My Jaccard and Widget Phobia

All right, I had this big plan to talk about the fun I have shopping at Amazon and to add products here and there that I've enjoyed. These are things I hadn't seen elsewhere. Well, actually I can't go elsewhere without paying for it in pain and suffering.

But I visited the widget page and I can't figure out how to work the damned thing and get it onto my sidebar. So for the moment to heck with it. I'll wait till the sugar clears from my poor system.


Yesterday we had an exciting trip to the dentist to have our teeth cleaned. Our togetherness knows no bounds...

On the way back, I noticed a new Asian food store. Nothing would do but that I had to stop there and see if they had the kind of ginseng that one of our readers had recommended. So I got that, but then I remembered coconut milk, and -oops- almost out of cloves and fennel, and then there was cleaned frozen squid, who could resist? I didn't exactly stride down the aisle, but...well, I passed the palm sugar on the way to the jasmine rice. Oh heck, why not tell you what really happened: yes, I actually had to find someone and ask where the palm sugar was.

Palm sugar for me is like Jack Daniels is for an alcoholic. If my head didn't hurt so bad from eating the stuff, I'd bang it on a nearby wall. Much of one jar is almost gone and the other will be delivered out of here to someone who can drink eat sweets responsibly. Definitely not in my skill set.

However, that binge happened later. Long before I broke into that jar we went to Marshall's, a discount clothing store I used to love. It was always full of things I didn't know I needed until I saw them.

This time, however I DID need an oversized man's shirt and a pair of slip on shoes.

With fibromyalgia I need very lightweight footwear. Weightless ballet slippers would be best but they're an arm and a leg. Instead I looked through the clearance section till I found a faux-snakeskin pair of flats that will go with black or brown. They actually fit! Are they lovely? Nah. Serviceable, though.

Since I've lost some weight (despite that binge with the palm sugar) I needed to find some casual pants that didn't fall off, or I didn't have to bunch at the waist to make them stay up. The oversize shirt covers those problems mostly, but a pair that actually fit was a nice find.

I do love Amazon, but I can't afford the clothing there. Marshalls? The pants were fifteen dollars.

I also found a heavy denim shirt in clearance for the future Baron. It's black and will go with his tan chinos. I'm working on pulling him into the modern world and out of his proclivity for Mormon missionary attire. That wasn't his intention originally - in his early teenage years he saw a Cat Stevens' picture and decided that was for him. But it's not really "him" because when he dresses like that he looks like a Mormon when in reality he's an Episcopalian tenor who just happens to play a 12-string guitar. So I'm nudging...and worry warting: he's too thin in my humble opinion so I bought him a lunch box. Mothers never quit.

And so passed the day: the dentist and two stores. Which might have been doable had I eaten at all in between times. But I didn't think about it. By the time I dragged my aching carcass to the car, I was light-headed and in full-mode PAIN. Partly from trying to stuff too many activities into a few hours and partly from inadvertently fasting.

What did I do to fix the problem? Why I opened that damned jar of palm sugar. Just a bite. And then another bite. By today I was in binge mode. The Baron looked at the remains in that jar and went into sugar shock himself...

That lovely jar with the brown sweetness and the red top is but a memory...umm...Not quite. My body is still muttering imprecations, all of which I deserve. I have no idea what he did with the jar but I no longer care. Uuggghhh...


But back to the widget phobia. I went to the Associates page, planning to use one of those thingies that will let you profile several products at one time. I liked the skyscraper version for the design of this blog, and I wanted to keep my purple hose whilst adding another favorite product. But I couldn't get it to work. So my beloved lightweight purple hose will have to live here for the moment, while I put another product on the sidebar in its stead.

Water Right PSH-050-EP-4PKRS 50-Foot x 1/2-Inch Polyurethane Lead Safe Ultra Light Slim Garden Hose - Eggplant

The new offering - not new, exactly; I've been using it for about eighteen months or so - is now on the sidebar in place of the hose.

The Jaccard is an ingenious kitchen tool. It tenderizes meat, crushes fruit, and is extremely useful as long as you learn to clean it. Back when we ate bread, I used it to crush very stale slices. Days of bread and sugar are gone. Well, mostly gone.

I use my Jaccard on less-than-tender cuts of beef, on venison hunters give us in exchange for using our woodlands, or chicken breasts, pork slices, or veal (if you can afford i). First I sprinkle on whatever herbs, spices or marinade I'm using and then I push that thing all over the steak, turning it over and doing the other side. It saves long hours of marinating, and the meat cooks in about a third the time. I've also use it to pulverize fruit, especially strawberries for yogurt.

Now that I have those squid from the Asian store, I'll see if they benefit from a few mashes with the Jaccard. Can't hurt and it mighr prevent the rings from toughening when I cook them. Squid is a temperamental flesh.

The Baron loves my Jaccard, too. Men generally like gizmos, though he's more resistant than most. However, there's nothing like whacking slabs of meat to get one's testosterone flowing...

...we both learned the hard way about cleaning those 48 blades. Unless you're careful you can stab one of them into a finger as you're attempting to move them to reach a fiber of meat. But it takes only one carelessness and you're cured - of being careless, I mean. Now I use the hose attachment at the sink and quickly rinse off any meat shreds - they're aren't usually very many. I think the blades plunge in and out so cleanly that they don't take any meat with them. When done rinisng the Jaccard under the hose, I plunge it into a waiting pan of soapy hot water to which I've added bleach. It stays there, soaking, until any other utensils I might use in preparing the meat are ready to be washed - e.g., the pan used for marinating or the trimming knife.

Given how quickly cuts of meat that have been Jaccarded cook, I'll bet this thing has paid for itself by now.

NOTE: When I bought mine it came with a sturdy plastic sleeve which covers the blades. Both pieces are in shrink-wrapped in plastic. You could get by without the sleeve but I hope it's still sold that way. For the sake of Jaccard's liability insurance premiums if nothing else.

I've been thinking: I got this gadget because I could no longer use my meat pounder - tha't a fibromyalgia thing. I should do a Listmania for gadgets that make living with this DD - "damned disorder" as they say on some of the forums - a bit easier.

So far, by coincidence I have talked about two of them. The "eggplant"-colored garden hose that looks like a snake in the grass and this well-designed Jaccard.

Who knows, this could be a trend.