In hanging around with people and trying to feed myself I learned a couple of interesting tricks for improving my life with food at home.

1. Use old eggs for hard boiled eggs - Sarah and I had been thinking that there was something wrong with the high-end eggs that we purchase from Whole Foods. We just couldn't seem to shell them after boiling them for hard boiled eggs and they would disintegrate because the eggs were attached to the shell. As it turns out Sarah's mom discovered, learned, or knew that using older eggs a few weeks after purchasing them generates an egg that is simple to peel after cooking. Something about the eggs changes to separate the binding between the shell and the egg over time. So it's good to wait before boiling them.

2. Save fresh bagels by slicing then freezing them - The folks down the road from us at Rosenfelds have superb bagels but we stopped buying them because they would turn into rocks on the shelf after about 2 days. Microwaving them softened them but also made them rubbery. Nick suggested that the best thing to do with fresh bagels would be to freeze them but to be sure to slice them first. This week we enjoyed some leftover bagels with a quick toasting and they turned out great.

3. Freeze old bananas (peeled) for treats - As bananas get old they get very sweet. I like those fruit popsicles like Banana flavored ones and it turns out that if you peel a banana that is over ripe instead of throwing it out that it makes a great ice cream like treat.

4. Put avocados in the fridge when they are ripe - Avocados are a fantastic food but a pain to get in the perfect state for eating. We noticed that you can refridgerate them once they reach the ripeness stage and they stay ripe. We also eat them in our frequent low carb dinner dish - Chicken Caesar salad w/avocados (a recommendation from Linda) so we always need fresh ones.

5. Half bottles of wine provide good luxury - Sarah and I like to drink wine with dinner but it is tough to drink a full bottle, well sometimes it is just too much wine for a Wednesday night. I have a preservation system but it is a pain to remember to do so we usually end-up drinking too much wine in an effort to satisfy my need to not waste things and finish the bottle. The half bottles sold locally cost about as much as a full bottle, about $10, but they are much better wines due to the lower volume. So we have bought some stock of these and use them with dinner. We also have taken the mini-wines that are about the size of a wine you would get on a plane on hiking day trips.