I have a sample of unsealed 12 x 12 polished (the store didn't have honed) Carrara tile that I intentionally abuse. I haven't done the scientific tests that others have tried in different threads, but here is what I can relay: the purpoted Meg Ryan treatment does very little to age marble quickly. Plain white vinegar is best for quick etching/honing. The only problem is I soaked a Bounty paper towel with vinegar and left on the marble for a few hours, so now I have a tiny Bounty pattern etched on it. I have "spilled" red wine, tomatoes, olive oil, lemon juice and anything else that happened to be at hand - nothing stained the marble. Some liquids will create a darker pattern that we tend to think of as etching, but after wiping the spill, it eventually dries and becomes unnoticeable. I think this is what Carriea has experienced. I wouldn't advise anyone to try to hone your polished marble with vinegar or any other acid. I think you would be better of starting with a honed slab and letting it age by living with it and using it.

Barb -- Even as an instructor, I've always found home canning to be an expensive method for food preservation if you have to purchase the food, and especially if you have to purchase canning equipment. In the home canning class I teach, we do cost analysis charts so people get a better idea of the true cost. Not to mention the hours of food preparation it takes from garden to the table. I used to break down the cost of utilities, but it changes periodically, and now there isn't just one cost, it varies throughout the day, so I don't bother with that anymore. It's not worth my time and trouble to plant, care for, harvest, and process 8-10 pints of pickled beets (about the average we would use in a year) when I can purchase them for 67-cents per can. That's one of the few commercially canned foods I buy. It's expensive for the cost of the utilities to process home canning, and for the extra energy to cool your home with an air conditioner while you process it. Do you have the kind of stove you can do home canning ON? Are your burners large enough (size and B.T.U. out-put) for the size of canner you are using? For a LOT of reasons, freezing or dehydration is a less-expensive choice for home food preservation. I also believe unless you have access to fresh-picked produce in the amounts it takes to fill a canner, you are probably wasting your time AND money because it means your home canned food won't have much in the way of nutrients after the delay from picking until it's canned if you have to wait several days to get the large amounts you need. It definitely doesn't pay to only fill a canner with a few pints/quarts when it takes nearly the same amount of energy to process a canner that is full. I also think most home canned foods are inferior when it comes to nutrition due to the lag time from harvest to processing, as well as from the heat processing, and how long and under what conditions they are stored in. And not everyone likes to eat home canned food.... Most of my friends and most of my students now can a favorite family recipe or two and jam/jelly/apple butter for gift-giving. Dehydrating takes very little energy, other than what it takes for blanching (but not everything requires blanching). I place my dehydrator in the basement where the heat it produces dissipates quickly. The exception is onions, which I do in the garage because of the smell. Kale can get a bit smelly, too. Dehydrated foods takes up less space than canning. It's amazing how many dried apple slices or dried tomato slices you can stuff into a canning jar!!! The FoodSaver product you are considering is fine for what it's designed for, but I think you would be happier with one of the full-size units which are more expensive. I have one of those small units and rarely use it (purchased it at Tuesday Morning for $19 several years ago), while I use the regular one many times each day (and have been using them since 1986). I'm into home food storage and have a whole room in the basement filled with vacuum-sealed dry goods. The FoodSaver is the center of my long-term storage, so it's a must-have for me. I have a new one, still in the box, I purchased on sale, ready to go if the current one quits. My entire freezer is organized with vacuum-sealed items, because they last longer in the freezer. No more freezer-burned food! I can pull out a plastic storage basket and flip through it for vacuum-sealed fruits or vegetables, all in a single layer in the bags. Cut the bag open, remove the amount needed, and reseal the bag and put it back in the basket in the freezer. I freeze soup/stew/chili in serving sizes. Pop it out of the freezer container, stack the "cubes" and vacuum-seal them a FoodSaver bag. Take out what I need and reseal the bag. I have all our breakfast meat in serving amounts and vacuum-sealed. I divide bulk amounts of chicken, and other meat products, into several bags and vacuum-seal it - both raw and pre-cooked. My pantry shelf is lined with foods in canning jars of various sizes. Instead of standing them up-right on the shelves two and three deep, and having to move them to see what's in the back, I lay the jars down on their side with the lid to the front. I have my shelves adjusted so they are the distance apart of one 1/2-gallon jar space (which is the largest jar I use). I spray painted the lids with chalk board paint, and I use a chalk board pencil or liquid chalk board markers (in fun electric colors) to mark the chalkboard lids. Some jars are covered with plastic Ball jar lids and you can write on them with liquid chalk markers. Not all of these are vacuum-sealed, but many are (especially those that contain freeze-dried foods). So my pantry is lined with canning jars filled with dry gluten-free pasta, dried and freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, baking aids like cacao nibs, chocolate chips (several kinds and sizes), chia seeds, palm sugar, arrowroot, whole grains and homemade cereal products, crispy nuts (soaked and dehydrated), pinto bean flakes, dried parsley..... And even more in the food storage room. You will have to determine whether a FoodSaver will meet your food storage needs and goals. -Grainlady

wintercat, I keep Mayo on hand for DH’s lunch sandwiches, as well as summertime BLT’s and some salad dressings - haven't made layered salad in ages (we call it "laid salad" due to a typo!). If you’re looking for another use for mayo, have you tried it when roasting a turkey? Many moons ago, I found a method for roasting a large bird using mayo (it was a Thomas Keller recipe), and since then, I won’t roast a turkey without it. Sounds bizarre and gross, but it always produces the moistest turkey I’ve ever eaten and guests always ask how I got it so tender and juicy. You cannot taste the mayo at all. No brining required. You can use it on a breast only, also. Any size bird will work; I mince a couple garlic cloves, fresh herbs if you’ve got them, and add it to 2-4 Tbs mayo (for a small bird, say 5 lbs.) up to 1 cup for the biggest bird – and divide in half. Salt and pepper the bird first. Carefully lift as much skin as you are able and push ½ the mayo under the skin – don’t worry about the whole bird, just as much skin as you can lift without tearing. Use the rest on top of the bird coating evenly, and a little inside. I add stock, butter, and white wine, as well as onions, carrots, fresh thyme, and sometimes a bay leaf to the roasting pan and bake at 325 F until the last 30-45 minutes, at which point you’ll want to raise your oven temp to 350 F to brown the skin nicely. The gravy is also unflavored by mayo (thank goodness!)

When I was taking food to my elderly parents, I made 6 jar salads for them every week. I didn’t put the dressing in but layered the jars with the diced tomatoes on the bottom then diced cukes, onion, radish, red pepper and then packed in washed/dried romaine lettuce. If they used them in 6 days, they stayed good in the fridge. Something about glass and being tightly closed, I think, keeps them fresh. Here at home, I make a giant salad in the lettuce spinner case and we eat that for several days. It does not keep for 6 days.