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Rants from the Hill: Chicken pastorale
"Rants from the Hill" are Michael Branch's monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada's western Great Basin desert, published the first Monday of each month.
American folk musician and hillbilly existentialist Greg Brown offers some mid-song patter referring to Pablo Neruda's wonderful poem "On Weariness" ("Cierto Cansancio"), in which Neruda memorably wrote "I am weary of chickens: / no one knows what they're thinking, / and they look at us with dry eyes / and consider us unimportant." Brown first quotes these lines, and then adds that "It's true . . . they do . . . and we are. But it's hard to take that from a damn chicken." I can't help but agree that I'd rather be looking into the starry sky than into the hollow eyes of a hen when I have a profoundly ennobling epiphany about my cosmic insignificance.
And yet I too have become a keeper of chickens. I should confess that I find the recent popularity of chicken keeping a yuppie fad that I'd rather not be associated with. I'm certainly no yuppie. I'm not young, I'm as far from being urban as I could manage without moving to Alaska, and I'm only professional in the sense intended by Hunter S. Thompson, when he made the insightful observation that "When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro." This chicken keeping, like most of my follies, is instead the fault of my young daughters, who were sure that raising chickens would be fun because "they're so fluffy and yellow and cute." As all fathers of daughters know, "cute" is a four-letter word—a sure sign that trouble is brewing. I explained to the girls that the fuzzy yellow stage of a chicken's existence lasts about 45 minutes, and is followed by a protracted cohabitation with a feathered beast so vicious and scaly that keeping one is akin to having a pet baby dinosaur. "Baby dinosaur?" exclaimed Caroline, our five-year-old. "That's cool!"
All fathers of daughters know the futility of resistance to anything deemed cute. So, in early May, we made the momentous trip to the feed store, where the girls chose four yellow fluff balls, whose best quality, I thought, was how incredibly cheap they were. But we also had to buy a big plastic tub to keep them in, and a screen to cover the tub, a bag of shavings and some chick food, and a little water bin, and also a pricey clamp-on heat lamp. The total cost of this outing was something like ten bucks for the chickens and another hundred to accessorize them, a thing-to-its-stuff ratio so disturbing that it reminded me of Barbie dolls—another cute purchase that had left a sizeable dent in my hip. But we brought the birds home and set them up in the garage out of reach of the dogs, and the girls had fun playing with them, not to mention naming them. Hannah named one "Henrietta," which seemed inevitable, while Caroline insisted on "Eggcellent Chicken" for another. A third was named "Susan Henimore Cooper" for novelist James Fenimore Cooper's daughter Susan, who wrote Rural Hours, the 1850 paean to the virtues of country living. Finally there was "D. B. Cooperetta," whose name honored aerial outlaw and folk hero D. B. Cooper, who in 1971 hijacked a Boeing 727, extorted the airline for cash, and then parachuted out into the rainy darkness somewhere over the Pacific Northwest.
Despite their cuteness and their clever names, the little chicks had a pretty active business end, and of course it fell to me to clean out what quickly became a bucket of dust, shavings, and fowl turds. They grew so quickly that it soon became necessary to acquire a coop and attached run, which I scored for $200 from a guy selling them out of the back of his pickup in the parking lot of the only gas station in our valley. When the hens grew large enough we installed them in their new home, which now required yet more shavings and an even larger water dispenser, not to mention that the baby pterodactyls started gobbling up a ridiculous amount of feed. There went another hundred bucks. Within 48 hours the coop and run were invaded by ground squirrels, which necessitated lining the entire bottom of the run with plywood and reinforcing the poultry netting around whole operation, at a total cost of another C note. When the first frost fell in autumn I also had to add a device to prevent the birds' water from freezing, and this, along with the heat lamp, required a heavy-duty extension cord, power strip, and timer.
By mid-September I had done a whole lot of coop cleaning and still had not a single egg. It was time to reckon the damage. Over a stiff drink I determined that although I was only out a ten-spot on the chickens, everything they had needed to stay warm, healthy, hydrated, and out of the intestines of the local coyotes had run me a staggering seven hundred bucks. At threeish bucks a dozen at the supermarket in town, the seven Benjamins I had shelled out on Susan Henimore and her girlfriends would buy almost 3,000 eggs. I then calculated the likely lifespan and laying productivity of these squawking featherballs and determined that even if a bobcat didn't eat them these ladies could never pop out eggs at a rate that would ever get us to the break even point.
Although the hens at last began to lay a few eggs, the birds were still a reminder of why I'm destined to remain a land poor rural hobby farmer whose quest for pastoral bliss, if reckoned by the dollar, amounts to little more than a spendy affectation. I was reminded of how my own mother—whom I otherwise love very much—had once demonstrated the poor results of a fishing trip I had made with my father by calculating the price-per-pound of the few fish we caught relative to the considerable sum we had spent to try our luck. But we weren't buying fish, of course. We were buying an experience together, which Mom knew perfectly well. And I'm not in the chicken game to produce eggs. I'm buying a shared experience with my daughters, and I consider that a fair bargain even if it comes at a high price. The eggs we buy at the store are eaten, and nothing more. What doesn't end up in the septic tank may lodge in our cells, but there is no other payoff from the experience, no sense in which that store-bought egg will also lodge in our memory and imagination. But the beautiful, small, pointy, bluish egg left by Eggcellent Chicken is a different thing entirely. That is the product of something more than a chicken, purchased with something more than money, and enjoyed with something more than the need to chow down and race off to school. When the girls crunch out through the snow to harvest that bluish gem—talking all the while to the birds, who also talk back to them—they are being nourished in some way that simply won't be reckoned by the dozen. Living up here on the Ranting Hill doesn't make a lick of sense. It will never pay. But it is a bargain just the same.
Michael P. Branch is Professor of Literature and Environment at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches American literature and environmental studies. He has published five books and many articles on environmental literature, and his creative nonfiction has appeared in Utne Reader, Orion, Ecotone, Isotope, Hawk and Handsaw, Whole Terrain, and other magazines. He lives with his wife and two young daughters at 6,000 feet in the western Great Basin desert of Nevada.
Follow Rants from the Hill and other Range blog posts via High Country News RSS feeds.
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Essays in the Range blog are not written by the High Country News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.
Chicken close-up courtesy Flickr user Stewart Black.


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|Gold-Dragon (talk)
|Date Created:
|In progress
|Please feel free to edit constructively!
|Greater Deity
|A golden hourglass
|Home Plane:
|Upper Celestial Plane
|True Neutral
|Sorrow, Pain, Foresight, Empathy
|Clergy Alignments:
|Neutral Good, True Neutral
|Law, Chaos, Knowledge, Travel
|Favored Weapon:
Summary::Also known as the Crone, the Lady Time, and the Keeper of Secrets, Illewe is the least understood of the Vaeryans. She was once young, and free, but she looked forward in time, and was sucked into the pain and suffering of all that would ever come to the good people that would live in Vaerya. Now she is a shriveled crone, seemingly unfit for leading the forces of good. Her power is not to be discounted though, for all her appearance. She knows all that has happened, and almost everything that will ever come to pass. this foreknowledge makes her a tremendously powerful being.
Dogma Edit
When the future is unknown, or when waiting or hoping for good news, believers will always whisper a prayer to Illewe. On the eve of each new year, a day is taken in her honor wherein individuals take time to contemplate themselves and their actions over the past year.
Clergy and Temples Edit
This pantheon of seven gods and goddesses is known at least to some extent all over the world. The gods are referred to as 'The Vaeryans', and they are credited with the creation of Vaerya. The seven are defenders of good, and are forever at war with Kaiten the Fallen and the dragon gods. Second in command of the Vaeryans, Illewe holds the place below the other six gods in traditional representation. Temples to the Seven can be found all over the world, ranging from elaborate citadels of worship to tiny shrines in the remote places of the world.
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Deities

subset: commoncrawl


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Season 6
Learn how fate will resolve the stories of the occupants of this unforgettable house.
Episode 9
See complicated romances, new jobs, a fateful step and a scandal.
Episode 8
See why Mary suffers flashbacks and Mrs. Hughes tricks Carson.
Episode 7
Watch as the hospital war reaches a climax and Violet goes on the warpath.
Episode 6
Witness a generous offer, a rescue, Robert's upsetting behavior and Mary's suspicions.
Episode 5
Follow Anna and Mary as they rush to London and watch Daisy continue to press her case.
Episode 4
A handsome volunteer helps Edith meet a deadline and the hospital debate turns nasty.
Episode 3
See how wedding plans hit a snag and pigs lead to trouble for Edith and Marigold.
Episode 2
Rejoin the family and staff as extortion and downsizing threaten Downton Abbey.


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100-38-110 laser safety glasses are an light-weight comfortable black sport warp frame with a double coated scratch-resistant polycarbonate laser filter. Lenses have superior optical clarity with virtually no distortion to reduce eye fatigue. It is ideal for use in most laser applications and comfortable for long periods of wear. 110 laser filter offers protection from KTP, Argon lasers (190-532 nm), and green light lasers. Please see Technical Specs for additional information about the frame and the filter or contact us. Filter specifications are permanently engraved. These laser safety glasses meet and/or exceed US ANSI Z136 standards for use with lasers.
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Parade fans everywhere have been waiting for this, it's "The Very Merry Christmas Parade" at Disneyland December 17, 1977. I am guessing this was the first year of this parade; I have similar ticket from December 18, 1976 (you'll see it tomorrow) but it was for "Fantasy on Parade".
This is a complimentary ticket, good on all adventures and attractions (except shooting galleries). The poor ticket never got used, it still has its stub and the little string is ready to be tied around one of the buttons on your Qiana shirt.
These next three scans were shamelessly borrowed from a super post on the blog "Disney on Parole". The person that runs the Parole blog was a former cast member and was in "The Very Merry Christmas Parade" in 1977! Be sure to check out this great blog (link) there a post yesterday that has backstage photos of the 1977 parade! Great Stuff, thanks "Disney on Parole"!
And if you want to see the Parade, here's a fun YouTube video of "The Very Merry Christmas Parade" in 1988. (Link).


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For most teams, scoring 35 points would be a solid day on offense.
Not for No. 15 Baylor.
The Bears were averaging an absurd 71 points per game before Saturday but were held to about half its average in beating a spirited Kansas State squad, 35-25, on the road.
The numbers for Baylor were a bit odd. The Bears had just 15 first downs, its fewest since also getting 15 in the third game of the 2010 season, but Baylor still put up 446 yards of offense. This can be explained by the quick-strike nature of the Bears attack as quarterback Bryce Petty threw touchdown passes of 93, 72 and 54 yards. Petty averaged an astounding 27.6 yards per completion — is it any wonder he leads the nation in passing efficiency?
For all the explosiveness of Baylor's offense, Kansas State quarterback Daniel Sams was almost the hero in this one. He rushed for 199 yards and three touchdowns — part of a 326-yard rushing effort by K-State — as the Wildcats held the ball for over 39 minutes. If you are going to beat the Bears, you have to keep the ball way from them…and the Wildcats almost got it done.
The third quarter belonged to Kansas State, which bounced back from a 21-10 halftime deficit to take a 25-21 lead thanks to two Sams touchdowns. But the fourth quarter belonged to Baylor and Petty's 54-yard strike to Tevin Reese 27 seconds into the quarter turned out to be the deciding points.
It's the second-straight close loss for Kansas State (2-4), but on the bright side it may have found its quarterback in Sams, though the Wildcats still made use of Jake Waters, who is a more adept passer. Perhaps a combination of the two will work best going forward.
As for Baylor (5-0), it showed it can overcome adversity in a hostile environment. It wasn't as pretty as most wins for the Bears, but it will pay dividends down the road. If Baylor is going to challenge for the Big 12 title, it has to learn to win games like these.
With Iowa State and Kansas on tap the next two weeks, Baylor should be 7-0 when it hosts Oklahoma on Nov. 7. If the Bears get by the Sooners and we might be looking at another miracle season in Waco.


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Outsmart Food Allergies
Cougar Town's Busy Philipps shows how you don't have to sweat living a life without wheat.
When she's not starring as Laurie, the brazen assistant to Courtney Cox on the hit television show Cougar Town, actress Elizabeth "Busy" Philipps can often be found in the kitchen whipping up a creation worthy of Cake Boss. Baking is a passion of hers, which wouldn't be noteworthy—except for the fact that she's allergic to wheat (gluten) and soy. So while her husband, screenwriter Marc Silverstein, can indulge, and her 5-year-old daughter, Birdie, can have a sliver, Busy herself can't stomach a bite.
The 34-year-old actress first began experiencing symptoms like bloating and stomach pain while filming Dawson's Creek 14 years ago. She figured it was stress, but when the digestive problems wouldn't go away, she made an appointment with her healthcare provider. The good news? Tests showed she was in great health. The bad? She still had no answer for her discomfort.
Although she took care to eat healthfully, Busy started wondering if certain foods might be a problem. She sought the help of an allergist, whose first step was putting her on an elimination diet.
For several weeks, she stuck to a meal plan consisting of "hypoallergenic" foods, which tend not to cause any reactions—fruits like pears and apples; most vegetables, beans and legumes (except peanuts); and "gluten-free" grains, such as rice, millet, quinoa and amaranth. Once her body adjusted and she was rid of her pain and bloat, common culprit foods—eggs, peanuts, fish, shellfish, soy, wheat, cashews and almonds—were systematically added back to her diet, one at a time, and she recorded any symptoms she experienced.
That's how she discovered that wheat and soy (a source of gluten) were doing her wrong. "Not only was I able to determine the specific foods that triggered my symptoms, I also felt as if I had given my body an internal cleanse," Busy says. "I felt so much better after I completed the elimination diet."
Since then, the actress has been able to keep her symptoms in check despite a frenetic schedule. In addition to her role on Cougar Town, she's been busy with movie roles in I Don't Know How She Does It and The Reef: High Tide. And, of course, the wife and mom has her hands full on the home front.
How does she do it? Here are her secrets for eating well and feeling great:
Eliminate the guesswork.
Before she goes to a restaurant, Busy calls to ask about the menu and makes a point to inquire about soy. Many restaurants cook in soybean oil because it's the cheapest vegetable oil. And for grab-and-go peace of mind when she's filming Cougar Town, Busy relies on a delivery service that brings gluten-free meals to her home. "Bringing healthy prepared meals to the set with me takes the guesswork out of making sure I get the calories and nutrition I need while avoiding foods that contain gluten," she says.
Make it work for you: If a delivery service is out of the question, order gluten-free meals and products at sites like glutenfreemall.com and grandmaferdons.com.
Tame your tension.
For Busy, who often works 14-hour days, taking a run with her husband is her preferred stress-buster. "It's not only good exercise, it also gives us time to catch up on our day," she says. She also attends spinning and yoga classes. While exercise may not be your chosen tension tamer, it's important to find one that works for you. A study published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology found that people with digestive disorders, including food allergy and intolerance, have higher levels of stress and anxiety. And according to a study in The American Journal of Pathology, stress can exacerbate reactions.
Make it a family affair.
Focusing on what you can eat, rather than what you can't, helps put a positive spin on food allergies. It also encourages you to make healthier choices. Busy believes the whole family can benefit from better nutrition. "At my baby shower, a friend gave me a baby cooker, which makes it simple to blend your own baby food," Busy says. "I buy fruits and vegetables from the farmer's market and use the baby cooker to make Birdie everything from baby food to soups to smoothies." As a result, "Birdie has become a really good eater!" Busy says, and that's not all: The strategy also reduces Birdie's exposure to the gluten often used as a thickener in processed foods.


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Think Disney's John Carter will be devoid of sexy Frank Frazetta inspired leather thongs and nakedness? Well, think again. We've got oodles of new John Carter pics that prove that these Martians are just as sexy as 1970s aliens. Who's excited for some Taylor Kitch nipple and fleshy Barsoom flesh?
Special thanks to Neil Miller and Jen Yamato.


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What was once a single model that defined Toyota's commitment to environmental performance and superior fuel economy has become a line of cars — an obvious sign of success. My guess, then, is that the ultimate sign of success for Toyota will be to have Prius become a verb, much like Google has. "We priused our way to Florida, averaging five litres per 100 kilometres." OK, that's reaching.
The second entrant in the Prius hybrid lineup, the Prius v, is an extension of the (third-generation) original, with essentially the same powertrain but in a more wagon-like hatchback body style designed to meet — if things go according to Toyota's marketing plans — the needs of growing families. (The Prius c — for city — an "urban-friendly" hatchback, will be available next month; the Prius Plug-in Hybrid in 2012.)
From a purely esthetic standpoint, the v is by far a more attractive hybrid than the four-door liftback model, said third-generation model launched for the 2010 model year. (To be fair, the liftback is much more mainstream than its two predecessors, which seemed to revel in an overt, funky green smugness.) The v, though, blends in (or stands out, depending on your interpretation) with the likes of the Mazda5 and Kia Forte5 as a more versatile — hence the v suffix — family car with minivan/crossover overtones and an emphasis on cargo space.
In a normal review, I would start with the powertrain and then move to performance and handling dynamics. But, this is a Prius, people — it's not an especially fun car to drive for motor heads. It's sort of slow — especially when accelerating from a standstill — changing to glacial when in Eco mode and on an incline. Push the console-mounted Power mode button and acceleration improves noticeably, as does the ruckus from the 1.8-litre gasoline engine when big-time passing power is called for. Anybody who expects anything but is dreaming in technicolour. But people dig this car because its hybrid technology is still cool and it boasts miserly fuel consumption. Plus, it gets a big thumbs up from both Hollywood and the environmentalists.
If you are serious about keeping your hard-earned dollars out of the hands of the oil companies, you can't go wrong, especially with the new body style. My week with the tester generated a parsimonious 6.3 litres per 100 kilometres, without me going to any great lengths to be eco-friendly.
What makes the v a better Prius than the standard model is its genuinely roomy cabin, with excellent sightlines out the front and side windows. Even with the front seats back in their tracks, there's (just) enough room in the rear for leggy six-footers, with plenty of headroom to boot. Popping the rear hatch reveals a wide, deep cargo area with 34.3 cubic feet of space behind the rear seats, which Toyota claims makes the v the most spacious dedicated hybrid vehicle on the market. Dropping those sliding, second-row, 60/40-split perches all but doubles the hatch's capacity. Plus, the front-passenger seat folds flat for longer items.
Like the Prius, the v's Hybrid Synergy Drive system uses two high-output motors, one 60-kilowatt (80-horsepower) unit that mainly works to power the transaxle and another smaller motor that primarily works as the electric power source. The nickel-metal hydride battery pack is the same as on the Prius liftback but with a cooling duct located under the rear seat. Hybrid Synergy Drive is a series-parallel hybrid system that can provide power from the gas engine alone, the motor alone or a mix of both. It uses a start/stop system and regenerative braking to conserve fuel and recharge the battery under deceleration. The drive system is built around the 98-hp 1.8L Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder engine and, working together, contri-butes to a total of 134 hp.
In addition to the standard driving mode and Eco and Power modes, there is also the EV mode, which allows the Prius v to run on battery power alone for very short distances (1.6 kilometres maximum) and lower speeds. In Eco, the engine management system emphasizes fuel economy, manages throttle response and limits power consumption from the air conditioning.
One of the more interesting aspects of the v's suspension setup is Pitch and Bounce Control, which works with the beefed-up suspension bits to improve ride comfort and control, Toyota figuring that the larger v is more likely to carry loads and passengers and thus needs the upgrades. According to the automaker, Pitch and Bounce Control uses the torque of the hybrid motor to enhance ride comfort and control. The system, working with wheel-speed sensors and in tune with the suspension, helps suppress bounce and toss motions to improve passenger comfort. Because it helps control the balance and posture of the vehicle as a whole, it also functions to improve handling response.
While it sounds like an overly complicated way to deal with a relatively minor problem, it does seem to work — the v's ride is better than most similarly sized hybrids I've driven and it corners well, maintaining a reasonably flat attitude on on-ramps and the like.
For anyone with a familiarity with the Prius liftback, the v's cabin will prove as welcoming as an old friend. There's the centre-mounted instrument panel, the driving controls including push-button start, parking switch, drive-by-wire shift toggle and driving mode buttons.
Integrated into the cabin are the obligatory high-tech electronics and enhanced connectivity features, including standard Bluetooth and a USB port to play music and videos from portable audio devices, using the audio system and 6.1-inch in-dash display screen. The screen also displays the energy monitor and fuel consumption data and doubles as the monitor for the backup camera.
The Prius v retails for $27,200, a reasonable price for a hybrid of its size and intent and with the number of standard features it carries. The tester, however, was loaded to the max with a $9,675 Touring + Technology package (a combination of three separate available packages), weighing it down with a far heftier $36,875 sticker. A panoramic sunroof, heated front seats, premium audio system, Intelligent Parking Assist, Dynamic Radar Cruise Control, voice-activated DVD navigation system, synthetic leather seats and a ton of stuff more are all included. Maybe it's just me, but I felt this was overkill, trying to turn the v into some sort of luxury hybrid, which it's not.
That aside, the hatchback proved to be a pleasant driving experience. While still maintaining a portion of the Prius iconoclasm that isn't present in more mainstream-oriented hybrid sedans (Ford Fusion, Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima, for example), the v's design and space utility make it an easy fit into the hybrid segment. It's a welcome addition, one that will help evolve the Prius line.
Type of vehicle: Front-wheel-drive mid-sized hatchback
Engine: 1.8L DOHC four-cylinder with electric motor
Power: 98 hp @ 5,200 rpm, 105 lb-ft of torque @ 4,000 rpm (gas engine); 80 hp, 153 lb-ft of torque (electric motor); 134 hp combined
Transmission: Continuously variable
Brakes: Four-wheel disc with ABS
Tires: P215/50R17 (optional)
Price: base/as tested: $27,200/$36,875
Destination charge: $1,565
Transport Canada fuel economy L/100 km: 4.3 city, 4.8 hwy.
Standard features Automatic climate control, backup camera, power windows, door locks and heated outside mirrors, outside temperature gauge, Eco Drive monitor with multi-information display, tilt and telescopic steering wheel, push-button start, smart key system, cruise control, AM/FM/CD/MP3/WMA audio system with six speakers, audio auxiliary input jack, USB audio input and Bluetooth capability, illuminated entry, tire pressure monitoring system, rear spoiler


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Lots of people looking and asking about directionals here so i thought I'd give a shout out to Ashton Surf Design for doing such a great job on shaping my new board.
I'm ~205lbs, and have been wave kiting for 6 years now...and i have not found a wave board that really works well on a wave so I 've been using regular surfboards for years,( CI Flyer current ). I've had and tried many big company production boards that " are made with Carbon/Bamboo construction adding durability and performance ! " and " Can be ridden strapped or unstrapped ! " but they all seem to be too small, or have a wierd outline designed for upwind ability instead of ripping down a wave.
There are exeptions, yes, but overall, it just seems to be mostly marketing and hype thats out there..just confusing the wave newb looking for a thier first directional, and making it hard ( and expensive ) for the veteran wave rider to weed out the exceptional stamped producton boards from the garbage ones.
Bottom line.....If your a newb wanting to learn to ride in waves, concider paying ~100-200$ for any medium sized used surfboard that is preferably a tuflight ( but not necessary ) and just learn to ride and jibe the thing. Why pay 700 plus for something your not even sure what to do with !?!
And if your a seasoned vet or surfer whos just learning to kite, try a local shaper . They know how to build a surfboard that works in waves and just need a little input as to what your board needs to do for kiting...like go fast , or maybe have a little more volume if your a bigger person.
After riding this past weekend on my new custom kitesurfboard, I'm a changed man !! Thanks J.Ashton !!


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Where have all the pickles gone?
It wasn't so long ago that every well-dressed American dinner table was bejeweled with an assortment of them -- emerald green tomatoes, ruby red beets and opalescent pearl onions, as well as less glamorous (though certainly no less delicious) okra, mushrooms and watermelon rind. The pickle tray was a standard part of a Sunday supper.
Nowadays, almost the only pickle you'll find is cucumber. And while there's nothing wrong with your basic bread-and-butter, half-sour or dill, there are so many other possibilities to explore.
What about radishes, for example, pickled pink, with a refreshing sweet-tart bite to match their crisp texture? Or tangy peppers, yellow turmeric-stained zucchini or even surprisingly savory pickled grapes?
These are more than mere curiosities. They are perfect for the way we eat in the summertime. A bite of crisp tart pickle is as cooling as an evening breeze.
Their acidity cuts right through the smoke and richness of grilled meat, just as their sweetness and spiciness balance and complement it. Do you doubt it? Think about ketchup, which, when broken down to its basics, is really nothing more than a pureed pickle of ripe tomatoes.
Pickles also make great antipasti. Like olives (technically, yet another kind of pickle), their punchy flavors prime the palate for the bigger dishes to come.
But while many traditional pickles take weeks of aging to mellow and mature, there are very good pickles you can make in a single day.
You don't need fancy equipment or advanced cooking skills. If you can slice a vegetable and boil water, you can make a pickle.
The only gadget I used was a Japanese tsukemono-ki, a plastic pickle press that is available at Asian markets for around $20. It's a simple contraption: Put the salted vegetables in the bottom, then put on the lid and screw down the plate to press the vegetables flat against the bottom, expressing their moisture.
Using this seems to keep the finished pickles crisper, but even though a pickle press is a handy tool, it is by no means a necessity.
First, a little definition: A pickle is a fruit or a vegetable that is preserved through acidity. Because most harmful bacteria have a hard time surviving in a low-pH environment, pickling was an important part of preserving the harvest in the days before refrigeration.
There are two main ways of making a pickle. The first is by salting the food to draw out its moisture, which is rich in sugars that are fermented by naturally occurring bacteria to create lactic acid (the same acid that preserves so many of our favorite foods, including yogurt, cheeses and salumi).
This is how pickles as diverse as sauerkraut and olives are made. The flavors created are complex, but the time required is long -- weeks or even months.
A simpler form of pickle can be made simply by soaking food in an acid liquid, in most cases, a flavored vinegar mixture. All that's necessary is to first soften the fruit or vegetable. This can be done either by blanching it briefly in boiling water or by salting it for an hour or two.
The latter has the added benefit of slightly dehydrating the fruit or vegetable, which allows it to absorb more of the moisture from the vinegar mixture, saturating it with flavor. As you might expect, this technique allows plenty of room for the creative cook to mess around.
Vinegar choices
Though ordinary, white distilled vinegar can be used for most pickles, you can get a different effect by substituting apple cider or Asian rice vinegar. Similarly, don't feel bound to the common pickling spices of mustard, peppercorns, dill and their brethren. Try using cloves, allspice or cinnamon, fresh ginger or dried chiles.
The two ingredients you'll want to include in some measure are a little salt to bring out the flavor of the vegetable, and some sugar to soften the harsh edges of the vinegar.
Though the flavoring of these brines is up to you, be careful that you have at least as much vinegar as other liquids (and note that apple cider does not have the same acidity as apple cider vinegar). Because commercial vinegar's standard acidity is 5%, that'll ensure that the finished brine is at least a safe 2.5%.
However you flavor the pickle, there is likely to be a bit of a learning curve when you start experimenting. Soon, though, you'll develop a palate for tasting pickles early. What may initially seem a little dull and one-dimensional can develop into something very delicious as herbs and spices contribute their flavor and the pickle mellows and deepens.
The first couple of times you experiment, don't go overboard with the spicing. Give the pickles a day to develop and see how you like them before adjusting the recipe for the next attempt.
A good way to start pickling is by trying some reliable recipes from favorite cookbooks.
One classic on pickles, jams and jellies is "Fine Preserving," by Catherine Plagemann. Originally published in the 1960s, it was largely forgotten until it was reissued in the 1980s with annotation by none other than M.F.K. Fisher.
Though the idea of pickled grapes sounds unusual, Fisher said it was one of her favorite recipes in the book. Intrigued, I had to give it a try. It's spectacular. The addition of just the tablespoon of minced onion lends a surprising savory dimension to the brine. (Oddly, Fisher says she left out the onion when she made it. . . . Maybe she is fallible after all.)
Zucchini easy
My next attempt was just as successful. If you've ever eaten a hamburger at Zuni Cafe in San Francisco (or at Benicia's Union Hotel before that), you may well have tried the chartreuse zucchini pickles that come as a standard accompaniment.
And if you've tried them, you may well have asked the waitress to bring out a second helping. They couldn't be easier to make, and doing them yourself means never having to beg again.
Emboldened by these successes, I tried a couple of pickles of my own invention. I love torshi, the Middle Eastern turnip pickles, and I wondered whether you couldn't get the same texture from a radish, but with a slightly different flavor.
Turns out, radish pickles are every bit as crisp, but with a subtle spice underneath.
I tried these a number of different ways -- with white vinegar and rice vinegar, spiced with cloves and flavored with peppercorns and mustard seed -- before settling on this version, which will now become a standard part of my appetizer repertoire. They are absolutely delicious served with sliced salumi.
Finally, I wondered whether you couldn't pickle Japanese shishito peppers -- commercial pickled peppers are usually dull, and small wax peppers can be hard to find, even at farmers markets.
Hallelujah, it's a snap, one of the easiest pickles I made. Simply cut a couple of slits in each pepper to allow the heat and the brine to penetrate, blanch them in boiling water for about a minute, then cover them with warm vinegar spiced with dried chiles, oregano and onion. The pickles -- crisp, sweet and tart -- will be ready to eat in eight hours or so.
All of these pickles can be canned, if you like, following the standard instructions. But they'll keep their texture and flavor for weeks simply stored in the refrigerator.
Of course, delicious as they are, it's doubtful they'll be around anywhere near that long.


text: Graphite Pencils: Graphite pencils are the ones yellowish no. 2 pencils which are typically bought in packs and utilized in college. These types of pencils are not advised for attracting once the small particles inside the graphite, or lead, have reflective particles. These particles can cause your design to take […] Drawing Pencils – what's the Difference, and what type is ...28 Apr, 2015 in Drawing tagged Amazon.com / Angle / art / Atmosphere of Earth / Avenue A (Manhattan) / Beautiful/Decay / Best / BUILD (Microsoft) / carbon / difference / drawing / Pencil / Pencils / type / Whats by Manuel Marino


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KK Houser scored 20 points, Drey Mingo added 12 points and eight rebounds, and No. 18 Purdue rallied in the closing minutes for a 68-58 victory over Wisconsin on Thursday night.
Houser was just 6 of 14 from the floor but was 5 of 9 from 3-point range for the Boilermakers (19-5, 8-3 Big Ten), who rebounded from last week's losses at No. 8 Penn State and at Michigan.
Jacki Gulczynski led the Badgers (11-14, 3-9) with 19 points. Nicole Bauman scored 14, and Cassie Rochel had nine points, 13 rebounds and seven blocked shots.
Purdue erased a 28-20 halftime deficit to go ahead 45-42 with 6:47 left, but Wisconsin tied it on Gulczynski's free throw with 5:07 to play. The Badgers wouldn't score again until Bauman's 3-pointer with 1:39 left; by then, the Boilermakers had scored eight straight points to go ahead for good.


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Yamaha Marine Receives 2017 Silver Star of Excellence
From American Technical Education Association and the National Technical Honor Society® for Contributions to Technical Education
Yamaha Marine Group announced today that it was awarded the 2017 Silver Star of Excellence from the American Technical Education Association and the National Technical Honor Society®. Yamaha was recognized for its contribution to the Motorcycle and Marine Service Program at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) Chattanooga.
The Silver Star of Excellence is awarded to a business in recognition of specific contributions to technical education such as donations of equipment, facilities, training, financial assistance and support such as internships, apprenticeships, and advisory committee members.
"Yamaha Marine started its relationship with the Tennessee College of Applied Technology in 2002, and its support has grown each year. In addition to significant product and equipment donations in the last few years, the company has provided full dealership access to Yamaha training materials for technicians in training in an effort to help them become more profitable assets for potential employers," said Sandra Krebsbach, Executive Director, American Technical Education Association. "As a TCAT technical school program sponsor, Yamaha also has generously provided staff for advisory board meetings and Skills USA®State Competition Judges, going far above and beyond to support student learning program standards and the success of marine industry training overall."
"Yamaha Marine is committed to helping dealers recruit new technicians by preparing students for a fulfilling and high-demand career in marine service," said Joe Maniscalco, Division Manager, Yamaha Marine Service. "We are gratified to support the Motorcycle and Marine Service Technology Program at TCAT Chattanooga for many years and are honored to receive the Silver Star of Excellence award as we both pursue shared goals for the industry."
In addition to the award, Yamaha was inducted into the National Technical Honor Society® Educator Industry Hall of Fame at the ATEA National Conference on Technical Education on March 15, 2017.
Yamaha Marine products are marketed throughout the United States and around the world. Yamaha Marine Group, based in Kennesaw, Ga., supports its 2,000 U.S. dealers and boat builders with marketing, training, and parts for Yamaha's full line of products and strives to be the industry leader in reliability, technology, and customer service. Yamaha Marine is the only outboard brand to have earned NMMA®'s CSI Customer Satisfaction Index award every year since its inception. Visit www.yamahaoutboards.com.
Original Source: Yamaha Outboards.com


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You've seen hints of it over the past couple months: a photograph here and there on Gizmodo that you could click and spin and almost play with. These are the work of the Gizmodoscope, an interactive imaging system that we've spent the past year developing to make the most badass pictures on the Internet. And CES is the Gizmodoscope's maiden voyage.
We're going to spend the next week scaring up the coolest items on the show floor and shooting them in our rig. You'll be able to find all the interactive images here. Got something you want us to shoot? Let us know in the comments.


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Reptile Zoo! Kid's schedules, our schedules, deadlines, goals, house duties, hobbies, relationships...aahhhh! I think one of the biggest challenges is learning how to balance it all and be successful overall. What do you struggle with the most? What's the one thing that you let "slide" (mine is ALWAYS housework)? Does it change from time to time as your focus shifts?
A few months ago I made the decision to cut back on the time I was spending on my business. As it turns out, I really hadn't realized the time it had been monopolizing. Now that it's been awhile, I have had some time to reflect.
I am planning to walk the Susan G Komen 3 day walk for breast cancer next September, so I have been focusing on walking daily. I purchased the fitbit pedometer, and it has really urged me to increase my activity. But did you know, staying home with the kids I average about 3-4 miles of walking a day WITHOUT going for a purposeful walk for exercise?? I always knew I was busy :) Since I've changed focus, I've also lost 5 pounds. Focusing on my health, exercise and reducing stress has really paid off. I'm also more purposeful about the food that I put in my mouth. All of this has helped with the stomach problems I was experiencing as well.
I do miss the satisfaction of the business side of Winkydinks, but I know that it's still there when I'm ready to shift my focus again. Are there things you have been meaning to do but "life" has gotten in the way? Is it time to re-prioritize? Share with us your struggles and successes!
Also, if anyone would like to take on the walking challenge of hitting 10,000 steps a day (which is a fitness goal floating around out there), let's do it! If anyone has or purchases the fitbit, let me know and we can be "friends" to share stats and goals!!
Recent Posts
Monday, July 25, 2011
Mom's Balancing act
Posted by Winkydinks


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The Boston Globe- When Girish Navani, chief executive and cofounder of eClinicalWorks, surveyed his employees several years ago about where the company should build its new headquarters, their response was clear.
"It was overwhelming, stay in Westborough," Navani said.
The company opened its new headquarters at 2 Technology Drive in 2011, adding around 175 jobs since the expansion. Westborough offered eClinicalWorks a small tax incentive to stay in town, but Navani said he could have gotten millions more to move his company to Georgia or Florida. Instead, he decided to stay in Westborough in part because it offers both proximity to Boston, and the predictable commute times and less expensive land prices of the suburbs.
"I think it's perfect," he said.
Continue reading below
Navani isn't the only business executive to take notice of what "the Boroughs" — a four-community region consisting of Marlborough, Northborough, Southborough, and Westborough, clustered along Interstate 495 — has to offer. The area is booming with new and planned commercial development, and Gregory Bialecki, the state's secretary of housing and economic development, said it's "one of the places to watch around the state right now."
'It turns out that people were waiting, waiting, waiting for the recovery, and then over the last six or nine months, you've seen bam, bam, bam, good news, good news, good news.'
"That 495 market, which includes the Boroughs, did get hit pretty hard by the recession," Bialecki said. "There was a lot of vacancy in a lot of those buildings. There was some anxiety about, 'Are we going to be a part of the state that participates in the recovery, or are we going to get left behind?'
"It turns out that people were waiting, waiting, waiting for the recovery, and then over the last six or nine months, you've seen bam, bam, bam, good news, good news, good news," he added.
Marlborough, in particular, has hit the ground running, with three major businesses — TJX Cos., Quest Diagnostics Inc., and Boston Scientific Corp. — recently announcing moves or expansions in the city, bringing with them around 3,600 jobs. All three of those companies received tax-incentive deals that forgive some of the taxes on their new developments or renovations of existing buildings.
Westborough has also used tax increment financing — or TIF — plans to attract and retain business, reaching agreements with three companies, including eClincialWorks, over the past two years.
In Northborough, parts of the Northborough Crossing shopping center began opening in 2011, and the development has quickly become the community's largest taxpayer, paying around $1.7 million into town coffers this fiscal year.
Paul Matthews, executive director of the 495/MetroWest Partnership, said the region's lower real estate prices compared with Boston's are getting companies to look at the Boroughs. Also, he noted, around half of workers in the I-495 belt have a college degree.
"The skilled workers out here are a tremendous competitive advantage," Matthews said. "Location is a tremendous advantage."
"We have access to everything that Boston has, including the intellectual base that Boston has," said Jim Malloy, Westborough's town manager. "We have lower property values, a highly educated workforce, and access to interstate highways."
Northborough Town Administrator John Coderre said his town is "in terrific shape" and that he's had recent contact with businesses interested in developing there. "We continue to be a very desirable location," he said. Coderre noted that businesses in town pay the same tax rate as residents, which is not the case for some communities with significant commercial development.
In Southborough, Town Administrator Mark Purple said his town "hasn't done a great job" in the past of forging relationships with businesses, but that it's now forming an economic development committee and overhauling its zoning to attract development.
Marlborough Mayor Arthur Vigeant said that while most of new commercial development in the area has gone to his city, there's a general push among the communities to market the Boroughs as a good place to do business.
"If that means I attract [a company] to Marlborough, and they want to move to Westborough, as long as they're adding to the regional consumption, it only helps all of us," Vigeant said. "There's definitely an effort on a regional basis to make sure that people understand that it's a great region to live in."
"I think our region collectively wants to be a competitor to Cambridge and Greater Boston and the 128 belt," added Michael Berry, an aide to the mayor. "That's what we're trying to do out here. We're certainly united by those things. I think each community offers something a little bit different, but the fact that each of us is having success with different businesses in different ways speaks well of the region as a whole."
Tim Cummings, executive director of the Marlborough Economic Development Corporation, said one way the communities band together is by advocating for improvements to infrastructure, such as the major highways in the area.
"Essentially, it's about understanding that when you increase the wealth of a region, all the other communities benefit from it in some way," Cummings said.
Garry Holmes, president of a commercial real estate brokerage in Wayland, R.W. Holmes Realty Co., said Marlborough had been "devastated" by the recession. Until recently, vacancies for office space hovered around 34 percent — far above the 10 to 12 percent considered healthy, he said.
"One in three buildings were empty," Holmes said. "That's a pretty scary statistic."
Now, Holmes said, the vacancy rate is down to around 27.5 percent, and he expects it to continue to drop. What's more, he expects the impending development in Marlborough to be good for existing local businesses, and to spur more development throughout the region.
"What that does to all the surrounding hotels, restaurants, the residential market — it's just going to have such a profound impact," Holmes said. "More importantly, they're not going to be deals that make any big headlines, but you're going to see a lot of the contractors that these companies do work with . . . start to backfill office and industrial buildings.
"I think it's great news for that area," he added. "The trend that you're seeing, a lot of that momentum is going to continue through this year."
This story originally appeared here.


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Alan @ CIT brauchte ein neues Logo Design und hat einen Wettbewerb auf 99designs gestartet.
Aus 126 Designs von 70 Designern wurde eine Gewinner gewählt.
BBCustom.org is a new community that will provide open source resources (modifications, graphics, styles/skins/themes/designs) for forum software (mainly vBulletin, IP.Board, phpBB and MyBB).
Along with these resources, we will also be posting articles and blogs on various subjects relating to forum software and open source in general.
Our website targets forum administrators, mainly those who use vBulletin, IP.Board, phpBB or MyBB.
The logo should have the text "BBCustom.org". The .org is an important part of the brand name so needs to be included as we will be launching a
We would like an image with the text (or perhaps in the text itself) that represents the creative nature of our website. We provide modifications to forum software, new graphics (icons, emoticons, etc) and skins / styles and would like this to be shown in the logo.
We also promote using Open Source and Creative Commons licenses for these modifications / graphics / styles - not sure how that could be represented in the logo, may look a little crowded but give it a shot if you have a good idea.
Background Color: The webpage background will be white but we'd like the logo background to be transparent.
Logo Color: We'd like the text to be a dark(ish) blue, the site isn't designed yet so we'll be building it around the logo color scheme so feel free to be a bit creative with the colors.
Finden Sie heraus, wie ein Designwettbewerb funktioniert, oder lernen Sie mehr über unsere Logo-Design-Angebote.


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NATO Office of Resources (NOR)
The NATO Office of Resources (NOR) brings together, under the direction and leadership of the Director NOR, all international staff working on NATO military common-funded issues with the aim of reinforcing military common-funded resource management at the NATO HQ.
The NOR provides integrated staff advice and support to the Resource Policy and Planning Board (RPPB), the Budget Committee (BC) and the Investment Committee (IC) as well as their Chairmen.
The NOR provides staff advice to the divisions of the IS and IMS, and other bodies as required, on NATO military resource issues.


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Fisk 44
Oversized Plates
44 Oversized Plates Rectified
I - Report
II - Oversized Plates
I - Report
I - Oversized Plates
Volume II - Plates
This website is intended to provide internet access to download
engineering geology maps from the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley or LMV.
The following data were developed by geologists from the Engineering
Geology and Geophysics Branch (ERDC-WES, GSL) for Corps Districts within
the LMV, and involve nearly three hundred, 1:62,500 scale (15-minute)
engineering geology maps published during the past 50 years. The goal for
presenting these maps digitally is to preserve the information by making
the data easily accessible by serving them through an internet media. Many
of the published engineering geology maps presented through this website
are no longer in print or readily available.
Engineering geology maps served by this website are presented alphabetically by LMV Drainage Basin.
An index map of drainage basins in the LMV is presented in Figure 1 to
assist the user with locating the drainage basin of interest. Index maps
of site specific 15-minute quadrangle maps within each drainage basin are
presented in the respective link to the drainage basin of interest.
Individual quadrangle maps are presented as zip files containing the
scanned quadrangle map at 300 dots-per-inch (dpi) resolution, and the
associated geologic cross-sections that accompany each map at 175 dpi.
Usually each quadrangle map contains two cross-sections. However, some
quadrangle maps may contain more cross-sections depending on the available
boring data at the time the engineering geology map was produced.
Engineering geology maps were originally published by drainage basin as a
series of map folios. Each map folio contains an overview summary of the
mapping process, methods used to generate the maps, as well as the
geologic history, and a description of the various environments of
deposition that the quadrangle maps identify. A text file (in Zip format)
containing this information is available for each drainage basin map folio
and is referenced as TEXT.zip . This file is available by referencing the
specific drainage basin of interest.
further information or questions about other LMV geology
map products contact Joe Dunbar (
Geotechnical and Structures Lab (GSL), Engineering Geology and
Geophysics Branch),
(tel: 601-634-3315),
email: email@example.com; or W. Milton Myers (tel: 601-634-3376), email:


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Export 2 results:Author [ Title] Type Year
Filters: Author is Anna Liao [Clear All Filters]
Field Testing of Telemetry for Demand Response Control of Small Loads. 2015. LBNL-1004415..
"Fast DR: Controlling Small Loads over the Internet." ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings. Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, CA, 2014. LBNL-185726..


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Fast RigsThere are eight main characters in Flushed Away, 10 secondary characters with major roles, and a host of background and crowd characters, some of which speak a few lines. Because the modelers and riggers created the characters in sections, and because all the characters used the same rig, a custom Maya plug-in glued together different components to quickly rig new characters. "The posh way of putting it is that we have an inheritance-based mix-and-match system," says Costello. "We rig separate components and use those to rig new ones. By the end, we could do a background character in less than half an hour."To build a character, the riggers started with pre-made components. "We'd click a button, and all these joints would pop up that we could pull around the screen to position," explains Costello. They added behaviors to the joints that would, for example, allow an elbow to swell a bit. Next, they added the subskin, a cylinder made of rings that the riggers shaped and scaled to create bulges. And then they painted the binding. "You can pull the points around and then save out all the CVs of the skin position," Costello adds. "The binding determines how the subskin drives the high-resolution geometry."For the characters' bodies, the riggers again matched the simplicity of the Aardman characters, but not rigidly. "At first we over-engineered the spine and had to back off, but we put a little stretch on the arms and legs," says Costello. "You don't notice it a lot, but without it, we got popping. And Rita can tilt her hips, which makes her a bit more feminine." That helped give these characters a different performance than that of the plasticine puppets. "We pushed the style," says Spencer-Galsworthy. "We wanted to capture the essence of Aardman animation and then be true to where it's going to go in CG."For example: There's a 30-second shot of Toad talking to a tadpole. The animators created it early in the process using what Spencer-Galsworthy calls "hard poses." "It came back because of voice-track changes after the style had developed," he says. "So we pushed the animation into the new style. We still had definite poses, but we added a bit more fluidity on the way."
In the BubbleFell made sure that the style varied from character to character, though, by giving the animators guides for each of the main characters that illustrated frequency and range of movement. He literally drew a bubble around a character that showed how far that character could stretch its arms. "Some films have a style that applies to all the characters," Fell says. "We looked at Madagascar, which has a snappy, cartoony, American style of animation, and all the characters move according to those rules. But the Aardman style is more that each character has its own particular way of moving that's related to its characteristics." Thus, Fell created a spectrum of movements and defined each character's range within it: how broadly they moved, how far they could move, and how busy and quick they were.Toad, for example, who Fell describes as flamboyant, aristocratic, and operatic, had a wide bubble to show his larger-than-life movement. On the other hand, Whitey (Bill Nighy), Toad's toady, who is a slow-thinking character, moved within a smaller bubble. "He's like an armoire on legs," Fell says. "He lumbers along like Preston in Close Shave. But then I wanted Spike, Andy Serkis, to move quickly all the time and have a little twitch. He was at number 10 on the frequency range, and Whitey was at the other end."Similarly, the characters' appearances mimicked the Aardman puppets but didn't replicate them exactly. "It was an evolution, not slavish duplication," says Rogers. "They wear foam clothes and look like plasticine, but we didn't add thumbprints. That seemed a conceit."
Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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I was anxious not to miss this month's since I didn't get the chance to bake last month's which was the Praline Cake. This time the challenge was not that hard although since the recipe was adapted from Pierre Hermé's Chocolate Desserts you could be sure that the ingredients and procedures are long to ensure maximum yumminess. :)
Did I say it wasn't that hard? Well the last time I did choux pastry was about 20 years ago when I was still single! But I was right, the pastry was not a problem at all. It came all together just as I added the last egg. My only problem was grappling with piping it onto the baking sheets. After attempting it with folded parchment paper, I found an easier solution by putting the dough in a plastic bag then cutting one of the ends and it gave me my desired finger-like strips of dough. They came beautifully from the oven though I have to skip the instruction in the original recipe to keep the oven door ajar. I was sure it would not work in my fan-assisted/convection oven. The only thing I added is the slitting of the sides of the pastry right out of the oven then putting it back for another 5 minutes.
As reported by my fellow DBers, the pastry cream filling was heavenly. I did not use chocolates and substituted a few teaspoons of vanilla. I was not keen on having an all-chocolate eclair. Having contrasting vanilla then chocolate in a crispy pastry was what I was after. Lovely! Yum yum!
Chocolate Éclairs
• Cream Puff Dough (see below for recipe) - fresh and still warm.
- Preheat your oven to 190°C/fan 170°C/375°F. Divide the oven into thirds by positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with waxed or parchment paper.
- Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough.
- Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 4 1/2 inches (about 11 cm) chubby fingers. Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff. The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.
- Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 12 minutes. After the 7 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking time should be approximately 20 minutes.
- Once out of the oven, quickly make slits on one side of each of the eclairs. Put them back to the oven for a further 5 minutes.
- Remove from oven then cool completely on a rack.
*Assembling the éclairs:
• Chocolate glaze (see below for recipe)
• Chocolate pastry cream (see below for recipe)
- Slice the éclairs horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.
- The glaze should be at room temperature. Spread (or dip it in) the glaze over the tops of the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the bottoms with the pastry cream.
- Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms with enough cream to mound above the pastry.
- Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream and wriggle gently to settle them.
- If you have chilled your chocolate glaze, reheat by placing it in a bowl over simmering water, stirring it gently with a wooden spoon. Do not stir too vigorously as you do not want to create bubbles.
- The éclairs should be served as soon as they have been filled.
Cream Puff Dough
1/2 cup (125 g) whole milk
1/2 cup (125 g) water
1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter - diced
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup (140 g) all-purpose flour
5 large eggs - at room temperature, slightly beaten
- In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the boil.
- Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it's supposed to. You need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough
will be very soft and smooth.
- Remove from heat then using your handmixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough. You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.
- The dough should be still warm. It is now ready to be used for the éclairs as directed above.
- Once the dough is made you need to shape it immediately.
- You can pipe the dough and the freeze it. Simply pipe the dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets and slide the sheets into the freezer. Once the dough is completely frozen, transfer the piped shapes into freezer bags. They can be kept in the freezer for up to a month.
Pastry Cream
2 cups (500 g) whole milk
4 large egg yolks
6 Tbsp (75 g) sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
2 1/2 Tbsp (40 g) unsalted butter - room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
200 g dark chocolate - melted (optional)
- In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.
- In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heatproof bowl.
- Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.
- Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled.
- Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).
- [Optional] Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.
- Pour the pastry cream back into the heatproof bowl and stir in the vanilla.
- Set the bowl on an ice‐water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.
- Once the cream has reached a temperature of 60°C/140°F remove from the ice‐water bath and stir in the butter in three or four installments.
- Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge.
- The pastry cream can be made 2‐3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.
- In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed onto the cream.
- Tempering the eggs raises the temperature of the eggs slowly so that they do not curdle.
Chocolate Glaze
(makes 1 cup or 300 g)
1/3 cup (80 g) heavy cream
100 g dark chocolate - chopped
4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter - cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
7 tbsp (110 g) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below) - warm or at room temperature
- In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula.
- Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce.
Chocolate Sauce
(makes 1-1/2 cups or 525 g)
130 g dark chocolate (or combination of milk and dark) - chopped
1 cup (250 g) water
1/2 cup (125 g) crème fraîche or heavy cream
1/3 cup (70 g) sugar
- Place all the ingredients into a heavy‐bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure to stir constantly.
- Reduce the heat to low and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens.
- It may take 10‐15 minutes for the sauce to thicken, but you will know when it is done when it coats the back of your spoon.
- You can make this sauce ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator for two weeks. Reheat the sauce in a microwave oven or a double boiler before using.
- This sauce is also great for cakes, ice-cream and tarts.


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A hedge-fund executive disclosed that he owns about $2 billion in Microsoft Corp. stock, stating that the value of the software giant's businesses wasn't appreciated by other investors.
Jeffrey W. Ubben, founder of ValueAct Capital Management LP, discussed the stake Monday at an investor conference. ValueAct hasn't disclosed how many Microsoft shares it bought, but the stated value suggests ValueAct holds less than 1% of Microsoft's total stock outstanding.


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REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Blasts of lava and ash shot out of a volcano in southern Iceland on Monday and small tremors rocked the ground, a surge in activity that raised fears of a larger explosion at the nearby Katla volcano.
Scientists say history has proven that when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupts, Katla follows — the only question is how soon. And Katla, located under the massive Myrdalsjokull icecap, threatens disastrous flooding and explosive blasts when it blows.
Saturday's eruption at Eyjafjallajokull — dormant for nearly 200 years — forced at least 500 people to evacuate. Most have returned to their homes, but authorities were waiting for scientific assessments to determine whether they were safe to stay. Residents of 14 farms nearest to the eruption site were told to stay away.
Several small tremors were felt early Monday, followed by spurts of lava and steam rocketing into the air.
Iceland sits within a volcanically active region on the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge. Eruptions, common throughout Iceland's history, are often triggered by seismic activity when the Earth's plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
Like earthquakes, predicting the timing of volcanic eruptions is an imprecise science. An eruption at the Katla volcano could be disastrous, however — both for Iceland and other nations.
Iceland's Laki volcano erupted in 1783, freeing gases that turned into smog. The smog floated across the Jet Stream, changing weather patterns. Many died from gas poisoning in the British Isles. Crop production fell in western Europe. Famine spread. Some even linked the eruption, which helped fuel famine, to the French Revolution. Painters in the 18th century illustrated fiery sunsets in their works.
The winter of 1784 was also one of the longest and coldest on record in North America. New England reported a record stretch of below-zero temperatures and New Jersey reported record snow accumulation. The Mississippi River also reportedly froze in New Orleans.
"These are Hollywood-sort of scenarios but possible," said Colin Macpherson, a geologist with the University of Durham. "As the melt rises, it's a little like taking a cork out of a champagne bottle."
There are three main places where volcanoes normally occur — along strike-slip faults, such as the one linked to Mount St. Helens' eruption in Washington state 30 years ago; along areas where plates overlap one another, such as in the Philippines and the Pacific Rim; and in areas like Iceland, which is affected by the movement of two geological plates in a so-called spreading system.
Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, a geologist at the University of Iceland who flew over the site Monday, said the beginning of Saturday's eruption was so indistinct that it initially went undetected by geological instruments. Many of the tremors were below magnitude 2.6.
Using thermal cameras and radar to map the lava flow, Gudmundsson and other scientists were able to determine that the lava from Eyjafjallajokull was flowing down a gorge and not moving toward the ice caps — reducing any threat of floods.
He said he and other scientists were watching Katla but Monday's trip was meant to assess immediate risk.
Eight dangerous volcanoes"A general expectation is that because of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption, the fissure would widen and in that sense, there's a greater risk of extending into or underneath the glaciers and prompting an eruption at Katla," said Andy Russell with Newcastle University's Earth Surface Processes Research Group, who went with a team to Iceland before the eruption. "From records, we know that every time Eyjafjallajokull erupts, Katla has also erupted."
Russell said past Katla eruptions have caused floods the size of the Amazon and sent boulders as big as houses tumbling down valleys and roads. The last major eruption took place in 1918. Floods followed in as little as an hour.
Those eruptions have posed risks to residents nearby, but most of Iceland's current population of 320,000 live in the capital of Reykjavik on the western part of the island.
Southern Iceland is sparely populated but has both glaciers and unstable volcanoes — a destructive combination.
The last time there was an eruption near the 100-square-mile (160 square-kilometer) Eyjafjallajokull glacier was in 1821, and that was a "lazy" eruption that lasted slowly and continuously for two years.
Iceland is one of the few places in the world where a mid-ocean ridge actually rises above sea level. Many volcanic eruptions along the ocean basin often go undetected because they can't be easily seen.
First settled by Vikings in the 9th century, Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice because of its volcanoes and glaciers. During the Middle Ages, Icelanders called the Hekla volcano, the country's most active, the "Gateway to Hell," believing that souls were dragged into the fire below.
The last major volcanic eruption in Iceland occurred in 2004 with the Grimsvotn volcano.
This report was supplemented by msnbc.com.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren, "with a straight face" talks about how the FED can affect the economy with nominal interest rates at zero:
I've called this talk "How Should Monetary Policy Respond to a Slow Recovery?" My answer to that question is: vigorously, creatively, thoughtfully, and persistently, as long as we have options at our disposal. And we do have options, despite having pushed short-term rates to the zero lower bound.
We think the FED's options have been whittled away like the Black Knight's in the Monty Python Movie:
Robert Prechter writes (emphasis added):
Economists hint at the Fed's occasional impotence in fostering credit expansion when they describe an ineffective monetary strategy, i.e., a drop in the Fed's target rates that does not stimulate borrowing, as "pushing on a string." At such times, low Fed-influenced rates cannot overcome creditors' disinclination to lend and/or customers' unwillingness or inability to borrow.
We would add some thoughts to this simple concept. Prechter has emphasized credit expansion, but there is more to it than that. First, there is a difference between customers who are unwilling to borrow and those unable to borrow. Those unwilling to borrow are also likely unwilling to spend. While those unable to borrow are likely to have few assets to sell to feed their desire to spend. So… suppose the government bought all bonds, public and private, for (newly created) cash. Those who would spend but who had no assets to sell would receive no new cash and would not spend more. Those who had assets to sell will have received new cash in return for their bonds, but they didn't want to spend in the first place. Any one or more of those individuals could have converted their close-to-zero yielding bond assets to cash and spent at any time, but chose not to. Will one who is unwilling to borrow and spend suddenly become more inclined to spend and thus make prices rise, simply because the makeup of his portfolio was changed – against his will- from close-to-zero yielding bonds to absolutely zero yielding bonds? The answer is unclear, particularly, if he expects prices to fall. The FED might want to take a survey of these folks…
A picture is worth a thousand words. The Dallas Fed provides this chart depicting, better than words can articulate, the Failed Policies of Barack Obama:
Rosenberg argues the nominal yield curve would be inverted right now if it were not for the fact that short term rates are essentially at zero. The Treasury shows the Friday July, 9 nominal yield curve as:
|1 mo
|3 mo
|6 mo
|1 yr
|2 yr
|3 yr
|5 yr
|7 yr
|10 yr
|20 yr
|30 yr
If we assume that expected inflation for the short term is (say) -3, that is, that deflation is expected over the short term, but that inflation is expected to rear its ugly head over the long term (say) + 3, then we can use Fisher's relation that nominal rates less expected inflation equals real rates, to see that the REAL yield curve could be inverted right now:
2 year Short term nominal (.63) – expected deflation (-3.00) = 3.63 real
30 year Long term nominal (4.04) – inflation (+3.00) = 1.04 real
If the real yield curve is inverted, it's an ominous sign…
Market Ticker often posts this graph of total debt (public and private) in the US:
We can see from that graph that the trend is now changed to "down" after 50 years of "up". The Federal government has been unsuccessfully attempting to offset the decline in private debt with increases in public debt. With the trend to more austere budgets, the growth rate in Federal debt will also begin to decline, accelerating the decline in total debt. What does this mean for interest rates? A shrinking supply of total debt means there is a shrinking supply of debt securities in which investors can invest. All other things held constant, this implies that debt prices will be bid up and interest rates down. In the case of US Treasury debt, we can expect a significant fraction of it to be monetized – bought by the Federal Reserve and paid for with Dollars that don't cost the Treasury any interest. This monetization process will not increase the total amount of dollars available, but it will further reduce the supply of interest bearing debt instruments available for investors to buy – resulting in still more upward pressure on Treasury prices and downward pressure on rates. There appears substantial probability that long term Treasury Bond rates could be cut in half (from 4 to 2%) within 18 months. Only when the private economy begins to recover with real, non-government financed growth will we have significant risk of a rise in interest rates.
Look at the photo of a dollar below:
See where it says "Federal Reserve Note" and where it says "This note is legal tender…"? Dollars are notes or debts, that is, obligations of the Federal Reserve. When the Federal Reserve buys US Treasury Bonds from the open market and pays for them with dollars (a process some refer to as "monetization" or "printing money"), it and the marketplace has simply exchanged one form of debt for another. The supply in the hands of the market of one kind of debt (dollars) increased while another (Treasury Bonds) decreased. Long before the Federal Reserve got involved to exchange dollars for Treasury Bonds – when the Treasury bonds were first created and sold to the public – that's when the notional value (that is, the proceeds) of those Treasury Bonds was attached to goods and services. Increases in government debt, as well as increases in private debt (net), are inflationary. But not the monetization of the debt by the Federal Reserve.
At present, we have a situation where private debt is being reduced faster than government debt is being increased so that, in aggregate, total debts are declining – this is deflationary.
Technically, the total supply of debt can increase in an amount equal to the amount which society saves each year without inflation. Conversely, total debt (including new equity shares) must increase by the amount of savings each year, or… we will have deflation.
You don't have to be a bank to inflate or deflate.
Jimmy Songwriter sitting at the bar has a flash of inspiration and quickly writes down a new song. His somewhat inebriated friend, Joey Songsinger hears the song once and enthusiastically offers to buy it for a price equal to "whatever it takes – even if it's the whole income of the United States". Jimmy Songwriter, as a joke and to teach his friend a lesson, tells Joey he will sell the song for $13 Trillion and that he would finance it and Joey signs a note to Jimmy for $13 Trillion. This single transaction goes on record as the highest price ever paid for a song… drives up the average price of all songs by a factor of thousands…and doubles nominal GDP and the average price of all goods and services in the United States. The next year at Christmas, when the note comes due, Jimmy sends his friend Joey an email offering to "settle" the note for $500. Joey gladly agrees. After all they both knew that's what the song was truly worth …and what Joey could pay. That year, nominal GDP falls from the previously inflated level by roughly 50% with a 50% deflation in the price level as there are no more songs sold (and financed) for such exorbitant prices.
1. We didn't need banks or the Federal Reserve to create the price inflation or the price deflation which followed. All we needed was debt creation and then the subsequent de-leveraging and return to "normalcy".
2. Neither Jimmy nor Joey had the legal power to "print" or coin "money" and they did not need it to affect the price level.
3. Most importantly, what Jimmy and Joey do can offset and overwhelm whatever the Federal Reserve and the banks do.
Dave Rosenberg in his "Breakfast with Dave" for Thursday, May 20th points to the Shiller PE ratio:
In the past 130 years, whenever the Graham/Dodd/Shiller normalized P/E ratio goes above 20.6x (it is 21x today), the market experiences a significant correction – a correction of 31% on average over the next 16 months. It never fails.
It never fails… hmmm, 31% down on the S&P from here would put the S&P down to about 770.
TPC quotes Annaly Capital Management, who uses the following chart:
This chart makes the point that:
The primary function of government now seems to be transferring wealth from one group to another through programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment benefits, the new health care system, etc. It's hard to consider this kind of spending stimulative…
As the federal government's main reason for existence has evolved from protecting its citizens to that of a Robin Hood, the Top 10% of all earners, from whom all this wealth is "transferred", are forced to pay an ever rising burden of the cost of "government", including the ruling elite's "commission". IRS data on the share of taxes these earners pay allowed us to prepare the following chart. As the chart indicates, the top 10% earners will soon be tapped out. Once the pot-of-wealth from which our government transfers runs dry the primary function of this government ceases to exist.