Reynolds Wrap - A Kitchen Staple

When Entertaining Ease (1982, 32 pp.) was published by the Reynolds Wrap Kitchens there were several consumer products advertised on the back cover and used in the recipes: Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil (in 7 sizes and 3 weights), Reynolds Plastic Wrap and Reynolds Oven Cooking Bags.

I've had a copy of this booklet for all these years, ordered from an ad in a magazine as I recall. I've always liked this booklet because of the color "how-to" photos shown inside that demonstrate some of the ways to use their products. The recipes inside use the techniques that are shown in the illustrations.

Some of the techniques are: How to Envelope Wrap, How to make a Souffle, How to Bundle Wrap, How to Make and Fill Orange Shells, How to Make a Pastry Top, How to Use a Reynolds Oven Cooking Bag, How to Roll a Cake, How to Make a Reynolds Wrap Flan Pan, Crystallized Flowers, How to Shape Tarts, How to Assemble a Cheese Wheel (using plastic wrap), How to Make a Shell Mold and How to Drugstore Wrap.

One of the recipes is for an After-the-Game-Pizza-Party and is called Participation Pizza. The recipe and photos show how to make the basic sauce and crust (using frozen bread dough) ahead of time, then allowing the guests to add their own toppings when it's time to cook and serve the pizzas. An easy and convenient way to organize make-you-own pizzas for a crowd.

I'm a visual person and I appreciate these helpful little photos.

Entertaining Ease was one of a series of 32-page cookbooks. Other books in the series were Flavor Savor Cookbook, How to Cook for 1 or 2, Microwave Cooking and The Way Mama Cooked It.

Twenty-five years later they still offer these same products as well as well as a host of other useful items: Reynolds Baking Cups, Reynolds Cut-Rite Waxed Paper (the brand was acquired in a 1995 acquisition from Scott Paper), Freezer Paper, Reynolds FunShapes Baking Cups and Cake Pans, Reynolds Parchment Paper, Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners and Reynolds Wrappers Pop-Up Foil Sheets. They've updated their foil and plastic wrap line with Reynolds Wrap Release Non-Stick Aluminum Foil (a great idea) and changed the name of the Plastic Wrap to Seal-Tight, which comes in a variety of colors (the colors were another great idea).

News reports indicate that Alcoa may sell off their packaging products unit. This is a shame, I believe, because the Reynolds Wrap line contains so many useful, basic products that are staples in the kitchen. Even through their own acqusition of some of these products, they haven't fixed what isn't broken and they've come up with some great new ideas over the years. Hopefully none of the products will disappear and the new buyer(s) won't be buying out the competition only to replace it with their own inferior products.

To find your own copy of Entertaining Ease you can look here or here.