Wait, that’s all there is to making tahini?! I always pictured a mortar and pestle and the same type of patience required for making cornmeal.
I think I love you for this.
Assuming you have a cooperative fabric store. I am blocks from Joann. JoAnn is a big let down when it comes to buying an ordinary kind of fabric for draperies. If I wanted sparkly, no problem. Tiger striped, no problem. Finally a nice nubby silk that will do fine …$59 a yard and they only have 2 and a half yards and if I order it I have to buy a whole bolt. (I know, it’s still cheaper than custom made but it is no longer cheaper than the box store.)
Okay, blinds then.
No, you can buy the ice and salt machines at Walmart or places like that. In my experience they work a lot better than the freezer bowl types.
Now if you want to go top notch, you get an ice cream maker that has its own built-in freezing element. But one of those will set you back at least three hundred dollars.
I don’t know if this classes as “most people buy”, but … the existence of Bread Mix has always mystified me. It’s flour and salt! And making bread in the first place is an intermediate-level skill usually attempted by moderately competent cooks - I do understand that the invention of bread makers has brought the skill bar down quite a bit, but even after automating the kneading and rising steps you still need to carefully measure the yeast and the water, maybe a bit of oil, couple of mixings … and someone decided that adding a pinch of salt was a step we could invent a whole new product to save people from? Really?
This reminds me of a THING that has come up in my family. My mother buys the tin foil “wrappers” that are square sheets of tin foil that come in a box. This sends me into fits, because apparently ripping off your own preferred size of tin foil from the roll is too difficult? So I guess that’s another thing … I make my own pieces of tin foil rather than buying them.
(I guess maybe the pre-cut squares might be helpful for a person with, I don’t know, severe arthritis, who is having a hard time using the roll. But with my mom, she is really convinced that she has found this amazing, time-saving product, akin to the difference between washing your clothes by banging them on a rock in the river vs. a modern washing machine. That is how staunchly she defends this.)
Salad dressing and cookies/pies. Salad dressing because it’s dead easy. The cookies/pies because packaged cookies and frozen or supermarket pies aren’t worth the calories.
You can keep bread in the freezer and make the garlic bread whenever you want.
(Floridian here, from the time before all houses had AC. Mom kept our bread in the freezer to keep it from molding and to keep palmetto bugs out.)
Which can also be made at home rather than bought…
Hot sauce, onion powder, and cilantro only in the summer? You Californians definitely do things differently.
The typical guacamole recipe I’ve always had is mashed up avocados, lime juice, chopped fresh onions, chopped fresh jalapenos or serranos, diced tomatoes and chopped cilantro, with some garlic powder or fresh garlic added. And salt to taste- guacamole doesn’t taste right without some salt added.
My wife has a sewing machine she’s not using, you can borrow it if you like.
Hell, my freezer has a built-in device that just keeps making them unless I tell it to stop.
You buy your tin foil? On a roll? From a store??? Migod! I go to the mountains, mine my own tin ore, smelt it in my backyard, and pound it into foil with my own mighty hands. Yeah, it takes a little more time, but it’s sooo much better than store-bought and so much easier too.
I thought everyone had one of their Mom’s cast off sewing machines up in their spare room. For what it’s worth, if you can use a bandsaw or scroll saw, you can use a sewing machine. Quite a bit of skill transference there.
Sperm banks sell sperm.
There is an entire political campaign based on this: “Make American Grate Again”.
You know, it occurred to me that a big part of a lot of these things isn’t necessarily the difficulty of actually making the items in question, but instead is auxiliary considerations like dishwashing, storage, ingredient provisioning, etc… Essentially it’s convenience vs. difficulty.
An example- it’s stupid easy to shred/grate your own cheese. A box grater or food processor will make quick work of it. But you have to go get the block cheese, you have to wash your grater, and you have to find a bag or container to store the finished cheese in. Or… you can go to the store (where you’d already be getting your block cheese), and buy a bag of pre-shredded cheese and go about your day.
That seems to be the common thread; I can’t think of anything mentioned in this thread where the “bought” version is more difficult/complicated than the homemade one.
The big question for me really is what level of convenience is reasonable, and what level would count more as super-lazy. For example, I get not grating one’s own cheese, especially for small quantities. But I don’t quite get the pre-formed squares of aluminum foil, unless you run a sandwich shop (where the squares would tend to cut down on waste), or you get them cheaper than an equivalent square footage of rolled foil. It seems kind of lazy to buy them precut for your home though.
Without a guy attached, for those who prefer it that way.
And you can buy babies even though they’re really easy to make yourself.
I do this, but with aluminum. It’s cheaper and stronger. I only use tin foil when making hats.
I remember once comparing the price of a block of mozzarella versus a bag of pre-shredded cheese. There was very little difference, so I see no reason not to just buy the bagged stuff. Other things, like diced onion or melon slices or melon cubes, I might buy for the convenience.
And have you ever bought one of those deli platters, with all of the meat slices all neatly rolled up? There’s a big markup there as well, but for a party, it might be preferable to just a couple of piles of sliced deli meats.
For people who don’t live in California. Avocados don’t grow where I live.