Whoa - Look what I dug up whilst cleaning out the woodshed! I know you wanna know...

How cool is this? While cleaning out "my" corner of the woodshed today I found a beautiful old manual food grinder I'd forgotten about.

I bought it for $2.00 at my local Senior Center yard sale about 3 years ago, tucked it away and that was the end of it until now. I distinctly remember it catching my eye on a table full of knick-knacks, candle sticks and crocheted pot holders.
 
As soon as I picked it up, I immediately loved the weight of the solid heavy metal (the thing must weigh 7 pounds) - "Sargent" and "Made in USA" embossed on the steel. And, as an unexpected bonus, there were 4 disk attachments taped to the worn wooden handle of the grinder.

Lastly, it's a beautiful "simple machine" - wooden handle, gears, and a blade. It takes a little more work than my Cuisinart, but you get a much better texture from the hand crank and disks than the very fine mince you get from pulsing the blade of food processor. I'm going to use this for the first time to mince conch for Honduran Conch Soup I'm planning for later on this week. YAY!