Remember how I mentioned my grandson has CMT (Charcot-Marie Tooth disease)? And how I said he got it 100% from his dad?
About that…
Testing, Testing… Is This Thing On?
I got more results back from genetic testing done earlier in the year. At bare minimum I’m a carrier for CMT. Which means my kids most likely are, too. So the grandson got a double whammy.
My annual checkup is in a week and a half. (Sorry, snorted at the “annual” thing. I’ve been in for reasonably routine stuff, but a formal “annual checkup” has been anything but annual.) I’m debating whether it’s worth sending the genetic results to my doctor’s office.
Y’all know I have no love for the medical community.
I trust modern medicine has the capacity to do medical miracles. I’m not anti-vax, though given how modern medicine treats its patients, I get why a lot of people consider it quackery or worse. My issue lies with medicine’s rugged determination to do a close as possible to nothing whatsoever where women are concerned, or to be openly malicious in its treatment of women. And I guess it’s comparable or worse for people of color.
Blatant Advertisement For Another Seller
Enough grumbling for a while, and a happy moment.
If you’re like me, the worst part of cooking is chopping. My hands scream at me when I spend half an hour slicing and dicing veggies, and forget using a grater. I’m terrific at shredding my knuckles. I own a mini food processor. However, it only has one setting and blade: pulverize. Not what I need most of the time.
Then a while back I saw one of those “Amazon gadgets you need” articles, 99.9% of which are useless crap. Except this article included the .01% of “stuff I bought and have used almost every day since arrival”.
It’s this Rotary Shredder and Slicer. (Disclaimer: affiliate link. If you click and buy I get maybe 15 cents? Not sure. I know it’s literally pennies. Your price isn’t affected.)
There are also other brands for less — identical product, just a different label stuck on the box.
This is literally a low-tech food processor and I am in love with it.
My only real complaint with the shredder is its supposed to suction onto the countertop , which it doesn’t do, at all. Thankfully, it’s small enough and light enough to hold it mostly in place whilst turning the handle. It’s fast, too – I shredded a pound of cheese in under a minute, including cutting into quarters to fit into the chute.
Correction: one more complaint. It’s 99% plastic. I would gladly pay more for a more hefty metal equivalent, hand-cranked and equally compact. I saw a couple of metal variations, all of which got awful reviews saying they were cheaply made and/or impossible to clean. I want an old-school meat grinder, only one that shreds and slices instead of grinding.
Is that too much to ask?
If I had the funds to make and patent it, I would. I’d make the base enameled cast-iron, keep the shred/slice wheels stainless steel, and voilà! I can’t be the only person who wants one. Dangerspouse, tell me I’m wrong. Or tell me where I can buy what I just described, ideally without breaking the bank.
The popcorn photo at the top of the page was me breaking my diet a couple of nights ago. I’m still working, and finally back to 40 hours a week. The reduced hours are a welcome change. Losing the OT grind represents a $500-a-month pay cut, though. It’s enough to screech into fiscal ouch territory.
We’ll survive and have plans to address the shortfall, pay off the credit card explosion (new AC plus a chain-reaction of family crises), AND sock back the $$ toward a move. But it’ll take a few months for everything to ramp up. In the meantime we’re cutting corners. Thanks to the replaced AC, our power bill’s dropped already. We have other resources already coming into play, too. So while it’s an ouch, it’s not an OUCH.
Popcorn, despite not being keto-friendly, is a budget-friendly answer to the munchies. I have a stockpile of keto ingredients, and now I’m working fewer hours I can actually take the time to use them. We’ve got a freezer full and I’m perfectly happy to blow through an overloaded pantry. Emptying the pantry is far preferable to throwing out boxes and cans long expired, which has been a historic trend at our house.
(Edited to add: we’re fine. This week was tighter than usual due to a conscious investment decision. Don’t worry about us.)
Lol. You’re *almost* not wrong. I think enameled cast iron makes good cookware, but one is always given the caveat that metal utensils should not be used in them for real risk of scratching, or even wearing off the enameling if done repeatedly. Most pro-level kitchen gear of the type tends to be either nekkid stainless steel or heavy cast aluminum. (My good KitchenAid meat grinder attachment is the professional Hobart model, which is bare thick aluminum. The KA model is plastic coated steel, which while absolutely fine for lighter home use, is less robust than the Hobart.) But yeah, I can see why you want almost anything more solid looking than that plastic jobber!
FWIW, and I’m sure this is no surprise, I absolutely love hand chopping! I consider it an art, and go at it happily. So if I’m ever gifted a heavy duty non-suction professional cast aluminum dicer/chopper/masher/pulverizer, I’m sticking it in the mail and sending it to you the next day!
Valid point on all fronts. For me it’s physically painful to chop stuff, which is why I bought this contraption, lol. But yeah – stainless would be fine too, long as it’s heavy enough to stay relatively in place during use. Better yet, stainless on a cast-iron base 😉
As always you have a lot of knowledge to share. I believe your mind must be going like the Energizer bunny at all times. Good luck with the new contraption and hope all the good stuff starts coming your way.
Thank you. The shredder/slicer has already been a godsend for me. I love it!