Husband and I have four rolling pins. Two are French-style ones I use for pie crusts, one is a knobby one for hardtack, and the biggest one with narrow grooves is for lefse. I use the French ones pretty regularly. The lefse rolling pin only comes out in November, that is, until now, thanks to my physical therapist.
My physical therapist really likes to attack knots in my sore muscles by vigorously rubbing them. This is not gentle massage. It hurts, but helps loosen the muscles. The other day at my PT appointment after the heating pad and dry needling there were very sore knots on the muscles on the outside of my right leg above my knee. My therapist got out a large and heavy styrofoam roller and rolled it up and down those muscle knots for about 10 minutes. After she was finished it felt wonderful. I told her I thought I could do the same thing at home with a rolling pin. She agreed, but cautioned that the narrower circumference of the rolling pin might hurt more than her roller did.
I spent a good amount of time Saturday doing my PT exercises and rolling the lefse rolling pin up and down the knots in my leg. I had the most pain-free day I have had in a couple of months.
What is your preferred rolling pin? What are some alternative uses you have found for objects? Any odd home remedies you have tried or heard of?
Trail Baboon 
My preferred rolling pin is a rolling pin
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Guess who.
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Bill?
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I wasn’t trying to be coy. WP kept bumping me.
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Well, since I am the owner of way too much kitchen “stuff”, it won’t surprise you to hear that I have several rolling pins. My traditional rolling pin is the one that I use the most although I do have a dowel type in the drawer. I only use that occasionally. I also have a marble rolling pin that was given to me by a friend – it’s fabulous for pizza dough rolling. And I have two different springerle rollers, which is silly since I don’t like springerle. They were both gifts and I keep thinking I should find a nice recipe without anise so I can use them, but I haven’t so far!
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Try a Speculaas recipe for the Springerle pin. I forgot about our pin. I guess we have 5 rolling pins.
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I could try that. I do make speculaas every year, but for some reason I’ve gotten in the habit of rolling them out and using a reindeer head cookie cutter. Suppose it wouldn’t hurt me to do something different.
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My father once replaced a pipe under the sink with a metal section of the vacuum hose. It worked fine for months until he had to pour some Draino down the sink and it ate a hole right through the thin metal.
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I don’t have cupboard space for rolling pins. I do have one, but it’s stored with my old cooking and baking pans in the basement. It’s a traditional one, quite old, with handles that were once painted green. I have used it, but not for at least seven years, probably longer.
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Probably just like mine – tho’ these handles are red…
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I still have my mom’s rolling pin, and I did have Dad’s lefse one – which was grooved like Renee’s up top, except it had crosswise grooves as well. Gave it to someone who will actually use it.
My chiropractor told me about the rolling pin trick – in my case it was originally for a hip bursitis – I should try using that again!
I love finding alternate uses for things, and will look around for some examples…
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I’ve heard of the rolling pin massage and that it’s effective.
Another home remedy I’ve used many times is steam. If you’re feeling congested from a cold, put a pan of water to boil on the stove and add a drop (not much, just a drop) of eucalyptus oil. Carefully inhale the steam.
A 5-gallon bucket that’s been used to bring miscellaneous musical objects like shakers, kazoos, small rhythm instruments, etc., to a folk music jam can be emptied, flipped upside down and used as a drum.
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We have two rolling pins: a wooden one my wife found at a Goodwill store some 50 years ago, and a marble one that we must have bought in the past 20 years or so. I sometimes use the marble one but wife never does. She’s a “purist.”
We also have a styrofoam roller that we use to ease our various back, shoulder, and hip pains. Had it for years based on a rec by my chiropractor. It helps a lot, but thankfully I don’t have to use it as much as I did in years past. Back feeling about 98% good most days. 🙂
Chris in Owatonna
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My single rolling pin has only been used to crush large sized pellets of bird food.
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Of course it has!
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I have only one rolling pin. Its a large one, though. Can’t remember when I last used it, or what for.
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Just used my regular pin-double batch of rolled sugar cookies!
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We have a rolling pin too, but it only gets used for massaging my knees.
There’s other things to do with one??
Someone gave me the big knobby foam roller, but it was too hard to get down on the ground to use it! 🙂
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Twins win!
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I bought a rolling pin when I was in my twenties, I think. It was a nice rolling pin, but not terribly special.
I found a nice vintage rolling pin at a garage sale, with green painted handles. Old rolling pins have a nice sheen from the oils they have been exposed to over the years.
When my mother dies, I took her rolling pin. I think I might have given my original rolling pin to my sister, but I’m not sure. She has one, and neither of us remember for sure where it came from.
My mother’s rolling pin has red paint on the handles, but the paint is almost completely worn off. It’s mostly faint lines in the grain of the wood. When my older niece said she wanted a rolling pin, I offered it to her, since it would be nice to keep it in the family. When I gave it to her, I started to wonder about its history. My mother baked pies somewhat frequently, but probably not often enough to account for the advanced level of wear on the paint. It might have been passed down from my grandmother, or even a great-grandparent.
I’m sort of sorry I didn’t take a picture of it. It is a beautiful thing.
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If she still has it, she should take a picture for you.
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Not being much of a pie maker, I think I most frequently used the rolling pin to crush saltines into crumbs for my scalloped corn recipe.
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Almost time for Bed, Baboons,
Busy day here! No time to comment until now.
Which cartoon was it in which the wife would chase her husband around with a rolling pin? I have not ever used mine for that, but it was a cliche for a long time!
I have two rolling pins. The plain wooden one I use for pie crusts and a lefse one that I do not use for lefse, but for Grandma’s flatbread. Grandma used to make many batches of a flatbread that we devoured as a holiday meal appetizer. It was thin, crisp, and slightly sweet. I bought the lefse rolling pin to practice making this, but I still do not get it quite thin enough. I will be trying again at some point.
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The cartoon is Bringing Up Father.
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Husband just tonight had an issue with his remote starter on his truck just starting the truck and not turning it off. We asked a neighbor to come help, a guy who works in the oilfield. He is from Texas, and said that there you can fix anything with Dr. Pepper and duct tape! The truck is now off after a great deal of finagaling, and Husband threw away the remote starter fob.
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I was aware of the Duct Tape magic. But Dr. Pepper? What?
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Replace the Dr. Pepper with WD40 and it makes more sense to me.
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