Chicken Salad and Chicken Stock

I just walked the loop since I was getting grouchy working since 4 AM and not having left the house all day. At 4PM I got out for a walk in the zero degree sunshine and wind. I LOVED IT. It was revitalizing. Now I'm ready to grocery shop at Jamie's before he closes thru Monday! I made chicken salad part two with scallions but I need celery and pepperoncini. I need to write letters. I need to dance around the house playing my sax. Sweet dreams. We have to hang onto a teaspoon of home heating oil since delivery isn't until Tuesday. By the way why do insurance companies always say they will refuse to pay after the fact. Is everyone a criminal? Don't answer that. Tomorrow we shovel the flat roof of the double garage. I love it because it's my life, my house my garage. I'm not a child-slave anymore. Yahoo!!

Chicken salad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A chicken salad made with celery, cucumber, apples, fresh dill, and mayonnaise with salt and pepper
Type Salad or sandwich
Main ingredients Chicken
Cookbook:Chicken salad Chicken salad

Chicken salad is any salad that counts chicken as a main ingredient. Other common ingredients may include mayonnaise, hard-boiled egg, celery, onion, pepper, pickles and a variety of mustards.

In the United States, "chicken salad" refers to either any salad with chicken, or a specific mixed salad consisting primarily of chopped chicken meat and a binder, such as mayonnaise or salad dressing. Like tuna salad and egg salad, it may be served on top of lettuce, tomato, avocado, or some combination of these. It may also be used for sandwiches. Typically it is made with leftover or canned chicken. It may also refer to a garden salad with fried, grilled, or roasted chicken (usually cut up) on top.

In Europe and Asia the salad may be complemented by any number of dressings, or indeed no dressing at all, and the salad constituents can vary from traditional leaves and vegetables, to pastas, couscous, noodles or rice.

The American form of chicken salad was first served by Town Meats in Wakefield, Rhode Island, in 1863. The original owner, Liam Gray,[1] mixed his leftover chicken with mayonnaise, tarragon, and grapes. This became such a popular item that the meat market was converted to a delicatessen.

Lonnie's Garage

Neighbors say Lonnie's Garage is dragging down this neighborhood and really impacted their quality of life.

"Well we have groups of people who will sit around there, they will yell out cat calls, they'll yell out curse names at you. You can't even walk by there. They are dealing drugs and smoking their drugs outside in the public," neighbor Tamara Herndon said.

Police say neighbors deserve the credit for giving detectives enough information about the cars and people coming and going from Lonnie's Garage. Neighborhood conditions officers like Dan Strassenberg know if they get rid of drug dealers the area sees a decrease in property crimes.

"So we're asking if there's a problem house in your neighborhood where you see these kind of conditions going on to let us know so we can eradicate the problem and keep the community safe," Taylor said.

Once the investigation is complete the city attorney will likely launch an abatement effort to shut Lonnie's Garage down.

Article

Consumers and Auto Repair

Article

Abandoned Vehicles

Article

Snow Load on Roof

Article

Roof Shoveler's HIGH

Runner's high
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Runner's high is a colloquial term for a sudden euphoric feeling or boost of energy experienced during prolonged strenuous exercise. It is suggested that β-endorphins are responsible for this state. β-Endorphins are released during long, continuous workouts of moderate to high intensity, corresponding to prolonged physical stress. This also corresponds with the time that the muscles use up their stored glycogen. The presence of β-endorphins would presumably mitigate pain sensation by negatively regulating pain-carrying signals from nociceptive neurons in the spinal cord. Notably, such analgesic effects of β-endorphins could potentially increase the likelihood of injury, as pain sensation could be more easily ignored. Although called a "runner's" high, the effect can occur anytime that people engage in any strenuous exercise or activity, not just running.

Contents

1 Research
2 See also
3 References
4 Further reading
5 External links

Research

A runner's high has been suggested to have evolutionary roots based on the theory that it helped with the survival of early humans. Current African tribes make use of a runner's high when they are conducting persistence hunting. This is a method in which tribesman hunt an animal and track it for miles, eventually killing it due to its greatly increased vulnerability because it became completely physically exhausted.[1]

In 2008, researchers in Germany reported on the mechanisms that cause a runner's high to occur. Using PET scans, combined with recently available chemicals that reveal β-endorphins in the brain, they were able to compare runners’ brains before and after a run.[2]

Previous research on the role of β-endorphins, in producing a runner's high, included trying to understand the mechanisms at work; that data seemed to demonstrate that the "high" comes from completing a physical challenge rather than as a result of exertion.[3] Studies in the early 1980s cast doubt on the relationship between β-endorphins and the runner's high for several reasons:

When a μ-opioid receptor antagonist was infused (e.g., naloxone) or ingested (naltrexone), the same changes in mood state occurred as when the person exercised with no blocker.[medical citation needed]

A 2003 study found that a runner's high might be caused by anandamide, an endocannabinoid.[4] The authors suggest that the body produces anandamide to deal with prolonged stress and pain from strenuous exercise, similar to the original theory involving β-endorphins.[4] However, this study did not report the cognitive effects of a runner's high; which seems to suggest that anandamide release may not be significantly related to runner's high.[citation needed]

The authors of a 2012 study argued implicitly that endocannabinoids are, most likely, the causative agent in a runner's high, while also arguing this to be a result of the evolutionary advantage endocannabinoids provide to endurance-based cursorial species. This largely refers to quadruped mammals, but also to biped hominids, such as humans. The study shows that both humans and dogs show significantly increased endocannabinoid signaling following high intensity running, but not low-intensity walking. The study does not, however, ever address the potential contribution of β-endorphins to a runner's high.[5] However, in other research that has focused on the blood–brain barrier, it has been shown that β-endorphin molecules are too large to pass freely, very unlikely to be the cause of the runner's high feeling of euphoria.[6]

It has been suggested that in addition to β-endorphin (a neuropeptide), classical monoamine neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and/or serotonin) might contribute to a runner's high.[medical citation needed]

See also

Peak experience
Flow (psychology)
Neurobiological effects of physical exercise

References

Human Mammal, Human Hunter - Attenborough - Life of Mammals - BBC on YouTube
Boecker H, Sprenger T, Spilker ME, Henriksen G, Koppenhoefer M, Wagner KJ, Valet M, Berthele A, Tolle TR (February 2008). "The Runner's High: Opioidergic Mechanisms in the Human Brain". Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) 18 (11): 2523–31. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn013. PMID 18296435.
Hinton E, Taylor S (1986). "Does placebo response mediate runner's high?". Percept Mot Skills 62 (3): 789–90. doi:10.2466/pms.1986.62.3.789. PMID 3725516.
P. B. Sparling, A. Giu¡rida, D. Piomelli, L. Rosskopf and A. Dietrich (2003). "Exercise activates the endocannabinoid system". NeuroReport 14 (15). doi:10.1097/00001756-200312020-00015.
Raichlen, David A.; et al. (April 15, 2012). "Wired to run: exercise-induced endocannabinoid signaling in humans and cursorial mammals with implications for the ‘runner’s high’". Journal of Experimental Biology (215): 1331–1336. doi:10.1242/jeb.063677.
Burfoot, Amby (June 1, 2004). "Runner’s high". Runner's World.

Further reading

Doug Robinson: The Alchemy of Action (2013). Moving over stone.

External links

Why People Climb Mountains Doug Robinsons lecture at Psychedelic Science 2013 conference.

You Can't Read!

When was seven, in 2nd grade my mother insisted that I had a mental block and I was unable to read. She invented some fabricated story about my bio dad writing me a letter telling me about his upcoming marriage and accused me of being mentally paralyzed from it. Meanwhile I was reading the SECRET GARDEN in the advanced reading group. Now I realize that my mother was speaking about herself not about me. She continued to see herself and diagnose me until it became increasingly dangerous for me to live under her roof.

When I was a junior in high school my teachers helped me run away! I escaped the clutches of my maniacal un-stoppable powerful medically obsessed mother and "I even got credit". I moved to Mott Street in Chinatown in NYC between Grand and Broome Street, around the corner from my grandfather's fans and motors store on Centre Street. I would visit my grandpa Nat every chance I got. I was his smiling blue-eyed favorite grand child and the LOVE saved my life.

That May I graduated as a junior getting credit for running away finding a job and an apartment and writing poetry.

My next stop was Providence RI.

Church of the Pressure Cooker

I have been a PRESTO pressure cooker devotee since I was 17 back in 1978. My musician friend Rachel Maloney and her husband Chris Turner harmonica genius taught me how to cook rice and beans in the pressure cooker. My life was forever changed. That Christmas I bought one for my sister and my mother. My mother was terrified of them since she and all of her generation had heard horror stories of applesauce on the ceiling. I tried to demonstrate how this was no longer an issue if you pay attention. Pressure cooking is like driving a car. You have to be smart and alert but you ought to be in a kitchen. I taught a class in the 90's to 8 people who were petrified of the pressure cooker but wanted to learn. It was the best workshop because we cooked a whole bunch of dishes in only a few hours. We made applesauce in 3 minutes, potato salad in 3 minutes, and brown rice and beans at the same time in 20 minutes. Then for the finally we made lamb stew in 18 minutes. If you want me to teach you I will.

My friend Andrea was born in Italy and he cooked with the pressure cooker every night when he was working at Brown University living with my friends Donna and Phoebe. He brought his pressure cooker over from Italy in his suitcase. A man after my own heart. I wonder if he'd be stopped at the airport if he tried that today. Sadly he might be accused of making a bomb.

Right now I am making chicken stock. I am pressure cooking butt ends of carrots, cabbage core and outer leaves, and my leftover blizzard chicken carcass. It smells amazing and I'm feeling very nurturing. When I am ready I will strain the stock and it will be useful for my rice and beans cooking in the week coming up.

Backlash

I feel the anti-vaccination movement is really about something deeper. I believe it is an anti-authority fight with Mommy and Daddy. I feel bad for the children who are caught in what is essentially a BAD DIVORCE caused in part by the medical community of their parents generation. My very own sister in law chose not to vaccinate her son against polio when her own father had the disease.
Article

Earth Mother Louise Erdrich

Earth Mother
Kevin Nance | Jan - Feb 2015
Acclaimed author Louise Erdrich ’76 writes complicated stories that illuminate issues confronting Native Americans and society at large. Now she’s speaking out to save the planet.

Giving the Commencement address on the Green in 2009, novelist Louise Erdrich was in crowd-pleasing form. With a buoyant voice and a radiant smile cutting through the mist of that drizzly day, she told funny stories, starting with what turned out to be an allegory about some baby chickens being transported in the back of the small plane that first brought her to Dartmouth. Every time the plane hit an air pocket, the chicks went peep-peep-peep-peep-peep—courageously raising their voices against a worrisomely turbulent world.

But near the end of her 15-minute talk Erdrich’s own voice darkened. So did her metaphors. “Knowledge without compassion is dead knowledge,” she said, her smile replaced by an expression of grim purpose. “Beware of knowledge without love. I don’t mean Harlequin Romance love. I don’t write those kinds of books. I mean love as in devotion to this world—a world that needs you right now, worse than it ever has.” She assessed the crowd with a gimlet eye. “Have you ever been in a relationship where you took someone for granted, but he or she seemed resilient? A relationship in which you had the feeling that things were going to be all right in spite of how you’d acted, and then, all of a sudden, boom—you got dumped? That’s the relationship we’re in right now with the earth. But if the earth dumps us, we all do die of broken hearts.”

Article

I LOVE Wendell Berry

Letter from Wendell Berry

Below is an excerpt of a letter by Wendell Berry that was the catalyst for the Tilth movement in the Pacific Northwest. Wendell wrote the letter to Gigi Coe and Bob Stilger following his return home from speaking at the “Agriculture for a Small Planet” symposium at Expo 74 in Spokane. Heeding Wendell’s call for “another kind of agricultural symposium,” Gigi Coe joined with Mark Musick, Woody and Becky Deryckx, and Michael Pilarski to establish Tilth as the host organization for the Northwest Conference on Alternative Agriculture, held in Ellensburg, Washington, in November, 1974.

Port Royal, KY

July 4, 1974

Dear Gigi and Bob,

I sure did have a fine time out there, and felt, when I left, that I was leaving friends. As I sort of told Bob the other night, I felt pretty grumpy about leaving home. I thought it would be a joyless duty, and that the people running the symposium would be boring official types who would make me wish I had never left home. So I was surprised to find the two of you so bright and good, and I hope you’ll forgive my wrong assumptions.

Now I want to tell you some notions that I never would have had if you had been what I expected you to be.

First, I’m impressed with what might be the importance of your being placed where you are now. The experience and the contacts that you’ll have when Expo is over ought to give you a peculiar usefulness to the environmental movement.

Second, the overwhelming message that came out of the symposium is that the agricultural establishment is going to go right on trusting “American ingenuity” and reciting specialists’ statistics until the case against it is proven by its failure—which will be the failure of much else that is more worthy. People like Leon Nelson are not going to listen to people like Wilson and me—they are not even going to be able to understand what we are saying—simply because they don’t have to. They are well paid, stuffed with the self-importance of the well paid, and set apart in their lives from both their critics and their victims. Leon hasn’t used a John Deere implement, much less depended on one, since he became a John Deere executive.

Third, your symposium, as well as a lot of other meetings I’ve been to in other parts of the country, proves the existence of a thoughtful and even knowledgeable constituency for a better kind of agriculture. And this constituency is as yet powerless because it has no programs. It has no coherent vision of what is possible. It is without the arguments and proofs—the language—that will make it coherent. Our sessions amply demonstrated the hesitance and the great difficulty people have in speaking of any kind of agricultural alternative. Leon Nelson can speak—as he did to me—of a 600 HP tractor operated by remote control, and his voice has an absolute assurance. To me, that sort of vision is a dangerous absurdity. But it does not seem absurd, much less dangerous, because it is produced by a vision that has dominated popular thinking for a generation. What seems absurd is anything less than the biggest tractor conceivable. There are situations in which a horse-and-hoe technology is the most practicable, but even I who have thought about it for years, find it difficult to defend—at least in a language that other people will listen to.

Fourth, the crisis is not in land use. It’s in the lives and the minds of land users. That’s why I don’t believe it can be helped very much by any kind of official policy. Good land use is going to come about either by hard necessity or by some kind of teaching. I have in mind what Gigi told me about her work in a birth control clinic. That effort has gone against the grain, just as any sort of agricultural reform will have to. And there are a lot of women whose lives have been changed because other women have helped them think of another possibility. As long as the other possibility is a better one, thoughts will be close to deeds.

And so I’m asking you, from where you are, can you see any possibility of another kind of agricultural symposium—not, this time, that would represent a broad spectrum of opinion, but rather one that would try to bring together the various branches of agricultural dissidence and heresy? Supposed you could get together representatives of farm workers unions, NFO and any other such groups, family farmers, urban consumer cooperatives, small farm co-ops, organic farming and gardening co-ops and organizations, the publications of dissident agriculture, and the conservation organizations, wilderness societies, etc. Could such a meeting be made to happen? And if it could happen, don’t you think it would be directly useful? I’m not sure what unanimity might be made, but I am sure that it would be the start of something or other that would be useful. For instance, one of the most urgent needs now is a forum in which urban environmentalists can begin to learn something about farming.

Would one or the other of you let me know what thoughts you have in response to this?

Your friend,

Wendell

Merton the Monk

It's the birthday of Thomas Merton (books by this author), born in Prades, France (1915). Merton was a Trappist monk, but he was also the author of more than 50 books, 2,000 poems, and a personal diary that spanned much of his lifetime.

Merton decided to write his master's thesis on William Blake, and he found himself deeply influenced by Blake. He converted to Christianity, and in 1941 he entered a Trappist abbey in Kentucky, where he remained for most of his life. In his diary from this time, Merton wrote, "Going to the Trappists is exciting. I return to the idea again and again: 'Give up everything, give up everything!'" Merton had become well-known throughout the world, in part because of his writing, in particular his autobiography The Seven Story Mountain (1948).

William Carlos Williams

I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.
—William Carlos Williams

Yesterday

Yesterday I was at City Hall at 8:15 am and had meetings all day until 1PM. When I got home I was starving so I made chicken salad from my chopped bits of leftover blizzard chicken. I added chopped red onion and chopped celery, pepperoncini, vinegar, mayo and lots of cholula and rooster hot sauce. It was snowing slush out of the sky. Deep freeze was expected overnight so I decided I'd batter tackle the 4 foot pile of fallen snow on the flat roof over the dining room. I climbed up to the 2nd floor porch and jumped onto the roof with my shovel and shoveled the two ton pile for 2 hours straight. It was satisfying to hear the bricks of snow fall in the alley. Neighbors saw me from the street and one neighbor across the street who had to shovel his roof last week, opened his 2nd floor window to talk to me. I waved. My face was beet red. I was roasting hot from exertion. I felt a little delirious and wobbly. At one point I lay down on the snow pile and put snow on my neck and forehead to cool off. Then I got up and continued until the pile was gone. I was elated and exhausted by what I accomplished. I took a hot shower and changed my clothes. I felt great. When Bill got home I told him I had an early Valentine surprise for him. A cleared off roof.

Dutch Marries Italian: Stroopwafels in a Pizzelle Iron

Allrecipes
Recipe by Marshmallow87

"Dutch stroopwafels (translation: molasseswaffles) Foreign people love them, so I translated this Dutch recipe to English."

Original recipe makes 12 servings
4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/8 cups butter, melted

3/4 cup white sugar

2 (.25 ounce) envelopes active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm milk

1 egg

1 1/2 cups molasses

1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar

1/3 cup butter

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Check All Add to Shopping List
Directions

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, melted butter, sugar, yeast, milk and egg. When the dough becomes to stiff to stir, turn out onto a floured surface and knead by hand for a few minutes. Set aside to rise for 45 minutes.
To make the filling, heat the molasses, brown sugar, remaining butter and cinnamon in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir to blend, and set aside.
Preheat a pizzelle iron. Knead the dough briefly, and divide the dough into 2 inch balls, or a size compatible with your pizzelle iron pattern. Press the balls in the preheated iron, and cook until the iron stops releasing steam, or until the waffles are golden brown.
Carefully remove with a knife or spatula, and split in half horizontally (like pocket bread) while they are still warm. Don't wait too long, otherwise they will break. Spread filling on the insides, and put the halves back together.

Note
If you can't split the waffles because they are too thin, just sandwich the filling between two waffles.

A Photographer's Poem

I Love this Poem
Today's poem on the Writer's Almanac. I love it.

From Our House to Your House
by Jack Ridl

It is 1959. It is the cusp of the coming revolution.
We still like Ike. We are still afraid of Sputnik.
We read Life magazine and Sports Illustrated
where the athletes grow up shooting hoops
in the driveway, playing catch in the backyard.
We sit on our sectional sofa. My mother loves
Danish modern. Our pants have cuffs. Our hair
is short. We are smiling and we mean it. I am
a guard. My father is my coach. I am sitting
next to him on the bench. I am ready to go in.
My sister will cheer. My mother will make
the pre-game meal from The Joy of Cooking.
Buster is a good dog. We are all at an angle.
We are a family at an angle. Our clothes are
pressed. We look into the eye of the camera.
“Look ‘em in the eye,” my father teaches us.
All we see ahead are wins, good grades,
Christmas. We believe in being happy. We
believe in mowing the lawn, a two-car garage,
a freezer, and what the teacher says. There is
nothing on the wall. We are facing away
from the wall. The jungle is far from home.
Hoses are for cleaning the car, watering
the gardens. My sister walks to school. My
father and I lean into the camera. My mother
and sister sit up straight. Ike has kept us
safe. In the spring, we will have a new car,
a Plymouth Fury with whitewalls and a vinyl top.

- Jack Ridl, from Practicing to Walk Like a Heron.
© Wayne State University Press, 2013.

Dairy Farm

Maybe I should have a dairy farm. I could be shoveling manure twice a day instead of snow!

Digging out the Picnic Table

I'm digging out the picnic table in the sunshine so I can have my coffee outside. The light dry snow in the sunshine is like Colorado. I also cleared a path for the drug dealers so they wouldn't break their necks when trying to get to the house next door.

My Childhood: Medical Abuse

Munchausen by proxy syndrome (MBPS) is a relatively rare form of child abuse that involves the exaggeration or fabrication of illnesses or symptoms by a primary caretaker.

Also known as "medical child abuse," MBPS was named after Baron von Munchausen, an 18th-century German dignitary known for making up stories about his travels and experiences in order to get attention. "By proxy" indicates that a parent or other adult is fabricating or exaggerating symptoms in a child, not in himself or herself.

Munchausen by proxy syndrome is a mental illness and requires treatment.

About MBPS

In MBPS, an individual — usually a parent or caregiver— causes or fabricates symptoms in a child. The adult deliberately misleads others (particularly medical professionals), and may go as far as to actually cause symptoms in the child through poisoning, medication, or even suffocation. In most cases (85%), the mother is responsible for causing the illness or symptoms.

Typically, the cause is a need for attention and sympathy from doctors, nurses, and other professionals. Some experts believe that it isn't just the attention that's gained from the "illness" of the child that drives this behavior, but also the satisfaction in deceiving individuals who they consider to be more important and powerful than themselves.

Because the parent or caregiver appears to be so caring and attentive, often no one suspects any wrongdoing. Diagnosis is made extremely difficult due to the the ability of the parent or caregiver to manipulate doctors and induce symptoms in their child.

Often, the perpetrator is familiar with the medical profession and knowledgeable about how to induce illness or impairment in the child. Medical personnel often overlook the possibility of MBPS because it goes against the belief that parents and caregivers would never deliberately hurt their child.

Most victims of MBPS are preschoolers (although there have been cases in kids up to 16 years old), and there are equal numbers of boys and girls.

Diagnosing MBPS

Diagnosis is very difficult, but could involve some of the following:

a child who has multiple medical problems that don't respond to treatment or that follow a persistent and puzzling course
physical or laboratory findings that are highly unusual, don't correspond with the child's medical history, or are physically or clinically impossible
short-term symptoms that tend to stop or improve when the victim is not with the perpetrator (for example, when hospitalized)
a parent or caregiver who isn't reassured by "good news" when test results find no medical problems, but continues to believe that the child is ill and may "doctor shop" to find a professional who believes them
a parent or caregiver who appears to be medically knowledgeable or fascinated with medical details or seems to enjoy the hospital environment and attention the sick child receives
a parent or caregiver who's overly supportive and encouraging of the doctor, or one who is angry and demands further intervention, more procedures, second opinions, or transfers to more sophisticated facilities

If you have any concerns about a child you know, it is important to speak to someone at your local child protective services agency — even if you prefer to call in anonymously.
Causes of MBPS

MBPS is a psychiatric condition. In some cases, the perpetrators were themselves abused, physically and/or and sexually, as children. They may have come from families in which being sick was a way to get love.

The parent's or caregiver's own personal needs overcome his or her ability to see the child as a person with feelings and rights, possibly because the parent or caregiver may have grown up being treated like he or she wasn't a person with rights or feelings.

In rare cases, MBPS is not caused by a parent or family member, but by a medical professional (such as a nurse or doctor), who induces illness in a child who is hospitalized for other reasons.

What Happens to the Child?

In the most severe instances, parents or caregivers with MBPS may go to great lengths to make their children sick. When cameras were placed in some children's hospital rooms, some perpetrators were filmed switching medications, injecting kids with urine to cause an infection, or placing drops of blood in urine specimens.

In most cases, hospitalization is required. And because they may be deemed a "medical mystery," hospital stays tend to be longer than usual. Whatever the cause, the child's symptoms — whether created or fabricated — ease or completely disappear when the perpetrator isn't present.

According to experts, common conditions and symptoms that are created or fabricated by parents or caregivers with MBPS can include: failure to thrive, allergies, asthma, vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, and infections.

The long-term prognosis for these children depends on the degree of damage created by the illness or impairment and the amount of time it takes to recognize and diagnose MBPS. Some extreme cases have been reported in which children developed destructive skeletal changes, limps, mental retardation, brain damage, and blindness from symptoms caused by the parent or caregiver. Often, these children require multiple surgeries, each with the risk for future medical problems.

If the child lives to be old enough to comprehend what's happening, the psychological damage can be significant. The child may come to feel that he or she will only be loved when ill and may, therefore, help the parent try to deceive doctors, using self-abuse to avoid being abandoned. And so, some victims of MBPS are at risk of repeating the cycle of abuse.

Getting Help for the Child

If MBPS is suspected, health care providers are required by law to report their concerns. However, after a parent or caregiver is charged, the child's symptoms may increase as the person who is accused attempts to prove the presence of the illness. If the parent or caregiver repeatedly denies the charges, the child would likely be removed from the home and legal action would be taken on the child's behalf.

In some cases, the parent or caregiver may deny the charges and move to another location, only to continue the behavior. Even if the child is returned to the perpetrator's custody while protective services are involved, the child may continue to be a victim of abuse while the perpetrator avoids treatment and interventions.
Getting Help for the Parent or Caregiver

To get help, the parent or caregiver must admit to the abuse and seek psychological treatment.

But if the perpetrator doesn't admit to the wrongdoing, psychological treatment has little chance of helping the situation. Recognizing MBPS as an illness that has the potential for treatment is one way to give hope to the family in these rare situations.

Reviewed by: Michelle New, PhD
Date reviewed: March 2012
Back

Article

Hot Shot

This is the secret to a cold house and sedentary work.
Hot shot.
Warning: don't let your cat push it off the kitchen counter, it will split open and forever leaky.

Hot Chourize Taco with Rice Scallion Avocado

I decided to get up at 4AM with the promise that coffee will make it all right. True, and by 10 AM I was done with my work and ready for lunch. I chopped up some hot chourize we received as a Christmas gift, warmed with leftover brown rice + wheat berries in home made chicken broth with chopped scallion and chopped avocado. I ate it with my leftover home made tortilla. I'm washing all of the long-johns so I'm left to wear my red union suit for warmth. We'd never make it without longjohns, thick wool socks, fleece scarves, fleece hats, and the Hotshot heated pouches.

BEWARE: Title Washing in the Underground Economy

Storm Surge: Beware of Title-Washed Cars

Source

Shopping for a used car in Mississippi? Beware of title washing. The Magnolia State has the highest density of title-washed cars in the country, with 1 in every 44.6 used cars bearing a washed title, a Cars.com analysis has found. That's well above the national average of 1 in 324.9 used cars. New Jersey, meanwhile, has the second-highest rate: 1 in 87 cars.

Why? In a word, hurricanes. Nearly a decade ago, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita left 600,000 flood-damaged cars across the Gulf States. And in 2012, Hurricane Sandy reportedly left more than 200,000 storm-damaged cars in New Jersey and New York. Salvage titles, or titles for cars that were retitled after they were written off as total losses by insurance companies, proliferated after all three storms. Title washing also surged, where sellers alter vehicle titles to hide their salvage status and sell the cars as regular used vehicles. To do this, sellers often send those cars through states with looser title laws.

By contrast, used-car shoppers in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania have less to worry about. Just 1 in 2,127 used cars in Ohio has a washed title. Florida (1 in 1,444.9 cars) and Pennsylvania (1 in 1,200.3 cars) round out the podium for low-risk states.

CarFax, a provider of vehicle history reports, estimates that title washing could affect nearly 800,000 cars on U.S. roads. The company has state-by-state totals of title-washed vehicles — any cars (not just flooded ones) whose titles have been altered — which CarFax draws from all registrations issued since 1981. We indexed that data against the total number of registered cars per state, using IHS Automotive data from July 2014. Here's what we found:

IHS data encompasses only passenger vehicles (and not vehicles such as motorcycles or commercial trucks). So does the "vast majority" of CarFax's data, spokesman Chris Basso told us.

How It Happens
So what exactly is title washing? It's what happens when someone alters the "brand" on a vehicle title; that is, the car's legal status as a flood vehicle, salvage vehicle or anything else that isn't "clean." And it often happens when someone moves the car from the state where it was "branded" to a different state with different branding requirements. That might be a state where cars of a certain age (7 or 8 years old, for example) are exempt from branding, or a state that doesn't even have flood branding.

Title washing is dubious, to say the least. The FBI calls it fraudulent and corrupt, and the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators noted in July 2014 that it's a federal crime.

Why It Happens
Why does it occur? Because the washers want to sell the car.

"Someone has a salvage car that they bought cheap — or stole — and now they want to sell it for a lot more," National Insurance Crime Bureau spokesman Frank Scafidi told us. "But to do so, they have to create a phony title for cover."

That altered title can help sell a damaged car for a lot more than it normally would. Cars that have avoided a title brand altogether — an equally dubious act known as brand avoidance, where a car should have received a salvage, flood or other not-so-clean brand but didn't — can also draw much better prices.

"Questionable actions by elements of the insurance and salvage disposal infrastructure [result] in title branding avoidance," wrote Howard Nusbaum, the administrator of the National Salvage Vehicle Reporting Program, in the IAATI article. And insurers furnish about 80 percent of the 3.5 million cars sold at salvage auction in the U.S. each year, he noted in that article.

Follow the Money
How much do sellers stand to gain from a car with a clean or less-severe title brand? In a Florida State Senate Transportation Committee hearing in March 2013, a representative of Copart, a national auto-auction company, testified that out of the million-plus cars his company had sold in 2011, some 142,000 were titled as "non-repairable" and could only be scrapped. Prices for those cars averaged $1,200. If those cars could be rebuilt, retitled and put back on the road, sellers could get $1,500 to $2,000 more per car.

ABC News notably exposed title-brand avoidance after Hurricane Sandy when it bought a used Ford F-350 at a New Jersey dealership for $20,000. It had been underwater for two days and declared a total loss by an insurance company but never received a flood title.

New Jersey later filed charges against the dealership. But the labyrinth of loopholes in various state titling laws enable a lot of branding avoidance.

"Some states have removed the non-repairable brand requirement, [and] some allow branding to be based upon subjective, non-testable criteria," Nusbaum wrote. Older cars are worth less and thus easier for an insurance company to write off as totaled, so some states allow cars past a certain age to avoid branding. And more than a dozen states lack formal branding requirements altogether.

That could lead to cars like this mangled 2013 Cadillac XTS sedan, which Copart lists online. After viewing the damage, which includes deployed side-curtain airbags and intrusion into the car's floor-pan structure, State Farm estimators manager John Cooling told us it's likely his insurer would have written this XTS off because of a "structural total loss" and sufficient "economic" damage.

But this XTS has a clean title, according to the information reported to CarFax. Copart displayed it online under its "clean title" listings. Cooling said it sometimes takes months for a car to be retitled after an accident, which the CarFax report did flag with "severe damage reported." But that accident happened on or before Aug. 20, 2013, according to CarFax — more than a year ago. The title was updated (but not issued a brand, salvage or otherwise) on May 19 in Indiana, according to CarFax, then sold at auction in Texas on May 26. Now it's back at a Copart auction lot in Houston.

We reached out to Copart for information on that particular car, but we haven't heard back.

"Everybody has their own titling laws; some states don't even have branding laws where they don't put branding on the title," Cooling said. "Someone might take the title and send it off to one up north where they don't have branding laws."

Legislative Pushback
The Justice Department moved to limit this with acts in 1992 and 1996, which created a title-branding database that eventually became known as the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, a national database of vehicle title brands. The Justice Department consolidated NMVTIS data into an online database, vehiclehistory.gov, in 2010.

Documents from CarFax suggest that states like Colorado and Texas, where damage needs to reach 100 percent of a car's value for insurers to declare a total loss, leave the most room for a clean title despite considerable damage. But both states have relatively few title-washed cars, and the bordering eight states, where title washers might transport a car after washing its title, show little correlation with states that have higher concentrations of title-washed cars.

It appears that title avoidance is just as much of an epidemic as title washing. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia leave the threshold for a total loss up to individual insurers, according to CarFax. That leaves plenty of wriggle room for interpretation.

State-by-state compliance with NMVTIS sheds more light. The Justice Department requires all states to eventually report title brands and related details to the database, which now claims to have title information for 87 percent of U.S. cars on the road. But six states and the District of Columbia still don't report the data to NMVTIS.

There's a correlation between those jurisdictions and title washing. Six of the seven are among the Top 25 states in title-washing frequency: Mississippi (No. 1), Oregon (No. 5), Kansas (No. 9), Rhode Island (No. 14), the District of Columbia (No. 16) and Vermont (No. 21). The only outlier is Hawaii (No. 44), and it has a natural deterrent to transporting a car to wash its title.

"They get the title as a clean title and resell it supposedly with a clean title," State Farm's Cooling said. "People have, for lack of a better word, butchered cars back together."

How to Protect Yourself
How do you sniff out a washed title? Vehicle history reports are a good first step. The two leading providers, CarFax and AutoCheck, generally show title brands issued by any state during the vehicle's history. That can alert you to mismatched branding.

"Whenever a title brand doesn't carry over in a new registration — say, the [salvage] title was issued in Maryland and moved to Illinois, and now that salvage title goes away — we will alert anyone that's looking at the CarFax report that the vehicle has a potential case of title washing," Basso said.

Still, not all damage or branding ends up in a vehicle history report. Copart lists this 2013 Dodge Dart, for example, online for an auction in Georgia. It has significant front-end damage, and an NMVTIS report provided to Cars.com showed the Dart had been issued a salvage title by State Farm insurance on Feb. 6, 2014. Yet the information CarFax received showed a single owner, no accidents and a clean title — with a registration renewal, curiously, on Feb. 20. If repaired, this Dart might have a squeaky-clean CarFax report.

That's why it's always a good idea to get your prospective used car inspected by a trusted mechanic. And beware of sketchy sellers, particularly those whose names aren't on the title.

"We've had cases where they've repacked the airbag with newspapers and stuff and glued it back together, and people think they have a [working] airbag," State Farm's Cooling said. "It's a frightening thought to think someone could be in a car like that."

Want more? Read our list of specific questions to ask the seller, then check out our used-car-buyer's checklist.

Editor's note: This post was updated on Sept. 24 to clarify the type of auctions for which insurers furnish most cars.

I Killed my Mother

I killed my kombucha mother. I decided to chuck the SCOBY. It looked like martin snot or a diaphragm used during menstruation. Forget it!

Nausea or Narcissism

When we were kids and there was a snowstorm we helped my step father shovel the steep hill which was our asphalt driveway. This was one of the few times we could be with our dad without our mother. We relished the opportunity.

Our mother would shout from the kitchen doorway "Come back, you'll get nauseous! You haven't had breakfast." But we wanted work to help our father get to work on time, and we loved it. We didn't feel the least bit nauseous and we weren't planning to.

Now I realize our mother had to be in control no matter what the situation was.

Later in the day when my father was at work my mother would get stuck trying to travel up the driveway. She'd gun the big ugly ford station wagon burning rubber making smoke and noise, melting the ice down to the pavement. My sister and I would roll our eyes. This would go on for 45 minutes.

Our mother had no respect for machines, people, animals or herself. Once she was pulled over by a cop who gave her a ticket for not getting out of his way while chasing a driver with his lights flashing and his siren on. She was adamant that she was faultless and laughed calling him the "little boy" who ticketed her. Weeks later she drove three hours to rural Massachusetts to contest the charge. This was a woman who was never wrong.

Snowy Childhood

One of the happiest memories of my childhood was driving with my parents and siblings from our suburban home in NY to visit my parents artist friends. When they weren't traveling the world they lived in North Brookfield Massachusetts. One snowy weekend we skidded on one of the rural roads and got stuck in two snow banks, one in front and one in back but we were rescued by a stranger. This was before the major highways to that area and before cars had front wheel drive. We did arrive safely in our woodie Ford station wagon with red interior. That weekend my parents were happy and the adults laughed and told stories. Music from Panama played on the record player. We sat at the table and listened to the stories, eating by candle light. The next day we played in the snow and when we were frozen we came inside and got warm by the small potbelly wood stove in the kitchen. We made snow ice cream from cream and sweetened raspberries. We loved sledding and skiing down their big hill. We drank Ovaltine for the first time. We ate Walnut Acres 12 grain porridge at 6 AM. It was all a thrill for us. The house smelled New England; of books, wood stoves, and exotic spices. My sister and I had our Barbie dolls and we camped out in the darkroom. We played with, lumps of clay warming it over the heating grates in the floor. We napped in the scriptorium!

Shovel the Roof!

BOSTON (AP) - Forecasters are watching two weather systems that may bring significant snow in the coming days as New Englanders are just digging out from a historic blizzard.

Frank Nocera, senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Taunton, says a fast moving Friday storm could bring 2 to 4 inches of snow and strong wind gusts in some areas around Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

That would add to the 2 to 3 feet of snow dumped in parts of the region earlier this week.

Forecasters are also monitoring a storm loaded with moisture that's heading into the region over the weekend.

Depending on how it tracks, that storm could bring snow - or snow turning into rain - from Sunday night into Monday morning.

And weather forecasts predict bitter cold temperatures Wednesday night and Saturday for the region.

Serendipity

Julius Comroe said, "Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and discovering a farmer's daughter."

Fitzpatrick's Flannel Shirt Index

Article

RI Storm : Doughnut + Crime Shortage

Breaking News - Providence Journal
www.providencejournal.com/breaking.../content/
The Providence Journal
Travel ban during storm causes brief doughnut shortage in Rhode Island .... PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The blizzard drove down violent crime in Providence,

Spent the Day Reading Laurie Colwin

I re-read Laurie Colwin books many times in a year. She is my best friend.

Taking a Stand

Article

Banquet of Leftovers: Lunch

I scraped off the shmaltz and used the leftover chicken stock from the roast chicken and dissolved it in the leftover brown rice and wheat berries with freshly chopped scallions and avocado on top and had leftover home made tortilla chips.

Slumlords of Snowmageddon

The local slum-lords did not come and remove snow with their company plows as promised. They have other priorities. Rather than follow through on their promises, they decided to abandon their loyal tenants to make money plowing elsewhere. It's sad to see people who scrape at minimum wage jobs scramble to find a way to get to work. As if poverty wasn't punishing enough.

Pancakes!

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cornmeal or oats
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons Rumford (RI) baking powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons butter, or oil
1 1/4 cup Price Rite lowfat buttermilk

I use an electric fry pan from the 60's to make mine. Sometimes I make the batter the night before and this makes morning pancakes easier. Occasionally I use the same batter for the waffle iron. The buttermilk makes them light and fluffy. Sometimes I make my own whole grain flour blend in my grinder using flint corn, brown rice, rye, wheat berries, whole oats, and anything else I have around.

Oil-Cured Olives, Avocado, and Scallions for Breakfast on a Homemade Taco!

Black coffee with olives and scallions and salted avocado on home made taco for breakfast, rocks. Every muscle is sore from shoveling and we have a bunch more to do, later. Maybe much later.

A Local Pickle!

By Gail Ciampa

Journal Food Editor gciampa@providencejournal.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Ziggy Goldfarb looked at the retail food landscape and saw Rhode Island was lacking a local source for delicious, homemade, artisan pickles.

Though he was a professional communicator by trade, for the movie industry in the Southwest, that all changed once he moved to Providence, and bought a pickling kit as sort of a gag for his bride.

There in the kitchen of his honeymoon cottage in Fox Point he started making pickles. And more pickles. All the while he experimented with the flavors, and then the texture. He had to keep them crispy. You can’t have a great pickle without crunch after all.

“There were definitely a lot more misses than hits when I was coming up with pickle recipes,” Goldfarb admitted.

He had so many rejected jars, he gave them out as parting gifts after a New Year’s Eve party earlier this month. He might have said something about only being able to give them away to those who were tipsy with holiday joy. But I’m not sure because Goldfarb talks fast and with so much enthusiasm you get swept along to another thought before you absorb what he’s just told you.

But I digress.

It was more than a year of experimenting, he estimated, before he created pickles he could build a business on. He brought them to farmers’ markets, including the one at Hope Artiste Village, and the pickle buzz started. Shoppers loved the pickles and the fact that he sourced his cucumbers from local farms.

Then he got lucky.

“I was first at the door when Hope & Main opened,” Goldfarb said.

The Warren food incubator, the first in Rhode Island, opened its doors in October and sought out its first class of food producers who would be nurtured while bringing their products to market. Fox Point Pickling Company, and Goldfarb, were among them.

Just a few months later, shoppers can buy his Fox Point Garlic Dill Pickles and Spicy Dill Pickles at more than a dozen stores.

Now if at this point you are asking, “pickles?” All this for “pickles?” Then I don’t know what to say. We pickle fans find unabashed joy in every mouth puckering bite.

I also love that Goldfarb left the Southwest behind to come to Providence with his bride Danielle Cabral Goldfarb who was embarking on a residency program through Brown University. He got a public relations job but the still challenging economy resulted in his being laid off. So he created a new future with pickles.

He recognized that Rhode Islanders take pride in their local products and they have been behind him since he sold his first jar for $8.99. His entrepreneurial drive is only exceeded by his artisanal spirit.

Goldfarb knows that pickles can be more than snacks and he has come up with a handful of fun recipes to make for Sunday’s Super Bowl. Why order pizza when you can have pickles?

It was when he first left his Poughkeepsie, N.Y., childhood home that Goldfarb learned to cook.

“No mom,” he explained.

He found he really enjoyed cooking not just for himself but for his roommates.

“It became my hobby,” he said.

Now it is his livelihood.

Does he miss his old life?

“To be honest, it’s a great feeling to be building a brand for myself,” he said. “I spent all those years building brands for other people.”

Hope & Main has been a help. Members of the board of directors are part of the process. In Goldfarb’s case, John R. Perez, president of JP Consulting, who has an engineering background, worked with him. He came up with a slicing solution for Goldfarb that didn’t involve him slicing each pickle individually by hand.

The solution? Use a French fry cutter.

Now he is exploring how to get local farms to grow more cucumbers for him as his pickles are more in demand. He also has other food artisans coming to him for advice.

Most importantly, he is also adding products and is currently working on pickled carrots as well as a Bloody Mary mix.

Cheers for pickles.

Find Fox Point Pickles at Tom’s Market in Warren and Tiverton; Clements Market and the Green Grocer, both in Portsmouth; Grapes and Grains and Persimmon Provisions, both in Bristol; Wright’s Dairy Farm, North Smithfield; Dave’s Marketplace in East Greenwich; The Pantry at Avenue N in Rumford; the Food Chalet, Warwick; and Partners Village Store in Westport.

In Providence they are sold at Olive Del Mondo, Willy’s Local Foods, Campus Fine Wines and Environs Stylish Gifts. Learn more at foxpointpickles.com.

Taco Lunch

After 4 rounds of shoveling three foot drifts, I cleared the path to the oil tank. I was exhausted, wet, dizzy and drunk on endorphins. I came in and took a shower and decided to make tacos. I fried a stack of corn tortillas, an activity I find very meditative. After an hour we had lunch at the dining room table watching the snow and Junco snow birds in the bushes. We covered our tortillas with slices of avocado, cholula hot sauce, red onion, chopped bell peppers, slices of the roast chicken, oil-cured black olives, and scallions. Delicious.

Now I am ready for a nap.

Snowstorm Euphoria!!

I stayed awake until 2:00 baking a chicken after I had made a vat of soup. At midnight I whipped up a batch of wine biscotti and began baking a few rounds. Bill took apart the sink's dripping faucet. We're crazy!

The storm is so exciting. Bill's school and everyone's school is canceled so it's a holiday of sorts.

I woke up at 6 and shoveled out the front back and side paths for Lily. The snow is 2 feet deep! My neighbor Mark Shultz was shoveling and we shoveled the driveway exit path together laughing about the need for exits for feeling better. We laughed at absurdity and beauty of the snow and blizzard winds.
I am baking another batch of wine biscotti. The roast chicken and the vat of soup are in the foyer because there's no room in the fridge. It's colder than the fridge anyway!

I'm sure I'll need a nap and then we'll have to shovel the flat roofs.

Let's make snow ice cream. I'll have to whip up a batch of pumpkin. My favorite is pumpkin pie ice cream.

Now that it's a decent hour I can take out my saxophone and honk along with Doug and Gordon's yellow CD, on the stereo. Life is good!

Refugees First Blizzard

Article

Drug Dealer's Footprints in the Snow

Nothing like snow to reveal the lingering paths of the drug dealers.

Baked Chicken and Wine Biscotti

The storm is too exciting to sleep through! I had to roast the chicken with paprika and lemon and make wine biscotti. Now I want to shovel a path for Lily to walk in the yard.

The Comittee of Sleep

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
- John Steinbeck

View Bill Calhoun's video where he discusses the importance of 'the committee of sleep'. View here.

Soup and Bread and Shoveling

Every half hour I shovel the back steps and a path to the little garden so my dog can reach her pee spot with no trouble. Really it's easy for her she is 80 pounds and tall with long lean legs. I shovel because I'm claustrophobic and I need to know I can exit my house easily if I want to. I always need an escape route!!

My 16 bean kale chourizo soup came out great. My dutch oven sourdough is magnificent. I might bake the chicken tonight if my energy stays good. The great smells are always worth it. Now that my cold is gone I have a new sense of smell.

I hear the highway department plows going up and down my street. This City is amazing. They're all over what is needed. I promised the highway department I'd bake for them at the next storm. I didn't know it was going to be a three-foot snow storm! I do appreciate what they do. Maybe I can stand in the newly-plowed street and hand them a chocolate cake.

I'm listening to WICN SOUL SERENADE and it's fabulous.

WICN is having a 45th birthday party April 2, at Mechanics Hall in Worcester Massachusetts and they are having a JAZZ trip to CUBA in October. Both things sound great.

Portuguese Kale Soup with hot Chouriço

I just had to go to Price Rite grocery and get jammed in with all of the pre-storm shoppers. I also had to glance at what they were buying. I saw two of my male neighbors frantically buying things for their wives who stayed home. I bought 4 heads of kale and hot chourico which I just made into a soup with the chic peas I simmered all morning. I have whole wheat oat and corn sourdough to bake tonight or tomorrow. I bought a fat chicken to dust with paprika and roast with a lemon inside its cavity in the spirit of Laurie Colwin. I also bought wide egg noodles which I've never bought but they remind me of my grandmother and pot roast. I'd probably bake a pot roast if my butcher was open today but I'll bake a chicken instead. We do strange things when we are set loose in a grocery store before an impending storm. I bought Goya brand pound bag of dried beans; 16 bean soup. I plan to bring my neighbors bread and soup if they lose power. The check out girl said I wish I was your neighbor. I said "Oh that would be so fun." There's an apartment across the street open! In my wildest dreams I'll be cooking and baking for the whole neighborhood.

Chorizo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chorizo (Spanish) or chouriço (Portuguese) is a term originating in the Iberian Peninsula encompassing several types of pork sausages. Traditionally, chorizo is encased in natural casings made from intestines, a method used since Roman times.

Chorizo can be a fresh sausage, in which case it must be cooked before eating. In Europe, it is more frequently a fermented, cured, smoked sausage, in which case it is often sliced and eaten without cooking, and can be added as an ingredient to add flavour to other dishes. Spanish chorizo and Portuguese chouriço get their distinctive smokiness and deep red color from dried smoked red peppers (pimentón/pimentão).

Due to culinary tradition and the high cost of imported Spanish smoked paprika, Mexican chorizo is usually made with native chili peppers of the same Capsicum annuum species, used abundantly in Mexican cuisine. In Latin America, vinegar also tends to be used instead of the white wine usually used in Spain.

Chorizo can be eaten sliced in a sandwich, grilled, fried, or simmered in liquid, including apple cider or other strong alcoholic beverage such as aguardiente. It also can be used as a partial replacement for ground (minced) beef or pork.

Spanish-style tapas bars that serve traditional Spanish-style chorizo have gained in popularity in recent years, and now appear in many large cities throughout North America and in parts of Europe.

Milk, Bread, Batteries

I'm excited about the storm and so was everyone I saw yesterday when I walked Lily to Edgewater Drive. I saw Peter and his sister in law shoveling. I saw Mallary and we walked the loop together with Lily. She loves crafts and told me she wants to learn to make soap. I've never made soap but I'd love to try it. I said her sisters and mom and I could have a soap making day at my studio. That would be so cool.

Today I am thinking about what I might need to get in preparation for the storm. I might want to get batteries and maybe a big fat chicken to roast if they are still on sale. Maybe I'll get a gallon of milk, too at the dairy farm. I'll be baking bread tonight or tomorrow, as long as we have electricity! I'm also thinking of making wine biscotti but making them thin and flat using my cookie cutter. They are so great with tea.

My muscles are still sore from shoveling the past few days but I don't mind I actually like the feeling of sore muscles. I feel lucky that I love to shovel and walk and swim. I never want to live as if I was just a head propped on a body.

Blizzard Foods

I'm already dreaming of the best blizzard foods to make and share with neighbors; bread, soup, lasagna, cornbread, waffles, pancakes, applesauce cake, roast chicken?

Delicious Lunch

Brown rice, wheat berries, avocado, red onion and cholula!

Finally, Someone Who Lives Like Me!

Scandinavians, who also have a low excess winter mortality rate, have a common saying: “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.”
Article

Black Coffee Black Tea

Lately I have been enjoying my tea and coffee black and unsweetened. I rather eat my calories than drink them!

Prisoner of Love

by Nancy Brittain

You burrow into my heart
so long ago.
There you remain
inhabiting me but nowhere in sight.
I try to pry you out
but you dig in.
You will not go easily.
I try delicate means
to dislodge your hold.
Not a chance.
Last hope:
I try reason
talking to your wardens, negotiating.
No one comes out alive, they say.
Resigned,
I rest my head
and wait out the sentence.

- Nancy Brittain

Avocado Red Onion Sandwich

I made an avocado red onion sandwich on my whole wheat sourdough toasted and I added cholula hot sauce. A perfect meal.

Pro-Zhut

Raimondo, commerce nominee Pryor tour food factory being built in Burrillville

Published: January 22, 2015 11:20 PM

The Providence Journal /

By Paul Grimaldi

Journal Staff Writer

pgrimald@providencejournal.com

BURRILLVILLE, R.I. — Governor Raimondo traveled Thursday to the state’s northwest corner accompanied by Stefan Pryor, the man she picked to lead the state’s economic efforts, to get a look inside a $62-million food factory under construction in Burrillville.

Pryor is Raimondo’s nominee to be Rhode Island’s first commerce secretary, a post created under the Chafee administration to centralize economic policy and commercial regulation. Pryor, whose appointment must be confirmed by the state Senate, is new to Rhode Island, having last held the post of Connecticut’s commissioner of education.

Raimondo brought Pryor out to rural Burrrillville to visit Daniele Inc., a company that specializes in curing meat. Vlado Dukcevich, an Italian immigrant, built his meat-curing business in the town in 1976 to take advantage of the fresh air, a necessary aspect of the production process.

The business has grown into a global supplier of charcuterie — dry-cured meats such as prosciutto, capocollo and salami, necessitating the massive construction project now under way.

“It’s very clear that this plant is derived from state-of-the-art technology from around the world,” Pryor said.

It’s a Rhode Island success story, said Raimondo, who used the visit to highlight the state’s nascent food industry.

“Any Rhode Islander who hasn’t had Daniele prosciutto should go get some because it supports a local company and is delicious,” Raimondo said. “I’m proud of Daniele — this is a family business; they’re taking it to the next level.”

The visit to Daniele is the first in a series of visits to local businesses Raimondo said she will make with Pryor. The goal is to collect ideas on how to turn the state’s lagging economy around.

“What we need to do is find some practical solutions to break down barriers so businesses can be successful, because when they’re successful they hire people,” Raimondo said. “Clearly, food — agriculture — is a strength.”

The visits also will give Pryor a firsthand look at the enterprises he’ll be asked to support.

“This is an important area of policy,” Pryor said of the food industry. “There are many strengths; we must build upon them.”

The tours also appear to be a sort of team-building exercise for the governor and her commerce nominee.

Raimondo and Pryor were classmates at Yale, but they work rooms differently.

The governor is an unabashed hugger, while Pryor is still in the formal handshake stage of his tenure.

Raimondo is friends with the Dukcevich family and Vlado’s two sons, Davide and Stefano, who today run the Daniele operation. They greet each other as such.

Pryor tries to connect by remarking that he and Stefano share an unusual form of the same name.

Donning knee-length smocks and hairnets for the tour brings out the middle-school nervousness in the crowd of reporters, photographers and policy aides, as well as a plea from Raimondo to hold off on unflattering photos.

“Easy on the hairnet pictures,” she said.

The walk inside the cavernous, noisy factory is quick and doesn’t lend itself to sharing confidences.

It’s not until later, near the end of the visit, when Pryor throws off a pun-laden couplet picking up on Raimondo’s use of the colloquial “pro-zhut” for prosciutto that they laugh together and she reflexively puts a hand up on his shoulder.

With the tour over, the new governor climbs into the state-provided hybrid SUV and a state trooper whisks her away to the next appointment. Pryor, meanwhile, stays behind to field a call on his cellphone as the media head to their vehicles.

On Twitter: @PaulEGrimaldi

Snow!

The snow was beautiful this morning, clinging to every bush and branch. I shoveled the front, the back, the sides, and the community parking lot three times. My dog had a ball. I sweated through my undershirt and long-johns. Now my sweater hat scarf and mittens are drying in the boiler room and the laundry is ready for me to hang up on the basement clothesline. I feel cozy. I am baking a pot of wheat berries and brown rice and sipping my black coffee. Happy Saturday!
Snow is festive and communal. Neighbors come out and chat. We shovel each other out and gossip a little. If I had a plow I'd use it to help my neighbors who can't shovel. The City does a great job plowing all of the streets. We are lucky!

Brown Rice and Wheat Berries

I'm baking brown rice and wheat berries in the covered iron pot. It's a delicious food.

Slumlord's Haven: East School + Rathbun Street Woonsocket

The slumlords of East School Street don't care if drug dealing or fly by night auto repair is going on. They leave that to the City to take care of. Most importantly they don't care about the residents who are desperately trying to have a life and pay their rent legitimately. If you want quality of life, I beg you, choose another neighborhood.

7 Deaths too Many: Addiction is a Disease. Recovery is Possible

NEWS | HEALTH
R.I. Health officials: 7 drug overdose deaths so far in January

Published: January 21, 2015 12:15 PM Providence Journal
Comments

By News staff

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — State public health officials say there have been seven apparent accidental drug overdose deaths so far in January.

Gov. Gina Raimondo says the latest numbers demonstrate that the state continues to face a public health crisis. There were 232 apparent accidental drug overdose deaths in 2014, the same as in 2013.

Raimondo said Wednesday her administration is committed to driving down the number of overdose deaths.

The state recently launched a campaign to help Rhode Islanders addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The campaign titled “Addiction is a Disease. Recovery is Possible” features eight local men and women publicly sharing their stories of addiction and recovery.

Health Director Michael Fine has said he wants people to know there’s help, and there are people who succeed at long-term recovery.

Home Made Saltines

How To Easily Make Your Own Homemade Saltine Crackers

Written by: Tara Dodrill Off-Grid Foods April 8, 2014 1 Comment Print This Article Print This Article
homemade crackers canning

Dry canning is a phrase I had never heard, nor had my canning expert husband, until a year ago. I am the dehydrating queen, but canning is just not my thing. My husband keeps reminding me about the need to cross-train on our skills. He is right, of course, but there is just so much involved with canning that if one little tiny thing goes wrong, you have wasted all your food and time – way too much pressure for this culinary novice. But, much to my delight, I discovered how simple the process is for canning crackers and bread.

I have canned just about all varieties of crackers now. Every time I come across a great sale, I stock up and grab some Mason jars. Making crackers from scratch is actually extremely easy, and a great way to avoid GMOs and preservatives. (See recipe at end of story.) Homemade crackers appear to dry can just as easily as their store bought peers.

How To Make Your Own Crackers

Make approximately 100 crackers quickly and cheaply in your own kitchen. This recipe can be adapted to include various seasonings and cheese-flavored crackers, as well.

What You Need

2 teaspoons of sugar
3 cups all-purpose or whole grain flour
2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup of water
4 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
Optional toppings: 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds, 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds, 1 teaspoon of sea salt, or 1 teaspoon of poppy seeds, or a mix together all of the above and cheese powder for a very flavorful experience.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Put the rack on the lowest level of the oven.
Sprinkle the baking sheet with flour and set aside until needed.
In a medium sized mixing bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients. Whisk together the sugar, salt and flour.
Pour in the water and oil. Stir the cracker mixture until a sticky dough is formed. If the mixture is too dry or a lot of flour remains around the bowl and on the dough, add one tablespoon of water at a time until the desired stickiness is present.
Divide in half and set one half aside. On a lightly floured work surface, pat the dough into a square shape with your hands.
Work form the center of the dough and roll into a rectangle shaped approximately 1/8-inch thick.
Sprinkle the dough with additional desired toppings. Lightly brush the surface of the dough with water.
Cut the dough into cracker shapes using either a sharp knife or a pizza cutter. The cracker shapes should be about 1-inch by 2-inches. If little ones are helping, hand them a cookie cutter and make some fun-shaped crackers.
Use a spatula or scraper to transfer the crackers to the baking sheet. Prick all of the crackers with a fork to prevent them from becoming too puffy during baking.
Bake the homemade crackers for 12 to 15 minutes in the oven. The edges should look lightly browns. Prepare the second tray of crackers for baking while the first batch is in the oven.
Tips – Dried herbs and chili powder are also popular cracker toppings. If cheese crackers are preferable and you have not dehydrated and powdered your own cheese already, simply add 1 ½ cups of shredded cheese to the flour mixture. Set your food processor to pulse mode and do not press stop until the mixture looks something like corn meal.

Saltines

Years ago my friend Jennifer gave me a Nabisco Saltines tin she bought at Star Market in the 80's. Today I emptied the dog biscuits out of it and washed it and dried it, and filled it with saltines. I have no idea what possessed me to buy saltines yesterday but I did and the huge box was 99 cents at Price Rite. I ate a handful of them for breakfast with black coffee. They make me think of being six years old. Eating saltines with tomato soup or ginger ale when home from school.

Kombucha Bravery

Article

Swimming is my YOGA

Swimming is my YOGA.

A new study published by the University of California at Berkeley shows that women who practice yoga have better body images and less disordered eating patterns than women who take part in traditional aerobic exercises. Study participants filled out surveys about the type of exercise they performed, how often, and their feelings about their bodies.

This particular study didn’t put women into different exercise groups, so researchers can’t be sure whether women who already felt good about their bodies tended to steer towards yoga, or if the yoga itself helped improve body image. However, yoga, a mind-body exercise, allows practitioners to tune into their bodies, emphasizing their strengths and abilities, not their size or appearance.

This focused practice is also a great stress-reliever. Yoga could help many individuals (not exclusively women) focus on the positives of their bodies, thus improving how you feel about your body, while helping improve flexibility, strength, and mental focus in the process. Article

Coffee Reduces the Risk

Cancer
Coffee May Cut Melanoma Risk
By Nicholas Bakalar
January 22, 2015 5:30 am January 22, 2015 5:30 am

Drinking coffee is associated with a slightly reduced risk for skin cancer, a new study has found.

Researchers used health and dietary data on 447,357 non-Hispanic whites ages 50 to 71 who were cancer free at the start of the study and followed them for an average of 10 years. Over the course of the study, the researchers identified 2,904 cases of melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

The more coffee consumed, the lower the risk. Drinking four or more cups of coffee was associated with a 20 percent risk reduction compared with those who drank none. The association did not hold for decaffeinated coffee or for melanoma in situ, melanoma in its earliest stages that affects only the top layer of skin.

While the results may be encouraging for coffee drinkers, “they do not indicate that anyone should change their coffee drinking preferences,” said the lead author, Erikka Loftfield, a graduate student at the Yale School of Public Health. “The most important thing a person can do to reduce risk is to reduce sun and ultraviolet light exposure.”

Article

Swim Past Stress

I have to remember how amazing it is to go swimming especially when things are stressful which they always are. Life is stressful but that can be a good thing, it gives me something to swim about. I like to swim after a day of accumulated work. It gives me a new evening and a good mood.

I swam today with a cold. I have no fever, and no infection, just congestion. I was pleased at how my swim was sort of a 'vacation' from my cold. The symptoms vanished during the swim.

Afterwards, I felt rejuvinated, and my sinuses felt less congested.

Day 4 Kombucha

My kombucha smelled vinegary so I tasted it and it is still very sweet. A mother has formed in the new jar. We are on day four and the directions say fermentation happens over 7-10 days. Stay tuned.

Katz on Kombucha

Article

Chinese Italian Jewish Grandmother

I am battling a super bad cold with asthmatic lungs for the second time this winter. It's CRAZY!!!! I just made a pot of chicken, garlic, parsley, ginger, bean, leftover potato beet carrot, with fresh spinach and mushrooms, soup! If I had a Chinese Italian Jewish Grandmother I'm sure she'd make this for me. I always think I am dying when I get sick! I used toasted sesame oil, and soy sauce, chili sauce, salt to flavor it.

My Kombucha "Mother" is Growing

My kombucha tea is incubating in the boiler room where it is warm. I am so excited because the "mother" SCOBY is forming in my second jar!!

Cure the Head Cold

Get adequate rest: Make sure you get at least seven to nine hours of sleep a night, depending on the amount your body requires. If you're not sleeping well, your immune system produces fewer of the natural-killer cells needed to destroy cells infected with the cold virus.

Eat well: Make sure you're getting foods that give you plenty of immune-boosting antioxidant vitamins and minerals - fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. Garlic, onions, and ginger are especially good for fighting colds.
-Dr. Andrew Weil

Miso Soup and More

Yummy Healthy Miso Soup

Takes a cold away instantly

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of organic brown miso
6 cups purified water
2-3 tbl of fresh ground ginger
3-5 tbl of fresh ground or minced garlic
sliced green onions
1/2 pack of finely diced tofu

Directions:
(if you are suffering from a cold also drink) 1 pint of water 1 teaspoon of cayenne 1 fresh squeezed lemon 1 teaspoon of grade B maple syrup- good bye cold!!!!

How to Enjoy
A Few Quick Serving Ideas

Miso soup is quick and easy to prepare. Heat miso paste and water over low-medium heat. Eat as is or add in some traditional fixings including shiitake mushrooms, tofu, scallions, burdock, carrots, and daikon radish.
Miso-tahini sandwiches are one of our favorites. To make your own, just spread miso on a piece of bread and then top with tahini. Enjoy as is or add sliced avocado.
Use miso as an ingredient in marinades for meat, fish, poultry or game.
Carry dried miso soup packets with you and enjoy them as a pick-me-up coffee substitute.
Combine a little miso with olive oil, flax seed oil, ginger and garlic to make an Asian-inspired dressing that can be used on salads or cold grain dishes.

Spicy Broccoli Breakfast

I am battling a head cold that has traveled to my lungs, ugh! My appetite is gone. The spicy broccoli breakfast in leftover broth was a perfect breakfast. I am boiling red beans in my slow cooker that soaked overnight. I am baking a pot of brown rice and wheat berries combined. I'm thinking about having a Chinese food Valentine's Day tea party. I'm wearing my red union suit and I heated my 'hotshot' for keeping warm. The sun is out and it's a dry cold. This is my favorite weather.

Chinese Food

Read

Union Suit

It's amazing how union suits and thermals are the secret to a cold house and the New England winter.

Union suit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about a type of undergarment.

A union suit is a type of one-piece long underwear. Created in Utica, New York, United States, it originated as women's wear during the 19th-century United States clothing reform efforts, as an alternative to constricting garments, and soon gained popularity among men as well. The first union suit was patented in 1868 as "emancipation union under flannel".[1] Traditionally made of red flannel with long arms and long legs, it buttoned up the front and had a button-up flap in the rear covering the buttocks (colloquially known as the "access hatch", "drop seat", "fireman's flap", and other names), allowing the wearer to eliminate bodily waste without removing the garment. Depending on the size, some union suits can have a dozen buttons on the front to be fastened through buttonholes from the neck down to the groin area.

The garment remained in common use in North America into the 20th century. As its popularity waned, it became chiefly working men's wear, increasingly replaced by two-piece long underwear, also known as "long johns". It was not uncommon until the mid-20th century for rural men to wear the same union suit continuously all week, or even all winter. Normally, no other type of underwear was worn with it.

Union suits are still commercially available, but because of their long association with "old fashioned" usage, and presumed "unsophisticated" rural wearers, they are considered comical. The rear flap is also associated with humor, and in film and television the appearance of a union suit, viewed from behind, is a form of mild toilet humor. The 1999 movie adaptation of The Wild Wild West, Back to the Future Part III, the TV series Rugrats, and the Family Guy episode "No Meals on Wheels" are among those that used the rear flap on union suits for comical effects.

The union suit makes an appearance in Louisa May Alcott's book Eight Cousins, as a preferred alternative to corsetry under the name 'Liberty Suit'. It also makes a presence in the 2003 film Cold Mountain. The union suit is referred to several times in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books about pioneer life during the mid-to-late 19th century in the United States, and in Harper Lee's book, To Kill A Mockingbird. In the expansion Undead Nightmare for the game Red Dead Redemption, the player begins play wearing a union suit and can choose to continue to wear it throughout the game, if desired. Dave Lister, a character from the British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf can also be seen wearing one at various points throughout the series.

In Britain, this garment has often been known as "combinations". When made from the traditional wool as recommended by Gustav Jäger, these are "woolly combinations"—sometimes abbreviated to "woolly coms". In the Western US, they are known as "long handles".

How to Keep Warm

Read

Dome Living

Article

Nat and Sophie's Salvation Army

I'm convinced Nat and Sophie's spirits are hovering over the Salvation Army because every time I go I find EXACTLY what I need! I found black Levis today that look new and fit perfectly. Yesterday I found a new denim coat that fits perfectly. Friday I found three thermal undershirts; gray, maroon, and black, and a short sleeved cotton button down shirt. I always have better luck finding clothes on the boys rack. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa from your heavenly perch.

Starting from Scratch

When I first lived on my own I didn't know how to take care of myself and I was afraid of food. I lived on popped popcorn, apples and tea. I started baking bread and making yogurt and sprouts and sharing meals with my new musician housemates. They taught me how to make rice and beans in a pressure cooker, how to make coffee, and tea, and how to live well playing music and having tea parties on the porch.

A Litle Exercise and Nature

"We live in an era where there are daily assaults on our psyche and body, so cleansing may give you a false sense of getting the gunk out," says Mishori. As for psychological gunk? Try a little exercise and nature, she says.

Article

The Beet goes On

This morning my husband poured the jar leftover beet stock into his coffee mug and when he added milk it turned PINK and he realized it wasn't coffee!

Good Advice

The term “helicopter parents” applies to far more than those who hover relentlessly over their children’s academic and musical development. As depicted in the first episode of the series, it applies to 10-year-old Sam’s very loving mother who wouldn’t let him ride a bike (“she’s afraid I’ll fall and get hurt”), cut up his own meat (“Mom thinks I’ll cut my fingers off”), or play “rough sports” like skating. The plea from a stressed-out, thwarted Sam: “I just want to do things by myself.”

In an interview, Ms. Skenazy said, “Having been brainwashed by all the stories we hear, there’s a prevailing fear that any time you’re not directly supervising your child, you’re putting the child in danger.” The widespread publicity now given to crimes has created an exaggerated fear of the dangers children face if left to navigate and play on their own.

Article

Soothing Supper

I just chopped potatoes, carrots, beets and pressure-cooked them for 5-8 minutes. It has been a long time since I used my pressure cooker. It is a fabulous kitchen tool. I saved the 3 cups of leftover magenta broth for future use.

In the 12" fry pan I sauteed fresh green beans in olive oil, a dash of sesame oil, soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, spicy garlic sauce, rooster sauce and a splash of chicken stock to de-glaze the pan.

I have a severe head cold and can barely hear anything or taste anything. This was a soothing supper.

Celebrate Football with Cuban Cigars

I'm thinking of my Grandfather. He would be excited to have a Cuban Cigar for the Superbowl.

SCOBY

SCOBY
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SCOBY is an acronym for Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast. The term is often used to refer to cultures of bacteria and yeast present during production of the fermented beverage kombucha. A SCOBY colony or culture may be referred to as a mushroom.

Composition

Yeast and bacteria commonly found in SCOBY include:

Acetobacter: This is a collection of aerobic (requiring oxygen) bacterial species which produce acetic acid and gluconic acid. It is always found in kombucha. Acetobacter strains also build the scoby mushroom. Acetobacter xylinoides and Acetobacter ketogenum are two strains found in kombucha.

Saccharomyces: This includes a number of yeast strains which produce alcohol, and are the most common types of yeast found in kombucha. They can be aerobic or anaerobic (requires an oxygen-free environment). They include Saccharomycodes ludwigii, Saccharomycodes apiculatus, Zygosaccharomyes species, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Schizosaccharomyces pombe: A yeast species commonly called "fission yeast".

Brettanomyces: Another collection of yeast species, either aerobic or anaerobic, commonly found in kombucha and capable of producing alcohol or acetic acid.

Lactobacillus: A type of aerobic bacteria that is sometimes, but not always, found in kombucha. It produces lactic acid and slime.

Pediococcus: These anaerobic bacteria produce lactic acid and slime. They are sometimes, but not always, found in kombucha.

Gluconacetobacter kombuchae is an anaerobic bacteria unique to kombucha. It feeds on nitrogen that is found in tea, and produces acetic acid and gluconic acid as well as building the SCOBY mushroom.

Zygosaccharomyces kombuchaensis is a yeast strain that is unique to kombucha. It produces alcohol and carbonation as well as contributing to the SCOBY mushroom body.
Use in food production

Foods and beverages which require SCOBY in their production include:

Ginger beer plant; a SCOBY used in the fermentation of ginger beer
Kefir; producing this beverage requires a SCOBY called tibicos, the composition of which may vary
Kombucha; a SCOBY made up of bacteria of the genus Acetobacter and one or more yeasts
Vinegar; production requires a mother of vinegar
Sourdough

Kombucha Tea: My Kind of Fun!

My sister-in-law gave me kombucha tea with a scobi and detailed instructions. Today I finally took the plunge. I have a half gallon of black tea brewing with 1/2 cup of sugar. When it cools off I will add the "mother" SCOBY and some of the liquid and wait a week for it to be ready. My kind of fun!

I tasted it and it is already sooo good. I drank two cups. My starter culture tea was nearly vinegar so this is why I got instant drink-ability when added to half gallon of sugary tea.

Daily kombucha may help asthma sufferers. It contains significant amounts of theophyline, a bronchodilator. The treatment dose of theophyline is 0.18–1.0 g daily. Just one cup of kombucha contains about 1.44 mg.

Endorphin Dolphin

I finally left the house to take a swim before the pool closed. Swimming helped me stop thinking about my cold and lack of hot water at home. Nobody was in the pool. It felt great to relax my mind and stretch. I really am an endorphin dolphin. I don't mind swimming at night, when daytime is used for other work. When I came back home the house smelled great from having baked a bread and roasted a batch of peanuts, earlier.

Ghrelin: The Hunger Hormone

Ghrelin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ghrelin (pr. GREL-in), the "hunger hormone", is a peptide produced by ghrelin cells in the gastrointestinal tract which functions as a neuropeptide in the central nervous system. Beyond regulating hunger, ghrelin also plays a significant role in regulating the distribution and rate of use of energy.

When the stomach is empty, ghrelin is secreted. When the stomach is stretched, secretion stops. It acts on hypothalamic brain cells both to increase hunger, and to increase gastric acid secretion and gastrointestinal motility to prepare the body for food intake.

The receptor for ghrelin is found on the same cells in the brain as the receptor for leptin, the satiety hormone that has opposite effects from ghrelin. Ghrelin also plays an important role in regulating reward perception in dopamine neurons that link the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens (a site that plays a role in processing sexual desire, reward, and reinforcement, and in developing addictions) through its colocalized receptors and interaction with dopamine and acetylcholine. Ghrelin is encoded by the GHRL gene and is presumably produced from the cleavage of the prepropeptide ghrelin/obestatin. Full-length preproghrelin is homologous to promotilin and both are members of the motilin family.

More here

Healthy Eating

Healthy Eating for a Healthy Weight
Eat Smart

Eating a healthy diet is a very important part of reaching or maintaining a healthy weight…and maintaining a healthy weight is an important part of overall health.
Tips for Eating Smarter
Load up on fruits & veggies

They are low in calories, full of important vitamins, delicious and filling, and can lower your risk for chronic disease.

Enjoy fresh fruit instead of cookies or chips
Add veggies to your eggs, soups and sandwiches
Freeze blended fresh fruit to make sorbet
Order veggies as a side when eating out
Keep a fruit bowl instead of a candy bowl
Make fruits and veggies half your plate

Re-think your drink

Sugary drinks (soda, sweetened teas, sports drinks, vitamin-enhanced waters, etc.) have lots of calories. Choose water or unsweetened drinks to cut extra calories.

Lower the amount of sugary drinks each day
Try fresh lemon juice in water
Choose herbal teas—they have nice flavor and no calories
Choose calorie-free drinks
Choose 1% or non-fat milk
Put just a splash of 100% juice (an ounce or two) in your water for added taste

Right size your portions

Eating large portions adds extra calories. Eat smaller portions of foods and drinks and eat at a slower pace to satisfy your hunger. Larger portions = extra calories = extra pounds.

Leave a few bites on your plate
Don’t have second helpings
Share a meal with a friend and order a salad as an appetizer
Take half of your dinner home when you go out to eat
Bring a (frozen) calorie-controlled meal to work
Use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate to limit portions

Fitness + Appetite

Article

Winter Grace

Winter Grace

by Patricia Fargnoli

If you have seen the snow
under the lamppost
piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table
or somewhere slowly falling
into the brook
to be swallowed by water,
then you have seen beauty
and know it for its transience.
And if you have gone out in the snow
for only the pleasure
of walking barely protected
from the galaxies,
the flakes settling on your parka
like the dust from just-born stars,
the cold waking you
as if from long sleeping,
then you can understand
how, more often than not,
truth is found in silence,
how the natural world comes to you
if you go out to meet it,
its icy ditches filled with dead weeds,
its vacant birdhouses, and dens
full of the sleeping.
But this is the slowed-down season
held fast by darkness
and if no one comes to keep you company
then keep watch over your own solitude.
In that stillness, you will learn
with your whole body
the significance of cold
and the night,
which is otherwise always eluding you.

- Patricia Fargnoli, from Winter. © Hobblebush Books, 2013.

Tangerine

In musician Dr. John's autobiography he writes about being in rehab and his life turned around when one day he was handed a tangerine. It's a great book. You can tell Dr. John is an amazing musician by the way he writes. His language is so MUSICAL. This is a MUST OWN book.

…that happened again and again during my halfhearted rehab attempts: I straightened up for a while , but sooner or later I ran into some Chang Moi rocks and it was off to the races, another four years of getting strung out like a fucking guinea pig.

What changed that all around was an experience I had when I wound up in a cardiac ward. I had been suffering some chest pains, which later proved to be nothing major, and I was lying in this bed, hooked up to tubes and wires, when I noticed that the guy in the bed next to me was getting shots of Demerol and morphine every couple of hours. I pulled all the wires and tubes out of myself and began planning how to follow the nurse, with the intention of knocking off the narcotics box. I knew I’d get busted if I did it, but that was the last thing I was worried about.

But just as I was about to put myself in gear, this one particular spiritual nurse walked in with a bag of tangerines. She saw I’d pulled all my tubes out, but she was cool about it – she didn’t say a word. Instead, she asked, “Want a tangerine?”

I took it.

Until that time, nothing had stayed in my stomach since I had been in the hospital. But I bit into the tangerine, and it tasted so good. And it stayed down. I ate three of them, and they all stayed down. And it was something about just those sweet, juicy tangerines, at just that moment, that made me decide to try and square up and clean up my act.

And every time thereafter, when my roomie got his Demerol and morphine, this nurse would pop up with her tangerines and good company. I never got a chance to reconsider.

source

Origin of the name

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "tangerine" was originally an adjective meaning "Of or pertaining to, or native of Tangier, a seaport in Morocco, on the Strait of Gibraltar" and "a native of Tangier." The OED cites this usage from Addison's The Tatler in 1710 with similar uses from the 1800s. The adjective was applied to the fruit, once known scientifically as "Citrus nobilis var. Tangeriana" which grew in the region of Tangiers. This usage appears in the 1800s. See the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. This fruit is referred to as Kamala kaya in Telugu and Portugal through the Caribbean. In Australia the fruit is known as a Mandarin.

-Wikipedia

Holiday Weekend Saturday

I walked to Harris pond in the sunshine this morning with Lily and some people were getting ready to skate on the shallow end.

I saw my pal Sarah who once taught English with Bill at his crazy Worcester school. She got married to a sweet man and has two kids now. She moved to the Harris pond neighborhood so she is officially a "sidewalk friend"

I just went to the Salvation Army. I needed to get pants for many YEARS but I PROCRASTINATED until my pants were rags and I was wearing Bill's pants. Finally TODAY I made myself go at 3PM (they close at 5) and I found some jeans my size in the MEN'S dept (cuz I have no hips) I found a thick all-cotton gray polo shirt on the men's rack that I fell in love with, a cotton dress shirt and a striped gray and black cotton cardigan thing. It was great to finally get there. I even found a blue teapot for a child or one person, for a dollar.

Then I got sesame oil in the Asian market. At the store, they had a shrine with a muffin on it.

Bill has no school Monday. WOW! I'm thinking of making something maybe olive spinach pies or pizza or honey cinnamon walnut rolls. I love veggies and bought a whole bunch yesterday.