Walnut Cinnamon Raisin Rolls

Whole Wheat Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Rolls

Cinnamon raisin rolls are a traditional holiday breakfast treat in many families. This sourdough version can't be beat!

Ingredients

2 cups fresh sourdough starter, either whole wheat, white, or spelt
1 cup water, room temperature
¼ cup honey
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup unbleached white flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup raisins
½ cup chopped walnuts
3 to 4 cups whole wheat or spelt flour

Instructions

In a large bowl combine starter and water. Stir in honey, salt, white flour, and cinnamon. Fold in raisins and walnuts. Stir in about 2 cups whole wheat flour until dough is too thick to mix by hand; turn out onto a smooth surface and knead, adding additional flour as needed, until dough is elastic, about 10 minutes.

Place dough in a buttered container (either glass or plastic). Cover and let rise until doubled. This may take anywhere from 2-8 hours, depending on the room temperature. A longer rise time is preferable. You can also refrigerate the dough for up to 24 hours at this point.

When dough has doubled, punch down and divide dough into sixteen pieces. Shape each piece into a ball. Place 8 balls of dough onto each of 2 greased baking sheets; cover with a cotton tea towel, and let rise until doubled, about 30 to 45 minutes (longer if dough was refrigerated). When rolls have doubled in size they are ready to bake.

Bake in a 400°F oven for 20 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Makes a great lunchbox snack spread with cream cheese.

Chew it Well

Yesterday I stepped out for the downtown walk with Lily and the wind was so cold I howled. But I had to at least step out. As we passed police headquarters Lily got her mouth on something. When I looked down, I saw two tiny bird legs poking out of her mouth. Then I caught a glimpse of the bare bones of a bird. Chew it well, I thought.

I hope I got to HELL

I hope I got to HELL because at least there I'll be warm!

Greetings from the igloo. I'm wearing a scarf, hat and full length coat, indoors.

RI Renters Rights

Article

Sandra Bonazoli and Jim Dowd

Cheers to BEEHIVE. Bonazoli said they chose the name beehive because it connotes both domesticity and industry.

By Andy Smith

Journal Staff Writer

asmith@providencejournal.com

FALL RIVER, Mass. — In 1999, Jim Dowd and Sandra Bonazoli, who met while studying jewelry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, decided they were tired of working for other people, and wanted to start their own business.

Both had a love for cooking and kitchenware, so they came up with some prototype products in metal, inspired by items they found in old homes and flea markets.

Their very first product, still one of their bestsellers, is a set of pewter measuring spoons with heart-shaped bowls and handles that resemble the shafts of arrows.

Dowd and Bonazoli applied to the American Craft Council show in Baltimore, took their new products, and did well enough that a new company, originally called Beehive Kitchenware (now Beehive Handmade), was born.

Bonazoli said they chose the name beehive because it connotes both domesticity and industry.

Beehive still goes to craft shows, such as the annual Foundry show in Pawtucket, but the company also sells through a retail stores in 38 states, their own website and a network of catalog and online merchants.

The line now includes baby products, holiday ornaments, jewelry, and ceramics, as well as kitchenware. Their work has been exhibited at the Museum of Arts & Design (formerly the American Craft Museum) in New York City.

“We’ve been able to carve out a little niche for ourselves,” Down said.

Beehive operates out of a third-floor space in an 1880 mill building in Fall River. Dowd and Bonazoli create the designs, models and prototypes for their products in Fall River. The metal manufacturing is done in Rhode Island and around Taunton, Mass.

Article

Pepper-Cumin Cookies by Molly O'Neill

Sugar and Spice
By Molly O'Neill
Published: December 1, 1996 NYT

THERE IS SOMETHING SUBSTANTIAL, ENDURING and perhaps a little frightening about the dark side of sweetness. In a dessert, the interplay of sweet and savory delivers something a lot more satisfying than what mere sugar can provide.

Savory sweets seem to occupy an ancient place in our collective memory. They taste of bloodier, grittier times. Maybe it's the bittersweet chocolate the Aztecs once sipped or the pounded fruit-and-nut cakes that the Romans brought along on long journeys that make the savory sweet so evocative. Or maybe their associative power is merely a physiological one.

If, as Jews do on Rosh ha-Shanah, you dip a slice of apple in honey, the apple will taste tart. A slice of the same apple eaten with tart cheese, in the Yankee fashion, will taste sweet. Just as good needs evil to seem really, really good, and as darkness seems possible only when contrasted with light, discrete taste sensations require their opposites in order to be more fully realized.

And so, as black-pepper ice cream, cumin-scented cookies, gingered custards and herb-flecked fruit tarts appear on artful restaurant menus, it is possible to conclude that the nation's palate has grown a tad more sophisticated. Otherwise, how would we be able to appreciate such paradoxical flavors? You also might wonder if the national love-hate relationship with sugar and the fear of fat with which sugar is inextricably linked play a part in the current clamor for savory sweets. In the end, of course, the savory is no more virtuous than the purely sweet. It is just slightly more deceptive.

Savory sweets are also an antidote to the kind of one-dimensional desserts that have dominated the dessert cart since the turn of the century, when white sugar began its ascendance. A savory dessert, after all, requires balance. Which can be interpreted as a volatile interaction between two opposites, whose end result is surprise.

Indeed, the most intriguing concoctions are those in which you can distinguish the sweet and the savory and sense their symbiosis, as in the recipes below. The pepper-cumin cookies, for instance, combine the banality of white sugar with the intensity of black pepper, the tartness of lemon zest and the pungency of cumin. When served with fruit -- fresh, roasted or stewed -- the cookie will emphasize the fruit's natural sugariness. But when accompanied by a strong cheese like Roquefort or Stilton, the cookie turns indisputably sweet.

Black Peppercorn, Cumin Seed
Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon black peppercorns, cracked
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, cracked
1 cup unsalted butter, softened slightly and cut into pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the flour, sugar, salt, lemon zest, cracked peppercorns and cumin in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter and vanilla and pulse until mixture just forms a dough.
Place the dough on a work surface and shape into 1-inch balls. Place them 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets and flatten each cookie with the palm of your hand. Bake until lightly browned, rotating the trays every 15 minutes. Remove from the tray and place them on a rack to cool.

Featured in: Sugar And Spice.

Swimming is . . .

Swimming is meditative. The breathing in warm water puts me into a trance. The feel good effects follow me throughout the day and then I start imagining my next trip underwater.

DASH: Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension

Benefits of a Plant Based Diet
Reap the Health Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet
Eating more fruits and vegetables, as well as other plant-based foods, may be one of the best things you can do for your health.

Most nutrition guidelines recommend eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grains and plant-based fats and oils. In fact, the current Dietary Guidelines are based on key elements of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) eating plan developed by the National Institutes of Health.

DASH is not only good for lowering blood pressure, when combined with a healthy exercise program, it can help you lose weight. In fact, diets centered on plant-based foods provide numerous health benefits. A recent position paper from the American Dietetic Association concluded that vegetarian diets provide health advantages for people of all ages. In fact, vegetarian diets are often associated with lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure levels, and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Vegetarians also tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates.

The DASH guidelines are quite simple, follow a diet that is: low in total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol; emphasizes fruits, vegetables and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products; and includes whole grain products, fish, poultry and nuts. It's easy to make great-tasting meals while adhering to the DASH guidelines. For example, here are some quick DASH-inspired tips to get you started on all that plant-based foods have to offer:

Limit lean meats to 6 ounces a day - or 3 ounces at any one meal. Three ounces is about the size of a deck of cards;
Include two or more meatless meals each week;
Increase servings of vegetables, brown rice, whole wheat pasta and cooked dry beans, while reducing red meat;
Use sliced avocado in place of full-fat cheese in salads or on sandwiches;
Try casseroles, whole wheat pasta and stir-fry dishes, which have less meat and more vegetables, grains and dry beans.

Olives, Red Onion, Pepperoncini, Garlic, and Avocado

I love oil cured black olives, raw red onions, pepperoncini, and garlic. Lately I have added avocado to the mix of favorites. I use olives and avocado like butter. Today I zapped a bulb of garlic and then added all of the cooked cloves to my leftover grains and veggies.

Our local Price Rite supermarket has such bargains on produce that cauliflower, red bell peppers, broccoli, oranges, and avocados are suddenly affordable.

Miguel de Cervantes

All I know is that while I'm asleep, I'm never afraid, and I have no hopes, no struggles, no glories - and bless the man who invented sleep, a cloak over all human thought, food that drives away hunger, water that banishes thirst, fire that heats up cold, chill that moderates passion, and, finally, universal currency with which all things can be bought, weight and balance that brings the shepherd and the king, the fool and the wise, to the same level.

- Miguel de Cervantes, Book One of Don Quixote published on this date in 1605.

Village Effect: Talk to your Neighbors

Daily Life
Forget Facebook, Abandon Instagram, Move To A Village NPR
source
October 14, 2014 8:59 AM ET
Diane Cole

In the parts of the world that we cover in our blog, many people live in villages.

Villages have their problems, to be sure. There may not be a doctor or clinic nearby. Girls may not be able to go to school. Clean water might be a long walk away.

But a new book points out that village life has its advantages.

We asked psychologist Susan Pinker, author of The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier and Smarter, to explain the benefits of living in a community of about 150 people, the average population of traditional villages throughout history around the world.

What is the village effect?

The village effect is a metaphor for the social contacts we all need as humans in order to thrive. These are the strong social ties that develop naturally in a village, where by necessity you cross paths with each other repeatedly every day. When you think of most villages, there is a central square, a public area where everyone converges or passes by going to the grocer or the post office or city hall or to sit at a cafe. And that is something we have less and less of today in our era of online connections. Commerce is moving online, everything is moving online, and these traditional village spaces are disappearing.

Why is 150 the ideal number for a village population?

One-hundred-fifty is the number that comes up time and again in the types of social interactions that work smoothly. We see it throughout history — whether we're talking about the number of people in traditional hunter-gatherer societies, Neolithic villages, an English country village or the number of Christmas cards we send out. These are people with whom you have strong enough ties that you could ask to borrow $10 until the next payday.

How do these 150 "village" ties compare to online ties?

Not all types of social ties are created equal. Oxford evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar posits 150 as the maximum number of meaningful relationships that the human brain can manage. We know from our own lives there are only so many people that you can invest in that way, that you can call and invite to dinner or check in on when sick.

These are the types of social ties that develop naturally in a village, where by necessity you cross paths with each other repeatedly every day. When you think of most villages, there is a central square, a public area where everyone converges or passes by going to the grocer or the post office or city hall or sit at a cafe. And so these ties develop naturally through frequent in-person contact.

These are different from the weak contacts that you might have in your online social networks. You could walk by some of these online contacts on the street without even recognizing them. These weak contacts are great if you need a recommendation for a restaurant in a strange city, for instance, or [are] looking for a cleaning lady or other types of information. But in terms of social ties, it's the difference between your mother's lasagna or homemade chicken soup compared with fast food.

Why is the village effect so important?

If you have a cohesive community, you will have extra helping hands for the young and the old and everybody in between. The village effect impacts not only those who are vulnerable but it helps people feel they belong somewhere.

And if we know anything from all of the demographic studies in neurosciences, if you are lonely or isolated, it is almost a death sentence.

When you are getting together face to face, there are a lot of biological phenomena: Oxytocin and neurotransmitters get released, they reduce stress and allow us to trust others. Physical contact unleashes a whole chain of events that make us and make the other person feel good, and affects our health and well-being.

By contrast, according to research, we've never been lonelier as a society than we are now, and this can take a toll on our health.

Those of us who don't live in villages — are we out of luck?

You can create your own village effect. Get out of your car to talk to your neighbors. Talk in person to your colleagues instead of shooting them emails. Build in face-to-face contact with friends the way you would exercise. Look for schools where the emphasis is on teacher-student interaction, not on high-tech bells and whistles.

We need to recognize that digital connections should enhance but never replace the real-life connections. I don't think we all should throw out digital devices and move back to the village. I'm not romanticizing village life but using it as a metaphor as what is disappearing: deep social ties and the in-person contact we all need to survive.

Go Ask Alice!

What is the mission of Go Ask Alice! ?

Go Ask Alice! is a health Q&A Internet resource. It provides readers with reliable, accurate, accessible, culturally competent information and a range of thoughtful perspectives so that they can make responsible decisions concerning their health and well-being. Information provided by Go Ask Alice! is not medical advice and not meant to replace consultation with a health care professional.

Who answers the questions?

Go Ask Alice! is supported by a team of Columbia University health promotion specialists, health care providers, and other health professionals, along with a staff of information and research specialists and writers. Our team members have advanced degrees in public health, health education, medicine, counseling, and many other relevant fields.

Kombucha Tea

How to make your own kombucha tea.
Here.
More about fermented "cultured" beverages here.

Barely Fermented Apple-Grape Juice

My brother-in-law makes this for me since I am allergic to wine and beer. It's one percent alcohol and even less when diluted. Take a quarter of a cup of apple grape juice and warm it to wrist temps. Dissolve a half teaspoon of Fleishmann's active dry yeast. When proofed add a quart of juice. Close in a plastic empty seltzer bottle. Don't over fill it. Allow an inch of head room. Let the bottle sit at room temps for 24 hours, or if your house is 50 degrees, place it in a 70 degree spot. Check on it, release air as needed. Pressure builds fast! Refrigerate and enjoy when cold. It will be bubbly. It's very sweet, dilute with three parts plain seltzer.
Next time you make it use the cultured leftovers rather than yeast, to cultivate your next batch. Your colony of yeast will become specialized and adapted to your home-kitchen environment.

A Favorite Vegetable Topping

My 12" cast iron frying pan is my canvas. I throw in olive oil (with a dash of toasted sesame oil when I have it) and I add rooster hot sauce and spicy garlic hot sauce, chopped broccoli and cauliflower florets and peeled and chopped stems and core too, a can of water chestnuts, freshly grated ginger, port wine, soy sauce, and kosher salt. It is fabulous eaten on top of grains or noodles or by itself. Sometimes we add thinly sliced and chopped cooked chicken, fish, beef, egg, almonds or peanuts. Experiment and invent your own dish.

My Brighton Beach Grandparents Nat and Sophie ate Chinese food every night I MAKE Chinese food every night!

The traditional Chinese diet, featuring low or moderate amounts of animal-based protein and plenty of plant-based foods, is one among many traditional diet styles that has received praise for its disease-fighting abilities. More than just a delicious way of preparing food, traditional Chinese cooking uses food as therapy to harmonize the body with the seasons. Strategic blends of spices and flavors contribute to the healthful and delicious qualities of this diet.

The traditional Chinese diet features vegetables that have been lightly steamed or stir fried, accompanied by starches like rice, noodles or dumplings. Meat and fish are part of the traditional diet, but are served in much smaller amounts than is typical in the Western diet. While American cooking styles tend to associate spices with flavor enhancement, in Chinese cooking, garlic and ginger tend to be included as aids to digestion, according to the website Chinese Holistic Health Exercises. Green tea, known for its antioxidant qualities, also features prominently in the Chinese diet.

Traditional Chinese Diet
Jan 13, 2014 | By Melissa Smith

Blood Alcohol Chart for Students

Article
Check this out too.

Big Pot of Grain

I decided to make a big pot of grain in my slow cooker to go with whatever vegetables I cook for supper. I keep a drawer in my fridge full of bags of grains. I decided to blend them together. I have no idea how it will come out. I mixed brown rice, wild rice, quinoa, un-hulled barley, and wheat berries. I'll let you know what happens.

It came our great. It needed extra salt. It tastes like dirt. Good dirt. I love dirt!

Spicy Kale Peanuts Chicken and Grits Supper

The other night I stir fried kale with my freshly roasted peanuts and then I added sliced and chopped frozen chicken breast which defrosted immediately in the hot pan. I added hot rooster and spicy garlic sauce, olive oil, and cheap port wine and a pinch of salt and sugar and soy sauce. I was too impatient to wait for rice so I made a pot of hot grits. It was so good we ate it for a few days. This meal tells the story of places I've lived and who inspired me. Oh I also added chopped candied ginger leftover from Christmas.

The Slippery Guy

The slippery guy comes back here and he always has a few accomplices. Each day there's new people and new vehicles and new drivers. They are always up to something shady involving illegal selling and tinkering with cars, swapping out-of-state license plates, breaking neighbors garage locks with a hammer or clippers, dumping automobile tires, and god knows what else. The guy burns through his people. The police have caught up with him numerous times but he sweet talks them, pays the fines and slithers through the law hiding under the radar doing it again and again. This has gone on for over 6 years. When he gets bumped he will relocate and set up shop continue until he is bumped again. Its just like with the drug dealers. He's a narcissistic megalomaniac and when his landlord comes for the rent he play acts as the crazy man and throws a tantrum screaming in Spanish and waving his arms. So far he's been unstoppable and has kept everyone at bay. Gotta give the guy some credit albeit a backhanded compliment, for perseverance in the face of all of the odds.

Medical Child Abuse

This is a topic I am aware of from first hand experience, as a child victim.

Dissatisfied with her 16-year-old son's medical care, Michelle Rider was preparing to transfer him from Lurie Children's Hospital when a doctor delivered staggering news: The teen had been placed in temporary protective custody.

"They accused me of medical (child) abuse," Rider said of that morning last month. "I said, 'What is that?' They told me to Google it. I was not allowed to have contact with my son and was told they would be making medical decisions for now on."

The Chicago hospital accused Rider of interfering in the boy's medical care, moving him from hospital to hospital across five states, disagreeing with doctors' advice and demanding a powerful sedative to relieve pain that reportedly diminished when she wasn't present, according to records obtained by the Tribune.

The staff alleged that Rider, of Kansas City, Mo., exhibited hallmark characteristics of Munchausen by proxy syndrome, also called "medical child abuse" — a rare condition in which a caregiver subjects a minor to unnecessary medical procedures.

The boy was recently placed in a Chicago-area foster home in a case that raises difficult questions about what happens when medical treatment conflicts with the wishes of parents to do what they think best for their children. Rider, who was barred from seeing her child for 24 days, is now locked in an emotional custody battle in Cook County court's Child Protection Division, trying to prove she is a fit parent.

Article

Suicide Prevention

My husband's school had a professional development workshop in suicide prevention this week. I wish my high school teachers had this training. We lost a few kids back when I was in high school. The message: pay attention; your concerns might save a life.

Article on Father Time

Yesterday I walked downtown and then to the reservoir and I also swam laps in the pool. Last night and this morning I felt every new muscle was sore. I slept ten hours. We have to listen to our bodies. I got up at and made a good breakfast scrambled eggs with my sourdough whole wheat corn oat blend, toast.

Article about Father Time

Mental illness is a Charnel House from which Nobody Escapes Unscathed.

We took our cat Sammy to Sakonnet Vet last night for his rabies booster and checkup and Dr. Pete Belinsky told me about this amazing article.

by Roger Cohen

My father came home from work and found the bedroom doors closed. He thought little of it. June was often in bed. He fixed himself a whiskey, sat down with the papers. It was a mild summer’s evening, sunlight glinting through the trees, clouds of gnats against the fence. June’s cycles were running at three-month intervals. With luck, come September she would be active again. Sydney tossed the papers aside. He tried the bedroom door. It was locked. He raced around to the other door, from the bathroom.

It was locked. He ran outside. The net curtains were drawn. The windows looked sealed. On closer inspection, one was very slightly ajar.

My mother lay sprawled on the bed, a bottle of gin beside her. She had taken large doses of doxepin and Valium, washed down with the gin. Her arms were thrown back behind her head.

Her pupils were scarcely responsive, her breathing shallow. The suicide note written to my father was beside her bed: “You are made to do great things, make immensely useful discoveries to aid all mankind and I’m leaving you to continue unimpeded by my burden. I so much hoped to help you and to help you and to love and adore you ...” June survived, just. The emetic effect of the gin probably saved her. She vowed to us all that she would never again “resort to such a drastic step.” But death was always the cajoling voice in her ear.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

June tried to kill herself again on June 15, 1982. Again there was a suicide note. Again, she survived, barely. At last cancer took her on Jan. 2, 1999, at age 69.

Mental illness is a charnel house from which nobody escapes unscathed. My parents’ marriage, in its last two decades, was filled with terrible silences and fierce eruptions. After the loss of my mother, I had to find vitality at any price. Every relationship was a mausoleum in the making.

Roger Cohen is a columnist and the author of “The Girl From Human Street,” a memoir, from which this essay is adapted.

SundayReview | Op-Ed Columnist NYT The Battle to Belong: Depression and an Immigrant’s Struggle to Assimilate JAN. 9, 2015
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Proper Tools

Her life her life had taken on the shape of a terrible mistake. She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hair-brush and told, "There you go." She'd stood there for years, blinking and befuddled, brushing the can with the brush.
― Lorrie Moore

Lorrie Moore

Usually she ordered a cup of coffee and a cup of tea, as well as a brownie, propping up her sadness with chocolate and caffeine so that it became an anxiety.
― Lorrie Moore, Like Life