Adventures with a cucumber

I am a sucker for new home remedies. A friend has sent me an article that had recently appeared in the New York Times as part of a series ‘Spotlight on the Home’, entitled ‘The Amazing Cucumber.’ It gave a list of 13 ‘creative and fanciful ways to solve common problems.’ I just had to put them to the test.

I am rather a cucumber fan. For years I disgusted my children by eating toast topped with peanut butter and cucumber for breakfast every day.

Cucumbers contain many nutrients, the only problem being that they are present in such small amounts that were you eating only cucumbers, to get the recommended allowance of those nutrients you would need to eat 100 times the recommended serving size, about five kilos, every day. You could just eat the peel; this is where most of them are found. The serving size this data is based on is 52g of unpeeled cucurbit which funnily enough cuts into 13 slices.

Sneaking around the house with my 13 slices hidden in a bowl, I started by rubbing my bathroom mirror with a slice to prevent it fogging up ... since then no one has used the hot water so I’m not sure this will work. There certainly wasn’t any spa like fragrance wafting around as I had been promised. While there, I rub a slice on the crows feet around right eye, leaving other eye cucumber less for a true before and after test. One more slice is vigorously applied to the inner right thigh where it is going to work a miracle on cellulite.

On to clean the stainless steel in the laundry and shine my shoes. I think I can use one slice for each of these tasks. If anyone catches me at this, my name will be mud, again!

Back to the computer to check the list. The next item was about removing pen marks from surfaces. My walls and window trims were pretty good until I deliberately scribbled on them with brown marker. The marker is gone but the cuc has left some lovely green marks I will have to explain.

Its afternoon tea time and two other handy hints say that the cucumber will stop snacking binges and act as a ‘pick me up’. I can eat a few, I just have to try and remember which ones I used to do the cleaning.

Slices of cucumber in an aluminium pie tin are reputed to keep pests off your garden. What about the pests that like cucumber and aren’t at all bothered by its reaction to the metal? The rabbits here would probably eat the tin too but I will give it a try - tomorrow, when it’s not raining.

An hour after eating most of the recommended serving I am still hungry and fading but my breath is sweet (holding a slice to the roof of your mouth for 30 seconds works, possibly longer than the 30 seconds you hold your mouth shut. I’ll wait till the next episode of coffee breath to try this, must remember to ask the coffee shop for ‘cuc ‘on the side.’)

I could have a G & T or four and test the hangover cure but I have a dirty sticky laundry to clean and one shoe that is a different colour from its mate. Half my face and one leg are sticky and I am too busy to try a cucumber steam inhalation or to test cucumber juice on a squeaky hinge. I’ll hop in the shower, test the mirror story, and gloat over the miracle of the missing wrinkles and tightened thighs. And no, you are not getting photos of the resultEnjoy,

nirala