Here's where I heard about the hashbrowns in waffle iron (have since seen it several places): Hashbrown Waffles by Waffleizer.com Directions: 1. Wash and peel the potatoes. Shred them and squeeze them dry with a towel. (This ensures that your potatoes brown nicely.) 2. In a mixing bowl, add the potatoes, followed by salt and pepper to taste. 3. Spread about a teaspoon of butter on the waffle iron. (A silicone pastry brush works well; neither you nor the brush will melt while you spread the butter around the extremely hot waffle iron, and any nonstick finish on your waffle iron will be spared.) 4. Pile the shredded potatoes into the waffle iron and close the lid. 5. After a few minutes, you may wish to squeeze down the lid a bit. Check the potatoes after 10 minutes. In my waffle iron on the medium heat setting, the potatoes showed golden-brown highlights after about 15 minutes. But yours will vary, possibly by quite a bit. 6. Carefully remove the potatoes from the waffle iron. Serve them with grated cheese or sour cream. You could also serve waffled hash browns with ketchup, alongside a waffleburger. But that takes serious commitment to the concept. And I would worry about you a little. I used mine as the base for a fried egg, topped with shavings of three-year Gouda. It took me about two minutes to clean my plate. And, no, I did not waffle the egg. Not that one, anyway. Cooking bacon came from Alton Brown's show.

I wouldn't have agreed to accept 2 instead of the 3 you paid for. In the event a dispute were to be filed, it's her word against yours and since you received a "make-up" package for the one she claims got lost, she can say she sent 3 and you have no way to dispute her statement because likely the package weight would not be different with one item less. We're not talking big bucks here, but it's the principal of the thing. You didn't get what you paid for. Accepting packages with less than you've bought is a good way to get burned badly and lose big $$$$. If this should happen again and you suspect the package contents aren't what they should be, either open the package with your mailman as a witness or carry it to the P.O. to open it in front of a postal employee. The above is especially important for sellers when a difficult buyer is returning an item for a refund. Sometimes the package contains a similar item, but in damaged condition in order to perpetuate a scam. This seller would never win a dispute because she didn't get DC on the package. If you were a shady buyer, out to cheat her, (and they are out there, ready to pounce) seeing your package didn't have a DC on it would give you the opportunity to collect on the seller's mistake. Telling buyers they have to pay for insurance still won't help this seller if she doesn't have DC on her packages. She will have to refund if a dispute is filed.

Cupcake Shows. . . I LOVE that term, and had never heard it before, but it fits so perfectly, although I had heard about a show called something like: "Cupcake Wars", or something like that. Contestants try to outdo each other, making the best cupcakes. I don't care much for Barefoot Contessa, or Pioneer Woman, but Paula just sends shivers up my spine. I don't know what it is about her. I love her hair and her eyes. She is just so 'secksy', (to 'this old man'). But she makes me want to puke with her CONSTANT "ya'lls". I mean 'every other word'!!!! Does anyone think that maybe she is told to do that? Anywhooo, if I had a portrait of Paula Dean, it would be up on my bedroom wall, (pant, pant). Forgive me for getting off topic. And now . . . back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Twisties to tie up produce bags are totally unknown here. I wouldn't use them anyway (I cleaned out a drawer a few months ago that was literally an inch deep in unused twisties from packages of freezer bags, accumulated over 15 years!). I tie a slipknot with a loop in my bags so they can easily be opened again and if I haven't a trolley handy I can carry several bags with a finger slipped through the loop. Misbehaving children I have no compunction against telling off. Miss Manners suggests the line, "Don't do that, you might get hurt!", accompanied by the Look that says "And I will be doing the hurting". Works for me :-D Takes a village to raise a child and I am part of the village. My shopping-related pet peeve is our local grocery store (I live in a small town 37 km from the nearest other town) that either orders ridiculously small amounts of perishables, so they run out two days before the next delivery, or so much that you can't buy anything except what's right on the expiry date because they're not going to put fresher stuff out until all the old stuff is gone. And you can't buy the good brand of icecream in vanilla- lots of other flavours, but choc-mint doesn't go so well with apple cobbler :-P Why doesn't the person who orders consider that??? No one wants to eat a whole bowl of icecream in winter! (This is Australia, in case you hadn't guessed :-) .)