I've heard of people filling a inexpensive children's wading pool with ice, then keeping the cold dishes in that. Once the party was about to begin you could move the platters to the serving area and add canned soda and bottled water to the pool? The ice might melt quickly though if you are in a hot area.

Living out here in "Nambe Country" we have several pieces of Nambe. I love how they retain heat or cold when serving foods on them, but find all the precautions I have to take a real bother. For the amount of money they cost (a lot!) I tend to keep mine more as accent pieces these days and can't imagine buying any more of it. Even so, I do need to have my pieces many scratches buffed out someday. Good luck with your platter. Whether you send it in for refinishing or do it yourself, I'd love to hear how it turns out. Lynn

Electricity is not generally a good way to generate heat either from an efficiency or from an economic standpoint, although I'm sure some of you can find ways to make me wrong here. What Davidrol is saying is that once the thermal mass of an object is heated, the item will radiate heat into the room if the room is cooler. Put another way, once you introduce a mass that is hard to heat up, it also takes time to cool off. This is the principle in my solar porch, in which dark colored tile absorbs sun in winter and exhales heat into the room after sundown. It is also true that the room is almost insufferably hot on a sunny February day after the point where the air temp has no more cold mass to pass off the heat into. We usually turn on the ceiling fan and the furnace blower to dissipate the air heat until it's at a moderate temp. When there's no sun, we shut the curtains and wear shoes in there to keep the feet warm. If I recall the physics correctly, it's more comfortable to keep the ambient air and the objects in the room generally at same temp as much as possible; when there is a rise and fall, it throws the greater system out of whack, at least for a while and the room will feel cold even if the air is at "normal air temp" for the season. Although I am unfamiliar with countertop heating, I would guess that the stone will feel cold until it approaches the temp of the fingers and arms, which I would guess are give or take about 90 degrees Fahrenheit--not as hot as the body core. So let's say that you have a 5 foot by 3 foot by 2.5 inches granite island to heat. Will you heat it continuously or only the hours before you plan to sit at the counter? what temp will you keep it at? At what point will it begin to exhale heat into your room? And what will it be like when the warmth of the stone is sufficient to affect the ambient air in the room? Like the tile at the community pool? If the heater remained in the on position for days, do you strip down to shirtsleeves or even less in February as I do when I'm in the solar room? Do you allow the kitchen to disconnect from the whole-house heating system so the distant rooms continue to receive heat or do you let the rest of the house cool down when the countertop is in heat mode? Or is the heat of the stone mass of that island not that big a deal, meaning that it really doesn't affect the room heating and house heating very much. In which case, we're back to the question of whether you're using the counter for heating or for comfort and putting those hydrocarbons into the atmosphere whenever you flip the on switch. If the granite really performs well as a heat radiator, it belongs at the floor level, not halfway to the ceiling and it should be heated with the most efficient and planet-friendly method as possible. I recently wrote about spending a morning next to the window in a local restaurant that has granite topped cafe tables. I had to put on my jacket even though the room was warm. I definitely won't go back there again. Laminates, some stones, and wood are more comfortable. And what do you do about granite in a sitting area in the air conditioning season? Leave the auxiliary heat turned off?

Lemon juice in water will keep them from browning for awhile. I think I would slice the apples just before leaving for work at home, and as I slice them throw them in a Tupperware bowl of lemon water. Then I would take bowl, water and apples to work and drain the apples there on paper towel before putting them out.