Ripen avocados more quickly by placing them in a paper bag with an apple or banana. The ethylene gas put out by the fruit will speeding the ripening process.

If your plastic storage containers have a funny oder, stuff balled up newspaper in them, cover (seal), and let them sit overnight. The paper aborbs any lingering food smells.

I’m not a big kitchen gadget collector, but I do use my kitchen shears for all sorts of things. If you want to chope canned tomatoes, put them in a large bowl and chop away. This controls the mess of squirting juices all over a cutting board. Use your shears to snip herbs (I use them to chiffonade basil), slice pizzas, and cut cooked chicken into serving pieces.

I rarely hear anyone say that they like meatballs, but I’m here to say that meatballs are on my list of what is called these days as comfort food. I sometimes poke a hole in the center of my rather large meatballs and insert a big olive stuffed with anchovy, or what about an olive stuffed with a garlic pod, or perhaps one stuffed with blue cheese will give your everyday meatballs a big bam! Sometimes I put a whole garlic clove in the meatball. Once the meatballs are cooked, the semi-soft garlic is a real taste treat and it also gives the meatballs a great garlic flavor. Try it!

I noticed in this week’s cooking section of the New York Times a bit about wrapping fresh peaches in prosciutto. I’ve wrapped cataloupe with prosciutto before, but I think the peaches sounds great. Guess what I’m having tonight?

I always enjoy leisurely reading the Sunday edition of the New York Times and today I spied an interesting article by Amanda Hesser in which she describes French gelees (pronouced gee-lays), which are essentially Jell-O but made with REAL flavors. I have to admit that I enjoyed Jell-O as a child. Those wobbly bright red, yellow or green chunks to which Mama sometimes added fruit cocktail were a delightful afternoon treat.

However, as I grew older I came to know them as food one consumed only after dental procedures or when ill. The gelees Ms. Hesser refer to sound delightful.
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Yesterday a friend brought my husband and me several perfectly ripe cantaloupes. We put them in refrigerator and this morning I watched my husband fill half of a cantaloupe with vanilla ice cream and eat it for breakfast! He was happy, happy, happy. My mother liked sprinkling any kind of melon with salt—is this a Southern thing or what?

Watermelon can’t be too cold, at least for me. If you really want an ice-cold treat, cut the watermelon flesh into large chunks, stick them on ice cream sticks and put them in the freezer for an hour or so. Yum!

And now I found that Ella Bache (Paris) has a Tomato Creme to use on dehydrated skin! Other products can be found at http://www.ellabache.com.au/

My mother used to say “where there’s food there are flies” whenever we swatted them away from the food when eating outdoors. I remember that she often covered the food (and pitchers of tea and lemonade) with muslin or cheesecloth secured with with clothespins. It worked. You can do the same using paper towels or colorful cotton napkins.