Cooking in the West

I just love those helpful hint columns and books full of tips on how to remove every stain known to man or cure anything from warts to arthritis with a home remedy. Sometimes though, I have to question the effectiveness and efficiency of the remedies and helpful hints. I have actually had less than miraculous results with many of those tips.

A tomato juice bath is supposed to be the cure-all for skunk spray. Do you know how much a tomato juice bath for a small boy costs? It was $92.00 cheaper and much less stressful just to let the child eventually wear the stink off. Either it wore off or our olfactory senses dulled, but we saved the $92.00 regardless.

Vinegar is another miraculous cure-all. Supposedly if you put bowls of vinegar around your house, it will absorb odor. Aside from the house smelling like a pickle, another side effect of this method is that if someone who never confesses (Either Idon'tknow or his sister Notme) spills one of those odor absorbing bowls on your Grandmother's antique hutch, it creates a nasty white blotch that only professional refinishing can cure.

Now, I am a huge fan of WD-40 and duct tape, but WD-40 is actually touted as a great stain remover. If you get a Kool-aid stain on a white t-shirt, which by the way is a really poor consumer choice for Kool-aid drinkers, you simply spray it with WD-40 on both sides, blot it with paper towels, rub in Dawn dish washing detergent, blot it some more, and wash it in bleach. There might be a hole in the shirt from the chemical reaction of WD-40 to Dawn to bleach, but the stain will be gone! Then, you can go to the fabric store, buy a cute applique, iron it over the hole, and spend $137.00 on quilting supplies in an effort to compensate for the painful frustration of spending three hours hunched over a stain while inhaling harsh chemicals.

There are some great hints floating around out there that just have tiny inherent flaws in their practicality. In a children's cookbook, it recommended using a meat baster to help children make perfect pancakes. I am relatively certain that this hint was not tested with an actual child. Do you know how much pancake batter ends up on the outside of the baster, the child, the dog, the counter, and the couch when this helpful hint is practically applied? Do you know how quickly the meat baster melts to the surface of your best griddle when the child is standing on a chair squeezing the batter on to the griddle to form perfect pancakes? Well, neither did whoever thought up that hint!

When my kids were little, we tried all of the painless splinter removing tips. Put a piece of Scotch tape over the splinter, pull it off, and Poof, the sliver was still there. Put Elmer's glue over the splinter, let it dry, pull it off, and Poof, the sliver was still there. I think the only splinters those highly touted methods would remove must be town splinters, because ranch splinters, which are usually off of something nasty like a manure encrusted railroad tie, just scoff at removal methods that don't require wrestling, a sharp knife, a lot of screaming, a small amount of blood, a bottle of peroxide, a Scooby Doo band-aid, and a trip to town for a milkshake to soothe the pain and suffering--mostly of the sliver remover not the removee.

I have tried all of the hints about dog hair. Wipe your pet off with a sheet of Bounce. Put fabric softener in water and spritz it on your dog. Personally, I think that although your dog might smell as rain shower fresh as something that rolls in afterbirth possibly can after using these methods, the only way to get rid of dog hair is to get rid of the dog or enforce the outside dog rule that gets waived at our house any time a cloud passes overhead.

Speaking of Bounce, if you tie a Bounce sheet through your beltloop it is supposed to ward off mosquitoes. However, it will not ward off everyone you meet from asking, "Why do you have a fabric softener sheet tied on your beltloop?" I have a tip for the Bounce tip makers--perhaps before using this method in public, they should advise consumers to pass out fliers with this tip and other helpful fabric softener tips and a coupon for 25 cents off their next purchase of Bounce. Have you ever wondered how they (who is they?) know for certain that it is your "next purchase"? Perhaps the store cashier should ask, "Are you sure that this is your next purchase of this product?" before they allow you to redeem your coupon? (Perhaps I have worked for the government for too long now--3 months!)

Two Alka-Seltzer tablets dropped in the toilet bowl and allowed to sit twenty minutes are supposed to clean your toilet bowl. Obviously, this tip was not tested where we live, the IRON Mountain drainage of the Beartooth Absaroka Mountain Range! Supposedly drinking Alka-Seltzer with every meal works better than the patch to curb cravings for smokers, but although I am skeptical, I don't think I will start smoking just to debunk that hint.

Obviously, I could go on and on, but here's a hint that never fails! If you are so cynical that you don't try every hint you read, you are probably well on your way to becoming a cranky old realist!

This week the cranky old realist has cookie recipes, because cookies rock on these cold winter days! Readers, I would love it if you send three of your favorite recipes to my lonely inbox at cookinginthewest@yahoo.com or to Susan Metcalf, Box 765, Big Timber, MT 59011. Thanks!

Mother's Haystacks (No-Bake)

1 C. butterscotch chips

1/2 C. creamy peanut butter

1/2 C. salted peanuts or 1 C. miniature marshmallows

2 C. chow mein noodles

Melt chips and peanut butter together in microwave. Fold in either marshmallows or peanuts and chow mein noodles. Drop by forkfuls onto waxed paper. Cool until set.

Lemon Bars

1 1/2 C. flour

2/3 C. powdered sugar

3/4 C. butter, softened

3 eggs

1 1/2 C. white sugar

3 T. flour

1/4 C. lemon juice

1/3 C. powdered sugar for dusting

Combine flour, 2/3 C. powdered sugar, and butter. Pat dough into prepared 9 X 13 pan. Bake 20 minutes or until slightly golden at 375 degrees. Meanwhile, whisk eggs, white sugar, flour, and lemon juice until frothy. Pour over hot crust. Return to the oven for an additional 20 minutes until light golden brown. Cool and dust tops with powdered sugar. Cut into bars. (If you want thicker bars, you can double the topping ingredients.)

Grandma’s Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

2 C. shortening

2 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. white sugar

4 eggs

2 t. vanilla extract

4 C. flour

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

2 t. cinnamon

1 t. allspice

1 t. cloves

6 C. rolled oats

1 C. milk

2 C. raisins

Cream shortening, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs. Stir in vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Stir into creamed mixture until blended. Mix in oats alternately with milk. Stir in raisins. Drop by heaping spoonfuls on to greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 11 minutes or until edges are golden and tops are dry. Cool on sheet for one minute before removing to a rack.