The Wonderful World Wide Web

Is there anything that you can't find out on the web yet? I'm always amazed by what is out there. This evening, I cooked Spanish Tortillas for the Voci fundraiser that I'm singing in tomorrow. I was assigned the recipe last week, but I didn't get a paper copy of the recipe from the person in charge. So, last Wednesday, links were sent around for suitable recipes. We are to prepare three to four dozen each, and it has to be served on a white, cream, or silver platter. I do not own any white or cream platters, but I do own some silver ones which are rarely used. So, after cooking a zillion tortillas, I went to look for the silver polish. And couldn't find it anywhere. So, off to the web, where I found the following:

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Line pan (or sink) with aluminum foil.
Put silver in, making sure each piece contacts the aluminum foil.
Add equal parts of baking soda and salt. (I dumped 4 heaping tablespoons of each into a kitchen sink with about an inch of water)
Add enough steaming hot water to cover.
Repeat if necessary for heavily tarnished pieces.

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In just a couple of minutes, the silver becomes noticeably less tarnished! Much easier than stinky silver polish (no elbow grease required). The water ends up smelling like sulfur, and the tarnish ends up stuck to the aluminum foil. According to various web sites, the reaction is even more dramatic if you boil the silver on the stove, but I didn't have a pan big enough to boil a platter! I currently have one of my favorite pairs of earrings soaking in a cup, and I can think of several more things to polish now.

In gardening news, I yanked up two more bucketfuls of weeds from the back yard, and bought a dwarf lime tree to put in a container. I've been meaning to buy a dwarf lime since moving to California six years ago, but somehow haven't gotten around to it until now. I did plan ahead and buy casters for the pot before filling it with dirt and tree, since we're going to have to wheel it indoors during the winter.