A quick response

I got home from my Memorial Day trip Tuesday night, and there was one of those little orange postcards from the post office in my mailbox.  I had a package!  I assumed it was my box of freebies for donating to a local public radio station, but it turned out to be *TWO* replacement plates for my garlic press.  OXO, thanks for sending those out so quickly…..just in time for my next batch of marinara sauce!

Thanks, OXO

OXO replied to my e-mail about the broken garlic press within hours:

From: “Info” <info@oxo.com>

Subject: [Bulk] RE: OXO Question about a Product

Cynthia,

Please provide your shipping address and we will send you a replacement

Garlic Press plate.

Thank you,

OXO Consumer Care Center

They also left a comment on my previous post.  I’ll let y’all know when I get the new part in the mail.  Thanks for the quick response guys!

Finally, an OXO Product that Sucks

This garlic press, made by OXO, can squish garlic with the skin still on, and it has a removable press plate that makes it easy to clean.  Unfortunately, that little part is also easy to lose in the garbage disposal.

I have contacted OXO to see if I can get a replacement part, but since this item is not listed on their website, I have a feeling it’s been discontinued.  Without the press plate, this thing is useless.

Mashed Potatoes: a few methods

For years, all my mashed potatoes came out of a cardboard box.

Then I worked in retail for a while, and took advantage of my employee discount to buy a KitchenAid stand mixer (in turquoise). The instruction manual came with a recipe for mashed potatoes, so I tried it, and it was good. The recipe has you mash the potatoes first with the flat beater, then you whip them at top speed with the whisk.

You don’t need to peel your potatoes before boiling; just wash them. The skin is good for you! When you boil your potatoes, add a few cloves of garlic. You can also boil your potatoes in a slow cooker for 4 hours on High or 8 hours on Low, while you’re out working or doing errands.

I recently started making mashed potatoes by running the cooked potatoes through my OXO food mill, using the coarsest milling disc. The mill can make short work of several pounds of potatoes. With this device, you don’t need to own a potato ricer, which is great for those of us with tiny kitchens and limited storage space.

Fie on you, Martha Stewart!

Martha, most of your kitchen products are of fine quality and a great value, but your food mill sucks!

I bought your food mill ($35 at Macy’s) because I needed to puree a bunch of tomatoes for marinara sauce. (More on the sauce later.)  I put the thing together, and the spinning part doesn’t reach the bottom.  How am I supposed to smash ANYTHING completely when there is half an inch of unwanted space in the way?

To get this thing to work properly, I’m going to take it to my brother’s house, put the “pinwheel” part in a vise, and bang on it with a rubber mallet until the blades are aligned where they’re supposed to be.  Then I’m going to give it to my sister-in-law because I have already purchased the far superior food mill made by OXO ($50 at Williams-Sonoma and elsewhere).