Living in style
The items we tasted from the expansive Country Living Collection of preserves, dessert toppings, pie fillings and more wowed us with their fruity focus and true flavors. The pie fillings (including a luscious pecan) are especially convenient: Just spoon the contents into a pie crust and bake. Lovely packaging makes them gift-worthy too. Items range from $4 to $15. The entire line is at hfsfoods.com; various items are sold locally at Beverly’s Pantry and The Chopping Block in Chicago, Fuller’s Home and Hardware in Hinsdale and Creme de la Creme in Winnetka.
Pits be gone!
OXO’s Good Grips Cherry Pitter makes a tedious chore almost cheery. First, there’s the splatter shield that directs juice downward, not onto your clothes. It also accommodates many sizes of cherries — and, lest we forget, olives, too. When we tested it, most pits flew right into the trash; the ones that didn’t came out easily. It’s dishwasher-safe and has a lock to ease storage. The Cherry Pitter is $12 by mail at williams-sonoma.com (or call 877-812-6235) and oxo.com.
Keeping drips at bay
Slow Melt Popsicles keep the treats on the stick, not down Junior’s shirt. (The key is added gelatin.) We tested them out and liked all three flavors (cherry, strawberry-kiwi and lemonade). Truthfully, we’ve never really timed how long the regular ones take to melt, but these sure seemed to last longer. A box of 20 costs $4.50-$5 at Jewel, Dominick’s, Sunset Foods and peapod.com.
