LOL Carrie that is funny. Did you get him out or the hubby? Brandy I will send you some. Not just kidding. Squirrel girl I cant do it. My stomach says no. I cant even look at them. I watched the planet series on discovery last night. They had lizards on the desert program they were not bad to look at. Anyways wanted to share my suet recipe cheaper to make than buy it. My property is called woodpecker acres for a reason. the woodpeckers love this suet....Save your plastic containers you buy your suet in. Just wash them up. You will need approximately 6-8 containers. 1 Lb lard 1 small jar peanut butter get it at aldis cheaper 2 cups oatmeal 2 cups flour 2 cups corn meal Melt lard and peanut butter in microwave. Add rest of the ingrediants and mix away. Place mixture into suet containers and keep frozen. I place chunks of suet pieces outside. I have something coming in at night eating the suet. If I put the whole block out it would be gone the nest morning. So I break it into chumks last longer that way. You can add anything else you like nuts berrys so forth. This is not an exact recipe. I dont even measure anymore. Alittle of this and a little of that. they love it... Well gotta go dig more plants up. Barb

The sausage place was wonderful. The person who helped us was very knowledgable. No lard or pork belly available today. Bought 20 german bratwurst. Went to a nearby Wegmans that is more "international" than the Wegmans that I usually go to. After way too much time standing in Wegmans trying to make a decision.... I purchased Morrell Snow cap lard. It does say "with hydrogenated lard bht and bha added to help protect flavor". I'm going to try it with the idea of going back to the sausage place to get pure lard when they have it available. For this weekend, If the crullers don't come out with the Morrel lard I will use crisco. I will try them again with pure lard when I get it. Many of you make rendering lard look easy but I need to make sure I don't run out of time with hosting two parties this weekend. Thank you all for the help! On a side note, I dropped off my grandmothers cookbook at a binding repair shop. The cover is completely off. They are going to put on a new cover trying to make it look as much as the original as possible. Kinda of sad to replace the original cover but its the only way to make the book usable.

I have a copy of, "the NEW Fannie Farmer-Boston Cooking-School COOK BOOK", 1953. My father, in his retirement, took on the care of several Summer homes in Southern Maine. He would check on them during the winter, board up windows against storms, uncover rose gardens when the time was right, deal with emergencies...that kind of thing. During the Summer, when people were in residence, he was sort of a general, all around handyman. His largest client was old money...there was a beach named after the family, a road named after the family, and a huge home, loaded with antiques that had been the original furnishings. An elderly Black woman came up every summer from South Carolina to be their cook for the season. Little bittie thing, set in her ways and stubborn as heck, but since she'd been cooking for the family for decades, she knew what they liked and how to manage them. I had been separated from my father at age 5, and when I found him again in my early 30's, I went out to stay with him and my stepmother for a year to get to know them. He took me down to meet Marguerite. She was a kick, and we got along...several years later, when she knew that she wouldn't be able to make it up again the next season (or ever), she gave my father her Fannie Farmer for me. It still has a bunch of book marks in it, some with shopping lists, some with her name, some with cryptic notes I can't decipher, all in the same, slanted hand. I actually use the book quite a bit, but I don't disturb the bookmarks. I sometimes puzzle over the marked pages, wondering which recipe she had marked... I also have my mother's copy of "The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook",1952. It has a separate section of Passover recipes. There are no pork recipes, naturally. Generally, the cookies and bread recipes are good. As for unique...I have an Ethiopian cookbook...the only one I've been able to find. "Exotic Ethiopian Cooking-Society, Culture, Hospitality, & Traditions. I've only made a couple of dishes out of it. I love Ethiopian food, and when I found out how much Nit'ir Qibe (purified herb & spice butter) is used in most of the dishes I love, I realized why I love them. For example, in dishes made from 1 pound of ground beef, it is not unusual that they contain a cup of butter. A typical lentil dish pairs 2 cups of lentils with 2 cups of butter. No wonder I love it!

The lard is all done, it took about 2.5 hrs and I ended up with a little over 11 pints. Here's what I started with... Just out of the oven... In jars... The cracklings taste pretty good to me and my dog thinks they are great. I may save them in the freezer to add to a few dishes I cook. I already used some of the lard tonight when I made a pork sweet n' sour stir fry. I didn't deep fry my pork, just browned it in the lard and then simmered it a bit in pineapple juice. Nancy