Please advise if you know of a source for a shoe tree that can be attached to something permanent so that a shoe can be polished?  Thanks.

What, you don't want to hold your shoes and get polish all over your hands like everyone else?

I jest, of course.  It sounds like a great idea.  And I can find lots of references to it in advice from or for valets, personal organizers, locker room attendants, etc.  It's called a wall-mounted shoe tree or wall-mounted shoe holder.

Can I find one for sale?  No.  Astonishingly, I cannot find anyone on the internet selling one.  It certainly sounds like a great thing to have if you wear shoes every day that have to be polished.

Maybe you could ask the buyer for the valet service at some large hotel or country club locker room.  Or find a professional organizer service and see if they'll tell you for free.

How about it?  Anyone have any ideas to help this fellow out?

Tom Sterling....Cooking String Source, Please

Where do I find a large spool of cooking string?   Any help appreciated.

I never looked.  I always use kite sting.  Here in central Miami, with the proliferation of electric, telephone and cable TV lines and of course trees waiting to snag kites, probably most of the kite string sold is used to tie up tamales and other little traditional packets of tasty stuff (See Allapattah Cuisine)  rather than fly kites.   Put on enough Tabasco sauce, as some do, and you'll think you repeated Ben Franklin's famous kite and lightning experiment.

Seriously, any white, 100% cotton string will do.  Kite string is excellent for most purposes, but for heavy duty or fancy cooking, many groceries and hardware stores have thicker cotton string.  Just don't get dyed string or that kind with poly-something in it!  Bad juju!

Kite string is great for tying not only tamales, but boquet garni (a bundle of herbs used in soups, stews or parboiling), tying up fish, small roasts and poultry and many other tasks around the kitchen.  I keep mine in a plastic bag for cleanliness.  For turkeys or larger roasts, however, kite string will cut into the food unacceptably and maybe even break.

See instructions on Trussing a Chicken.   Note that it recommends fine string.  Kite string is just the right size for this job.

"Use cotton butchers' string, which can be found wherever professional culinary equipment is sold; it can also be ordered from your butcher.  You can use other cotton string or jute twine in a desperate moment, but those tend to be hard, stiff and difficult to work with, and they can be thin enough to cut into the flesh; butchers' twine is soft and it's the perfect thickness. Obviously, don't use plastic string, which could melt."

This is excellent advice except (1) I don't know where any professional culinary equipment is sold except on the internet, and I can't see any that sell butcher's string, and (2) now where did I put the darn string!    This precedes a trip to the grocery for more kite string.  

If you still want the real thing, ask the head butcher at the meat market where you shop if he or she will order you a roll of butcher's string.  If not, look in the Yellow Pages of your telephone book under Butcher's Supplies and make some calls.   Restaurant Suppliers would be your next choice.   If you still cannot find any, just make do with any good white cotton string. 

You can find cooking string (poultry string) at kitchenEtc.com. There it is.  I looked everywhere.  My daughter found this for me.  In the meantime I used 100% cotton crochet thread and it worked fine. 

Hello there, I would like to buy butcher's string, for my grilling machine, and I couldn't find it any place.  Can you help me?

I just checked, and it is still available at the address above, kitchenEtc.com

Hello there.    A very wealthy lady friend is marrying a working class man, with the condition that they live at his level of $$$ not hers.   Am looking hard for a good old fashioned scrub board and a 15 gallon galvanized wash bucket/basin for a wedding gift.  The scrub board doesn't even have to be new.  If you have clue please direct me.

You, sir, have a wicked and degenerate sense of humor.  But never let it be said that ole Granny Bess didn't come to the rescue.  I wore down many a knuckle on one of those old washboards I bought used at Goodwill during a couple of lean years when I was raising babies and hubby Floyd was going to college, and even 25 cents for a washer load was better put toward the food budget.  

Take a look at the Columbus Washboard Company, who is currently producing, among others, an elegant 2000 Collector's Edition washboard.   They have a wide variety of boards for your selection.   If you cannot find a bucket at your local hardware, try Peas & Corn Company's steel basket with handles.   Just make sure the washboard you buy isn't wider than the bucket, or they may suspect you never used one yourself!

I'd like one I can use in the kitchen for spices, but also use to powder my mineral pills. Any suggestions where to look?

Either you can carry a tune, or you can't carry one in a bucket, as the saying goes.  The same holds true for spelling.  It's a gift.  The kid next door frequently comes in, very frustrated, knowing something is on the web and he cannot find it.  Why?  He can't spell it.   It's Pestle, Mike.

Regardless of the spelling error, I was surprised, which shows how insulated a life I lead here in overwhelmingly Hispanic Miami.  A hardware or grocery without a big selection of mortar and pestle sets, usually wood but lately I've seen plastic ones, would be on its way out of business.   Note:  I am not in favor of plastic ones on general principle.  I use a wood one; many people like ceramic or stone.  I use it to make a garlic, salt and herb mixture for salads or to rub into fish or poultry, or to crush ascorbic acid pills (vitamin C) to add to fruit salad both to increase the tanginess (too often fresh fruit is lacking in flavor due to early picking and storage) and sneakily upgrade nutrition, and to prevent darkening or oxidation of the fruit.

If you have an ethnic Hispanic grocery where you live, try there.  Probably Jamaican or many other ethnic stores would have them too.  If you can't find them, click on Amazon and in the search box put "pestle".  If you don't like those, click on Cooking.com and put "pestle" in the search box for a larger selection.  Or go to Google's new feature, Froogle, and type in "pestle" for a very wide choice of types and companies.

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