Friday Five: Mix and Stir Edition

Oh dear! Over at RevGalBlogPals, Songbird tells us:

In a minor domestic crisis, my food processor, or more precisely the part you use for almost everything for which I use a food processor, picked the eve of the festive season of the year to give up the ghost. A crack in the lid expanded such that a batch of squash soup had to be liberated via that column shaped thing that sticks up on top.

Can you tell this is not my area of strength?

Next week, I'm hosting Thanksgiving. I need your help. Please answer the following kitchen-related questions:

1) Do you have a food processor? Can you recommend it? Which is to say, do you actually use it?
Oh yes. In fact we have two! The big one now lives in the pantry much of the time, but it's invaluable when I do get it down. It's an 11-cup Cuisinart that we bought not long after the Great Big Mall opened near City of Lakes. I use it especially for making piecrust, grating potatoes for latkes and at other times when a recipe says to use one. When we moved here, Onkel Hankie Pants prevailed on me to get a KitchenAid mini-processor which doesn't take up as much room on the counter. I use it very frequently for chopping onions and similar tasks which I wouldn't use the big one for. Both of them work quite well.

Oddly enough, I was making squash soup yesterday too! But the recipe told me to use the blender, so that's what I did, ladlefull by ladlefull. The recipe (from church) also encouraged the use of a handheld stick blender, which would have been nice but I don't have one.

2) And if so, do you use the fancy things on it? (Mine came with a mini-blender (used a lot and long ago broken) and these scary disks you used to julienne things (used once).)

Mine came with three discs for slicing and julienning, plus a plastic blade which I'm not sure I've ever used. I don't do a lot of julienning, but I do use the slicing disk, especially when I maked scalloped potatoes for the shelter -- 24 servings is a lot of slicing but it goes really fast with the processor. I don't know if this makes any sense, but when it comes to electric things I feel the simpler the better, so I prefer to have a mixer, a blender, a processor rather than one item with a lot of attachments.

3) Do you use a standing mixer? Or one of the hand-held varieties? Both, actually. The standing mixer lives in the linen closet most of the time (when we got a toaster-oven, it needed to move) but I like it for making big cakes and cheesecake. The hand-held mixer lives in the cupboard by the refrigerator and is used much more frequently. I got the stand mixer from a refurbishing place in Florida over the 'net. I was happy to have it, but soon realized it was not ideal for some of the most common tasks, such as making whipped cream (unless you're having about 40 people for strawberry shortcake!) So, the handmixer, same brand.

(And isn't that color delightfully retro?) Songbird posted a photo of a beautiful aqua KitchenAid, but I am posting a different retro color, which is the one Sisterfilms will be receiving soon. I won it in a sweepstakes drawing at an online cooking store and got to choose the color, so I asked her which she wanted and she chose this. It's been waiting in its box ever since for the kitchen at Chez Landlord to be ready to receive it, and it's going to be wending its way there very soon now!

4) How about a blender? Do you have one? Use it much? Yes, we have one. The first one we bought in 1975 to make baby food for SonShineIn (aka Comrade Landlord) and it lasted until just a few years ago. The base was Harvest Gold! (Another kind of retro, I hope it never comes back!) A couple of years ago I got a new one, same brand, for Christmas because OHP wanted to be able to make smoothies. It came with a mini-processor attachment which I'm not sure we've ever used. I used it for the squash soup pureeing, and I also use it to grind up the crumbs for aeblekage.

5) Finally, what old-fashioned, non-electric kitchen tool do you enjoy using the most? I don't know how old-fashioned it is because it does have silicon-covered wires, but I love this little whisk for making white sauce, gravy, etc.

Bonus: Is there a kitchen appliance or utensil you ONLY use at Thanksgiving or some other holiday? If so, what is it? I was going to say my trussing needle, but actually I do use it sometimes for roast chicken. So I'll have to go with the rosette irons that I've only recently begun using to make these amazing Christmas treats. Well I remember my first sight and taste of one at the Christmas concert at Salem English Lutheran Church in Waseca, MN! It was very un-Minnesotan of me to grab the only one on the plate.

Friday Five: Fourth of July

Sally, one of our British RevGalBlogPals, says:
I have to admit that I am chuckling to myself a little; how strange it seems for me a Brit to be posting the Friday Five on 4th July! I realise that most of our revgals will be celebrating in some way today, but I hope that you can make a little room for Friday Five! From my short stay in Texas my memories of the celebrations are of fireworks and picnics, one year we went in to central Houston to watch the fireworks and hear the Symphony Orchestra play, we were welcomed and included, and that meant a lot!

So let's have a bit of fun:

1. Barbeque's or picnics ( or are they essentially the same thing?)
Not to me -- barbecues are usually at home or someone's home, and picnics are at a park or similar place. But, today we actually ate at an old-school drive-in with picnic tables, real cherry cokes, and deep-fried cheese curds! (Something you can't get in Maine.)

2. The park/ the lake/ the beach or staying at home simply being?
Fourth of July for the last 32 years has been the day after Family Camp. Family camp is great, but a little taxing for the introverts in the family, so coming back to the city and relaxing is a good way to spend it.

3. Fireworks- love 'em or hate 'em?
I love the institutional kind, of which I caught a bit of the Charles River ones on tv. Not at all happy about individuals shooting them off, nor the newly relaxed laws in Minnesota.

4. Parades- have you ever taken part- share a memory...
I don't believe I've ever been in one except at the end of basic training -- I missed my chance last year when our Memorial Day parade was honoring women veterans.

5. Time for a musical interlude- if you could sum up holidays in a piece of music what would it be?
I like the medleys of songs like Yankee Doodle and Battle Cry of Freedom, but oddly or not, the piece that says "Fourth of July Fireworks" to me is Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

President's Day Meme

Songbird posted this meme for Presidents' Day -- a good thing as I have no better ideas for today's posting.

1. Can you name the American Presidents we are honoring? Bonus: Any idea when their real birthdays are? (Don't look it up.)

George Washington, born February 22, 1731/2 (O.S.) in Virginia.

Abraham Lincoln, born February 12, 1809 in Kentucky.

2. Why do you suppose car sales are an important aspect of our President's Day observations in the U.S.? (Feel free to be whimsical.)

I can't think of anything whimsical. I would guess that since the new models have been out for a while by now, dealers are looking to get rid of some of them, and also, it's a day off for some people so that the family can shop for a car together.

3. Have you ever been President of a club or organization? How did that feel?

No, but I have been Moderator of my church. It was not an extremely powerful position, as the church was really run by the five committees, and the Council met infrequently. But I got to help plan the church's 90th anniversary celebration. It was a good experience for me. Also, I was Co-Editor-in-Chief of my college newspaper for a semester. That was fun too, in spite of some friction with the other co-editor.

4. If you could have dinner with any President of the United States no longer living, who would it be? Any particular questions you would like to ask? (Please feel free to substitute a nationally appropriate elected leader, such as a Prime Minister.)

I think, based on reading Merle Miller's Plain Speaking, that I would like to dine with Harry S Truman. He was President when I was born. I'd mostly like to dine with him because he was well-read and seemed to be an interesting conversationalist, and maybe a little less of an egotist than many of the others. However, a question did come up in my mind recently, the answer to which may be written somewhere, but I don't know: When he agreed to join FDR on the ticket in 1944, could he tell that he would probably end up becoming President when FDR died? I would think FDR's declining health might have been evident, and Truman was very much a realist. So I suspect he did. But I wonder.

5. On a more serious note, what are the qualities you hope for in our next President? (As above for those who live in other countries.)

The intelligence of Jefferson, the humility of Lincoln, the genius for dealing with Congress of Lyndon Johnson at his best, the integrity of Washington, the confidence (and the ability to inspire it in others) of FDR, the sense of history of Truman, the inspirational qualities of JFK, the environmental awareness of Teddy Roosevelt and Al Gore, and the plain good-heartedness of Jimmy Carter. A tall order.