Woodworking Vises, Multi Purpose

Every now and then I get to put my vise to other uses besides holding a piece of wood in place.

Tonya my wife cooks up this wonderfully awesome rice called "Arroz con Coco y Guandu" a very "Tipico" or typical Panamanian dish from her native land. It is white rice flavored with coconut and peppered with small green pea like veggies but are not peas, they are from Central America, when I was in the service and stationed in Panama, we called them "Jungle Beans" but the Panamanians call it Guandu. So what you end up with is a savory rice with a wonderful hint of coconut and the meaty beans called Guandu.

So, I need to go out into the shop, drill some holes in the coconut to extract the water, and then I place the coconut in my woodworking vise and squeeze until is cracks! Then I hand it over to Tonya, she then proceeds to scrap the meat away from the shell, then grates it to add it to the rice as it's cooking. Hmmmm gooooood!

Then with a few turns of the vise, it starts to crack, it is surprising how flexible the shell actually is, it takes about 4 good turns to get it to crack.

And here we go! The most important ingredients present themselves.

Today we have my ol Army buddy who I served with in Panama and his wife coming over for lunch. He married his sweetheart from Panama as well  around the same time Tonya and I married. So the girls get together in the kitchen, talk up a huge Spanish storm and cook some of the best food you could imagine.

I wish you all could smell my home right now.

John Morris
The Patriot Woodworker