I really like them. I have painted my house so many times in the 11 years we've lived here and never quite been satisfied. When I spoke to Ellen, she led me to warmer colors - mine were all cool colors. It all started with the living/music room and the Mustard Seed - never, ever thought I'd like a yellow paint - I LOVE this paint. It has such depth to it, colors change depending on the time of day, part of the room you are in, and it was an incredible tranformation. I painted my kitchen in Spring Green - I have a big to me kitchen, dinette area and wow, love the color. It did freak me out a bit going on, but the whole family loves the green. It's more color than has ever been in the room, but it's not dark like it's been with even less color, even in the hallway going down to the powder room. I do have all walnut stained cabinetry and trim; the colors just make the wood pop. The paint goes on dreamy. Very nice to cut in with, not so thin it runs, but not thick at all. Covers well but definately needs two coats over a primer. Next up is our front entrance in honeysuckle, the hallway in buttercream and cafe au lait is in the plans for my family room. We'll see if I can upload a before and after pic of the mustard seed - natural light, dreary day, no flash. You can see some of the different shades of the paint.. Before After

Rolling pie dough: I always have success, and have followed the Joy of Cooking's basic pie dough recipe for decades -- I've successfully baked pies for 40+ years. The recipe calls for only the basics: cold butter, room temperature shortening (I use Crisco), all purpose flour, salt and 4-6 Tablespoons of cold water. That's it. Very simple and very traditional. The dough is NEVER chilled. Think about it: You want the butter and shortening to be soft and absorb/mix-in with the dry ingredients. Chilled fat will take a LOT of handling to get to that consistency, and increased handling results in tough pie crusts. That's why most of the recipes I've seen do not call for chilling the dough. I mix the flour, salt and butter together using a hand-held pastry blender -- See photo. It's a simple, basic pastry making tool that costs between $5 - $10. Very traditional, very tried & true. Sometimes I mix the butter in first, sometimes I mix the shortening. Whichever you choose to use, use the blender to mix the dry ingredients and butter/shortening until the crumbs look like peas. Then add either the butter or shortening and continue mixing with pastry blender until the ingredients look like cornmeal. You really will notice the difference. At that point, add the cold water 1 Tbs at a time, using a fork to lift and mix the ingredients together. While the recipe calls for 4-6 Tbs., I find that 4 Tbs works for me ....sometimes as much as 5. This has been true regardless of whether I've made pies in the dry, mountainous West, or the humid east coast. You'll add only enough water until you can get most of the dry ingredients to hold together in a ball. Assuming it's a 2-crust pie, I halve the pie dough and immediately begin working the first crust. I leave the rest of the pie dough in the bowl, uncovered, open to the air, at room temperature. I ALWAYS roll the dough on a pastry cloth, using a cheese cloth cover for the rolling pin. I use a 40 year old wooden rolling pin. Standard size and weight. Absolutely nothing fancy or unusual about it. The key to using a pastry cloth and cheese cloth cover for the rolling pin is that you will be able to roll out your pie dough and use MUCH less flour. All you need to do is lightly sprinkle a small amount of flour on the pastry cloth, roll the rolling pin over the top of the pastry cloth to get some of the flour on the pin, then begin to work the dough. I have granite counter tops in this house. Other houses have had Corian, wood and the old fashioned vinyl. The type of counter makes absolutely no difference in the quality of the crust. I promise! I anchor the pastry cloth with my body in the front and cannisters in the back, so that everything stays fairly quiet...but even it if moves a bit, that's not a problem. When rolling out your pie dough, work gently but quickly. Do NOT lean on the rolling pin. Merely lightly push the pin from the middle of the dough out in circles. You'll work around the dough. You'll have thick spots of dough and thin, and work the thick spots out...by gently rolling the pin over the dough. Don't lean on it or force it by brute force. More often than not my pie crusts are not perfect when they are rolled out. I like a thinner crust, so that means that I'll have some repair to do as I lay the crust in the pie pan, or lay the top crust on top of the filling. There is lots of room for forgiveness. If it's the bottom crust you're repairing, no one will ever know because it will be hidden by the filling. If it's the top crust, your cut-outs to allow the steam to escape the baking pie will camouflage that. The key is to ensure you have a solid bottom crust so that juice will not escape the pie crust, AND to ensure you have a large enough bottom crust that you can flute the edges of the pie. OR, a large enough top crust for fluting....I've done it both ways, and it just depends on what the crust gods decide that day. I hope these suggestions help. I assure you that once you understand what you're supposed to do, you'll be able to turn out consistently good pie crusts, with confidence and speed. Here is a link that might be useful:

Sue's comment made me realize that I made a mistake. I meant squish-squash 311, not popcorn kernel 310. Squish-squash is more yellow-gold than orange-gold. Not as much an orange-y undertone as popcorn kernel. These colors are from the Classic Colors deck which means they are letdowns. Letdowns aren't the same thing as literal stepping-down from darkest to lightest. The darkest color is not so much of an indication for the other colors on the strips with this collection. Color Preview, another collection from BenM, the darkest color is a bigger clue to the other colors on the strip. The popcorn kernel strip of colors is a really good example of what I'm talkin' about. Squish-squash sticks out. It interrupts the literal steps from dark up to light to the point that you wonder just WTH is it doing on that strip with the other colors. Squish-squash LRV 81.6. Popcorn kernel 82.6. Crowne hill yellow 71.6. Squish's LRV is darker than popcorn kernel's 82.6 but just by a snidge. So you can see, just from the numbers, how the movement from dark to light isn't exactly even steps. Did a quick Burst of Color not too long ago that explains it. Here is a link that might be useful: Burst of Color Strip Chips

Martha, I have got to stop clicking on your posts, lol. I can't make things fast enough! Foas, I had to google gewürzgurke. Turns out it is gherkin in English. We always had them growing up. Dad had a German background (last name Geiger), but never made rouladen. He probably didn't know how.