. Which is nice, since as we know, oven mitts are not always as heat resistant as they look.

Of course, if you're like me -- and if so I'm sorry -- you can't pick up your Oven Pull Monster without making monster noises.

"AAAAIIIEEEEEEE!!"

This is true whether you got the red one, as I did, or one of the green ones.

"AAAAIIIEEEEEEE IN STEREO!!"

It's a handy tool, and I support any product that makes kitchen burns less likely without compromising the food. Plus, I can carry it around and use it to alarm people I encounter. So I got that going for me.

It turns out that some bug-eyed monsters can be very helpful in the kitchen. Not all of them, of course.

Momma nuke.

A couple of weeks ago I ran 25 tips for home cooks, things I'd learned, many the hard way. I had one more tip, but it was really about cleanliness and kitchen safety rather than cooking.

The question is: How do you clean the microwave?

You have to put food in there, so bleach products and ammonia are out. You want an ammonia-flavored Hot Pocket? It's an electronic product, so scouring powders are a bad idea. Oven cleaner? Not made for microwave ovens.

You need an angry mama.

The Angry Mama Microwave Cleaner arrived at Christmas, and is a handy little gizmo. It works by the same principle I've always used, that of nuking up a bowl of water really hot and letting the steam loosen the gunk on the oven interior. Some elbow grease does the rest. 

The problem with this method is one I found out the first time I tried it -- superheated water is dangerous. The FDA reports "serious skin burns or scalding injuries around people's hands and faces as a result of hot water erupting out of a cup after it had been over-heated in a microwave oven. Over-heating of water in a cup can result in superheated water (past its boiling temperature) without appearing to boil." I did not get burned, fortunately, but here's what happened: I put in a bowl of water with some lemon juice and set the timer to Kill; when it was done I opened the door. "If superheating has occurred, a slight disturbance or movement such as picking up the cup, or pouring in a spoon full of instant coffee, may result in a violent eruption with the boiling water exploding out of the cup," says Mr. FDA, and opening the door was enough. BANG! 

The Mythbusters did a nice demo on this years ago:

After my escapade I adapted my method by superheating the water and then leaving the bowl in the microwave until it had cooled off, 10 minutes or so. 

You still have to do this with Angry Mama. Since Mama is plastic, she seems to require less time to get past the explosive state (instructions say to wait two minutes after nuking before lifting), and she has those stay-cool arms for safe removal. The manufacturer recommends a mixture of vinegar and water rather than lemon juice. You'll still have to use some muscle to scrub the inside of the oven -- those cheesy splats bake on like concrete -- but the job is far easier. For one thing, she has steam holes in the head to blast steam at the ick that forms on the microwave roof. When the job is done, she's ready for a bath in the dishwasher. 

So we're glad we got the Angry Mama, and recommend her. Better and safer than the old bowl method. But she never does stop looking mad. I guess she's seen the state of the refrigerator.

Ultimate Masher!

I have this potato masher by Zyliss that feels inappropriately powerful.

Zyliss makes big, potent kitchen utensils. I got this weapon as a freebie when I was working at a magazine. It has an ergonomically designed handle, engineered for leverage, a stainless steel wire end, and weighs half a pound. While it can mash four or five little red potatoes, I always feel like it's only happy if it can mash a five-pound sack at a time.

I am told that people who make ground-meat jerky often use a potato masher to blend seasonings into the meat. So this potato masher could be exactly the right thing for the job. I mean, mashing a potato may not take pumped-up hand tools, but mashing a cow...

The one downside I have is that its sheer size makes it virtually impossible to store in a drawer, or a Big Mug o' Kitchen Tools, where I keep most of my cooking stuff. I actually have to store it in a closet.

And maybe that's why, despite being the Masher of Odin, a wonder-tool, a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe tool, a magna potentia tool, Zyliss has listed it in Clearance---and actually out of stock. Get one from Amazon while you can! Demand that Zyliss de-clearance it! You have the POWAAAAHH!

We should get more can openers.

Or do you think we have enough can openers?

What we have here is the result of two bad traits from the people in a marriage coming together to make a mess. The traits are my wife's lack of desire to shop for tools, and my packrat-itis.

Allow me to introduce the members of the cast, from left to right:

Red knob: This was a cheapo opener I got from the supermarket because my wife complained that the three can openers we had were either dangerous or dull. It was less than five bucks and it worked exactly as you might think. I got it at the supermarket because our Linens 'N Things closed in 2008. I didn't want to make a special trip. It's awkward and hard to turn. My wife, needless to say, still had reason to complain after I brought it home.

Flat Oxo: This smooth-edge Oxo can opener slices the top off the can so that the wheel blade and the can exterior never touch the food. Claims also to not leave dangerous edges. My wife cut herself while using it.

Normal Oxo: A standard but soft-handled can opener, this one served us well until the wheel blade got dull. How do you sharpen that? Like this: Send your husband to the store for a new one.

Expensive Le Creuset: Annoyed by my failure to procure a good, non-dangerous can opener, I made a special trip. The Revolution, with its Commie red handle, is $30, so it's not exactly a tool for the proletariat. I got it at a Le Creuset outlet, which sold it for not one penny less than is charged in stores or online. All that said, it's an excellent tool, and it has a great bottle opener, unlike the crappy bottle openers on the side that traditional can openers have. Too bad I almost never need a bottle opener, but you could hang it on a nail.

Traditional can opener: Despite the crappy bottle opener on the side, the traditional can opener was around for so long that I can't remember when or where we got it. Maybe Linens 'N Things. Good grip, smooth operation. But the wheel got dull, and again, how do you sharpen these things?

After this review, I fought down my packrat-itis and pitched the old Oxo and the old traditional can opener. The cheapo one is being kept to open dog food. The smooth-edge Oxo is good for refried or baked beans or jellied cranberry sauce, where a good cut on the can makes it easier to procure a slab o' beans or tube o' cranberries in the shape of the can. Le Creuset is, of course, the go-to can opener for everything else.

Viva le Revolution!

Did not pan out.

We had to make cupcakes for a social event this weekend, and our current cupcake pans have been disappointing us. They are well made, but they were forged from dark metal, which totally screws up the baking time and temperature. Why would someone even make a pan that screws up common recipes in this time of blessed standardization? I see no advantage to it.

I was shopping in Walmart and decided to get some disposable foil pans; that would take care of this project and postpone having to drop serious dough on good, solid, light-colored pans.

Walmart has a billion products in every store... but not foil muffin tins. At least not the day I was there. But what they did have were steel 6-cup muffin tins! Made in the USA! For 88 cents each! I bought two!

Ladies and gentlemen: What you are about to see is not blood, but rust. This is the rust after one batch of cupcakes. Moreover, the rust began after the pans got damp during their initial washing, before they were even used.

I fell for the oldest trick in steel. Of course, uncoated steel rusts; stainless steel, however, doesn't. This is a problem. The 1970 Chevy Vega infamously began to rust almost as soon as it got hit with a northeastern winter. It was the car that almost took down GM; rust ruins trust.

Then again, these pans were just 88 cents each, which is actually cheaper than disposable foil pans, which are close to two bucks each (although they include baking cups). And with our paper baking cups, our cupcakes never touched the actual pans. So I actually saved money, and I still have the pans. Plus, the cupcakes came out perfect.

I don't know, though. Cheap as they are, I feel like steel should have done better than this. It sort of makes me think less of steel, sorry to say.

Not you, big guy!

Cooking 101: Home Ack.

Late August is here, and despite my recent warnings to the contrary, many young idiots are heading off to college. Many of these youngsters will be away from home for the first time, or perhaps living in off-campus housing for the first time. For a lot of them they will find that they have to cook their own food. They may have thought they could order pizza whenever hunger struck, or buy a rotisserie chicken from the local supermarket, but that kind of thing gets pricey and cuts into the beer money. Also, how many Cup Noodles and store-brand frozen chicken pot pies can a person stand?

Fred is here to help, youngsters! I started cooking when I was in college, and it was a lifesaver. There's no need to panic: With the aid of a toaster oven and a microwave, you can cook actual food that doesn't suck and will not burn the dorms down. I hope to present some extremely simple recipes from time to time over the upcoming weeks that can be made by people with virtually no cooking skill at all. We have to crawl before we can run, and I don't mean the kind of crawling one sees late in the wee hours on Pledge Week.

Here is a starter recipe, a tuna casserole that was a staple of my recipe book for years until my wife got sick of it.

You Will Need:

• 1 10.75-oz. can of Cream of Mushroom soup*
• 1 5-oz. can of tuna (solid white is the best, but anything will do) (except cat food)
• Half of a 16-oz. box of elbow macaroni
• Milk**
• Something to crumble for a thin coating on top -- corn flakes, potato chips, stale (non-moldy) bread, Italian bread crumbs, Doritos, tortilla chips, all good
• Probably a can opener, although some cans have pull-tops now
• Spoon
• An ovenproof container big enough to hold 1.5 to 2 quarts -- you can get a foil one cheap***

Remember:
2 pints = 1 quart
1 quart = .946 liters, or as close as makes no difference

Also: Something to eat it off and tools to eat it with.

Bring it all back to your toaster oven or, if you're in a house, an actual oven oven. Set the oven to 350 degrees.**** Most new ovens will have some means of alerting you when they reach the target temperature; if yours doesn't, let it heat up for 20 minutes. (You will hear a gas oven stop burning when the temperature is right, but that won't work for an electric oven.)

Take a spoon. Scoop the contents of the can of soup in the container. You will have to open the can to accomplish this. Fill the can up with milk and mix that in the container with the soup. Put the tuna into the container too. Yes, that can will also need to be opened. If you want to get crazy, drain the tuna before adding it, but you can skip that part. Add the macaroni. Put the unused macaroni somewhere safe, preferably in a sealed container or plastic bag to discourage vermin. When the macaroni is mixed in with the soup and milk and tuna, top it with whatever you like as a topper. Don't make it an inch thick; just enough to cover. Stick it in the oven for an hour. If your casserole dish (for that is what it is) has a lid, leave the lid off.

After an hour the tuna casserole should be warm and bubbly. If it instead looks like a charcoal briquette and there is a fireman busting down the door with an ax, then you probably set the oven too high.

One of the nice parts about this recipe is that you don't have to boil the macaroni before you add it to the other ingredients; it softens up as it bakes. If you undercook it the macaroni will be hard, but at least you won't kill anyone because the tuna comes out of the can already cooked.

Another nice thing is that you can fancy it up. Maybe you have a date coming over, or find yourself having to entertain the Queen of Finland due to a long series of comical events. You can substitute Campbell's Golden Mushroom soup for the cream of mushroom; you can add some peas and/or carrots, or a small onion, chopped.*****

This recipe will feed a couple of hungry guys, one guy with the munchies, three women, or five women who pretend they don't eat when they're around one another and then raid the candy machine later.

-------------

* I'm not going to tell you to buy Campbell's, but it's like what they do in magazines to avoid annoying advertisers---the size I specified is that of the Campbell's can. So buy Campbell's.

** Don't use chocolate milk, whey protein shake, leftover McDonald's McFlurry, or anything a month past its expiration date. Show some self-respect.

***Don't bring a bucket of water into the store and start filling all the containers to find the right size. They are usually marked. 

**** Fahrenheit, not Celsius. 350 Celsius is 660 degrees Fahrenheit, and you will burn down the dorm. If you are going to school in Canada or something and the oven uses Celsius, set it to 180. 

***** Oooh, Culinary Institute of America stuff! But remember to chop the onion. Don't just put a whole onion in it.

Rating the drawers.

Flatware

A necessary component to any kitchen, and yet, a bit dull. An uninspired collection of day-to-day flatware in the five main sections---butter knives, dinner and dessert forks, serving spoons and forks, tablespoons, teaspoons. (No silver, which is locked up someplace and reserved for special occasions that have yet to arrive.) The drawer shows some signs of life in the optional sections, which include cheap paring knives, measuring spoons detached from their brethren, iced-tea spoons, children’s flatware, and other odds and ends. Varies wildly from dutiful adequacy to twee frivolousness and marred by poor presentation. Grade: B-

An appearance by an accomplished costar like this bamboo tray might have raised the bar,

Junk

Truly a treasure, but one must approach it in a spirit of fellowship and bonhomie. Every kitchen should have a good junk drawer, and this one shines. Little flashlights complemented by little batteries---oh, one should hope they come together if the power goes out! Rubber bands and twist ties, small screwdrivers (Phillips and flat), a microwave oven tester, a padlock with key… truly a drawer of wonders. With all such, its secrets are not clear at one glace. But aficionados will explain that this is the nature of the beast. It will always require digging, but always reward same. Grade: A

Dishtowels

Another odd collection, eclectic but in an entirely predictable way. Towels are stacked (one might say stuffed) into the deepest drawer in the collection, but with little sense of appropriateness. Very worn towels with cartoon bunnies vie with white high-faulting chef towels adorned mainly with coffee stains. Buried are fluffy towels that retain their original colors, reserved for kitchen use when guests worthy of the silverware arrive, one imagines. Still, they’re all clean, and that’s worth something. Grade: B

Cooking Utensils

A good grouping, kind of fun and quite democratic, with smaller whisks, peelers, and cheese slicers rubbing metaphoric elbows with more plebeian measuring spoons, extra knives, and wooden spoons. A lack of organization keeps this drawer from being, well, top drawer, but its usefulness is undeniable. Grade: A-

Cooking Utensils II

An insane hodgepodge of seldom-used tools, this drawer offers something for everyone, but with no logical thread. Ice cream scoops and bamboo skewers, meat thermometers and candy thermometers, a partly melted plastic spoon and a silicone-coated whisk that works poorly are all jumbled together. Yields some rewards, as with Cooking Utensils I, but sequels are seldom as good as the original. Grade: C+

Coffee Accessories

Unusual to find an entire drawer devoted to coffee things, but this one is, almost entirely. Many lids from reusable travel mugs are in evidence. A smattering of scoops of the type that come with coffeemakers join them. On the whole, amusing in its single-mindedness but quickly tiresome. Someone's drinking a lot of coffee. Makes you wonder if these people ever sleep. Grade: C

Receipts

Bad idea, bad execution. Using a kitchen drawer for credit card receipts is boneheaded, especially a small drawer that gets filled up fast. Receipts fall out the back and into the cupboard below. There’s no order or direction at all, and it usually takes a full-blown paper crisis to get it cleaned out. This drawer should never have been made, but having been made, should be kept shut. Grade: F