Random 5 for June 28, 2026 – Air fryer, style, tenaciousness, bumps, summer

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Air fryer Part 2 – If you read last week’s post (you can read that here), you know I am toying with the idea of buying an air fryer. The first one went back. I spent a lot of time researching (again) and bought a larger one that would cook an entire meal. (Being able to make an entire meal in one appliance is the goal.) It had good reviews. It came overnight so Saturday morning I was unpacking and figuring it out. To keep an air fryer that sits on the counter, (this was too big to store in a cabinet), it must replace the toaster. First up was the bagel test. I popped a bagel in. The default said 6-1/2 minutes. I thought that was long but whatever. At the end, there was a light crunch on the top but no color. Not a single tinge of brown. Yes, I could fool around with the presets, but I was already waiting over 6 minutes. The toaster takes about 3 minutes. Thumbs down. If it can’t replace the toaster, it doesn’t have a home here, so it got boxed up to return.

As a side – It was attractive. I researched lots of utilitarian looking products but ended up with Martha Stewart. She gets me. She offers colors and style along with functionality (aside from the toasting part). The color blended well with my backsplash and it didn’t look like a 747 landed on my counter. It’s a new entry to the market but so far had good reviews. Too bad about the toasting.

Is three the charm? – There is one more unit I want to try before I give up the search. Ninja makes a flip up unit. It’s smaller so it should toast better. Not as attractive as the last one but doesn’t take up the room either. If this one doesn’t work, I’ll give up and stay with my oven (which works perfectly fine except for heating up the kitchen).

A gift of aging – A few years back, I developed the “ailment” of the week. Every week there is something weird going on with my body. Sometimes it’s simple, just a wrenched back from weeding or something I can attach to a cause. This past week it was bumps. It started with hive-like bumps at bizarre places like my collarbone, wrist, back of knee. They itched but cortisone cream fixed that. It did not look like poison ivy, so I assumed that it was stress related. (Everything is stress related!) It would move around with any breakout lasting about 24 to 48 hours. Then it looked like poison ivy with a cluster of little bumps. It was still here and there – in my armpit, on my shoulder blade – places where I don’t get poison ivy. Very itchy but the cream worked again. We’ve been doing this dance all week but I’m exhausting new sites. I can’t remember seeing any poison ivy lately so it’s another mystery of life. At least I didn’t think this one was fatal.

Hello summer! – Last week we ushered in summer with a cluster of gorgeous days. Not too hot, some rain, just overall pleasant. This week we are returning to brutally hot weather. We are breaking records with our weather this year. Our orchards lost a lot of fruit buds with a very late hard frost after a run of 90 degree days in the spring that pushed the buds. Sour cherries for pies are running $15 a quart if you can find them. Corn came in a little early. Hoping for tasty tomatoes. My heart goes out to the farmers. They work hard but so much is out of their control.

So how was your week?

 

 

64 thoughts on “Random 5 for June 28, 2026 – Air fryer, style, tenaciousness, bumps, summer”

  3. Air fryers sound like such a great appliance but there’s always something that makes them less than ideal. I hope your third one is a charm. After your last post about air fryers, I decided to donate my to the charity shop since I (a) never use it and (b) it takes up way too much room and I wouldn’t dream of leaving it out on the counter. Hopefully some one will get some use out of it. When my mom was still alive, she loved hers but I just never found the groove to like mine. Hope your mystery blister rash goes away. When I was in my late 20’s I ended up with something similar which turned out to be a case of impetigo. Nasty stuff.

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    • Ew, impetigo is contagious (I think). I’m at the end of the rash now. I have a few scabs where I scratched but nothing new cropping up. Another mystery of life. I love kitchen toys and cycle through many of them. I’ve been staying strong on air fryers though after giving away my ice cream maker, bread maker, waffle maker. I don’t like stuff on my counter so it all has to be stored somewhere. I would only keep it out if it replaces the toaster. I’ve lost some of my interest. To be honest the last one, I turned on for the 20 minute initial burn off and I couldn’t turn it off. The dang thing got so hot it was frightening. I may try one more but maybe not. Two pieces of equipment that I love are my crockpot (I have 2 different sizes) and my sous vide gizmo. It inserts in a pot you already have so doesn’t take up much storage and gets food to the exact right temperature.

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      • Yes, it’s highly contagious. Glad you have improved. Sounds like perhaps you had some contact dermatitis. Hopefully you’re well on the way to fully recovery. Nothing worse than that gnawing itch that wakes you up in the night. There are so many gadgets on the market these days to do all sorts of specialized things, you need a whole appliance garage to house them all. My last house had a kitchen the size of a nickel and for well over 20 years, it served me well without all these fancy things I might use once or twice a year. You can never so wrong with a good old fashioned crockpot. Best appliance created, next to a blender. I mean a girl’s gotta have her margaritas, right? 😉

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  6. I await your review on number three. It’s like have a personal consumer report, which I must say, I’m enjoying.

    As for your weird rash. My daughter had something like that last summer. It showed up behind one leg, a wrist, collarbone, a thigh. It was poison something, and weirdly came out long after she was in the garden. Sweat and hot showers escalated it. Weird, but it eventually went away. Hope it does for you as well.

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  7. We have some cherry trees, the birds devoured all the cherries in one day before we could pick them. And our apple and pear trees got hit by the late frost so we won’t be seeing fruit there either. Our only safe bet is our blueberry bushes. They are doing very well. My age seems to have hit me all of a sudden. And I truly hate it. Good luck with the next fryer.

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  8. all our grass looks now like done with an air fryer… too hot here… but the air fryer is my most favorite kitchen thing… I love it and it is no buy and at forget it in box gadget, its with us nearly every day ;O)

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    • That’s what people who love them say. I have to figure out what I really want and what will work here. We got some rain over the weekend but we need a lot more to get rid of our crunchy grass.

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  9. This week our weather was more like spring, which is fine with me. It was mostly sunny or overcast, just a bit of rain. Last weekend was the Arts and Crafts Festival, a popular event filled with the most amazing art. I bought a soft ice cream cone with chocolate sauce and made a mess. Summer fun.

    My mystery ailment of the week, or maybe not an ailment. Yesterday I noticed a few little red dots on my leg. They don’t itch, so I guess I’ll just wait and see what happens.

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  10. A long-time cooking/recipe blogger just ended her blog in May and now posts recipes on Facebook, but I remember when she got a Ninja air fryer and suddenly her blog was filled with recipes using the air fryer. She said she used it for everything she could to avoid cooking and she really loved it. I have never tried one and I have very little countertop room as it is because the crockpot (that this same blogger suggested to buy) is big, heavy and I have to keep it on the countertop all the time. I feel badly for the farmers as well. Several years ago Michigan lost most of its cherry and apple crops after a hard freeze in late April. They had to truck in cherries from Washington State for the Traverse City Cherry Festival held annually for 4th of July.

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      • I know this blogger really liked the Ninja air fryer but she had other Ninja cookware products she also liked. I don’t have much cupboard space, so I would have to leave out the crockpot all the time anyway. That was one of my mom’s complaints – no countertop space and no storage space. I bought her a crockpot once when the Rival brand crockpots first came out and my mom was so short she couldn’t see inside it, so she made me take it back. 🙂

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  13. Not sure why, but the oven in the apartment doesn’t seem to heat up the apartment much so we use it anytime it seems to make sense. Today, I baked some Jalapeño Cornbread ~ gluten free! And YUMMY!

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    • For that kind of thing, I’d use my regular oven. Looking for speed and smaller oven. It may just be a passing fancy on my part. I may not buy anything for a while. I used my oven last night as I had a one pan dinner planned (to try out the new toy). My oven worked great.

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  15. I love my air fryer but never tried toasting bread in it. Will try and let you know. 🙂

    It is supposed to be shooting up to 100 this coming weekend! 🥵My daughter wanted to go to the 5 miles long yard sale that the town not real far from us holds every July 4th weekend! If it really does get even close to 100 this coming weekend, I will be staying in the A/C!

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  16. Global Warming we now know is not a myth. Al Gore had it right even after we all laughed at him. Not looking forward to the week’s forecast. But the good news is Mother Nature is nuts and can change her mind in a heartbeat.

    I can’t comment on your fryer since, my cooking is limited to a collection of Take-out menus, and Popcorn of course. 🙂

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  17. Could not work up any interest for an air fryer. My oven is equipped with air fry. Never have used it but now I am thinking what am I missing. Sounds messy when I read about it while a stand alone air fryer would not be as messy? I am interested to hear how your search works out.
    The roaming bumps ARE a mystery!
    I won’t even bore you with our heat index numbers the last two weeks. Three digits and hotter than H E double L. Our lawn along with our whole neighborhood is crispy. We have been on water restrictions since April 3 and go to October 1.

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    • My oven has an air fry setting but I found it doesn’t work as well as my convection bake or roast. I’ve been told the separate air fryers are faster because they are smaller. Air fry is just super duper convection. My goal was not to heat up the big oven. I use it for one pan meals all the time. I’ll post if I find something that suits. It has to replace the toaster which my husband uses every day. I don’t want another big specialty appliance on my counter. Weather, ugh. I’ve been seeing reports about the rest of the country. Brutal.

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  18. I have no room for the toaster on my workstop so it has always been ion the cupboard. Getting the breadmaker was a challenge. It won’t fit in a cupboard, and is too heavy to sit on the top of the small cupboard units Hubby put up for me a little while ago. So the veg rack has been moved to a semi vacant corner on the other side. My kitchen is small. You can’t fit me, Hubby and Maya in it at the same time and I;m running out of work top space.

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  19. Well you get an “A” for persistence on the air fryer issue. I have to admit making a whole meal in one “thing” sounds good; I guess I’ll continue mulling it over. I do that a lot lately – mulling. Our weather this year is weird. Super hot and disgusting for 2-3 days then wet and chilly for 2-3. The outdoor plants don’t quite know what to make of it. I wonder what your itchiness is caused by……seems like it’s sort of exploring your body – moving around to different locations. As long as you have something that helps keep it from driving you nuts I bet you can eventually figure out what’s what. Good luck!

    Hugs, Pam

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  21. I use my Ninja grill a lot, and it also bakes, roasts and does some other things, maybe even air frying. But I use the grill the most. Quick and doesn’t heat up the kitchen. Also good for baking meats, and probably other things as well.

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