I have to admit I've kind of been spoiling myself lately, yesterday was piles of heavenly vanilla beans and today is boxes of Pampered Chef. I ordered myself my own baking stone and one of those apple peeler/corer/slicer gadgets. It's amazing to see what a new stone and a stone that has been seasoned for over 5 years look like when compared to one another. The difference is literally black and white. And I mean literally! The seasoned stone has taken on this smooth glossy finish while my new stone is very raw and rough feeling. I guess that just means I am going to have to do a lot of cooking with it to get it up to snuff. Anyways, they were well worth the splurge. That stone will beat out metal cookie sheets any day of the week and the peeler, as useless as it may sound, is going to ensure I can continue to enjoy apple crisp and mashed potatoes in my own home for all eternity, because I can't peel apples or potatoes to save my life.

I seriously can't do it. My hand just really, really hates to bend that way and retaliates by causing the tendon to spasm and the muscle to cramp, leaving me crippled, and with piles of sad, unpeeled potatoes. So usually I just get D to do it. He is most definitely better at it then I am, but loses some points for once trying to tell me that a cheese slicer made a perfectly good substitute when I discovered his ill-equipped bachelor kitchen did not contain a paring knife. Or a cheese grater for that matter - which is essential for zesting oranges, by the way. I'm going to tell you right now, that slicing orange peel as thin as possible does not equal zest. It equals gross chunks of orange peel in your dessert, that's what. So if you don't own one you can forget it right now because I have already failed miserably.



*Spell check told me 'spazzing' is not a word and that I probably meant to spell 'jazziness'. Now all I can think of is sequin covered unitards. *

Labels: NaBloPoMo