Bowling, Escalation.

Bowling went pretty well for me yesterday, not so for Matt nor for the only other member of our team who turned up. I felt quite chuffed. Especially as I did so badly last Thursday. The woman who ran, but didn’t own, our previous bowling alley called in today. Nice to see her, but as she is primarily there, I believe, to make sure we all know she is still planning to build a new alley, we felt she shouldn’t really come in to Towne Bowl. Obviously she wants us all back if she and her hubby do get a new alley going, but I think quite a few people like Towne Bowl so much they won’t move. There are at least 7 people I could name straight away.

Today Stephen Tremp announced the release date for his third book, Escalation. It will be on March 10. It is the last book in his trilogy which is based on the premise of the existence of usable wormholes. His ideas are pretty scary and from what he is writing about book three, I think things will get scarier yet. Apparently this book is very far reaching and will include the possibility of a third world war as well as the ability of aliens to visit us through these wormholes which are being used so carelessly. As far as I am aware, nobody has yet come up with such a thing, but I had never realised what wormholes could lead to, pun intended.

Have to get going this morning as I have my diabetes blood test at 8:20 a.m. Fasting for 12 hours before hand. Luckily, these days I can make an appointment, much better than the days when one had to turn up at 6:30 ish in the hopes of being first in line when the doors opened at 7.

Here’s a very simple snacking recipe, especially if you are watching your weight. I have seen cream cheese in celery before, but never the addition of olive slices or, as also suggested, pickled jalapenos. These are 62 calories a serving. I have celery on my shopping list this week anyway, and I certainly have olives. No Neufchatel but I do have Philly cheese.

Frogs on a Log

From EatingWell:  January/February 2011

Give this childhood treat a savory twist by swapping the peanut butter and raisins for cream cheese and olives. For a spicy snack, try chopped pickled jalapenos instead of olives.

1 serving

Ingredients

• 1 stalk celery
• 1 tablespoon reduced-fat cream cheese (Neufchâtel)
• 5 pimiento-stuffed green olives, sliced

Preparation

1. Spread celery with cream cheese. Top with olives.

Have a great day

Escalation

I am delighted to help with the cover reveal for blogger buddy Stephen Tremp’s latest novel in his trilogy.  I read and enjoyed both of the first two books and will certainly be adding this to my library when it is released. I have published everything Stephen sent me for your information.

Escalation Synopsis:

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones” - Albert Einstein

In Escalation, the final installment to Stephen Tremp’s Breakthrough Trilogy, a seemingly innocent discovery in Einstein-Rosen Bridges, or wormholes, becomes a Pandora’s Box—opening doors to other unexpected and unpredictable realities such as parallel universes, time/space travel, and an evil hitchhiker from another dimension.

Chase Manhattan has survived attempts on his life from numerous sources in his effort to destroy the technology. But he is far from safe. Now Chase and his comrades must not only break world renowned physicist Professor Nicholas Fischer out of prison a second time, but also smuggle him across hostile borders in Europe and the Middle East to prevent events threatening to spiral into World War III.

At stake: an end to Western civilization as we know it. The result: an epic clash where science and the supernatural take center stage, vying for mankind’s destiny. The setting is global as the world divides into an East vs. West climactic battle. The action is swift, adrenaline-charged, and non-stop. Unending twists and turns will keep the reader turning pages and wanting more.

Together, Breakthrough, Opening, and Escalation follow the lives of the unlikely participants from innocence to a coming of age through sacrifice, betrayal, passion, lust, unconditional love, and hope. Escalation will appeal to fans of modern-day science fiction, action, and horror.

Escalation Short Synopsis:

Together, Breakthrough, Opening, and Escalation follow the lives of the unlikely participants from innocence to a coming of age through sacrifice, betrayal, passion, lust, unconditional love, and hope. Escalation will appeal to fans of modern-day science fiction, action, and horror.

Other Blurbs:

ESCALATION: an epic clash where science and the supernatural take center stage for mankind’s destiny. The setting is global and the adrenaline-charged action is non-stop.

ESCALATION is cued from current world events and scientific breakthroughs. Great cover, plot, editing, and reviews. Wormholes too!

ESCALATION speaks to our generation with its technological breakthroughs and struggle to use for good or for evil.

This recipe was posted on Facebook last week and I couldn’t resist it. It turns out the recipe is from a  blog called Noble Pig and was first published in 2009. You can, of course, get a smaller wheel of brie, available in most good stores, and adjust your sauce accordingly.


Kahlua-Pecan-Brown Sugar Baked Brie
Source: Kathy at The Noble Pig

1 whole wheel of Brie (Costco sells a 19 ounce Brie wheel which is perfect for this recipe)
1 cup Kahlua
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 cup chopped pecans (I left mine whole because I like they way they look)
Accompaniment: crackers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Start by carefully slicing the rind off the top of the Brie wheel, but do not remove completely.  Bake for 15 minutes.  When the Brie is done baking, the top can be easily removed to expose the creamy cheese.
While the Brie is baking, in a medium saucepan, bring Kahlua and brown sugar to a boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes, until a syrupy consistency is made.  Throw the pecans in for 2 minutes at the end to warm them through and completely cover with the sauce.
Remove the Brie from the oven (removing top rind) and pour Kahlua sauce over the Brie. 
Serve warm with crackers.

Have a great day

Saving Blogs, Picking Your Nose,

Over the weekend I was thinking about Stephen Tremp who, at the beginning of the A to Z, lost his blogs, all his blogs, going back to when he started I believe, through no fault of his own but because of the Google/Blogger robots who check your site and somehow decide what is viable and what is not. It happened to me with Google Adsense although I didn’t lose my blogs.  The annoying thing about this, there is no recourse, no person to appeal to, nothing. So ever since I started blogging I was going to Blog2Print or Shared Book on a regular basis (these days I do it every 6 months) and making a book of all the blogs for that half year. I then download them which costs me all of $7 and change, and up until recently I printed them all. This way, I have them saved on Blog2Print, on my desktop computer, in print and on a flash drive. I forgot, I also have an off line backup programme I pay for every year, so I think I am fairly safe when it comes to not losing my words. You can pay more for your blog books depending what you want to achieve, but I don’t bother as I have nobody who would want to share them. At the moment I have 10 blog books, starting December 07, that’s a lot of blogging.

Here’s a link to an article I read during April, Picking Your Nose and Eating It May be Good for You I couldn’t believe this, but it turns out that a Saskatchewan associate professor says this may be a way nature intended for you to boost your immune system. Just thought I would share this with you. Some of the comments are revealing to say the least. It appears that mother may have been wrong when she told us not to do this, but I cannot think of anything more unpleasant that seeing people picking their noses all over the place and then eating it. Yuk. If anyone follows this please do it in private. Looking for pictures, there were some horrifying ones, grosses me out.

This drink was recommended for Cinco do Mayo which was yesterday so I’m a bit late, however, I didn’t get the recipe til yesterday either. I like Margaritas, not sure about the chili part though.

Mango Margarita

Contributed by David Yan
SERVINGS:Makes 1 drink

At the Casa Noble estate, bartender David Yan created this margarita to showcase the property's own tequila. He coats the rim of the glass with citrusy Tajin-brand chile powder, but any powdered chile will give the drink a fun kick.

1. 1 lime wedge
2. 3 ounces silver tequila
3. 1 small mango—peeled, pitted and coarsely chopped (3 ounces)
4. 1 1/2 ounces fresh lime juice
5. 1 tablespoon chile powder, such as Tajin (see Note)
6. 2 ounces orange liqueur
7. 1 1/2 ounces agave nectar
8. 3 ounces grapefruit soda
9. 1 cup of ice

1. Spread the chile powder in a dish. Moisten the rim of a margarita glass with the lime wedge; dip the rim in the chile powder to coat. In a blender, puree the mango. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Pour into the glass and serve.

Notes Tajin chile powder gets its tang from dehydrated lemon juice. It is available at Latin markets and online at mifiesta.com.

Have a great day.

Breakthrough, Doo Rag, FN Key, Wallenda’s Shoes, The Yucca

I completely forgot to pass on the message about Stephen Tremp’s book Breakthrough which is being offered by Amazon.com for two days as a free download. Today is the second day. I got my copy yesterday, I already have book 2 which is Opening so I am looking forward to reading them. The books sound very exciting – full of wormhole technology and a discovery seeker called Chase Manhattan who doesn’t want to do anything but settle down as an associate professor of physics. The blurb sounds good to me. I understand it can be downloaded for both Kindle and for an iPad.

I guess I am a bit behind the times, but I was reading a book, one of a series about Detective Stephanie Chalice by Lawrence Kelter, and the book described the heroine as going into an area where she was probably the only person not wearing a doo rag. What on earth, thought I, so of course I had to Google. Here is the information according to Wikipedia. I had, of course, seen these worn, in fact there is a guy in our building who wears one, I just didn’t know what they were called. I cannot really believe they are worn, these days, to protect hair dos!!! If so, there are a lot of very fussy men around .

I have discovered that some of the trouble I have typing on my laptop is caused by brushing the touchpad on the keyboard. The cursor starts jumping all over the place and even decides to delete lumps of text without my permission. Aggravating to say the least. Then I discovered one can disable they touchpad. Finally I discovered that I could do this by holding down my FN key and pressing F9. Didn’t work. I phoned Toshiba and talked to them. They now tell me that the software for my FN key isn’t working and they would have to charge me to trouble shoot. I don’t think the FN (function) has ever worked; never had occasion to use it and didn’t really know what it was for, but I have depressed it once or twice since I have had the laptop and no menu has ever appeared which is what is supposed to happen. So, rather than pay Toshiba, I have called my trusty computer repair man.

By the way, did you hear Wallenda wants to cross the Grand Canyon now? They kept saying he was wearing shoes which had been made by his mother and it sounded as though they were made of elf skin. I knew that wasn’t possible, much as I like to read fantasy books, and I finally found out that it was elk skin. I wonder why elk in particular? Gotta do some more research. I have found an article from Natural Running Centre which talks about the elk skin soled shoes which Nik was wearing and why. There was a lot on TV about the balance points on one’s feet and the elk skin enables the feet to feel the walking surface almost as well as bare feet which would, of course, have been unable to maintain the grip on the wire. More science to this stuff than one realises. I noticed that he spent time, prior to his walk, kind of roughing up the leather on the soles. Helps with the extreme wetness he experienced when he went through the Mist.

Well I’m damned. When we lived in North Carolina the place abounded with Yucca plants. I have seen them here too, but not as many. I have just discovered that parts of them are edible. This page tells you how to eat Yucca, you can apparently eat the petals raw, you can harvest the fruits after they have flowered too. The reason I found all this out was because I received a recipe in my email the other day which came from Cooking.com which immediately peaked my curiosity. It appears that not all yucca are edible, there are different varieties. I guess you have to know which is which. Now I have to investigate how you tell.

Buñuelos (Yucca Fritters)

Source: Saveur Magazine

About 40 fritters

These simple fritters are a favorite Cuban snack.
INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 pounds yucca, peeled and cut into small pieces

1 small white sweet potato, peeled and cut into pieces

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground aniseed

vegetable oil

flour

2 cups sugar

1 cinnamon stick

DIRECTIONS

Put yucca and sweet potatoes in a medium pot and cover with cold water by 2-in. Bring to a boil over medium high heat and cook until soft, about 20 minutes. Drain, then mash with a potato masher until smooth, discarding any fibrous pieces. Set aside until cool to the touch, then add yolk, salt, aniseed, and 1 teaspoon of the oil.

Rub hands with a little oil, then form dough into 1-in. balls. Roll each ball on a lightly floured surface into 8-in. ''ropes'', then twist into open bottomed figure eights.

Put sugar, cinnamon and 1 1/2 cups water in a medium saucepan and simmer over medium heat until pale gold, 40 to 50 minutes. Set syrup aside.

Pour oil into a large skillet to a depth of 2-in. and heat to 375 degrees F on a candy thermometer over medium high heat. Fry buñuelos in batches, turning them, until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Serve warm, drizzled with a little syrup.

Have a great day.

Queen Mask, Salt, Waka Taua, Duke of Edinburgh, Breakthrough.

Something I don’t understand, watching all these celebrations, is the masks people wear. What for? But why put them on at all. Hallowe’en maybe, but for a pageant, I honestly don’t get the point. One young lady was being interviewed on TV on Sunday and the reporter lifted her mask, she immediately brought it back down, maybe she didn’t want anyone to know she was there? Most people would be delighted to have their faces on TV. I originally had a picture of one not being worn, it looked too ghoulish for words. I prefer this one with someone behind it. They do look pretty good – cost about £3.30 which is roughly $6.00 to us.

What a sad end to a wonderful day, I have just heard from a friend that many of the boats in the pageant had to wait 4 hours to get off the river at the end and many people were carted off to hospital with hypothermia. I felt sorry for the New Zealanders when I saw them paddling past, they were not very well dressed for the weather, OK whilst they were paddling, but afterwards?? This is their ceremonial war canoe (waka taua) and they were saluting the queen as they went past the Spirit of Chartwell. But can you imagine sitting around for four hours in the rain dressed like this. I think the organisers slipped up somewhere.
Poor Prince Philip ended up in hospital on Monday with a bladder infection. Because of his age, they are keeping him in for observation, so I guess he won’t be taking part in any more of the Jubilee celebrations. I thought they both held up very well at the pageant on Sunday standing up for so long. I don’t know why they didn’t sit down they had a couple of comfortable looking chairs on which to sit and Her Majesty might well have found it a lot warmer with part of her not exposed to the weather.  He looks pretty good for his age, 91, doesn’t he?

A blogging friend, Stephen Tremp from Welcome to Author Stephen Tremp’s Website is promoting the latest novel of his series called Breakthrough. It will be available for borrowing and/or free download later this month. For details check his blog site. I have one of Stephen’s books on my TBR list and will certainly take the opportunity of getting hold of this book as well. As yet, in Canada, we do not have the ability to borrow these books, the technology will, no doubt, be available to us soon, but not just yet awhile. If you are interested in science, speculation and fantasy, you should read Stephen’s blog anyway, I find it very interesting and thought provoking. Many authors are going the self publishing route these days as it seems they find it so much more rewarding than the hassle of going through publishers. The problem there is that a publisher will do a lot of the publicising on your behalf, but doing it oneself means you have to do all the work.

Here’s an interesting article called “Salt We Have Misjudged You” – it makes me feel vindicated because I have never reduced my intake of salt, which is not large anyway, because I have taste issues. Of course I get really mad with people who sit down to eat a meal I have prepared and instantly cover it with salt without tasting it first, I always wish I had done that to their food before giving it to them. It is so bloody rude. There is no doubt about the fact that some people do eat way too much salt, but according to this article, a moderate amount of salt is NOT harmful.

Last night we decided to do an easy recipe from Hellman’s. We did it once before and obviously enjoyed it. It comes out very moist and tasty.

Parmesan Crusted Chicken
Serves 4


1/2 cup Hellmann's® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (about 1-1/4 lbs.)
4 tsp Italian seasoned dry bread crumbs

1. Preheat oven to 425°.
2. Combine Hellmann's® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise with cheese in medium bowl. Arrange chicken on baking sheet. Evenly top with mayonnaise mixture, then sprinkle with bread crumbs.
3. Bake 20 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

Have a great day