Am I the Only One?

Strangely unsettled by the fact that the only item in my food pantry not clearly marked Made in China is the La Choy Chow Mein Noodles?

Happy Square Root Day!

And stay tuned for Pi Day!


Make mine blueberry with vanilla ice cream. MMMMM!

Free Fits Me to a Tea

Went shopping today and didn't find what I was looking for, namely a long down jacket in any color but black. Tried on quite a few at Bergner's and Macy's. One nice cream colored one was marked down - and it was down filled - but not down enough! I couldn't see $180 for something that would me dirty by the time I got out to the car. Me and light colors don't exactly get along, but it was by far the nicest-looking of all I have tried. A few silver ones were maybes, but not quite. There was a white one that was cute, but who wants to look like the Michelin Man?

I did however find a short black jacket sans hood with down and feather content that was on sale for an astounding $21! Sold! Still need a long one for dress/work, but this is a nice jacket with jeans, etc. I now need to get rid of a few jackets to make way for this new one.

Went to Ulta 3 where I usually do quite well with coupons. I had their $3.50 off store coupon and a few other coupons in their little flyer for razor blades and apricot scrub. They had buy one, get one free on Loreal and BOGO 50% off on Cover Girl. I had coupons for both the Loreal Products but the girl wouldn't take one! She said I couldn't use it on the 'free' item! What's with that? It gets turned in to the manufacture from the store. They just verify it's an item the store sells. Do they have to prove they charged something for the item? It just upset me. I ended up spending way too much in there. Now I'm not happy. Think I'll stay away from them - or at least only redeem their free 'points' item - they didn't make me buy anything to do that last time.

Thank goodness I 'redeemed' myself over at Starbucks... I had this coupon for a free Teatime. Tea is their new drink special and they were featuring Full-Leaf Tazo Tea Lattes and Tazo Tea Infusions. I also had a card for $2 tea after 2 p.m. , so I figured I could buy one at $2 and get one free for Al. The girl took my order for a Berry Infusion and London Fog (Vanilla, Earl Grey and steamed milk). She then announced 'it came up free' and I didn't owe her anything!!! Wheeee!! Nothing warms like free!

I highly recommend either drink - the London Fog tasted like warm milk before bed, and the Infusion was very berry. Also comes in apple, must taste like cider.

I've had too many sweet drinks today, but this record snowfall season really has me depressed. Here's my new favorite drink. I had it in a restaurant that called it a Cherry Turtle. Based on the name alone, I wanted one! How cherry figures in this, I haven't a clue, but if you stop by my house this winter, I'll be glad to make you one.

Hot Chocolate

Amaretto

Bailey's Carmel Cream

Whip Cream/cinnamon topping

Chemical Warfare

As you are well aware, artificial claims can boost your stock price in some very concrete ways...

From the Chicago Tribune:

Chicago-based Merisant Worldwide Inc., maker of the artificial sweetener Equal, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday, hobbled by the global credit crisis and sliding sales.

(blame the no-so-sweet-economy...)

In 2008, Splenda grabbed 60 percent of the market, and Equal had only 11 percent, third after Sweet & Low. (That's not Equal at all!)

The upshot: Merisant's revenues sank 18 percent from 2003 through 2007, when they totaled $290 million. For 2008's first nine months, sales were off another 6 percent from a year earlier.

(causing cancer is a competitive business)

Merisant is betting on future growth through PureVia, a zero-calorie natural sweetener derived from the leaves of the stevia shrub. Tabletop sweeteners under the PureVia brand are rolling out in stores nationwide. (I have a coupon and will try it! My theory is changing cancer causing chemicals every so often helps delay the buildup of any one type...)

Cloning: a Game for the Whole (Replicated) Family!

Christmas can invoke fond remembrances of favorite toys from childhood, but there was one that had fallen off my radar screen completely until I read this article about Chinese Hamster ovaries.

"I am not a patient person, and being a new faculty member at a brand new university, I did not immediately have the cleanroom facilities I am accustomed to," says Khine, "And desperation is the mother of invention (or something like that). So as I was brainstorming solutions, I remembered my favorite childhood toy and decided to try it in my kitchen one night."
Khine and her team designed complicated patterns in Auto CAD, printed them onto Shrinky Dinks, and then heated the plastic toys in an inexpensive oven. As the sheets became smaller, the lines of print would bulge out. Taller and more pronounced, the miniaturized pattern served as a perfect mould for forming rounded, narrow channels in PDMS -- a clear, synthetic rubber.
In addition to making some simpler devices, Khine and her team emblazoned a Christmas tree design into a piece of PDMS and showed how it can blend different types of food coloring to make a rainbow pattern. Since microfluidic devices are sometimes used for biological research, the young professor also showed that Chinese Hamster Ovary cells can flow through through the narrow channels.

Yep. Shrinky-Dinks saving the world. Who knew? I just loved these totally useless bits of plastic. Oh, sure, you were supposed to make little jewelry and ornaments and stuff; but I just ended up with, well, stuff. Teeny tiny stuff. Lots and lots of teeny tiny stuff. Why was this so fascinating? I don't really know. Lord knows I never wanted to use an oven for anything edible. But shrunken little horse pictures? You bet.

Once again I am left to lament the fact I was born too soon - had I access to the Internet in Junior High, my life would have had a very different outcome (I'd be in an off-shore federal prison long ago). But to think that I could have achieved world domination with a shrinky dink kit and and easy-bake oven? Sad, just sad, to contemplate that lost potential.

Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press Writer Thu Dec 25, 6:49 pm ET


SAN FRANCISCO – The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.

Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories. Like the UniBomber?

In her San Francisco dining room lab, for example, 31-year-old computer programmer Meredith L. Patterson is trying to develop genetically altered yogurt bacteria that will glow green to signal the presence of melamine, the chemical that turned Chinese-made baby formula and pet food deadly.

"People can really work on projects for the good of humanity while learning about something they want to learn about in the process," she said.

So far, no major gene-splicing discoveries have come out anybody's kitchen or garage. (That we know of...)

But critics of the movement worry that these amateurs could one day unleash an environmental or medical disaster. Paging Michael Crichton, paging...

Defenders say the future Bill Gates of biotech could be developing a cure for cancer in the garage.

Many of these amateurs may have studied biology in college but have no advanced degrees and are not earning a living in the biotechnology field. Go on...

Some proudly call themselves "biohackers" — innovators who push technological boundaries and put the spread of knowledge before profits.

In Cambridge, Mass., a group called DIYbio is setting up a community lab where the public could use chemicals and lab equipment, including a used freezer, scored for free off Craigslist, that drops to 80 degrees below zero, the temperature needed to keep many kinds of bacteria alive.

Co-founder Mackenzie Cowell, a 24-year-old who majored in biology in college, said amateurs will probably pursue serious work such as new vaccines and super-efficient biofuels, but they might also try, for example, to use squid genes to create tattoos that glow.

Cowell said such unfettered creativity could produce important discoveries.
"We should try to make science more sexy and more fun and more like a game," he said.

Patterson, the computer programmer, wants to insert the gene for fluorescence into yogurt bacteria, applying techniques developed in the 1970s.

She learned about genetic engineering by reading scientific papers and getting tips from online forums. She ordered jellyfish DNA for a green fluorescent protein from a biological supply company for less than $100. And she built her own lab equipment, including a gel electrophoresis chamber, or DNA analyzer, which she constructed for less than $25, versus more than $200 for a low-end off-the-shelf model. I love entrepreneurship

Jim Thomas of ETC Group, a biotechnology watchdog organization, warned that synthetic organisms in the hands of amateurs could escape and cause outbreaks of incurable diseases or unpredictable environmental damage. Like the idiot that introduced rabbits or cane toads to Australia? Oh, wait, here's one: let's cross European honeybees with African bees... yeah, there's a great idea, and they didn't even need a microscope slide.

"Once you move to people working in their garage or other informal location, there's no safety process in place," he said. Like the ones our government has? Homer Simpson running the nuclear plant isn't far afield

Some also fear that terrorists might attempt do-it-yourself genetic engineering. But Patterson said: "A terrorist doesn't need to go to the DIYbio community. They can just enroll in their local community college." Or flight school

Cavys Roasting on an Open Fire...

Before After

Times are Tough When...

LIMA, Peru - Are hard times threatening your Christmas dinner? Well then, Peru has the answer: guinea pig.
Officials in the coastal Peruvian province of Callao on Monday hailed the Andean rodent as a low-cost, low-fat alternative to a traditional turkey or roast pork Christmas dinner.
Guinea pigs can feed seven or eight for about $3.20, Callao official Mario Sanguinity told Associated Press Television.
"The idea is to give the people a tasty, economical option," he said.
The presentation included a live guinea pig dressed as Santa Claus and eight of its comrades laid out fried, broiled and roasted in traditional dishes from different regions of Peru.
Callao resident Silvia Carazas said she plans to make the switch to guinea pig at Christmas.
"The animal is rich in protein and has zero cholesterol as well, very important for those of us looking to watch our weight," she said.
The tiny cuts of white meat are often compared to rabbit and dark chicken. Called "cuy" in Peru, guinea pig is a stable source of income for farmers and holds an elevated place in Andean folklore.

I am so starting a a Guinea Pig farm....

The Right Stuffing

HOUSTON - The smoked turkey resembles sliced deli meat but stiffer, the candied yams are bland inside, the green beans taste like they've been microwaved to death and the corn bread stuffing has a broth-heavy, institutional flavor.

Thanksgiving at my house? My relatives wish it were that tasty! This is an article about how bad the space shuttle astronauts had it for the holiday. But, then again, after losing a $100K toolbox in space*, no one was exactly authorized to charge some takeout.

Note to self: be extra-cautious outside next June...

I'll Pass on the Dish

One of my better efforts


The dreaded DTP : Bring a Dish to Pass

Now there's a phrase that strikes terror in the hearts of the cooking-impaired like myself!

Why is this some bizarre requirement for holiday gatherings? Why not just give $10 to the hostess and be done with it? Just mingling with a crowd is enough of a 'toll' in my book, but now we have to add an entry fee designed to expose my every inadequacy to experience this misery?

I've had quite a few failures over the years:

The time I brought a pretty (but empty) ceramic dish, figuring I was going to get sent home with a windfall of leftovers.

The time I tried to convince everyone that name-brand paper napkins with turkeys on them were a 'secret family recipe'.

The great Jello fiasco of '05

The not-so-hard boiled eggs of '97...

The list goes on. Why then, do the invites? Bottom Line: the only thing I'm thankful for is that Thanksgiving only comes once a year.

Livin' On the Edge

Couldn't resist buying this cute little turtle coffee cup. But should I really be drinking out of it? It says Made in China on the bottom.

Coffee - full of antioxidants + Cup - leaching lead = ???

Catsup to Poultry Any Day Now

Hold the tomato, hold the spinach
Extra bacteria does upset us,
All we ask is that you let us
Protect ourselves that way....


AUSTIN — Health officials have confirmed 35 cases of salmonella in Texas since a multi-state outbreak thought to stem from raw tomatoes started in mid-April.

As they work to determine the source, health officials are advising that people not eat any raw Roma or full-sized round tomatoes other than those sold attached to the vine or grown at home.

Excuse me? The only vegetable I'm growing at home is whatever colonizes on the vegetables I buy at the store before I get around to using them...

Hmmmmmm......

Caffeinated Jam!

Smucker to buy Folgers in stock deal


MMMM!! Mountain Dew preserves! Coffee-flavored spread for your toast!

Those aren't seeds, those are coffee grounds in your jelly.

Smoothie Wisdom

DeKuyper Peachtree Schnapps Description Rich peach flavors that are great in mixed drinks or as a shooter with your favorite beer.
DeKuyper Peachtree Schnapps Ingredient at DrinkSwap.com

MMMMMMmmmm!

Nothing perks up a boring old Tofu and Strawberry smoothie like Peachtree Schnapps!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Does Rachel Ray Call Her Mother?

Actual Conversation

Me: Wish me luck, I’m cooking salmon for the fist time.

Mom: Is it fresh or frozen?

Me: Fresh? That’s for rich people. I guess it was fresh when it was full price. By the time I came along and found it on the clearance rack it had already spawned…

Mom: Do you write this stuff down? It’s pretty funny.