Food Facts

I picked up this retirement magazine in a restaurant and saw this product inside, coconut sugar. It looks interesting, if a bit expensive for sugar.

Go here for some interesting food facts from The Southern Lady.  I didn't know or forgot most of them!  For example, peanuts are legumes, not nuts.  Corn always has an even number of rows on each cob.  Apple seeds are poisonous.

I also learned from an article in the newspaper that coumarin in cinnamon causes liver damage in some people. So I guess everything in moderation.

Is news bad for you?

Here's a funny one, in light of the cold winter we are having (although temperatures did get milder on the weekend):

I was in a dinner conversation months ago and someone said news is bad for us. At the time I didn't understand the argument so I decided to google some information on this. I found this story. It has 9 reasons news is bad for you (misleads, wastes time, inhibits thinking) and 9 reasons why it's good (informs us, teaches critical thinking, educational). I think news is good for us, how about you?

Sunday Sketches - Icicles on the Shed Roof

For Sunday Sketches, this is a journal page in watercolour pencils, (5"h x 7"w). I've called it 'Icicles on the Shed Roof', inspired by the wicked winter we are having this year.

A Learning Experience

Hershey is making Chinese New Year chocolates! The reason is that we have a large Chinese population in the area. I am Chinese Jamaican myself. I googled the exact date of Chinese New Year and that would be January 31, 2014 this year.

This Thursday morning, I took son K to school for an 8am class.  Well it turns out the class was booked at another campus!  The morning became a panic as we tried to resolve timetable issues at the start of the semester.  We sat on this timetable over the holidays complacent that everything was in order, we never checked the room number on the timetable.  Luckily the deadline for making changes was the next day Friday at 5pm.  Needless to say, we have learned a lesson, we have to check things very carefully!  K is still new at the school and the room numbers at this point don't raise alarm bells.  Did I mention it was a critical course and we had to change 5 of his 8 courses around to make it all work?  Then a better time for the critical course came up and we tried to move everything closer back to the original schedule.  We first went through their extremely busy advisement helpline and got in the queue until we finally figured out how to do it all ourselves.  I think the helpline got us into this problem in the first place (no blaming, just a fact). We will chalk it down to a learning experience, hopefully we are fine now.

Paint Party Friday - Cold Reflections

This is a journal page for Paint Party Friday based on a photo I saw in the newspaper. I call it 'Cold Reflections'. Apparently the movie 'Expedition to the End of the World' contains such stunning cinematography.  It is set in Greenland.

Packaged Kale Chips

Daughter L had bought these kale chips to try. I have baked fresh kale chips which husband M really likes. None of us really liked this ranch flavoured bag. Luckily one of L's girlfriends loves them, so she gave the rest of the bag to her and it didn't go to waste.

Here is a recipe for Shanghai noodles that one of my sisters shared with me. It really works.

Baked Doughnuts

Here are the doughnuts daughter L baked on New Year's Eve.

And have you heard of 3D Food Printing? I found this great article explaining the concept. All your food is produced by a 3D printer. You load the raw materials into the cartridges and it 'prints' it. An actual machine will soon be available for sale!