Alas, poor Twinkie, I knew thee well...

The big news today is that Hostess, makers of the ubiquitous Twinkie, are liquidating their company and selling off their brands.

Including everyone's favorite cream-filled oblong cake.

Now, it's probably been at least five years since I last partook in Twinkie and Hostess Cupcake goodness.  Maybe longer. But the thought that I may soon not have access to these little bundles of yumminess (and whatever it is that keeps them fresh for, like, decades) makes me really want a Twinkie.

My guess is that some company out there will buy up the Twinkie brand, and probably a few other Hostess goodies as well.  Recall the case of Zingers - little chocolate cakes filled with cream, with a layer of fudge spread across the top.  I don't know what company originally owned Zingers, but Hostess bought them a while back.  I maintain that the original Zingers were better - probably because they were bigger.  But I therefore expect to see Twinkies remain on the shelves at stores, or at least return after a certain time period, made by another company.  

Will they be the same?  Maybe, maybe not.  

Will people buy them?

You bet your buttons!  Come on, have you met America?

Anyway, on the off chance that Twinkies do end up going the way of dinosaurs and Bonkers candy (remember Bonkers?), I think I may have to experiment with a homemade Twinkie recipe.  There's probably more than a few out there on the internet. But wouldn't that be a fun food experiment?

Mixed Berry Pie and Turnovers (OXO Product Review)

Wow, I've kind of fallen off the wagon with posts over the last couple weeks.  I apologize to my loyal readers.  To make it up to you, let me share a delicious new pie recipe and tell you about OXO's new cherry pitter design.

To make this pie...

...which involves delicious homegrown sweet cherries, blackberries, and blueberries...

...you need one of these.

But the design of the above pictured cherry pitter is awful.  I'd been using it for about three years now, and I never liked it.  The grip was too far apart to be comfortable for my hands, it wouldn't really come clean in the dishwasher and was a slight pain to wash by hand. Plus it splattered cherry juice everywhere - on my counter, down my arm, across my (apron-clad) front...

You get the idea.

But fresh cherry pies are so awesome, so you need a decent cherry pitter to make the pitting part easy.

I received OXO's newly designed cherry pitter recently and I have to say, it's pretty awesome.

For one thing, the distance between the hand grips is far, far smaller than on my old cherry pitter.  It's more ergonomically designed and thus more comfortable for pitting quart upon quart of cherries.  The overall design is a lot smarter too.

The prong (the thing that pushes through the cherry, I don't know if it has an actual name) is made of metal - probably stainless steel.  The little "cradle for the cherry is also a little more secure - I had no fears of the cherry falling out, which was a bit of a problem on my old pitter.  Plus, see that little plastic sleeve on the bottom there?  That's a splash guard.

So you don't spray yourself and your kitchen with cherry juice.

It works like a dream.

Plus, that little plastic guard comes off for easy cleaning - and like most OXO products, the whole thing is dishwasher safe.

And perhaps my favorite part (aside from the dishwasher safe thing) - there's a little locking mechanism that lets you lock the pitter closed for easy storage.  Takes up way less space in my drawer!

So, armed with this awesome OXO cherry pitter, what did I decide to make?

Well, that mixed berry pie, of course!

It was one of a dozen pies I made for a friend's wedding recently.

(This, by the way, is one of the reasons I haven't blogged much in the past couple weeks.  The other reason is getting my classroom ready.)

Anyway, the mixed berry pie was amazing, if I do say so myself.  Want to know how to make it?

Collecting Recipes

About a year or so ago, I decided to change my main magazine subscription from Cosmopolitan to Woman's Day, not because I think there's anything particularly wrong with Cosmo, but rather because I found myself flipping through the majority of the magazine without actually reading it.  I didn't feel that was getting my money's worth, so I stopped my subscription and started a new one for Woman's Day.

I've been pretty happy ever since.  There are still some things I flip past (okay, I'll give them a cursory skim), but I'm in love with Woman's Day primarily because of the recipes.

Around 8:30 last night, I decided to go through my almost-year's worth of issues that I'd tucked away so I could "try those recipes later" and cut out what I actually thought I'd try.

It turned out to be quite a lot more recipes that I'd thought.

Still, I made a nice little folder for them, and after several hours of perusing and cutting and tearing, I had a lovely stack tucked away in my folder, and the spent issues are in the recycling bin.

I probably could've gone onto the Woman's Day website and printed the recipes off from there, but I figured that would be a further waste of paper and ink.  My thought is that, when I feel like trying a new recipe out, I'll just pull it from the folder and give it a whirl.  If it's a keeper, I'll transfer it to my recipe book.  If it flops, into the recycling bin it goes.  No harm, no foul.

The trick, of course, will be actually weeding through the keepers and the weepers in due course so I don't end up with a folder of recipes to try that's the size of War and Peace because I kept adding and never get around to cooking any of it.  I figure next week I can start trying a couple recipes here and there, and that should help me keep on top of things.