Diane - A word of warning on the pecans...they will not keep long if they are cracked unless you freeze them. Of course that may not be a problem, if you are eating them that fast. LOL The reason that I know this is that my niece gave me a bag of cracked ones one time and I left them in the bag for a little too long. One day I opened the door to the room where they were and I had about a thousand littles moths flying around. They had hatched out and been well fed in the bag of pecans. Diane - You have come to the right place for the piecrust. I cannot even stand the thought of using lard and I think it would be way to much trouble if I had to do the frozen chipped butter thing, or the ice water thing that some people do. Warning: You are going to think this ingredient list looks funny, but give it a try. Make sure you have waxed paper. 2 cups flour (scant) 1 teaspon salt 1/2 cup cooking oil 1/4 cup buttermilk You can stir this with a spoon and it should be a soft dough. It will be much softer to roll out than most pie crusts. The trick is in handling the crust, so read this part carefully. Take out a little more than half for the bottom crust and place it between two sheets of waxed paper. Roll out with a rolling pen. After you have rolled it to the proper thickness, remove the top sheet of paper by carefully pulling it from one side. Lay it back down on the dough again. That was just to release it from the paper and make it release better later on. With both sheets back in place, flip the entire thing over so the bottom piece of paper is now the top piece. Remove the paper that is now on top and set it aside. Now here is the tricky part. Pick up the dough, still on the paper, by using both hands placed about 2/3 back on the crust and your pie pan in front of you. Let 2/3 hang toward you and let the 1/3 drop back over your hands. Starting with the 2/3 part, place it in your pan with the paper still attached. As you lay it down, the paper is now on top. Now slowly peel off the paper. This sounds like it slow process, but it really isn't after you get the hang of handling the dough. If you have a problem, just patch it. Since you didn't add more flour in the rolling out process, you can throw the scraps back into the bowl and use them as part of the next crust. I have quadrupled this recipe several times without any difficulty but I would suggest you make it as a single pie the first time so you know how the dough should feel. I predict you will never go back, once you have tried this one. Very little mess to clean up since the rolling pin never touched the crust, and there is no flour mess to contend with.

My skids weren't the greatest before my DS was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer at 5 1/2. Yeah, my perception of them is colored by how they acted during that scary time. I started posting here because of it. Silver, lovehadley, psuedo and gerina are right. If my SD36 gave DS7 a tenth of the personal attention, meaning attention directed toward him personally instead of as an adjunct or competitor , my "jealousy" "diappointment" or whatever wouldn't exist. I don't expect much from SS30 but I hope for more from SD36. I am clear, she's not obligated to do anything for any of these kids including mine. It's interesting that no one has pointed a finger towards BM's role in their childhoods. Just how DH is a lousy grandpa, assuming he was a lousy father and so on. All I've said is that he is a better father now than then according to my skids. You have to have a pretty damaged psyche to be envious at any level of a six year old who was gravely ill. You bet, DH and I were out of our minds with fear and worry. He recovered, thank God and is 7 now. But my grown skids sure do care that SGS9 goes skiing if my kid goes skiing, that SGS has a party if DS is having one etc etc etc. because THAT KID needs love and attention.

PWM, I'm assuming you'd like the amounts converted to something other than metric? There are many conversion tools on line, one gave me these conversions. Islay, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong: 450g (2 cups) dark brown sugar 175g (3/4 cup) ml evaporated milk 30g ( 2 tbls) butter 1 tsp vanilla extract 55g (1/4 cup) chopped walnuts. Butter a 20 or 30 cm (8 or 9 inch square) tin. In a saucepan, stir together the sugar and milk. Boil until temp. reaches 112 to 116°C. (232-240F, soft ball stage) Or, until a small amount dropped into cold water forms a soft ball that flattens when removed from the water and placed on a flat surface. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter, vanilla and nuts. Continue to beat until the mixture loses its gloss. pour into prepared tin, score with knife and set aside for about 5 minutes. Cut into squares. I hope this helps. Annie

Our eldest child is working for an Israeli company, and spending much time in Israel and Europe! Technically working from home…ha! Princess the younger, aka Dr. TSFP, has been living in the Gingerbread Cottage whilst the Garaj Mahal has been under construction. Working within walking distance of the Garaj Mahal. We have a busy August planned, our annual Lobstahfest is on Saturday, and two weeks later the extended family arrives…Miss Peanut and her entourage, including her Pop-pop (Beloved’s evil twin, Skippy), and his latest fiancée….and Beloved’s sister (we are true sisters because our mothers’ only provided us with brothers!) who is dropping her youngest at Berklee in Boston.