Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with preserve

Is this creepy-looking steamer trunk a priceless antique?

Orb2069 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:58:37 -0800

This trunk is a curb recovery - I was hoping to lightly scrub it to remove some of the surface rust and seal it - To keep that 'Silent Hill' look without having the rust rub off on everything. Will I be destroying a priceless antique? What's the best choice for sealing it while keeping it's creepy look intact? The interior is in better shape - The wood's intact, and apart from needing some new lining material, is fine. The drop-in trays are long gone, but the rails for them are still there. The exterior leather is rotted off - As far as the metal fixtures go, I haven't tried locking or unlocking it, but there's no key. The hinges work freely, however. The metals seem functionally intact, but this is probably never going to be a showroom piece.

One potato, two potato, three potato, more???

purpletangerine — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:25:55 -0800

What do I do with all these potatoes? I need recipes that keep, and/or storage tips for tons of small to medium sized potatoes. I recently bought a 5 pound bag of red potatoes, yay! potatoes for a month. Later that same day, my husband picked up our CSA bag, and I now have a total of about 7 pounds of small-med potatoes. Most of them are red, with a handful of yellow. I thought I'd make a nice soup... but it's so hot it just doesn't appeal to me right now. Can I go ahead and make the soup and freeze it? Should I just put them in a drawer and use as needed? They tend to sprout in the drawers in my kitchen; I know it's not a problem, but, I like to prevent it just so there's less spots to trim off.

What to do with all this bacon

billysumday — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:01:39 -0800

What's the best way to freeze bacon? Or should I just leave it in the fridge? So, just got back from Sam's Club where I splurged and bought the box of bacon. There are four 1-pound packs in the box. Now, the thing is, okay, see, I eat bacon. In fact I love the stuff. But there's just no way I'm going to be able to get through the stuff in less than a month - at the earliest. So, can I stick three of the packs in the freezer? I'm worried that the bacon will expand while freezing and break the tightly sealed plastic wrap. Also worried about how it will affect taste. I can always put some bacon in ziploc baggies to give them some extra room. That would help also in rationing out more appropriately sized servings of bacon, which I could then thaw and enjoy when desired.

However, this may be a moot point if bacon lasts essentially forever in its sealed package in the fridge. I don't know exactly what the shelf life is on sealed bacon, but I'm assuming it's pretty long.

Lastly, perhaps it would be wiser still to just make something with all four pounds of the bacon and then work on preserving that. The original idea was to make chocolate covered bacon with my new double-boiler, but the Sam's Club bacon is too thin, so it's off to the store to get thick cut bacon for the explicit purpose of making some delicious piggy confections. That means I've still got a lot of leftover bacon to make soup, bacon bread, bacon salad, bacon whatever.

Mmmmmm - bacon! Any ideas are welcome. Thanks, mefiers.

How to back up entire sms threads (BlackBerry / Mac)?

allterrainbrain — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:13:21 -0800

How can I preserve / back up long sms conversations with one other person -- simply as long chunks of plain text containing entire conversations? The other person has an old cell phone that doesn't do anything special (although soon he might have an iPhone), and I have a BlackBerry, which is only able to preserve *single* sms messages, one at a time (its "forward as" function will let you send one sms, as an email or in other forms). That would be crazy-laborious for backing up long threads of sms messages.

So far I've just been typing out the messages and dates/times (while looking at my BB's screen) into a plain text file on my computer. Also kind of laborious.

The only way for a BB to back up an entire sms thread appears to be using the PC-only BlackBerry Desktop software (I have a Mac). So I guess I'm looking for a third-party sms backup solution.

One solution I can imagine is that my sms texts would come both to my bb and to another account somewhere, and from the other account I could generate long plain-text files listing all the messages ever -- or it would auto-generate one text file for every 50 or 100 sms messages or whatever.

Not whining.

pseudostrabismus — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:02:41 -0800

What's the best format for an extremely lightweight drinker to buy & store wine, to enable very gradual consumption without the wine going sour? I want to keep red wine in the house, but I never drink it fast enough to finish the bottle before it starts tasting weird. I might drink 1/2 a glass every other night or so, at which rate it takes over 2 weeks to finish a regular-sized bottle, and by then it's all vinagery. Bottles stored in the fridge last a little longer but then the wine's cold, which I don't like. Single serving bottles seem like a good solution (even so, those are 2-3 sevings for me, it's ridiculous) but there's only one brand available in my area, and it's kind of vile. Do those spray cans of gas work? Or freezing it? Or buying it in a box so it's airtight? Suggestions, especially cheap, easy solutions, greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Is this a Food and Drink,, Media and Arts, or Pets and Animals Question?

andoatnp — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 02:56:25 -0800

I got a lamb skull from the supermarket (complete with meat) and I'm looking for the best way to remove all the non-bone parts and then preserve the bone for an art project. I was recently given a lamb's head as a gift and am playnnng on using the skull for an art project. First I have to get all the meat/tissue off of it (which I assume can be done via boiling, but someone please correct me if that's not the best way to get it ready if I need to preserve the skull).

Once I have the bone left, I want to break it up, and then use the fragments for an art project. Once I smash it, what is the best way to preserve the bone? Some type of spray or treatment? I would prefer to have it look as natural as possible, however I end up treating it, but having it not smell or decompose in any way is the highest priority.

Cut Rose Care

danny boy — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 13:38:20 -0800

I just bought a dozen roses on my lunch break. Can't leave for work for 5 more hours. While I'm storing them in a glass of water, should I also snip the ends? Then do it again after surprising my sweetheart? Or just let them sit in peace?