Revgals Friday Five: Cooking for Thanksgiving Edition

1) Do you have a food processor? Can you recommend it? Which is to say, do you actually use it? I do not have one. When I did have one, many many years ago I hardly used it....too complicated to clean.

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).) no...all the parts were to much to clean, easier to do the work by hand - or just chop instead of julienne....some might say that I lose the beauty of preparing food by going simple...and that would be true - but the food still tastes good. I care about taste and the combination of flavors more than I do on whether or not something is chopped or julienned....(that, or maybe I am just a lazy cook)...(or, ah, a simple cook).

3) Do you use a standing mixer? Or one of the hand-held varieties?(And isn't that color delightfully retro?) Both. I use the stand mixer when making batches of Christmas cookies, otherwise I use the hand mixer or a whisk.

4) How about a blender? Do you have one? Use it much? We have a blender for making milk shakes. My son love banana milk shakes.

5) Finally, what old-fashioned, non-electric kitchen tool do you enjoy using the most? A swirl-slotted wooden honey "spoon" for dipping honey out of the jar and dribbling it in my tea. I also use a hand potato masher to make mashed potatoes, which I make often. I like mashed potatoes made with baby red potatoes, peel left one, mashed lumpy, with milk, butter, salt and pepper. No flakes for me, thank you.

Bonus: Is there a kitchen appliance or utensil you ONLY use at Thanksgiving or some other holiday? If so, what is it? I use a pie tin under my pie when it is baking. It has a hole in the center in order to bake the crust evenly, but it also extends beyond the diameter of the pie dish in order to catch any leakage from apples, berries, or pumpkin. It really saves my oven from those sugary, smelly, spills.