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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:
 I quarted, thin sliced, and
> chopped the entire stack of cabbages.  It is admittedly a practiced 
> regimen.  But once the hands know it, it is deadly efficient.  In a 
> short time I was wiping up the board and knife and one of the people 
> gabbing there remarked, "I can't believe you made slaw out of all 
> that cabbage with just a knife while we've been standing here!"   Yet
>  people are so convinced that the Slice'em Dice'em Chop-o-matic just 
> HAS to be so much faster than a knife, there's no reason to even 
> consider the latter.

On TV the other night, on the reality show, "There Goes the
Neighborhood" I saw a woman supposedly cutting up chicken for dinner.  I
could NOT stop laughing.  Obviously, this woman had never cut chicken or
any other meat in her life.  It appeared to be a boneless breast, and
she couldn't even half it!  I'd bet she had never cut anything with a
knife, and she was at least 35 years old.  Now there is a woman who eats
out.  It is typical of our society.
BTW, I usually hate this type of reality show, and I would not recommend
this one, but watched it only because it was filmed in my old stomping
grounds, real close to where I moved from before we lived here...It's
filmed down in Kennesaw.

Now, as a contrast to this, and since it pertains to the thread, I have
to say that I was totally amazed at a machine I used the other day.  My
friend and I were processing apples with a corer/peeler/slicer that
mounts on the counter.  WOW.  I had heard of these things and seen them,
but I would not have believed that it would work faster than a skilled
peeler with a sharp knife.  Not only was it faster, but there was
relatively no waste.  I gotta get me one of those!  I could slice apples
for drying in no time!

  And yet I knew that
> even if he saw it with his own eyes, he'd still be walking in a world
>  where the string trimmer was faster and less work.

My shoulder and bicep hurt right now from a weedeater.  Faster and less
work is arguable when you feel the work two days later.  Also, talking
about food processors, they are usually a bitch to clean.  Knives are
much easier, if you, as you do, have the skill.


 For day to day reminders to aid my rapidly failing short term memory,
> I beging the day with a blank sheet of copy paper folded in quarters 
> which gives me eight writing surfaces.  That with a pencil keeps my 
> shop notes, kitchen notes, and garden notes so I don't keep showing 
> up in a rush somewhere and ask myself, "What was it I came here for?"
>  At the end of the day the sheet is dated, unfolded and put in a 
> notebook and constitutes a fairly accurate daily record of what's 
> going on around here.

Cool.

Bev
--
Sleep well tonight, for somewhere in the ocean's depths, MY son is
protecting your freedom on the USS Key West, currently deployed
somewhere in the Pacific and/or Indian Ocean.  Go Navy!
EarthNSky Farm, NW Georgia, USA