As we await the oven exit of our holiday bird, can’t help thinking about the sad fate of the pastry blender.

A search beyond my standard cookbooks for a new recipe for an after-dinner sweetie suggested that these days, all mixing must be done by machine – preferably a very heavy, very expensive food processor. They were all the vogue when I got married, and remain so. But I passed then, and now. So this Thanksgiving found me retrofitting a crust recipe for the handy implement above and, well, hands.

Judging by the photo at right, don’t think we will suffer one bit for our  reversion to a more tactile era of baking.