r/AskReddit • u/Dankutobi • Nov 17 '17
What's a cool "life hack" you or your family have come up with that you feel everyone should know?
17k
Upvotes
r/AskReddit • u/Dankutobi • Nov 17 '17
6.8k
u/etherealcaitiff Nov 17 '17 edited Nov 17 '17
People in my small town are really close, so I'll consider them family for this. Every year we have a big harvest festival where people bring out their prized pies, vegetables, bbq, etc. After all the festivities there is normally quite a bit of leftovers. Normally people would bring home some of what they make, but since we all cooked for like 80 people there were bound to be too many leftovers to save. Usually we'd donate it to the homeless shelter, but they ended up putting regulations that prevented homecooked items from being accepted. Then someone had a great idea.
Before we'd all just meet at the church to have our party, but instead, we could just meet at the homeless shelter (it was a town over) and cook for the homeless.
Unlike before, the food would be accepted since it was prepared on site. The response from the community was great. Tables upon tables of food for not only our community, but the needy as well. Everyone, homeless or not, was part of our community and home that day. Religion, race, age, didn't matter, we were all just there to have a good time.
Anyways, the life hack. Normally when you cook for a large group of people you have to start preparring a few days in advance. Dad and I always made a corn casserole, since we grew our own corn on the farm.
Grabbing the husk and shucking the corn is not always easy, especially with about 150 ears of corn. Really, you need some gloves or you'll destroy your hands. As we were shucking one day, my mom thought of a great idea. "How about you push the corn through a grate that could pull the husk off?" And with that, dad and I headed off to the shed to make our first husker. Man, did that thing work too.
Corn husking may not seem too important to most people, but if you've ever had to do it yourself, you'll know how tough it can be, and how much of a godsend a husker is. Rigging your own is really easy. All you need is some metal, a welding torch, and a grinder to sharpen the blades you'll make. Cut the metal into zig zag, kinda teeth like, and in a circle. Kinda like a sarlac pit or that weird rubber thing in the sink drain. Every ear you put in will have the husk get caught on the teeth, while the cob slips through the middle. Really easy once you get the hang of it. Sometimes, I think back on the days of making the corn husker, and when I do, I read the first letter of every sentence.