How To Become A Good Chef
by Robert Smith
Being a chef is a very physical profession. You are required to remain on your feet almost constantly. Along with that, you must also be stirring, kneading, and chopping your foods.
Many times, you will have to do all of this while also having to ordering foods for hungry customers and critical customers.
A kitchen is almost scorching hot year round so you should be quite prepared for that. Even in the best conditioned areas, a kitchen is often as hot as 95 degrees or higher.
If that doesn't sound like enough to do, try doing it while you are also maintaining all of the rest of the kitchen staff. Choosing to be a chef for a living is a very rewarding and time consuming job.
Now do you see why being able to multi-task is so important? The road to becoming a chef requires much training and hands on experience.
Here's what you need to do to be a good chef.
A strong desire to be a chef is a good place to start. Having a good sense of smell, and taste will be necessary also. It would very difficult to prepare a good meal if you can't decipher the differences from one spice to another; or if you do not know which spices go well together and which ones don't.
Cooking is a lot different than being a chef is. If you are just cooking for yourself you have room for errors.
If you are cooking for a stranger, you will want to cook your food to perfection. Of course, you will also want to present the food in an enticing manner as well.
There are stages to becoming a chef. You have to start at the bottom, but becoming a chef is one of few occupations where you can get most of your training on the job. You do have to go to school and train as well, but much of the training is done in a working environment.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
hari 229
Employees - Always treat them right
by Alan Fairweather
When you have to deal with one of your team who's complaining to you, rather than allowing your negative programmes to take over, get your thinking part in gear and try to see the situation the way they see it. You don't necessarily have to agree with them but perhaps you can empathise with their point of view.
The successful manager thinks about the people they have to deal with, is sensitive to how they see things and knows that they might think differently than they do.
Let me give you an example: I've always had a thing about good timekeeping; it's something that's been programmed into my brain. If you agree to meet me at 8.30 in the morning, I'll be there at 8.20; I will always do my utmost be on time.
So I used to get angry when a member of my team would show up late for a meeting or an appointment with me. When I got angry I'd get stressed and end up saying something that I regretted later. Therefore, I learned to start thinking about the situation and try to see it from their point of view and not let my programming run my brain.
That doesn't mean to say I ignored the lateness or did nothing about it; I thought very carefully about what I wanted to say and spoke to the team member about how we would resolve this situation.
The point about this is - I'm not prepared to allow that team member's behaviour to run my mind. Getting angry and stressed is not good for our health and it isn't a productive way to motivate our team.
We all see the world in a different way based on our culture and how we were brought up. So it's very important to understand this, particularly when you give your people feedback be it good or bad.
Last year I spent several weeks in a particular hotel running seminars and I started to get to know some of the staff. One day I noticed that Carol the conference manager had been named employee of the month and her photograph was displayed in the reception area. When I congratulated her on this honour I was a bit surprised at her reaction - "I hate it, I'm so embarrassed," she complained.
Carol didn't like the attention she was getting and as a result, this recognition by her manager didn't motivate her. Another member of the team could possibly see this completely differently and regard it as a great honour.
If you have good rapport with your people then you become sensitive to how they see things. The successful business person understands each member of their team and doesn't reward everyone in the same way.
I've often heard managers say - "I treat people the way I expect to be treated." The successful manager says - "I treat people the way THEY expect to be treated."
by Alan Fairweather
When you have to deal with one of your team who's complaining to you, rather than allowing your negative programmes to take over, get your thinking part in gear and try to see the situation the way they see it. You don't necessarily have to agree with them but perhaps you can empathise with their point of view.
The successful manager thinks about the people they have to deal with, is sensitive to how they see things and knows that they might think differently than they do.
Let me give you an example: I've always had a thing about good timekeeping; it's something that's been programmed into my brain. If you agree to meet me at 8.30 in the morning, I'll be there at 8.20; I will always do my utmost be on time.
So I used to get angry when a member of my team would show up late for a meeting or an appointment with me. When I got angry I'd get stressed and end up saying something that I regretted later. Therefore, I learned to start thinking about the situation and try to see it from their point of view and not let my programming run my brain.
That doesn't mean to say I ignored the lateness or did nothing about it; I thought very carefully about what I wanted to say and spoke to the team member about how we would resolve this situation.
The point about this is - I'm not prepared to allow that team member's behaviour to run my mind. Getting angry and stressed is not good for our health and it isn't a productive way to motivate our team.
We all see the world in a different way based on our culture and how we were brought up. So it's very important to understand this, particularly when you give your people feedback be it good or bad.
Last year I spent several weeks in a particular hotel running seminars and I started to get to know some of the staff. One day I noticed that Carol the conference manager had been named employee of the month and her photograph was displayed in the reception area. When I congratulated her on this honour I was a bit surprised at her reaction - "I hate it, I'm so embarrassed," she complained.
Carol didn't like the attention she was getting and as a result, this recognition by her manager didn't motivate her. Another member of the team could possibly see this completely differently and regard it as a great honour.
If you have good rapport with your people then you become sensitive to how they see things. The successful business person understands each member of their team and doesn't reward everyone in the same way.
I've often heard managers say - "I treat people the way I expect to be treated." The successful manager says - "I treat people the way THEY expect to be treated."
hari 228
The real deal on Oats and Oatmeal
by Nick A. James
Oats (botanical name Avena sativa)
An oat is a grass that produces a fibrous root and a hollow jointed stem with narrow, flat, pale-green leaves. Oats are native to southern Europe and eastern Asia. They are widely cultivated as a food.
An oat is an edible cereal grain produced by the cereal grass of the same name. They are light colored and have a nutty flavor and a chewy texture.
Usually we think of them as breakfast food but oatmeal has long been known for its skin-soothing properties. Many skin lotions and ointments are formulated with oats for it's skin healing properties.
As a nutritious breakfast food oats provide a healthy addition to your diet in that there is 140 calories per 1/2 cup serving. They also provide 4g of dietary fiber, of which 2g of this is soluble fiber and 2g is insoluble. Insoluble fibers are those that cannot be dissolved in water. And soluble fibers can be dissolved in water. They provide 10% of your daily iron needs. Also of this 1/2 cup serving, there is 26g of carbohydrate and 2.5g of fat, which is considered lowfat.
Three grams of soluble fiber from oatmeal daily, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease. Besides all this, this nourishing cereal also contains, vitamins, starches, minerals and 5g of protein. Clinical trials have been done, and they have shown that regular consumption of oat bran reduces blood cholesterol levels in just one month. High-fiber diets may also reduce the risk of colon and rectal cancers.
Oats contain the alkaloid, gramine, which has been credited with mild sedative properties.
There are several forms of oats on the market and the following lists the most popular kinds. Whole oats without the hulls are groats.
Rolled: Oat groats that have been steamed then flattened into flakes. Also, known by the more common name of old-fashioned.
Quick-cooking: Oat groats that are cut into several pieces before rolling to shorten the cooking time.
Instant oatmeal: Oat groats that are cut into very small pieces and processed so that they need no cooking, just add boiling water.
Steel-cut: Oat groats that have been cut by steel blades. Often called Irish or Scottish oatmeal.
Oat flour: The finely ground grain.
Oat bran: The ground outer layer of the oat. Used as a hot cooked breakfast cereal and is a good source of fiber.
Other uses for Oats Are in Skin and Bath Products.
Oatmeal is found in many bath products and skin and body products. Oatmeal baths are wonderful for soothing dry, flaking skin, and poison ivy and dermatoses. It alleviates itching from poison oak and chicken pox. It has long been used in facial scrub products and is a very natural product.
Oat straw contains high levels of silicic acid, which makes it an effective treatment for many skin diseases, especially those associated with the nervous system. Try using an external oat-straw preparation to relieve shingles and herpes.
Besides eating them in the form we are most familiar with, the box of oats that we purchase in the supermarket, oat products can be purchased in commercial form as capsules, extracts, and tinctures.
One expert lists the primary functions of oats as: If eaten, a supportive, nurturing tonic for the nervous system, If eaten, it can be used to alleviate digestive problems associated with stress and tension, If applied externally, it can relieve skin diseases especially those with a nervous basis.
by Nick A. James
Oats (botanical name Avena sativa)
An oat is a grass that produces a fibrous root and a hollow jointed stem with narrow, flat, pale-green leaves. Oats are native to southern Europe and eastern Asia. They are widely cultivated as a food.
An oat is an edible cereal grain produced by the cereal grass of the same name. They are light colored and have a nutty flavor and a chewy texture.
Usually we think of them as breakfast food but oatmeal has long been known for its skin-soothing properties. Many skin lotions and ointments are formulated with oats for it's skin healing properties.
As a nutritious breakfast food oats provide a healthy addition to your diet in that there is 140 calories per 1/2 cup serving. They also provide 4g of dietary fiber, of which 2g of this is soluble fiber and 2g is insoluble. Insoluble fibers are those that cannot be dissolved in water. And soluble fibers can be dissolved in water. They provide 10% of your daily iron needs. Also of this 1/2 cup serving, there is 26g of carbohydrate and 2.5g of fat, which is considered lowfat.
Three grams of soluble fiber from oatmeal daily, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease. Besides all this, this nourishing cereal also contains, vitamins, starches, minerals and 5g of protein. Clinical trials have been done, and they have shown that regular consumption of oat bran reduces blood cholesterol levels in just one month. High-fiber diets may also reduce the risk of colon and rectal cancers.
Oats contain the alkaloid, gramine, which has been credited with mild sedative properties.
There are several forms of oats on the market and the following lists the most popular kinds. Whole oats without the hulls are groats.
Rolled: Oat groats that have been steamed then flattened into flakes. Also, known by the more common name of old-fashioned.
Quick-cooking: Oat groats that are cut into several pieces before rolling to shorten the cooking time.
Instant oatmeal: Oat groats that are cut into very small pieces and processed so that they need no cooking, just add boiling water.
Steel-cut: Oat groats that have been cut by steel blades. Often called Irish or Scottish oatmeal.
Oat flour: The finely ground grain.
Oat bran: The ground outer layer of the oat. Used as a hot cooked breakfast cereal and is a good source of fiber.
Other uses for Oats Are in Skin and Bath Products.
Oatmeal is found in many bath products and skin and body products. Oatmeal baths are wonderful for soothing dry, flaking skin, and poison ivy and dermatoses. It alleviates itching from poison oak and chicken pox. It has long been used in facial scrub products and is a very natural product.
Oat straw contains high levels of silicic acid, which makes it an effective treatment for many skin diseases, especially those associated with the nervous system. Try using an external oat-straw preparation to relieve shingles and herpes.
Besides eating them in the form we are most familiar with, the box of oats that we purchase in the supermarket, oat products can be purchased in commercial form as capsules, extracts, and tinctures.
One expert lists the primary functions of oats as: If eaten, a supportive, nurturing tonic for the nervous system, If eaten, it can be used to alleviate digestive problems associated with stress and tension, If applied externally, it can relieve skin diseases especially those with a nervous basis.
hari 227
Sweet Cravings
by Ed Williams
You know that you’re craving sweets a bit too much when....
You buy bags of miniatures of your favorite candy bar because you’re convinced that since they’re smaller you won’t be eating quite as much sugar.
You don’t count stuff like mints or chewing gum as sweets when you’re dieting, thus allowing yourself to continue enjoying healthy quantities of them.
You go to the fair and eat one corn dog and three elephant ears.
Anything less than three chunks of bubble gum at once just won’t do.
You hide a half gallon of Breyer’s Butter Pecan ice cream way back in the corner of your freezer, then eat it all at one sitting just as soon as your wife leaves the house for a couple of hours. And you feel really great about having done so, like you’ve really slipped something pretty dang (a historic first, I have never used the word “dang” in any of my writing before) major by her.
Your favorite “all you can eat” places turn out to be the ones that have the best soft serve ice cream machines.
If you go out to eat at a fancy restaurant and don’t have dessert for some reason you feel like you’ve really had nothing to eat at all.
You can name off all the new sweets crazes without a thought, like the liquified doughnuts over at Krispy Kreme, in fact, nine out of ten times you’ve already tried them out for yourself.
You put sugar on frosted flakes.
You nod in firm agreement when a dietary expert on TV says that people must avoid sweets, wondering why other people can’t control their cravings the way you do.
The cheapest candy imaginable beats none at all.
At the fair you buy a candied apple, eat it, then eat every little fleck of candy off the stick when no one is looking.
You walk by the unoccupied office of someone who keeps a candy dish on their desk, go in, and swipe a few pieces. Then you hide the candy in your pockets when you leave so that no one will know that you got any.
A woman who’s just been in the kitchen preparing pancakes smells sexier than one who uses the most popular perfume available.
You can accurately discuss the differences in size and ingredients regarding a Butterfinger bar made twenty years ago and today.
You would love to try an egg cream, and would if you could just find someone who makes them (is there anyplace in Georgia that does)?
You know that you could live out your life without taking another drink of alcohol or smoking another cigarette, but life without Snickers bars would be a whole different thing....
You find yourself longing to buy a big bag of M&Ms, take them home, and then eat them all at one sitting while watching something good on TV.
You give your wife/girlfriend chocolates for Valentine’s Day, and feel a sense of loss when you hand over the box.
You try to find out how to make things like candied apples and elephant ears at home.
You really wish that they had bigger containers for lime and orange flavored Tic Tacs.
If the words “Hershey’s,” “Reeses,” “Sweet Tarts,””Bazooka Joe,””Goo-Goo Cluster,” or “Stuckeys” are mentioned in conversation you break out into a smile without even realizing it.
You look at a guy that likes low fat ice cream as being a little less than masculine. Okay, you look at him as being a whole lot less than masculine. You also look at someone who tells you that they take care of their cravings for sweets by eating fruit as being as big a liar as politicians or used car salesmen are. Finally, you see sugar free popsicles as being abominations, something against nature that shouldn’t even be allowed to be sold at all.
You’d rather kiss a mule directly on the fanny than drink a diet soft drink.
You never buy anything but the largest sized ICEE, whether you happen to be thirsty or not.
You read this column, and immediately start craving an RC Cola and a MoonPie.......
by Ed Williams
You know that you’re craving sweets a bit too much when....
You buy bags of miniatures of your favorite candy bar because you’re convinced that since they’re smaller you won’t be eating quite as much sugar.
You don’t count stuff like mints or chewing gum as sweets when you’re dieting, thus allowing yourself to continue enjoying healthy quantities of them.
You go to the fair and eat one corn dog and three elephant ears.
Anything less than three chunks of bubble gum at once just won’t do.
You hide a half gallon of Breyer’s Butter Pecan ice cream way back in the corner of your freezer, then eat it all at one sitting just as soon as your wife leaves the house for a couple of hours. And you feel really great about having done so, like you’ve really slipped something pretty dang (a historic first, I have never used the word “dang” in any of my writing before) major by her.
Your favorite “all you can eat” places turn out to be the ones that have the best soft serve ice cream machines.
If you go out to eat at a fancy restaurant and don’t have dessert for some reason you feel like you’ve really had nothing to eat at all.
You can name off all the new sweets crazes without a thought, like the liquified doughnuts over at Krispy Kreme, in fact, nine out of ten times you’ve already tried them out for yourself.
You put sugar on frosted flakes.
You nod in firm agreement when a dietary expert on TV says that people must avoid sweets, wondering why other people can’t control their cravings the way you do.
The cheapest candy imaginable beats none at all.
At the fair you buy a candied apple, eat it, then eat every little fleck of candy off the stick when no one is looking.
You walk by the unoccupied office of someone who keeps a candy dish on their desk, go in, and swipe a few pieces. Then you hide the candy in your pockets when you leave so that no one will know that you got any.
A woman who’s just been in the kitchen preparing pancakes smells sexier than one who uses the most popular perfume available.
You can accurately discuss the differences in size and ingredients regarding a Butterfinger bar made twenty years ago and today.
You would love to try an egg cream, and would if you could just find someone who makes them (is there anyplace in Georgia that does)?
You know that you could live out your life without taking another drink of alcohol or smoking another cigarette, but life without Snickers bars would be a whole different thing....
You find yourself longing to buy a big bag of M&Ms, take them home, and then eat them all at one sitting while watching something good on TV.
You give your wife/girlfriend chocolates for Valentine’s Day, and feel a sense of loss when you hand over the box.
You try to find out how to make things like candied apples and elephant ears at home.
You really wish that they had bigger containers for lime and orange flavored Tic Tacs.
If the words “Hershey’s,” “Reeses,” “Sweet Tarts,””Bazooka Joe,””Goo-Goo Cluster,” or “Stuckeys” are mentioned in conversation you break out into a smile without even realizing it.
You look at a guy that likes low fat ice cream as being a little less than masculine. Okay, you look at him as being a whole lot less than masculine. You also look at someone who tells you that they take care of their cravings for sweets by eating fruit as being as big a liar as politicians or used car salesmen are. Finally, you see sugar free popsicles as being abominations, something against nature that shouldn’t even be allowed to be sold at all.
You’d rather kiss a mule directly on the fanny than drink a diet soft drink.
You never buy anything but the largest sized ICEE, whether you happen to be thirsty or not.
You read this column, and immediately start craving an RC Cola and a MoonPie.......
hari 226
Aga Cookers
Over the past 70 years the aga cooker has been haled as the symbol of uk cookware. It is with out a doubt the reigning champion through out the uk and even over the water in the states it is growning with immense popularity.
The aga was invented by a physicist, what makes the Aga is unique because it cooks with brilliant heat, keeping in all the aromas flavours and juices from the oven. You will find it common in most houses that have an aga cooker that people tend to congregate in that general vicinity.
The nobel physicist that created the aga was awarded the nobel prize for making lighthouse automated his name was Nils Gustaf Dalen and the aga was his baby. One of the pivotal turning points for creating the aga was an accident at an industrial plant which subsequently blinded Dalen, the genius then spent a great deal of time at home and camr to the conclusion that the cooker his wife used just didnt cut the mustard and he deemed it inefficient. After 10 years of tremendous efforts at improving the cooker, the aga was born, the first model was then patented in 1922. It was named after Dalen's firm Akteibolaget Gas Accumulator, the Aga then made its way over to the uk sometime around 1930.
The aga cooker is powered by a single burner, most Agas run on either propane or natural gas. Although a few newer models have electric ovens as well, a good feature to an aga cooker is that you never have to turn them off thus there is no need to preheat the oven for when you are cooking. When entertaining, it is easy to cook many courses at the same time.
The premium aga cooker has to be the four oven aga, it has 4 separate ovens for baking, roasting, simmering and warming. These four ovens all keep a different temperature for their distinct tasks. Other good features that come with a four oven aga are a hotplate, a warming plate and an optional gas cook-top. The aga is made out of solid cast iron and coated with a fibre glass like resin, the aga cooker is available in 14 separate colours ranging from the conservative black or white to the exciting claret or aubergine and the aga has a very impressive life of 100 years!
Over the past 70 years the aga cooker has been haled as the symbol of uk cookware. It is with out a doubt the reigning champion through out the uk and even over the water in the states it is growning with immense popularity.
The aga was invented by a physicist, what makes the Aga is unique because it cooks with brilliant heat, keeping in all the aromas flavours and juices from the oven. You will find it common in most houses that have an aga cooker that people tend to congregate in that general vicinity.
The nobel physicist that created the aga was awarded the nobel prize for making lighthouse automated his name was Nils Gustaf Dalen and the aga was his baby. One of the pivotal turning points for creating the aga was an accident at an industrial plant which subsequently blinded Dalen, the genius then spent a great deal of time at home and camr to the conclusion that the cooker his wife used just didnt cut the mustard and he deemed it inefficient. After 10 years of tremendous efforts at improving the cooker, the aga was born, the first model was then patented in 1922. It was named after Dalen's firm Akteibolaget Gas Accumulator, the Aga then made its way over to the uk sometime around 1930.
The aga cooker is powered by a single burner, most Agas run on either propane or natural gas. Although a few newer models have electric ovens as well, a good feature to an aga cooker is that you never have to turn them off thus there is no need to preheat the oven for when you are cooking. When entertaining, it is easy to cook many courses at the same time.
The premium aga cooker has to be the four oven aga, it has 4 separate ovens for baking, roasting, simmering and warming. These four ovens all keep a different temperature for their distinct tasks. Other good features that come with a four oven aga are a hotplate, a warming plate and an optional gas cook-top. The aga is made out of solid cast iron and coated with a fibre glass like resin, the aga cooker is available in 14 separate colours ranging from the conservative black or white to the exciting claret or aubergine and the aga has a very impressive life of 100 years!
hari 225
George Foreman Grills
by Laura Ciocan
Salton, Inc., the producer of George Foreman Grill filed a complaint against George Foreman Foods Inc. regarding the use of the domain name . The complaint was denied.
Beyond the fame gained as a heavyweight boxer, becoming world champion in 1973 and 1994, George Foreman has become a renown brand for quite a wide range of quality products. In fact, the name has become so famous as a product brand that many of the younger generation have come to know the famous character through the products sold under this brand. Foreman himself admits that he gained more fame and wealth as a product endorser than he thought possible.
The brand sells from electrical products, to clothes, cleaning products, low-fat, grill-compatible products. However, the most notable of this series is the George Foreman Grill produced by US marketers Salton Inc. The company owns trademarks and trademark registrations for the mark GEORGE FOREMAN in the United States and elsewhere for products used for preparing, cooking, serving foods and beverages since 1995.
In 2002, George Foreman concluded an agreement with an entrepreneur to launch a line of meat products and other foods. The company became George Foreman Foods Inc. and was going to cause a whole series of problems. At present, Foreman is fighting to unwind the contract on the grounds that the company introduced products he didn't approve, such as coffee and old frozen meat products, thus putting Foreman's image at a risk of being spread too thin.
On the other hand, Salton Inc., filed a complaint against George Foreman Foods Inc. with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) Arbitration and Mediation Center on September 24, 2004, on the grounds that the food's company use of the web domain www.georgeforeman.com breached Salton's registered trade marks in the name.
While looking at the matter from a holistic point of view, the complaint seems rather well-founded, the company's use of the domain creating the possibility of "confusion as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of its web site", as Salton alleged.
However, WIPO, although admitting that the domain name is identical to the mark in which Salton has rights, agreed that George Foreman Foods did have rights in the disputed domain name. The complaint was denied.
by Laura Ciocan
Salton, Inc., the producer of George Foreman Grill filed a complaint against George Foreman Foods Inc. regarding the use of the domain name . The complaint was denied.
Beyond the fame gained as a heavyweight boxer, becoming world champion in 1973 and 1994, George Foreman has become a renown brand for quite a wide range of quality products. In fact, the name has become so famous as a product brand that many of the younger generation have come to know the famous character through the products sold under this brand. Foreman himself admits that he gained more fame and wealth as a product endorser than he thought possible.
The brand sells from electrical products, to clothes, cleaning products, low-fat, grill-compatible products. However, the most notable of this series is the George Foreman Grill produced by US marketers Salton Inc. The company owns trademarks and trademark registrations for the mark GEORGE FOREMAN in the United States and elsewhere for products used for preparing, cooking, serving foods and beverages since 1995.
In 2002, George Foreman concluded an agreement with an entrepreneur to launch a line of meat products and other foods. The company became George Foreman Foods Inc. and was going to cause a whole series of problems. At present, Foreman is fighting to unwind the contract on the grounds that the company introduced products he didn't approve, such as coffee and old frozen meat products, thus putting Foreman's image at a risk of being spread too thin.
On the other hand, Salton Inc., filed a complaint against George Foreman Foods Inc. with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) Arbitration and Mediation Center on September 24, 2004, on the grounds that the food's company use of the web domain www.georgeforeman.com breached Salton's registered trade marks in the name.
While looking at the matter from a holistic point of view, the complaint seems rather well-founded, the company's use of the domain creating the possibility of "confusion as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of its web site", as Salton alleged.
However, WIPO, although admitting that the domain name is identical to the mark in which Salton has rights, agreed that George Foreman Foods did have rights in the disputed domain name. The complaint was denied.
hari 224
Beating an Addiction
The 4 stages of addiction come in to play mainly when you try to change an eating habit or anything that is self medicated. Food is the most common addiction for majority of us – Bread, drinks, Desserts, alcohol Alcohol. Other addictions are fast fatty foods, this is a high addiction. People usually consume generous helpings of steak, burgers, and chips(fries), large salads, which ar healthy but not with great big mountains of dressing. Chunks of cheese also tend to appear as a part of a daily food consumption.
Calories are units of energy, after your dinner you want to be full of energy no feeling tired.
Eating more than you need you start to feel like you are in a different state similar to a slight drugged state, so when you are eating your not really thinking about anything else, which is why it is said when your unhappy you comfort eat.
Stage One – Resistance to change
A certain program comes says, At breakfast each morning try not to have a drink, except water take a beverage every other day, have a soup as a meal instead of something heavier, and weigh your self every day.
This may be scary stuff. You are probabily thinking that you are just fine this old way and that the new way wont be the same. You are apprehensive about doing something new and something different that isnt as easy as the normal way you do things, but you know the way thing are now are producing negative results.
It is the narrow minded view that the outcome of what you attemping will end badly, even though you dont know or havent even experienced the possible outcome yet. It is the addiction to the old ways that have contorded your way of thinking to give up and make you feel justified for doing so.
Stage Two – Begrudging attempts
You decide to join a weight loss program and have obtained information on dieting, however grudgingly, you will try it out. You think - I dont want to do this, I will just pick 1 or 2 days a week were I wont have coffee and a bun on my break, I don’t want to weigh myself twice a day. I really dont want to document everything I eat. I wnat to have my fry or danish in the morning not cereal. I don’t want breakfast in the morning, but I will because I want to weigh XX pounds.
Stage Three – Surprise, I enjoyed it
I actually tried a bowl of hot cereal in the morning and found it to be most enjoyable. For lunch I took a walk down to the deli and had the most delicous soup, that I was quite surprised to have enjoyed so much. For the evening time I had a cup of hot water instead of my usual coffee and thought it strangely satisfying
Stage Four – The new way becomes the comfortable and preferred way
It is very important to differentiate between the foods that were familiar and the foods that you really love, just try not to overload yourself on food to numb the senses. Striving to get the food and consuming it has become an intrigal part of the self medication that you put yourself through. The mere thought of not getting your food fix induces a feeling of anxiety and you become slightly annoyed. You just eat what ever it is to feel comfortable hense the "comfort eating" term. Consider it this way - not drinking coffee and getting a sore head then drinking coffee to relieve the discomfort caused by not getting it, it’s like horse chasing a corrot on a stick.
Having the knowledge of the 4 stages of addiction with help you to be pro active in getting rid of any resistance to making that move described in stages 2 and 3 and all the way to knowing the new way is the comfortable, preferred way.
The 4 stages of addiction come in to play mainly when you try to change an eating habit or anything that is self medicated. Food is the most common addiction for majority of us – Bread, drinks, Desserts, alcohol Alcohol. Other addictions are fast fatty foods, this is a high addiction. People usually consume generous helpings of steak, burgers, and chips(fries), large salads, which ar healthy but not with great big mountains of dressing. Chunks of cheese also tend to appear as a part of a daily food consumption.
Calories are units of energy, after your dinner you want to be full of energy no feeling tired.
Eating more than you need you start to feel like you are in a different state similar to a slight drugged state, so when you are eating your not really thinking about anything else, which is why it is said when your unhappy you comfort eat.
Stage One – Resistance to change
A certain program comes says, At breakfast each morning try not to have a drink, except water take a beverage every other day, have a soup as a meal instead of something heavier, and weigh your self every day.
This may be scary stuff. You are probabily thinking that you are just fine this old way and that the new way wont be the same. You are apprehensive about doing something new and something different that isnt as easy as the normal way you do things, but you know the way thing are now are producing negative results.
It is the narrow minded view that the outcome of what you attemping will end badly, even though you dont know or havent even experienced the possible outcome yet. It is the addiction to the old ways that have contorded your way of thinking to give up and make you feel justified for doing so.
Stage Two – Begrudging attempts
You decide to join a weight loss program and have obtained information on dieting, however grudgingly, you will try it out. You think - I dont want to do this, I will just pick 1 or 2 days a week were I wont have coffee and a bun on my break, I don’t want to weigh myself twice a day. I really dont want to document everything I eat. I wnat to have my fry or danish in the morning not cereal. I don’t want breakfast in the morning, but I will because I want to weigh XX pounds.
Stage Three – Surprise, I enjoyed it
I actually tried a bowl of hot cereal in the morning and found it to be most enjoyable. For lunch I took a walk down to the deli and had the most delicous soup, that I was quite surprised to have enjoyed so much. For the evening time I had a cup of hot water instead of my usual coffee and thought it strangely satisfying
Stage Four – The new way becomes the comfortable and preferred way
It is very important to differentiate between the foods that were familiar and the foods that you really love, just try not to overload yourself on food to numb the senses. Striving to get the food and consuming it has become an intrigal part of the self medication that you put yourself through. The mere thought of not getting your food fix induces a feeling of anxiety and you become slightly annoyed. You just eat what ever it is to feel comfortable hense the "comfort eating" term. Consider it this way - not drinking coffee and getting a sore head then drinking coffee to relieve the discomfort caused by not getting it, it’s like horse chasing a corrot on a stick.
Having the knowledge of the 4 stages of addiction with help you to be pro active in getting rid of any resistance to making that move described in stages 2 and 3 and all the way to knowing the new way is the comfortable, preferred way.
hari 223
Glorious Melons!
by Ed Williams
Know what one of my favorite summer pastimes is?
Eatin’ watermelon.
That’s right, just eatin’ some cold, juicy watermelon.
People these days don’t really know how to eat one. It‘s been made way too civilized. Back when I was growing up, we enjoyed melons every day, and I learned how to really eat and enjoy one.
Back in those days, Ed Jr. would grow a large garden behind our house. We lived on a big hill, and he grew the melons on some flat land down at its bottom. He always grew melons, corn, squash, butterbeans, and a few other things. It seems like we mostly pulled melons in either June or July of each year.
When those months rolled around, Ernest or I had the daily job of going down the hill and determining which melon to pull. That meant deciding which melon was ripest. We learned that you had to thump a melon to determine if it was ripe or not. Typically, you’d thump it somewhere in the middle - if it made a sharp “thunk,” it wasn’t ready to be pulled. If you thumped it and it made a hollow sound, it was ready to be chugged up the hill.
That’s the part Ernest and I hated. We hated it so much that we played a hand of poker each morning to determine which one of us had to do it. After the hand, the loser went down the hill and did his duty. When he returned he took the melon inside and put it in our refrigerator. We kept a space cleared out for one, and we’d take the cold one out and put the new one in. Then, we’d rush the chilled melon outside to the master of watermelon surgery, Ed Jr.
We called him that because Ed Jr. could split a melon into four chunks faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’d take the melon, put it on a big wooden table in our backyard, eyeball it, and then pop the knife to it. He’d first slice the melon in half, and then quickly turn those halves into fourths. And the thing was, it seldom took him more than twenty seconds to accomplish all that.
Once surgery was completed, we each grabbed a chunk and laid into it. We never used knives or forks, we just leaned over and bit right into the red meat. God, it was good. Good, tasty, and cold. The first bite always made my teeth hurt, but Ed Jr. said that was the price you had to pay “for one of the good Lord’s finest gifts, almost up there with women or football.” Whatever the price, I loved those melons, and it got to the point that I could eat one without getting one drop of juice on my face. And if you’ve ever “bare teethed” a melon, you know that’s not a very easy thing to do.
We enjoyed melons for years, until one day Ed Jr. noticed that some deer were gettin’ into our garden and cleaning out our crops. He promptly put in an electric fence, and it worked for awhile, but soon we started getting cleaned out again. The end to our melons came one day when Ernest and I walked down the hill to harvest yet another one. While gabbing with Ed Jr., Ernest leaned over and touched the electric fence. Nothing happened. Ed Jr. stared and then cussed the fence, claiming that it was broke and that he’d found the problem regarding the deer. To further emphasize his point, he walked over and touched the fence himself. You could hear the pop when he did - it shocked him so badly that he nearly came out of his shoes (we found out later on that Ernest was wearing Hush Puppies, and we think the rubber soles protected him). After cooling off, Ed Jr. declared that the whole situation was a sign, and that the days of our garden were ended. Ernest and I were both disappointed, but that’s how it all ended up.
To this day, when I go to one of these fancy dinners and walk by a dish of sliced up melon, I still have this overpowering urge to thrust my face right into the bowl and gobble it all down. And you know what? I’ll bet money that I’d come up out of that bowl without one single drop of juice on my face...
by Ed Williams
Know what one of my favorite summer pastimes is?
Eatin’ watermelon.
That’s right, just eatin’ some cold, juicy watermelon.
People these days don’t really know how to eat one. It‘s been made way too civilized. Back when I was growing up, we enjoyed melons every day, and I learned how to really eat and enjoy one.
Back in those days, Ed Jr. would grow a large garden behind our house. We lived on a big hill, and he grew the melons on some flat land down at its bottom. He always grew melons, corn, squash, butterbeans, and a few other things. It seems like we mostly pulled melons in either June or July of each year.
When those months rolled around, Ernest or I had the daily job of going down the hill and determining which melon to pull. That meant deciding which melon was ripest. We learned that you had to thump a melon to determine if it was ripe or not. Typically, you’d thump it somewhere in the middle - if it made a sharp “thunk,” it wasn’t ready to be pulled. If you thumped it and it made a hollow sound, it was ready to be chugged up the hill.
That’s the part Ernest and I hated. We hated it so much that we played a hand of poker each morning to determine which one of us had to do it. After the hand, the loser went down the hill and did his duty. When he returned he took the melon inside and put it in our refrigerator. We kept a space cleared out for one, and we’d take the cold one out and put the new one in. Then, we’d rush the chilled melon outside to the master of watermelon surgery, Ed Jr.
We called him that because Ed Jr. could split a melon into four chunks faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’d take the melon, put it on a big wooden table in our backyard, eyeball it, and then pop the knife to it. He’d first slice the melon in half, and then quickly turn those halves into fourths. And the thing was, it seldom took him more than twenty seconds to accomplish all that.
Once surgery was completed, we each grabbed a chunk and laid into it. We never used knives or forks, we just leaned over and bit right into the red meat. God, it was good. Good, tasty, and cold. The first bite always made my teeth hurt, but Ed Jr. said that was the price you had to pay “for one of the good Lord’s finest gifts, almost up there with women or football.” Whatever the price, I loved those melons, and it got to the point that I could eat one without getting one drop of juice on my face. And if you’ve ever “bare teethed” a melon, you know that’s not a very easy thing to do.
We enjoyed melons for years, until one day Ed Jr. noticed that some deer were gettin’ into our garden and cleaning out our crops. He promptly put in an electric fence, and it worked for awhile, but soon we started getting cleaned out again. The end to our melons came one day when Ernest and I walked down the hill to harvest yet another one. While gabbing with Ed Jr., Ernest leaned over and touched the electric fence. Nothing happened. Ed Jr. stared and then cussed the fence, claiming that it was broke and that he’d found the problem regarding the deer. To further emphasize his point, he walked over and touched the fence himself. You could hear the pop when he did - it shocked him so badly that he nearly came out of his shoes (we found out later on that Ernest was wearing Hush Puppies, and we think the rubber soles protected him). After cooling off, Ed Jr. declared that the whole situation was a sign, and that the days of our garden were ended. Ernest and I were both disappointed, but that’s how it all ended up.
To this day, when I go to one of these fancy dinners and walk by a dish of sliced up melon, I still have this overpowering urge to thrust my face right into the bowl and gobble it all down. And you know what? I’ll bet money that I’d come up out of that bowl without one single drop of juice on my face...
hari 222
Bar stools, why its right to make the good choice
by Mario O'Reilly
Pub stools-Take note of the height of your bar counter
Although the above statement may seem like common sense I have, on many occasions, been in bars and pubs where the bar stool was the wrong size for the bar or table at which I sat.
Many proprieters spend a lot of time and energy on the look and feel of the bar's environment but fail to look seriously at how comfortable the customers will be when seated.
For instance if you have a bar counter that is 46" then the most appropriate stool would be 34". A quick rule-of-thumb is to have a 9-13" gap between the seat and the counter. This will give a very comfortable experience to the customer and have the average person in an ideal position at the bar.
For a traditional pub or tavern with a 46" bar counter I would recommend a high-back wood style 34" stool with a foot rest. This would provide maximum comfort with that added authentic look and feel.
Cafe stools
For a cafe it is always best to have metal stools or chairs as opposed to plastic. Plastic has a cheap look and feel to it whereas metal lends to both modern and traditional eating environments.
They come in many different styles and designs and can produce a real european flavour to any dining area.
In addition metal stools or chairs can be used both inside and in an outside seated area. I have been in expensive coffee houses where the exterior eating area has mirrored the inside and this allows you to enjoy the feel of the inside environment while enjoying the sun.
Cocktail stools
For those of you interested in the more up-market approach, a stainless steel or aluminium stool, with a circular ringed footrest, is a must for all cocktail bar lovers. These bar stools blend into almost any surroundings. With a young clientele, as the main customer base, this envirnoment can be fast paced and the seating arrangements can change over the space of a night.
In such situations, when bartenders often need to alter the pub arrangements in order to facilitate customer requirements, it is essential to have both a light-weight and durable stool.
The aluminium bar stool is ideal for such a task, as is lightweight stainless steel. These stools are not only remarkably light and therefore easy to maneuver, in compact environments, but they are also exceptionally durable, easy to clean and can be found at very reasonable prices.
Lounge
Lounges are traditionally used for recreational socialising with friends and establishments tend to create a relaxed atmosphere which allows easy conversation. With this in mind the seating arrangements should reflect this and it is therefore crucial to think of the comfort of the customer.
Upholstered stools and chairs are essential for creating the correct ambiance and level of comfort to meet the customer requirements. Even if the environment reflects a more traditional feel, as do some Irish bars, wooden stools with padded seats in no way detract from the feel of the surroundings.
Small stools
As well as the standard 36" bar stool, which is the average height for an average bar counter, all bars from local taverns to up-market cocktail lounges have additional seating areas. Obviously, the standard size of bar stool would be inappropriate for such a bar table or lounge area.
Therefore proprieters should always have a stock of smaller stools for the lounge and seated area in the public bar. Usually, in most cases, only a 20" stool would be required to meet the comfortable table height. A good rule-rule-thumb for a table stool would be to give aproximately 6" between the seat and table surface.
Kitchen stools
Whether its a modern breakfast bar you have or a traditional pine table, kitchen stools can be ideal for your seating requirements. Traditional chairs or bar stools like those pictured below can give that warm feeling that you had whenever you where in your mama's kitchen. Alternatively a metal, chrome or aluminium look can add sleek and sophistication to any modern kitchen.
As with the pub stools the height of the counter should be considered prior to purchasing any stools or chairs. The standard breakfast bar is usually 36" which would suggest that you use a 30" stool.
When considering a breakfast bar the rule-of-thumb is to have a 6-10" gap between the counter and the seat to derive maximum comfort. However, if you have traditional seating arrangements around a table leave a 6" gap.
by Mario O'Reilly
Pub stools-Take note of the height of your bar counter
Although the above statement may seem like common sense I have, on many occasions, been in bars and pubs where the bar stool was the wrong size for the bar or table at which I sat.
Many proprieters spend a lot of time and energy on the look and feel of the bar's environment but fail to look seriously at how comfortable the customers will be when seated.
For instance if you have a bar counter that is 46" then the most appropriate stool would be 34". A quick rule-of-thumb is to have a 9-13" gap between the seat and the counter. This will give a very comfortable experience to the customer and have the average person in an ideal position at the bar.
For a traditional pub or tavern with a 46" bar counter I would recommend a high-back wood style 34" stool with a foot rest. This would provide maximum comfort with that added authentic look and feel.
Cafe stools
For a cafe it is always best to have metal stools or chairs as opposed to plastic. Plastic has a cheap look and feel to it whereas metal lends to both modern and traditional eating environments.
They come in many different styles and designs and can produce a real european flavour to any dining area.
In addition metal stools or chairs can be used both inside and in an outside seated area. I have been in expensive coffee houses where the exterior eating area has mirrored the inside and this allows you to enjoy the feel of the inside environment while enjoying the sun.
Cocktail stools
For those of you interested in the more up-market approach, a stainless steel or aluminium stool, with a circular ringed footrest, is a must for all cocktail bar lovers. These bar stools blend into almost any surroundings. With a young clientele, as the main customer base, this envirnoment can be fast paced and the seating arrangements can change over the space of a night.
In such situations, when bartenders often need to alter the pub arrangements in order to facilitate customer requirements, it is essential to have both a light-weight and durable stool.
The aluminium bar stool is ideal for such a task, as is lightweight stainless steel. These stools are not only remarkably light and therefore easy to maneuver, in compact environments, but they are also exceptionally durable, easy to clean and can be found at very reasonable prices.
Lounge
Lounges are traditionally used for recreational socialising with friends and establishments tend to create a relaxed atmosphere which allows easy conversation. With this in mind the seating arrangements should reflect this and it is therefore crucial to think of the comfort of the customer.
Upholstered stools and chairs are essential for creating the correct ambiance and level of comfort to meet the customer requirements. Even if the environment reflects a more traditional feel, as do some Irish bars, wooden stools with padded seats in no way detract from the feel of the surroundings.
Small stools
As well as the standard 36" bar stool, which is the average height for an average bar counter, all bars from local taverns to up-market cocktail lounges have additional seating areas. Obviously, the standard size of bar stool would be inappropriate for such a bar table or lounge area.
Therefore proprieters should always have a stock of smaller stools for the lounge and seated area in the public bar. Usually, in most cases, only a 20" stool would be required to meet the comfortable table height. A good rule-rule-thumb for a table stool would be to give aproximately 6" between the seat and table surface.
Kitchen stools
Whether its a modern breakfast bar you have or a traditional pine table, kitchen stools can be ideal for your seating requirements. Traditional chairs or bar stools like those pictured below can give that warm feeling that you had whenever you where in your mama's kitchen. Alternatively a metal, chrome or aluminium look can add sleek and sophistication to any modern kitchen.
As with the pub stools the height of the counter should be considered prior to purchasing any stools or chairs. The standard breakfast bar is usually 36" which would suggest that you use a 30" stool.
When considering a breakfast bar the rule-of-thumb is to have a 6-10" gap between the counter and the seat to derive maximum comfort. However, if you have traditional seating arrangements around a table leave a 6" gap.
hari 221
Are All Energy Drinks the same?
by Veronica Vamosi
Last week, I had a doctor's appointment. I dropped by a coffee shop on my way. While I drank my coffee, the line grew to 20 good-looking Canadians appearing to be stressed out. It made me think about the way we cope with our energy crisis. So I looked for other "fixes." The internet revealed 12 energy drinks with caffeine derived from decaffeination. All of them contain Guarana. I tried three drinks that I will not identify because I want to focus on their contents.
Brand A contains Guarana and Juniperberry. Guarana is a small tree native to Venezuela and Brazil whose seed is a central nervous system stimulant that produces heat within the body. It increases memory retention while reducing stress. Juniperberry helps clear the mind. This brand has 100% Vitamin C and 130 calories. I sensed a gradual rise in my energy level that was calming. Guarana is not to be mixed with ephedrine. Juniperberry is not to be taken by people with kidney disease and may cause skin irritation.
Brand B contains Guarana, Taurine and Ginseng. Taurine is a non-essential amino acid in the body that helps people deal with anxiety. Ginseng is a root native to Asia and North America which promotes relaxation. Although it made me uptight(since nervousness is a side effect), I slept well. Ginseng is not recommended for women with breast cancer or people who have chronic gastrointestinal diseases. Taurine is manufactured within the body and can also be found in meat and fish. Taurine is not be mixed with high intake of alcohol because the body may not be able to use it fully.
Brand C contains Guarana, Taurine and Gingko Biloba. The gingko tree is the sole survivor of the oldest species of the world's living trees and increases circulation to the brain. I had unusual stamina within two hours of taking it. Although I was able to focus better on my work, it was hard to get to sleep. Brand C should not be used by people taking blood lowering medications or aspiring daily. All three brands are not recommended for children, preganant women or nursing mothers, those who are caffeine sensitive or drink alcohol. Beer drinkers should check: http://en.wikepedia.org/wiki/Guarana to find out which two beers contain Guarana.
On this cheerful note, I realize that the brand that works best for another person may not necessarily work as well for me. The reason is that the benefits and cautions that go with each one are not the same. My body is the one that I need to listen to and it has sent me a clear message. No matter how dynamic the packaging is, the way a product makes you feel counts more! The smell of a yellow rose is as fragrant as a red one.
by Veronica Vamosi
Last week, I had a doctor's appointment. I dropped by a coffee shop on my way. While I drank my coffee, the line grew to 20 good-looking Canadians appearing to be stressed out. It made me think about the way we cope with our energy crisis. So I looked for other "fixes." The internet revealed 12 energy drinks with caffeine derived from decaffeination. All of them contain Guarana. I tried three drinks that I will not identify because I want to focus on their contents.
Brand A contains Guarana and Juniperberry. Guarana is a small tree native to Venezuela and Brazil whose seed is a central nervous system stimulant that produces heat within the body. It increases memory retention while reducing stress. Juniperberry helps clear the mind. This brand has 100% Vitamin C and 130 calories. I sensed a gradual rise in my energy level that was calming. Guarana is not to be mixed with ephedrine. Juniperberry is not to be taken by people with kidney disease and may cause skin irritation.
Brand B contains Guarana, Taurine and Ginseng. Taurine is a non-essential amino acid in the body that helps people deal with anxiety. Ginseng is a root native to Asia and North America which promotes relaxation. Although it made me uptight(since nervousness is a side effect), I slept well. Ginseng is not recommended for women with breast cancer or people who have chronic gastrointestinal diseases. Taurine is manufactured within the body and can also be found in meat and fish. Taurine is not be mixed with high intake of alcohol because the body may not be able to use it fully.
Brand C contains Guarana, Taurine and Gingko Biloba. The gingko tree is the sole survivor of the oldest species of the world's living trees and increases circulation to the brain. I had unusual stamina within two hours of taking it. Although I was able to focus better on my work, it was hard to get to sleep. Brand C should not be used by people taking blood lowering medications or aspiring daily. All three brands are not recommended for children, preganant women or nursing mothers, those who are caffeine sensitive or drink alcohol. Beer drinkers should check: http://en.wikepedia.org/wiki/Guarana to find out which two beers contain Guarana.
On this cheerful note, I realize that the brand that works best for another person may not necessarily work as well for me. The reason is that the benefits and cautions that go with each one are not the same. My body is the one that I need to listen to and it has sent me a clear message. No matter how dynamic the packaging is, the way a product makes you feel counts more! The smell of a yellow rose is as fragrant as a red one.
hari 220
Chocolate Is Good For You
by Janette Blackwell
Great news on the chocolate front! Chocolate is good for you. Under certain circumstances.
Katherine Tallmadge, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, says, in the February 9, 2005, WASHINGTON POST, that “cacao, or cocoa beans, contain ‘flavanols,’ naturally occurring plant compounds also found in tea, red wine, and apples. Their properties have been studied as heart disease inhibitors.”
Carl L. Keen, chair of the department of nutrition at University of California, Davis, states in the same article that “the flavanols in cocoa help maintain a healthy vascular system. They reduce blood clotting -- an aspirin like effect -- reduce oxidative damage and improve blood flow.”
Unfortunately the flavanols in chocolate are bitter and are mostly removed from processed chocolate. The level decreases with each step, from the bean to the cocoa powder, and ultimately to a finished product. But big manufacturers like Nestle and Mars Inc.(producers of M&Ms) are working on chocolate items that are -- what else? -- good for you. We can soon expect chocolate bars and candies that advertise their high level of flavanols. In the meantime, the only product that states its flavanol level is Mars’ Dove Dark Chocolate, which has 150 mg. in 1.3 oz., a high level. It also has 200 calories. We live in an imperfect world.
While we’re waiting for more high-flavanol products, Ms. Tallmadge recommends unsweetened cocoa powder, but not the alkalized “Dutch processed” kind, which has had its flavanols reduced. Next in desirability is semisweet or bittersweet chocolate with a high cocoa percentage. Some chocolates contain as much as 70 percent cocoa, but they can have as little as 35 percent. The percent of cocoa in milk chocolate can be even lower, and she does not recommend it. She says, “I recommend cocoa or an ounce per day of dark chocolate, which may be about 110 to 150 calories, depending on the chocolate. Any more than that and you’re probably going to take in too many calories for weight control.”
Do you have any idea of what you just read? A highly qualified nutrition professional is RECOMMENDING that you eat chocolate! Maybe not large quantities of chocolate, but chocolate. If you have suffered much in the area of chocolate, you may want to enlarge that statement and post it on your bathroom mirror, where it can cheer you on rainy mornings.
Now comes the chocolate frosting on the cake. Deanna K. reports: “The Diabetic Educator told me about CARBOLITE, a 1.1 oz. low carb chocolate bar made with Splenda, containing 0 sugar carbs, 15-18g carbohydrates, depending on flavor. On Google type in ‘Carbolite’for more information.”
Deanna continues, “The other chocolate bar that I think is acceptable is Amber Lyn Chocolates (fine imported Belgian chocolate), sugar free and carb conscious. A little higher in calories than Carbolite, the 1.2 oz bar has 15-16g carbs. For nutrition information visit www.amberlynchocolates.com.” The dark chocolate bars have 157 calories.
Flavanols are not listed, but these dark chocolates are a good bet for that HEALTHFUL piece of chocolate it is your DUTY to eat regularly. And soon, no doubt, manufacturers will begin to formulate their candies to be high in flavanols -- and say so.
-----------
Find Janette Blackwell’s storytelling country cookbook, STEAMIN’ DOWN THE TRACKS WITH VIOLA HOCKENBERRY, at www.foodandfiction.com. Or visit her at www.delightfulfood.com.
by Janette Blackwell
Great news on the chocolate front! Chocolate is good for you. Under certain circumstances.
Katherine Tallmadge, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, says, in the February 9, 2005, WASHINGTON POST, that “cacao, or cocoa beans, contain ‘flavanols,’ naturally occurring plant compounds also found in tea, red wine, and apples. Their properties have been studied as heart disease inhibitors.”
Carl L. Keen, chair of the department of nutrition at University of California, Davis, states in the same article that “the flavanols in cocoa help maintain a healthy vascular system. They reduce blood clotting -- an aspirin like effect -- reduce oxidative damage and improve blood flow.”
Unfortunately the flavanols in chocolate are bitter and are mostly removed from processed chocolate. The level decreases with each step, from the bean to the cocoa powder, and ultimately to a finished product. But big manufacturers like Nestle and Mars Inc.(producers of M&Ms) are working on chocolate items that are -- what else? -- good for you. We can soon expect chocolate bars and candies that advertise their high level of flavanols. In the meantime, the only product that states its flavanol level is Mars’ Dove Dark Chocolate, which has 150 mg. in 1.3 oz., a high level. It also has 200 calories. We live in an imperfect world.
While we’re waiting for more high-flavanol products, Ms. Tallmadge recommends unsweetened cocoa powder, but not the alkalized “Dutch processed” kind, which has had its flavanols reduced. Next in desirability is semisweet or bittersweet chocolate with a high cocoa percentage. Some chocolates contain as much as 70 percent cocoa, but they can have as little as 35 percent. The percent of cocoa in milk chocolate can be even lower, and she does not recommend it. She says, “I recommend cocoa or an ounce per day of dark chocolate, which may be about 110 to 150 calories, depending on the chocolate. Any more than that and you’re probably going to take in too many calories for weight control.”
Do you have any idea of what you just read? A highly qualified nutrition professional is RECOMMENDING that you eat chocolate! Maybe not large quantities of chocolate, but chocolate. If you have suffered much in the area of chocolate, you may want to enlarge that statement and post it on your bathroom mirror, where it can cheer you on rainy mornings.
Now comes the chocolate frosting on the cake. Deanna K. reports: “The Diabetic Educator told me about CARBOLITE, a 1.1 oz. low carb chocolate bar made with Splenda, containing 0 sugar carbs, 15-18g carbohydrates, depending on flavor. On Google type in ‘Carbolite’for more information.”
Deanna continues, “The other chocolate bar that I think is acceptable is Amber Lyn Chocolates (fine imported Belgian chocolate), sugar free and carb conscious. A little higher in calories than Carbolite, the 1.2 oz bar has 15-16g carbs. For nutrition information visit www.amberlynchocolates.com.” The dark chocolate bars have 157 calories.
Flavanols are not listed, but these dark chocolates are a good bet for that HEALTHFUL piece of chocolate it is your DUTY to eat regularly. And soon, no doubt, manufacturers will begin to formulate their candies to be high in flavanols -- and say so.
-----------
Find Janette Blackwell’s storytelling country cookbook, STEAMIN’ DOWN THE TRACKS WITH VIOLA HOCKENBERRY, at www.foodandfiction.com. Or visit her at www.delightfulfood.com.
hari 219
Tea - Not Only Perks You Up, But Benefits Your Health Too
by Sharon Hopkins
A sip in the morning, while reading your newspaper just makes your day complete. Most people's understanding about tea is that, it is a source of refreshment and nothing more. Many do not have a clue about its benefits and how useful it has been in making our life a healthier one.
For many who are not aware about the importance of tea, can get to know it a little better. Tea has been around for more than 5,000 years and hopefully would be around for another 5,000 years. There are four basic types of tea black, green, oolong and the most uncommon and rare breed is the white.
All teas come from the same plant called as "Camellia sinensis" a shrub which happens to grow up to 60 feet if found in wild. The processing pattern is different for each tea which makes the difference.
You can also have iced tea which is equally beneficial like any other hot cup of tea. Tea carries anti-cancer properties of polyphenols which helps to fight cancer. There is very less risk of heart disease as it prevents blood from clotting and helps to reduce cholesterol levels.
With the charm of refreshment and adding sparkle to your life, it also helps in shielding you from some of the most deadly diseases mankind has ever known. After a thorough research it has been said that drinking 2 cups of tea everyday can reduce your risk of developing ovarian cancer by 50%.
It has been very useful to maximize your body defenses to fight diseases like cancer and heart disease. Black tea protects you against cancers. It also helps in reducing your bad cholesterol.
Having tea in comparison to coffee is better because coffee contains more caffeine which is not good for our health. One who adds milk to their tea helps in developing strong bones as milk has calcium which is good for the bones.
Tea contains fluoride and tannins which drive the plaque away. It helps in keeping your dental records white and shiny, of course including your usual dental regime which would involve brushing and flossing.
Even though there has been research that caffeinated fluids dehydrates your body which includes tea. But it has now been seen that caffeine doesn’t dehydrate you entirely, unless you happen to drink five to six cups at one time. So having little tea can help you remain hydrated.
Having ginger tea may help you get relief from sore throat. Having herbal tea can be very good to get rid of the early cold attack. Teas like enchinacea, peppermint and chamomile would do wonders against the cold if you combine all these together to make a brewing hot cup of tea. If taken 2 to 4 times a day, it may just do the trick.
by Sharon Hopkins
A sip in the morning, while reading your newspaper just makes your day complete. Most people's understanding about tea is that, it is a source of refreshment and nothing more. Many do not have a clue about its benefits and how useful it has been in making our life a healthier one.
For many who are not aware about the importance of tea, can get to know it a little better. Tea has been around for more than 5,000 years and hopefully would be around for another 5,000 years. There are four basic types of tea black, green, oolong and the most uncommon and rare breed is the white.
All teas come from the same plant called as "Camellia sinensis" a shrub which happens to grow up to 60 feet if found in wild. The processing pattern is different for each tea which makes the difference.
You can also have iced tea which is equally beneficial like any other hot cup of tea. Tea carries anti-cancer properties of polyphenols which helps to fight cancer. There is very less risk of heart disease as it prevents blood from clotting and helps to reduce cholesterol levels.
With the charm of refreshment and adding sparkle to your life, it also helps in shielding you from some of the most deadly diseases mankind has ever known. After a thorough research it has been said that drinking 2 cups of tea everyday can reduce your risk of developing ovarian cancer by 50%.
It has been very useful to maximize your body defenses to fight diseases like cancer and heart disease. Black tea protects you against cancers. It also helps in reducing your bad cholesterol.
Having tea in comparison to coffee is better because coffee contains more caffeine which is not good for our health. One who adds milk to their tea helps in developing strong bones as milk has calcium which is good for the bones.
Tea contains fluoride and tannins which drive the plaque away. It helps in keeping your dental records white and shiny, of course including your usual dental regime which would involve brushing and flossing.
Even though there has been research that caffeinated fluids dehydrates your body which includes tea. But it has now been seen that caffeine doesn’t dehydrate you entirely, unless you happen to drink five to six cups at one time. So having little tea can help you remain hydrated.
Having ginger tea may help you get relief from sore throat. Having herbal tea can be very good to get rid of the early cold attack. Teas like enchinacea, peppermint and chamomile would do wonders against the cold if you combine all these together to make a brewing hot cup of tea. If taken 2 to 4 times a day, it may just do the trick.
hari 218
Liquor
Liquor - The name is obviously American, written twenty-five years after the English settled on the island in 1651. It is quoted in The Academy, "The chief tipple they make in the island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Divil, and this is made from distilled sugar canes, in which the end product ends up a hot, hellish, and terrible liquor."
This is the earliest-known allusion to the liquor rum; the word is held by some antiquaries in what seems rather a strained explanation to be the gypsy rum, meaning potent, or mighty. The word rum was at a very early date adopted and used as English university slang.
The oldest American reference to the word rum (meaning the liquor) was in May, 1657, prohibiting the sale of strong liquors "whether knowne by the name of rumme, strong water, brandy, etc., etc." In some localities in America rum was called in early days Barbadoes-liquor, occasionally also Barbadoes-brandy.
The Indians called it ocuby, or as it was spelled in the Norridgewock, tongue, ah-coobee. Many of the early white settlers called it by the same name. Kill-devil was its most universal name, not only a slang name, but a trading-term used in bills of sale.
Liquor - The name is obviously American, written twenty-five years after the English settled on the island in 1651. It is quoted in The Academy, "The chief tipple they make in the island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Divil, and this is made from distilled sugar canes, in which the end product ends up a hot, hellish, and terrible liquor."
This is the earliest-known allusion to the liquor rum; the word is held by some antiquaries in what seems rather a strained explanation to be the gypsy rum, meaning potent, or mighty. The word rum was at a very early date adopted and used as English university slang.
The oldest American reference to the word rum (meaning the liquor) was in May, 1657, prohibiting the sale of strong liquors "whether knowne by the name of rumme, strong water, brandy, etc., etc." In some localities in America rum was called in early days Barbadoes-liquor, occasionally also Barbadoes-brandy.
The Indians called it ocuby, or as it was spelled in the Norridgewock, tongue, ah-coobee. Many of the early white settlers called it by the same name. Kill-devil was its most universal name, not only a slang name, but a trading-term used in bills of sale.
hari 217
Necessary Equipment and Supplies
I am often asked for a list of the minimum equipment required to make wine. The list below contains what I think is necessary. If you are not sure what an item is or is used for, look for it in my Glossary of winemaking Terms.
Primary: 6- or 7-gallon white plastic paint bucket is the best all-purpose primary;
Secondary: 1-gal apple juice jugs, 3-gallon carboys and 5-gallon carboys are best sizes (demijohns in the British Commonwealth);
Bung: rubber corks with hole drilled for the airlock to fit in; buy when you buy a secondary so you know the fit is correct;
Airlock: "S"-type is best (also called "bubbler");
Hydrometer: with both specific gravity and potential alcohol scales;
Hydrometer Jar: a tall chimney jar (holds about 350 ml of liquid) in which the hydrometer is floated;
Siphon Hose: about 6 feet of 1/2 inch clear plastic tubing;
Acid Blend: crystaline, 4 to 6 oz;
Pectic Enzyme: dry, powdered, 2 to 4 oz;
Grape Tannin: dry, powdered, 2 oz;
Campden Tablets: for 1-gallon batches, bag of 25;
Potassium Metabisulfite: crystaline, for cleaning equipment and sulfiting 5-gallon batches (in place of Campden), 4 oz;
Potassium Sorbate: for stabilizing wines (see Finishing Your wine);
Yeast Nutrient: crystaline, 4 to 6 oz;
wine Yeast: see Yeast Strains for guidance; do not use bread or baking yeast;
Nylon Straining Bag: also called a grain bag;
Corks: size #9 fits most wine bottles; buy quality corks;
Corker: buy a cheap hand corker to start with;
Bottles: you will need five 750-ml bottles per US gallon of wine, six per Imperial gallon.
Advanced Equipment
The following list contains equipment you will want if you become a more serious winemaker. None of it is required, but all of it is nice to have if you develop a need for it.
Gram Scale: digital ones are expensive, but worth the money for making small, precise adjustments ;
Acid Test Kit: replace the standards (solutions) as required and it will serve you well;
pH Meter: accurate, reliable, and worth the investment;
SO2 Test Kit: essential for making serious white wines and reds intended for aging;
Grape or Fruit Press: consider this "essential" if you make wine from fresh grapes;
Crusher: If you do a lot of grapes, you'll need this; deluxe models come with a destemmer;
Floor Corker: for 5-gallon batches, you really do need one of these;
I am often asked for a list of the minimum equipment required to make wine. The list below contains what I think is necessary. If you are not sure what an item is or is used for, look for it in my Glossary of winemaking Terms.
Primary: 6- or 7-gallon white plastic paint bucket is the best all-purpose primary;
Secondary: 1-gal apple juice jugs, 3-gallon carboys and 5-gallon carboys are best sizes (demijohns in the British Commonwealth);
Bung: rubber corks with hole drilled for the airlock to fit in; buy when you buy a secondary so you know the fit is correct;
Airlock: "S"-type is best (also called "bubbler");
Hydrometer: with both specific gravity and potential alcohol scales;
Hydrometer Jar: a tall chimney jar (holds about 350 ml of liquid) in which the hydrometer is floated;
Siphon Hose: about 6 feet of 1/2 inch clear plastic tubing;
Acid Blend: crystaline, 4 to 6 oz;
Pectic Enzyme: dry, powdered, 2 to 4 oz;
Grape Tannin: dry, powdered, 2 oz;
Campden Tablets: for 1-gallon batches, bag of 25;
Potassium Metabisulfite: crystaline, for cleaning equipment and sulfiting 5-gallon batches (in place of Campden), 4 oz;
Potassium Sorbate: for stabilizing wines (see Finishing Your wine);
Yeast Nutrient: crystaline, 4 to 6 oz;
wine Yeast: see Yeast Strains for guidance; do not use bread or baking yeast;
Nylon Straining Bag: also called a grain bag;
Corks: size #9 fits most wine bottles; buy quality corks;
Corker: buy a cheap hand corker to start with;
Bottles: you will need five 750-ml bottles per US gallon of wine, six per Imperial gallon.
Advanced Equipment
The following list contains equipment you will want if you become a more serious winemaker. None of it is required, but all of it is nice to have if you develop a need for it.
Gram Scale: digital ones are expensive, but worth the money for making small, precise adjustments ;
Acid Test Kit: replace the standards (solutions) as required and it will serve you well;
pH Meter: accurate, reliable, and worth the investment;
SO2 Test Kit: essential for making serious white wines and reds intended for aging;
Grape or Fruit Press: consider this "essential" if you make wine from fresh grapes;
Crusher: If you do a lot of grapes, you'll need this; deluxe models come with a destemmer;
Floor Corker: for 5-gallon batches, you really do need one of these;
hari 216
Most of the recipes say to stabilize, sweeten to taste, wait 2-4 weeks, and then bottle the wine. This is very much a normal thing to do, so if a recipe doesn't specifically say this, do it anyway. Of course, you can NOT sweeten if you'd like. I rarely sweeten my wines, but I still add that step in the written recipe when I post it. "Stabilize" means to add potassium sorbate and potassium metbisulfite (or a crushed Campden tablet) at the same time, stir until dissolved, and then allow the wine to "rest" for 2-4 weeks to see if it referments. It shouldn't, but if it does you can wait for it to finish -- and it will finish because the two potassium salts render the yeast incapable of further reproduction. The potassium sorbate is not listed as a separate ingredient because some folks don't stabilize their wines and therefore don't need it, but if you "stabilize" a wine you'll need 1/2 teaspoon of the sorbate plus a crushed Campden tablet per gallon of wine.
Use the recipes as guides and measure and adjust any variables you can. If you do this, your wines will generally be better and you'll quickly learn the ins and out of winemaking more thoroughly than if you just followed the recipes.
However, if a recipe says to start fermentation in a primary, do it. Yeast need oxygen to reproduce rapidly, and for the first two or three days rapid reproduction should be all you want your yeast to do. If you start fermentation under an airlock, you are denying the yeast what they need and may or may not have problems. If you do this and have problems, I don't want to hear about it. If you won't follow my instructions and your wine doesn't like it, then take your problems to someone who recommends starting your fermentation under an airlock -- or whatever else you are doing differently.
How Much wine Do recipes Make?
I am asked this question all the time, although it really baffles me sometimes. I mean, some recipes say to use a specific herb or flower, add sugar and other dry ingredients, and then add from 7-1/2 pints to a gallon of water. Since the herbs contain no juice or other liquid, it shouldn't be difficult to conclude that the recipe makes about a gallon of wine. I say about because sugar has a volume, some liquid is lost as sugar is converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide (a gas), and different yeast's lees compact differently -- meaning that you lose more wine with some lees than others when you rack. However, if you top up as instructed, you should always end up with a gallon.
So, as to the question of how much wine do the recipes make, unless they specifically cite another volume, all the recipes on my site are for one U.S. gallon batches. There are several reasons for this:
I am constantly experimenting with new wines or improving old ones, with approximately 22-30 batches going at all times. One-gallon jugs take far less room than larger carboys.
One-gallon batches are more economical to gamble with, especially when some of the ingredients have to be shipped refrigerated and are therefore quite expensive to me. No one pays me to do this, so if I decide to try cloudberry wine and have to import cloudberries from Finland, I have to suffer the cost. Devising a recipe is therefore a gamble (it might not work) and I try to keep the amount gambled at a minimum.
It is less painful to dump out a 1-gallon batch that didn't work out than a 5- or 6-gallon one, and I have dumped out a few.
When they do work out, most wines have to be aged for 6 months to a year, and 5 bottles take less room to store during aging than 25 or 30.
For people who want to make larger batches, all they have to do is multiply the ingredients (except yeast) by the number of gallons desired. This is far easier than trying to adjust a 5-gallon recipe to 3 gallons, for example.
So, if you wanted to make a 6-gallon batch of a particular wine, just multiply the ingredients by 6, except use two packets of yeast instead of one (each sachet of yeast is usually enough to start a batch of 1 to 5 gallons in volume).
Topping Up
As for topping up, you have to decide on your own strategy. Some recipes initially make a little more than a gallon (and I mean an American gallon, or 3.7854 liters). I often say to crush the fruit, add the sugar and other ingredients, and then add one gallon of water. Obviously, when the sugar is dissolved and the juice is pressed or squeezed from the fruit, you'll have more than a U.S. gallon. When you transfer from primary to secondary, it would be nice if you had a jug that would take all of the liquid without overflowing and with exactly an inch of ullage (airspace between the top of the wine and the bottom of the bung) -- a 4-liter, 4.5-liter (British gallon), or 5-liter jug, for example, might work perfectly. Then, when you rack later and lose some of the volume, you can rack into a smaller jug -- for example, from a 4.5-liter jug into a 4-liter one, or from a 4-liter jug into a U.S. gallon jug. But, if you don't have a variety of jugs such as described here, then just fill a gallon jug and put the excess into a smaller wine bottle of an appropriate size (750-ml, 375-ml, 250-ml, 187-ml, or 125-ml). A #2 or #3 bung will fit these various wine bottle sizes to accept an airlock. You then use this excess wine to top up the gallon jug after racking.
Larger batches require different strategies. For a 6-gallon batch, for example, I would divide the 6 gallons into a 5-gallon carboy and a 1-gallon jug, ferment them side-by-side, and use the 1-gallon batch to top up the 5-gallon carboy. After using some of the 1-gallon batch, I would rack the remainder of it into a 3-liter jug. After topping up during the second racking, I would rack the remaining smaller batch into a 2-liter or half-gallon jug, etc. I have a variety of jugs and bottles that I use for "down-sizing" after using some wine for topping up a larger batch. These include 3-liter, 2.5-liter, 2-liter, 1.90-liter (1/2 U.S. gallon), 1.5-liter, 1-liter, 750-ml, etc.
You can also top up with a finished wine of the same kind or very similar to what you are making. However, if you don't have a wine anywhere close to what you are making (nothing is quite like pumpkin wine, for example), any similarly colored wine will do.
You can also top up with distilled (or boiled and cooled) water. Many of the recipes use a bit more sugar than necessary just so when you top up with water the alcohol still ends up at around 12% even after being diluted with the water. If you top up with wine the final alcohol content would differ.
Finally, many people simply use glass marbles or glass decorative pebbles to displace the volume of wine lost to racking. I myself have about 3 quarts of glass marbles I use for this purpose with some of my batches.
Use the recipes as guides and measure and adjust any variables you can. If you do this, your wines will generally be better and you'll quickly learn the ins and out of winemaking more thoroughly than if you just followed the recipes.
However, if a recipe says to start fermentation in a primary, do it. Yeast need oxygen to reproduce rapidly, and for the first two or three days rapid reproduction should be all you want your yeast to do. If you start fermentation under an airlock, you are denying the yeast what they need and may or may not have problems. If you do this and have problems, I don't want to hear about it. If you won't follow my instructions and your wine doesn't like it, then take your problems to someone who recommends starting your fermentation under an airlock -- or whatever else you are doing differently.
How Much wine Do recipes Make?
I am asked this question all the time, although it really baffles me sometimes. I mean, some recipes say to use a specific herb or flower, add sugar and other dry ingredients, and then add from 7-1/2 pints to a gallon of water. Since the herbs contain no juice or other liquid, it shouldn't be difficult to conclude that the recipe makes about a gallon of wine. I say about because sugar has a volume, some liquid is lost as sugar is converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide (a gas), and different yeast's lees compact differently -- meaning that you lose more wine with some lees than others when you rack. However, if you top up as instructed, you should always end up with a gallon.
So, as to the question of how much wine do the recipes make, unless they specifically cite another volume, all the recipes on my site are for one U.S. gallon batches. There are several reasons for this:
I am constantly experimenting with new wines or improving old ones, with approximately 22-30 batches going at all times. One-gallon jugs take far less room than larger carboys.
One-gallon batches are more economical to gamble with, especially when some of the ingredients have to be shipped refrigerated and are therefore quite expensive to me. No one pays me to do this, so if I decide to try cloudberry wine and have to import cloudberries from Finland, I have to suffer the cost. Devising a recipe is therefore a gamble (it might not work) and I try to keep the amount gambled at a minimum.
It is less painful to dump out a 1-gallon batch that didn't work out than a 5- or 6-gallon one, and I have dumped out a few.
When they do work out, most wines have to be aged for 6 months to a year, and 5 bottles take less room to store during aging than 25 or 30.
For people who want to make larger batches, all they have to do is multiply the ingredients (except yeast) by the number of gallons desired. This is far easier than trying to adjust a 5-gallon recipe to 3 gallons, for example.
So, if you wanted to make a 6-gallon batch of a particular wine, just multiply the ingredients by 6, except use two packets of yeast instead of one (each sachet of yeast is usually enough to start a batch of 1 to 5 gallons in volume).
Topping Up
As for topping up, you have to decide on your own strategy. Some recipes initially make a little more than a gallon (and I mean an American gallon, or 3.7854 liters). I often say to crush the fruit, add the sugar and other ingredients, and then add one gallon of water. Obviously, when the sugar is dissolved and the juice is pressed or squeezed from the fruit, you'll have more than a U.S. gallon. When you transfer from primary to secondary, it would be nice if you had a jug that would take all of the liquid without overflowing and with exactly an inch of ullage (airspace between the top of the wine and the bottom of the bung) -- a 4-liter, 4.5-liter (British gallon), or 5-liter jug, for example, might work perfectly. Then, when you rack later and lose some of the volume, you can rack into a smaller jug -- for example, from a 4.5-liter jug into a 4-liter one, or from a 4-liter jug into a U.S. gallon jug. But, if you don't have a variety of jugs such as described here, then just fill a gallon jug and put the excess into a smaller wine bottle of an appropriate size (750-ml, 375-ml, 250-ml, 187-ml, or 125-ml). A #2 or #3 bung will fit these various wine bottle sizes to accept an airlock. You then use this excess wine to top up the gallon jug after racking.
Larger batches require different strategies. For a 6-gallon batch, for example, I would divide the 6 gallons into a 5-gallon carboy and a 1-gallon jug, ferment them side-by-side, and use the 1-gallon batch to top up the 5-gallon carboy. After using some of the 1-gallon batch, I would rack the remainder of it into a 3-liter jug. After topping up during the second racking, I would rack the remaining smaller batch into a 2-liter or half-gallon jug, etc. I have a variety of jugs and bottles that I use for "down-sizing" after using some wine for topping up a larger batch. These include 3-liter, 2.5-liter, 2-liter, 1.90-liter (1/2 U.S. gallon), 1.5-liter, 1-liter, 750-ml, etc.
You can also top up with a finished wine of the same kind or very similar to what you are making. However, if you don't have a wine anywhere close to what you are making (nothing is quite like pumpkin wine, for example), any similarly colored wine will do.
You can also top up with distilled (or boiled and cooled) water. Many of the recipes use a bit more sugar than necessary just so when you top up with water the alcohol still ends up at around 12% even after being diluted with the water. If you top up with wine the final alcohol content would differ.
Finally, many people simply use glass marbles or glass decorative pebbles to displace the volume of wine lost to racking. I myself have about 3 quarts of glass marbles I use for this purpose with some of my batches.
hari 215
How to Use recipes
winemaking recipes are, at best, guides. In truth, I cannot know the precise chemistry of the grapes, blackberries, elderberries, apples, or peaches you might use to make your wine. But, having made wine from these bases before, I can tell you how I did it. In some cases the recipes originated elsewhere and in such cases I say so. In all cases the recipes worked and if you follow them precisely you will make decent to good wines. If you make adjustments as needed, you should be able to make very good to exceptional wines.
When I say I cannot know the precise chemistry of the base ingredients you might use, I mean this sincerely. Take strawberries, for example. Strawberry wine can be quite exquisite, but it can also be a huge disappointment. Commercial strawberries at your supermarket are picked 5 to 10 days before they ripen so they can be processed, stored, shipped, distributed, and displayed without rotting before you buy them. They typically are 5-7% natural sugars. Frozen strawberries were picked closer to or at ripeness and were frozen because they would not survive the trip to the supermarket any other way. They typically are 10-13% natural sugars. But if you go to a "U-pick-it" farm and pick fully ripe strawberries, they might be as high as 15-18% natural sugars.
If the recipe calls for "fully ripe fresh strawberries" and you buy yours at the supermarket produce department, yours will contain half the natural sugar that was intended in the recipe. Yours will also contain only a fraction of the flavor the recipe assumes will be present and the wine will suffer accordingly. And even if your strawberries are picked fresh from your own garden, their sugar, acid, pectin, and flavor components could still differ greatly from the strawberries I used because of different soils, average tempterature, rainfall, humidity, and variety of cultivar used. In other words, the chances are good to excellent that your strawberries and my strawberries will certainly be different. How then can the recipes be of any real value?
If you think of recipes as guides and you measure the variables you can, you will naturally find yourself adjusting ingredients to fit your circumstances. Bland fruit will compell you to add more fruit than the recipe calls for, but even this may not be enough if the flavor is really poor. This seems to be the case more often than not with peaches bought at the supermarket. You can usually add a pint of Peach Nectare per gallon of wine to a vigorously fermenting must and improve the flavor immensely. Frozen peach slices also possess greater flavor than most supermarket peaches. So, if the fruit lacks flavor, spike the must with more flavorful base. This may mean changing the character of the wine with, say, nectarines or kiwi fruit or fresh pineapple chunks.
If the must, when being transfered to a secondary, tastes insipid (weak, lifeless, flat), add more acid and/or tannin, as needed. Do this incrementally so as not to add too much -- 1/5 teaspoon per gallon of acid blend and 1/8 teaspoon per gallon of tannin. Add them, stir well, then wait an hour and taste again. Repeat additions if needed. If you have an acid test kit, measure the TA and adjust accordingly. See Acidity in wines for help with acidity.
Many, many of the recipes on this website result in over-sweet or dry, high alcohol wines. There are several reasons for this. First, when the recipes are from another winemaker, I try to be true to their formulation and report the ingredients and amounts of each as published. Many winemakers, especially British winemakers, like to use 3 pounds of sugar per gallon of wine. This is way too much sugar for a 12% alcohol-by-volumn wine. It is better to reduce the sugar to 2 pounds and sweeten the wine later if it needs it. Better yet, let the must sit overnight before the yeast is pitched, then press out a cup or so of juice and measure the sugar with a hydrometer. Not sure how? See Using Your Hydrometer.
Many of the recipes call for using one or more crushed Campden tablets while others do not. Some recipes call for the use of potassium metabisulfite instead. So why is this? Indeed, all recipes should use potassium metabisulfite, but some authors list it and others don't -- even I often leave it out of my recipes because it is just something you should know you should add without being told. It kills almost all wild bacteria and fungus that ride in with the raw ingredients of wine, inhibits the early viability of wild yeast so that your cultured wine yeast can get a head start, and deters the oxidation of wines for a considerable period. But this compound is so strong that only 1/4 teaspoon is sufficient for treating 5 gallons of wine. Campden tablets contain both an inert binding material and an appropriate amount of potassium metabisulfite for treating one gallon of wine. Use crushed Campden tablets, dissolved in a little water, juice or must, for one gallon batches. Use potassium metabisulfite for 5-gallon batches and larger. If you can divide 1/4 teaspoon of the pure compound into 5 equal parts, then by all means use the potassium metabisulfite for 1-gallon batches instead of crushed Campden tablets.
Add the Campden or potassium metabisulfite (pot meta for short) when the fruit is crushed, unless you are going to use boiling water to extract the flavors, color and juices of the base. The boiling water will kill off the bacteria, fungus and wild yeast, but when you rack the wine you should add the appropriate dose of crushed Campden or pot meta. Some of the sulfur in the dose will bind with other components of the wine but some will exist as unbound sulfur in the form of a dissolved gas called sulfur dioxide, or SO2. This gas is the sanitizing and antioxidizing agent. As time progresses, the gas is slowly released into the atmoshere or breaks down and the sulfut in it binds with new components of wine created as the wine develops and ages. Thus, the dose of SO2 must be regenerated periodically. If you add the Campden or pot meta to the must at the beginning, add another dose at the 2nd, 4th, and 6th rackings and just before bottling (it must be added at the same time as potassium sorbate when stabilizing a wine, as the potassium sorbate will not effect the yeast without pot meta being present at the same time). If you add Campden or pot meta at the time of the 1st racking, add it again at the 3rd and 5th rackings and before bottling (when stabilizing the wine). This should be done whether the recipe mentions it or not.
winemaking recipes are, at best, guides. In truth, I cannot know the precise chemistry of the grapes, blackberries, elderberries, apples, or peaches you might use to make your wine. But, having made wine from these bases before, I can tell you how I did it. In some cases the recipes originated elsewhere and in such cases I say so. In all cases the recipes worked and if you follow them precisely you will make decent to good wines. If you make adjustments as needed, you should be able to make very good to exceptional wines.
When I say I cannot know the precise chemistry of the base ingredients you might use, I mean this sincerely. Take strawberries, for example. Strawberry wine can be quite exquisite, but it can also be a huge disappointment. Commercial strawberries at your supermarket are picked 5 to 10 days before they ripen so they can be processed, stored, shipped, distributed, and displayed without rotting before you buy them. They typically are 5-7% natural sugars. Frozen strawberries were picked closer to or at ripeness and were frozen because they would not survive the trip to the supermarket any other way. They typically are 10-13% natural sugars. But if you go to a "U-pick-it" farm and pick fully ripe strawberries, they might be as high as 15-18% natural sugars.
If the recipe calls for "fully ripe fresh strawberries" and you buy yours at the supermarket produce department, yours will contain half the natural sugar that was intended in the recipe. Yours will also contain only a fraction of the flavor the recipe assumes will be present and the wine will suffer accordingly. And even if your strawberries are picked fresh from your own garden, their sugar, acid, pectin, and flavor components could still differ greatly from the strawberries I used because of different soils, average tempterature, rainfall, humidity, and variety of cultivar used. In other words, the chances are good to excellent that your strawberries and my strawberries will certainly be different. How then can the recipes be of any real value?
If you think of recipes as guides and you measure the variables you can, you will naturally find yourself adjusting ingredients to fit your circumstances. Bland fruit will compell you to add more fruit than the recipe calls for, but even this may not be enough if the flavor is really poor. This seems to be the case more often than not with peaches bought at the supermarket. You can usually add a pint of Peach Nectare per gallon of wine to a vigorously fermenting must and improve the flavor immensely. Frozen peach slices also possess greater flavor than most supermarket peaches. So, if the fruit lacks flavor, spike the must with more flavorful base. This may mean changing the character of the wine with, say, nectarines or kiwi fruit or fresh pineapple chunks.
If the must, when being transfered to a secondary, tastes insipid (weak, lifeless, flat), add more acid and/or tannin, as needed. Do this incrementally so as not to add too much -- 1/5 teaspoon per gallon of acid blend and 1/8 teaspoon per gallon of tannin. Add them, stir well, then wait an hour and taste again. Repeat additions if needed. If you have an acid test kit, measure the TA and adjust accordingly. See Acidity in wines for help with acidity.
Many, many of the recipes on this website result in over-sweet or dry, high alcohol wines. There are several reasons for this. First, when the recipes are from another winemaker, I try to be true to their formulation and report the ingredients and amounts of each as published. Many winemakers, especially British winemakers, like to use 3 pounds of sugar per gallon of wine. This is way too much sugar for a 12% alcohol-by-volumn wine. It is better to reduce the sugar to 2 pounds and sweeten the wine later if it needs it. Better yet, let the must sit overnight before the yeast is pitched, then press out a cup or so of juice and measure the sugar with a hydrometer. Not sure how? See Using Your Hydrometer.
Many of the recipes call for using one or more crushed Campden tablets while others do not. Some recipes call for the use of potassium metabisulfite instead. So why is this? Indeed, all recipes should use potassium metabisulfite, but some authors list it and others don't -- even I often leave it out of my recipes because it is just something you should know you should add without being told. It kills almost all wild bacteria and fungus that ride in with the raw ingredients of wine, inhibits the early viability of wild yeast so that your cultured wine yeast can get a head start, and deters the oxidation of wines for a considerable period. But this compound is so strong that only 1/4 teaspoon is sufficient for treating 5 gallons of wine. Campden tablets contain both an inert binding material and an appropriate amount of potassium metabisulfite for treating one gallon of wine. Use crushed Campden tablets, dissolved in a little water, juice or must, for one gallon batches. Use potassium metabisulfite for 5-gallon batches and larger. If you can divide 1/4 teaspoon of the pure compound into 5 equal parts, then by all means use the potassium metabisulfite for 1-gallon batches instead of crushed Campden tablets.
Add the Campden or potassium metabisulfite (pot meta for short) when the fruit is crushed, unless you are going to use boiling water to extract the flavors, color and juices of the base. The boiling water will kill off the bacteria, fungus and wild yeast, but when you rack the wine you should add the appropriate dose of crushed Campden or pot meta. Some of the sulfur in the dose will bind with other components of the wine but some will exist as unbound sulfur in the form of a dissolved gas called sulfur dioxide, or SO2. This gas is the sanitizing and antioxidizing agent. As time progresses, the gas is slowly released into the atmoshere or breaks down and the sulfut in it binds with new components of wine created as the wine develops and ages. Thus, the dose of SO2 must be regenerated periodically. If you add the Campden or pot meta to the must at the beginning, add another dose at the 2nd, 4th, and 6th rackings and just before bottling (it must be added at the same time as potassium sorbate when stabilizing a wine, as the potassium sorbate will not effect the yeast without pot meta being present at the same time). If you add Campden or pot meta at the time of the 1st racking, add it again at the 3rd and 5th rackings and before bottling (when stabilizing the wine). This should be done whether the recipe mentions it or not.
hari 214
Winemaking: Get In The Habit Of Doing Things Right
by New York Micro Brew
Natural or Modern wine?
I get email all the time asking for instructions on how to make wine "the way they used to" or "the natural way, without chemicals." I always answer these the same way.
The history of winemaking has largely been one of following techniques that minimized spoilage. A lot of bad batches were made because no one knew how to prevent seemingly spurious spoilage and, to a lesser extent, control oxidation. About 250 years ago, it was discovered that certain sulfurous salts could be used to kill most of the troublesome bacteria and control oxidation that prematurely ruined most wines. From that moment on, winemaking changed.
If you want to make wine like the ancients did, ask someone else. I will not help you turn winemaking back into a game of chance. If, on the other hand, you want to make consistently decent wines from a variety of base materials, stay here and I will show you how.
Their are many ways to make wine. I could write a book teaching you many if not most of the methods, but you would finish the book without finding a single formula or recipe for doing so. Some of you would be thrilled, for you would truly know how to identify, quantify and adjust the many variables involved in making wine. You would be akin to chefs, able to envision, create and adjust as you go without need of recipes or further instruction. But many of you--I daresay most--would be disappointed at not finding simple recipes for making simple wines.
The truth is, most people don't really want to be chefs. They just want to be darned good cooks. It is largely for them that I have developed this website. But interwoven throughout is the knowledge which, if mastered, will allow them to go on to become chefs. Until they do, I have provided them with hundreds of recipes to guide them in making wines.
Balloon wine
I also get a lot of requests and questions about a method of making wine using a balloon. I also have a standard answer for this, too.
Many years ago, winemaking equipment was often difficult to come by in large sections of the country. People used a ballon fitted over the mouth of their secondary fermentation vessel in lieu of an airlock. The balloon would be pricked with a small hole from a needle and CO2 formed during fermentation would escape through the hole. When fermentation ended, the balloon collapsed and the hole sealed, preventing oxygen from entering the jug and ruining the wine prematurely. That, at least, is the theory.
In practice, the hole often expanded from the internal pressure and the oxygen still got in. But even when it didn't, there are still problems with this method. First, the wine can easily take on the taste and smell of rubber from the balloon. While this might not bother you, it might bother those you share your wine with (assuming you share it at all). The wine also tends to absorb more of the CO2 gas using this method, which is okay if you degasse the wine but terrible if you don't. It's a matter of taste, but one I will not contribute to. winemaking equipment is easy to find these days, especially with online ordering over the internet.
Therefore, the only advice I give about "balloon wine" is not to make it. Spend a dollar for a bung (rubber stopper with a hole drilled in it) and another dollar for an airlock and do it right. That's all I have to say about this method.
by New York Micro Brew
Natural or Modern wine?
I get email all the time asking for instructions on how to make wine "the way they used to" or "the natural way, without chemicals." I always answer these the same way.
The history of winemaking has largely been one of following techniques that minimized spoilage. A lot of bad batches were made because no one knew how to prevent seemingly spurious spoilage and, to a lesser extent, control oxidation. About 250 years ago, it was discovered that certain sulfurous salts could be used to kill most of the troublesome bacteria and control oxidation that prematurely ruined most wines. From that moment on, winemaking changed.
If you want to make wine like the ancients did, ask someone else. I will not help you turn winemaking back into a game of chance. If, on the other hand, you want to make consistently decent wines from a variety of base materials, stay here and I will show you how.
Their are many ways to make wine. I could write a book teaching you many if not most of the methods, but you would finish the book without finding a single formula or recipe for doing so. Some of you would be thrilled, for you would truly know how to identify, quantify and adjust the many variables involved in making wine. You would be akin to chefs, able to envision, create and adjust as you go without need of recipes or further instruction. But many of you--I daresay most--would be disappointed at not finding simple recipes for making simple wines.
The truth is, most people don't really want to be chefs. They just want to be darned good cooks. It is largely for them that I have developed this website. But interwoven throughout is the knowledge which, if mastered, will allow them to go on to become chefs. Until they do, I have provided them with hundreds of recipes to guide them in making wines.
Balloon wine
I also get a lot of requests and questions about a method of making wine using a balloon. I also have a standard answer for this, too.
Many years ago, winemaking equipment was often difficult to come by in large sections of the country. People used a ballon fitted over the mouth of their secondary fermentation vessel in lieu of an airlock. The balloon would be pricked with a small hole from a needle and CO2 formed during fermentation would escape through the hole. When fermentation ended, the balloon collapsed and the hole sealed, preventing oxygen from entering the jug and ruining the wine prematurely. That, at least, is the theory.
In practice, the hole often expanded from the internal pressure and the oxygen still got in. But even when it didn't, there are still problems with this method. First, the wine can easily take on the taste and smell of rubber from the balloon. While this might not bother you, it might bother those you share your wine with (assuming you share it at all). The wine also tends to absorb more of the CO2 gas using this method, which is okay if you degasse the wine but terrible if you don't. It's a matter of taste, but one I will not contribute to. winemaking equipment is easy to find these days, especially with online ordering over the internet.
Therefore, the only advice I give about "balloon wine" is not to make it. Spend a dollar for a bung (rubber stopper with a hole drilled in it) and another dollar for an airlock and do it right. That's all I have to say about this method.
hari 213
When to Use High Heat on Your Barbecue
Its a mystery how some people seem to have the knack for for barbecuing how they always seem to get everything exactly spot on and not like the rest of us who end up burning the sausages. Believe it or not, there is technique involved other than just using the force.
One of the main secrets to knowing how to cook a mouth watering meal on your barbecue is knowing when to use high and low heat.
When it comes to barbecuing you could have heard cooks refer to "sealing in the juices" and you may have even tried to attempt this technique yourself, but as with everything if you do not know what you are doing then you are doomed to fail. If you watch the way the best cooks do a barbecue they cook their veg and steaks on a high heat to sear the outside before slow cooking this is a very effective method of sealing in the juices
This method should be used for foods that are to be partly cooked through such as a medium rare steak. However if you are cooking food like ribs or burgers that have to be cooked right the way through it is advisable you use a low heat to prevent any sort food poisoning.
This is better explained when it is better understood how the process actually works, as the meat is heated, the cells and the fibers of the meat tense up, squeezing out much of the juices. So if you only want to lightly cook the meat then searing it will help to seal in the juices by quickly cooking the outside. But be careful not to cook on a high heat for to long, or the inner layers will cook too quickly, vaporizing all of your precious and tasty juices.
When you are using high heat, the rule of thumb is to cook on each side for a maximum of five minutes each side. After ten minutes, anything that you’re cooking should be moved aside to a medium heat so that it can finish cooking at that lower temperature.
Remember, when it comes to high heat, practice makes perfect, and the perfect is well worth the practice!
Its a mystery how some people seem to have the knack for for barbecuing how they always seem to get everything exactly spot on and not like the rest of us who end up burning the sausages. Believe it or not, there is technique involved other than just using the force.
One of the main secrets to knowing how to cook a mouth watering meal on your barbecue is knowing when to use high and low heat.
When it comes to barbecuing you could have heard cooks refer to "sealing in the juices" and you may have even tried to attempt this technique yourself, but as with everything if you do not know what you are doing then you are doomed to fail. If you watch the way the best cooks do a barbecue they cook their veg and steaks on a high heat to sear the outside before slow cooking this is a very effective method of sealing in the juices
This method should be used for foods that are to be partly cooked through such as a medium rare steak. However if you are cooking food like ribs or burgers that have to be cooked right the way through it is advisable you use a low heat to prevent any sort food poisoning.
This is better explained when it is better understood how the process actually works, as the meat is heated, the cells and the fibers of the meat tense up, squeezing out much of the juices. So if you only want to lightly cook the meat then searing it will help to seal in the juices by quickly cooking the outside. But be careful not to cook on a high heat for to long, or the inner layers will cook too quickly, vaporizing all of your precious and tasty juices.
When you are using high heat, the rule of thumb is to cook on each side for a maximum of five minutes each side. After ten minutes, anything that you’re cooking should be moved aside to a medium heat so that it can finish cooking at that lower temperature.
Remember, when it comes to high heat, practice makes perfect, and the perfect is well worth the practice!
hari 212
Boot Camp for Coffee Drinkers
by Kate Simpson
Ok, so we go to a local coffee house and we order cappuccinos, café mochas, lattes and espressos. It isn’t the paper cups that make these drinks taste so good. It’s the recipe and of course the prettiness factor. Baristas all have a style of their own and every cup will taste different because of the roast, the grind, the amount used, the water, the temperature and many other things. We have all tried to make these coffee delights at home the way we think they are made, but do we really know the real way they are supposed to be made to extract the enchanting flavors correctly? Here is a quick list of how to make the basic drinks. This is boot camp for coffee drinkers.
Cappuccino: Equal parts of steamed and frothed milk and espresso. The milk goes on top of the espresso. Dust with nutmeg, cinnamon or chocolate powder or shavings.
Café Mochas: The easiest way is to use a good brand of hot chocolate, throw in a shot of espresso and top with whipping cream and chocolate powder or shavings. It looks the best if you put it in a tall glass and use a long handled spoon. For a finishing touch add a saucer and a napkin. Or make a latte and toss in a chocolate flavored shot.
Lattes: Foam & steam milk to 140-degrees. The ratio is 50% espresso and 50% milk. Pour the milk down the side of the cup so it infuses with the espresso. The difference between this and a cappuccino is a latte blends the two things together, whereas the cappuccino keeps them separate.
Espressos: We’ve all had bad espresso. There are many reasons why this is. The number one reason is an unfavorable bean. If you like espresso you are likely a connoisseur of coffee and know what constitutes a good bean. Anyway, to make a good espresso you must do the following:
• Use a fine grind
• You must tamp the espresso down firmly
• You must use a high pressure machine or stove top model
• You must not try to make too much at once
• You must see the creama on the top, which is a golden-brown foam
• You must use an appropriate espresso cup to keep the temperature from dissipating too quickly
All in all, making coffee correctly is all up to you and the way your flavor buds react to the taste. If you like it a particular way, then make it that particular way. However, if you have guests over they may just like the basics. So do yourself a favor and learn the correct way to make lattes and espressos.
by Kate Simpson
Ok, so we go to a local coffee house and we order cappuccinos, café mochas, lattes and espressos. It isn’t the paper cups that make these drinks taste so good. It’s the recipe and of course the prettiness factor. Baristas all have a style of their own and every cup will taste different because of the roast, the grind, the amount used, the water, the temperature and many other things. We have all tried to make these coffee delights at home the way we think they are made, but do we really know the real way they are supposed to be made to extract the enchanting flavors correctly? Here is a quick list of how to make the basic drinks. This is boot camp for coffee drinkers.
Cappuccino: Equal parts of steamed and frothed milk and espresso. The milk goes on top of the espresso. Dust with nutmeg, cinnamon or chocolate powder or shavings.
Café Mochas: The easiest way is to use a good brand of hot chocolate, throw in a shot of espresso and top with whipping cream and chocolate powder or shavings. It looks the best if you put it in a tall glass and use a long handled spoon. For a finishing touch add a saucer and a napkin. Or make a latte and toss in a chocolate flavored shot.
Lattes: Foam & steam milk to 140-degrees. The ratio is 50% espresso and 50% milk. Pour the milk down the side of the cup so it infuses with the espresso. The difference between this and a cappuccino is a latte blends the two things together, whereas the cappuccino keeps them separate.
Espressos: We’ve all had bad espresso. There are many reasons why this is. The number one reason is an unfavorable bean. If you like espresso you are likely a connoisseur of coffee and know what constitutes a good bean. Anyway, to make a good espresso you must do the following:
• Use a fine grind
• You must tamp the espresso down firmly
• You must use a high pressure machine or stove top model
• You must not try to make too much at once
• You must see the creama on the top, which is a golden-brown foam
• You must use an appropriate espresso cup to keep the temperature from dissipating too quickly
All in all, making coffee correctly is all up to you and the way your flavor buds react to the taste. If you like it a particular way, then make it that particular way. However, if you have guests over they may just like the basics. So do yourself a favor and learn the correct way to make lattes and espressos.
hari 211
The History of Chocolate
by Peter Cullen
For a food that seems so familiar, most of us know surprisingly little about the real origins and history of chocolate. I counted myself in this group until very recently when I picked up a copy of a book titled ‘The True History of Chocolate”, by Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe. Published in 1996, it’s 268 pages of meticulously researched, fascinating facts and “speculation” about the origin and development of the food we call chocolate.
I wonder how many of us would even recognize a cacao pod if one happened to fall on our head? Of course, such an event is highly unlikely unless one happens to be in a very small number of places in certain regions of the world. The cacao tree simply refuses to grow outside of a very narrow range of latitudes and weather conditions. Another crucial factor in the successful cultivation of the tree is making sure that the right insects are around to pollinate the flowers, a fact that wasn’t known when some early attempts were made to transplant the trees.
As the authors mention, if you hold a cacao pod in one hand and a piece of chocolate in any form in the other, you would never suspect that the one was made from the other. In fact, for nine-tenths of its long history, chocolate was drunk, not eaten. Consumption of solid chocolate by the masses is a relatively recent development. So how did chocolate get from the forests of Central America, where it began as drink for the royal courts of the Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula, to your pantry in the form of a Hershey Bar? Seems like a long trip, doesn’t it? Furthermore, why is chocolate thought of a product of Switzerland? How did the Swiss manage to dominate the chocolate world? Can you think of two more different environments than the jungles of the Yucatan and the Swiss Alps?
The story is more fascinating than you can imagine and involves Columbus, the Conquistadors, the fall of the Aztec Empire, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, and last but not least, Milton Snavely Hershey.
When first introduced to Europe, chocolate was only for the nobles, who endlessly debated it nutritional and medicinal properties. In fact, because of the dominance of the Catholic Church, long debates were held as to whether or not chocolate was actually a food and whether, as such, eating it broke the fasting rules in place at the time.
The generally accepted first meeting between Europeans and the cacao bean took place in 1502 when Columbus anchored off the island of Guanaja, north of mainland Honduras. It was his fourth voyage, and he unfortunately died without ever tasting chocolate.
What followed was the Spanish conquest of Central America and the eventual return of cacao to Europe where it did not actually receive rave reviews. But the story is long one, and to get all the details, pick up a copy of the book. It’s a wonderful story, a great history lesson, and may leave you with the desire to sample not just Hershey Bars, but some of the other more “exotic” chocolate products that are available these days.
Note: You may freely publish the above article in any way you wish, as long as the author's name and links are left intact.
by Peter Cullen
For a food that seems so familiar, most of us know surprisingly little about the real origins and history of chocolate. I counted myself in this group until very recently when I picked up a copy of a book titled ‘The True History of Chocolate”, by Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe. Published in 1996, it’s 268 pages of meticulously researched, fascinating facts and “speculation” about the origin and development of the food we call chocolate.
I wonder how many of us would even recognize a cacao pod if one happened to fall on our head? Of course, such an event is highly unlikely unless one happens to be in a very small number of places in certain regions of the world. The cacao tree simply refuses to grow outside of a very narrow range of latitudes and weather conditions. Another crucial factor in the successful cultivation of the tree is making sure that the right insects are around to pollinate the flowers, a fact that wasn’t known when some early attempts were made to transplant the trees.
As the authors mention, if you hold a cacao pod in one hand and a piece of chocolate in any form in the other, you would never suspect that the one was made from the other. In fact, for nine-tenths of its long history, chocolate was drunk, not eaten. Consumption of solid chocolate by the masses is a relatively recent development. So how did chocolate get from the forests of Central America, where it began as drink for the royal courts of the Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula, to your pantry in the form of a Hershey Bar? Seems like a long trip, doesn’t it? Furthermore, why is chocolate thought of a product of Switzerland? How did the Swiss manage to dominate the chocolate world? Can you think of two more different environments than the jungles of the Yucatan and the Swiss Alps?
The story is more fascinating than you can imagine and involves Columbus, the Conquistadors, the fall of the Aztec Empire, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, and last but not least, Milton Snavely Hershey.
When first introduced to Europe, chocolate was only for the nobles, who endlessly debated it nutritional and medicinal properties. In fact, because of the dominance of the Catholic Church, long debates were held as to whether or not chocolate was actually a food and whether, as such, eating it broke the fasting rules in place at the time.
The generally accepted first meeting between Europeans and the cacao bean took place in 1502 when Columbus anchored off the island of Guanaja, north of mainland Honduras. It was his fourth voyage, and he unfortunately died without ever tasting chocolate.
What followed was the Spanish conquest of Central America and the eventual return of cacao to Europe where it did not actually receive rave reviews. But the story is long one, and to get all the details, pick up a copy of the book. It’s a wonderful story, a great history lesson, and may leave you with the desire to sample not just Hershey Bars, but some of the other more “exotic” chocolate products that are available these days.
Note: You may freely publish the above article in any way you wish, as long as the author's name and links are left intact.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
hari 210
Thoughts on Religion
Written by Laurie Baker
"I have always been fascinated by what is called religion". I was born into a family with regular and strict ideas about religion. As a growing child I was taught to say my prayers at certain times everyday. As a family we always went to church services. Both my father's parents and my mother's parents had been very active, in their religious life, from daily family prayers to church going, all of these exercises were at regular specific times of the day. The only excuse received for not compiling with these strict timetables was illness. One typical example was that we children were not allowed to play any games on Sundays. My eldest brother was a rebel, and in his late teens (he was ten years older than me), shocked our parents and friends and relations by going swimming or playing tennis, or even playing chess on Sundays] As I grew, I developed an admiration for him, for his courage to do what he thought was right or good and not to do things which he thought were bad, or stupid or meaningless. Naturally all these shocked my parents.
I liked and enjoyed going to church regularly, I liked the music and singing. I liked the readings from the Old Testament and the New Testament. If I ever questioned any of these I was told not to be naughty, or I wouldn't go to heaven. I liked some of these sermons on Sundays specially if the preacher of the day was a missionary, and he told of events and stories about work, among 'the natives' who were 'heathens' and who worshipped idols and false gods. It was from these noble men and women who left home, family and wealth that I first heard about caste systems and temple girls and worshiping idols and cremating bodies. Cremation only started in England, when I was a college student, and to my surprise and amazement, my father when he died at the age of 90 years had left instructions, that after his death he should be cremated!
Of course when I grew up and started to work and live in the different parts of the world, I could see for myself how people all over the world had their own brands of religion. Interestingly, though the outward trappings of religion varied very greatly from place to place, behind it all, there was obviously a hidden understanding that there is some power or force that guided people, both individually and collectively in the way of living and in their understanding of what is good and is bad. There is also a general idea, that there is some sort of future existence, after we leave this world. Some people believe that this super power called God can be directly communed with, while others believe contacts come through some special leader, a person who gets called a prophet or a saviour. Usually such a messenger becomes the center of a sect and his message and life story are passed down through generations and generations of followers and believers. So having been brought up in the Christian religion I tend to follow the teachings of my religious founder Jesus. I have no regrets about trying to live my life, according to Jesus teachings, but often, in China and in India, I have known people who have followed their founder of their particular religious branch from the written 'scriptures' of various religions, often the same truth or way is expressed by their founder, which tends to lead to the idea, that there is one God, the overall creator.
As a child and onwards, the mathematical side of a heaven and after life always puzzled me; most religions also have this idea of a heaven for good people and a hell for had or naughty people. When 1 began to be interested in statistics and population sizes, I was a hit worried about the problem of overcrowding of both heaven and hell! Of course, many people with the same questions in their minds devised the idea that in hell, you got cooked by eternal fire etc. Then of course, several religions have the idea of reincarnation. This time round on earth you may be a man or a woman, but according to your conduct, next time round you may be giraffe or a beetle. So throughout my eighty five years and at quite an early age, I was more and more convinced that Jesus' main teachings were good not only to believe in, but in trying to practice them, and they were the only way to find a meaning in life, and an acceptable way of living. As a child, the man next-door use to beat his wife and my parents used to go and pacify the couple. I could see that being hurt made people hitter and sad and miserable, or turned them into users of violence.
In my teens I came in contact with Quakers (members of the Society of Friends) and was much attracted to their interpretation of Christian religious beliefs and principles. I joined their society and benefited greatly in being able to accept many of Jesus' teachings. A year or so after I qualified as an architect, the second great world war started I was determined that violence was no way of settling international or any other disagreements. Knowing the damage and the hurt and suffering war creates; I immediately joined the Friends Ambulance Unit and had training in dealing with causalities in a big London hospital. Later, as the war spread round the world, I went with other Quakers to India and China to deal with civilian casualties, This in turn led me to take over an abandoned leprosy colony in China, not as war victims, but as human victims. The unfortunate people who had developed the dreaded disease of leprosy were complete outcastes from all normal society. Later, after the war, I returned to India as an architect to a society that ran over 90 leprosy homes all over India. I only mention this brief personal history, as an example that without making a fuss about developing a belief in Christian principles, and having thought things out, and seen for myself the evils and foolishness of wars, by following in my own way, whenever a way opened up. Well! On looking back now, I'd say, that this was what religion meant to one. I am glad I followed up my convictions as they came, as it were, to a cross road in the course of my life. I had to decide which road of three in front of me, I knew which one to choose and follow. To me, this is what religion has meant. I have no objection, whether for me or for others, in worshipping along with others, or belonging to a particular sect, or attending a particular branch of worshipping, or saying a set of prayers etc. but I think of religion more as a personal way of We and behavior, rather than performing certain rituals on certain days etc. Furthermore, in the quite wide range of countries, and parts of the world, I have lived in, I have seen as a born Christian, many people of other religions who have also seen as I do, the stupidity and foolishness and wickedness of hurting others, and the evils and hardships that communities based on wealth or education, hut which actually develop and cause poverty or pain or deprivation to others of the good things of the world etc. I can recall several occasions when I had found myself thinking about some Hindu or Muslim friends. He is better Christian than I am! In my 80 years, I have become increasingly convinced that violence in any form is bad. And is never a way of solving differences between people of different nationalities or religions, Infact I am inclined to conclude that to love other people, no matter what their race or religion, and to avoid all forms of violence is what religion is.
Written by Laurie Baker
"I have always been fascinated by what is called religion". I was born into a family with regular and strict ideas about religion. As a growing child I was taught to say my prayers at certain times everyday. As a family we always went to church services. Both my father's parents and my mother's parents had been very active, in their religious life, from daily family prayers to church going, all of these exercises were at regular specific times of the day. The only excuse received for not compiling with these strict timetables was illness. One typical example was that we children were not allowed to play any games on Sundays. My eldest brother was a rebel, and in his late teens (he was ten years older than me), shocked our parents and friends and relations by going swimming or playing tennis, or even playing chess on Sundays] As I grew, I developed an admiration for him, for his courage to do what he thought was right or good and not to do things which he thought were bad, or stupid or meaningless. Naturally all these shocked my parents.
I liked and enjoyed going to church regularly, I liked the music and singing. I liked the readings from the Old Testament and the New Testament. If I ever questioned any of these I was told not to be naughty, or I wouldn't go to heaven. I liked some of these sermons on Sundays specially if the preacher of the day was a missionary, and he told of events and stories about work, among 'the natives' who were 'heathens' and who worshipped idols and false gods. It was from these noble men and women who left home, family and wealth that I first heard about caste systems and temple girls and worshiping idols and cremating bodies. Cremation only started in England, when I was a college student, and to my surprise and amazement, my father when he died at the age of 90 years had left instructions, that after his death he should be cremated!
Of course when I grew up and started to work and live in the different parts of the world, I could see for myself how people all over the world had their own brands of religion. Interestingly, though the outward trappings of religion varied very greatly from place to place, behind it all, there was obviously a hidden understanding that there is some power or force that guided people, both individually and collectively in the way of living and in their understanding of what is good and is bad. There is also a general idea, that there is some sort of future existence, after we leave this world. Some people believe that this super power called God can be directly communed with, while others believe contacts come through some special leader, a person who gets called a prophet or a saviour. Usually such a messenger becomes the center of a sect and his message and life story are passed down through generations and generations of followers and believers. So having been brought up in the Christian religion I tend to follow the teachings of my religious founder Jesus. I have no regrets about trying to live my life, according to Jesus teachings, but often, in China and in India, I have known people who have followed their founder of their particular religious branch from the written 'scriptures' of various religions, often the same truth or way is expressed by their founder, which tends to lead to the idea, that there is one God, the overall creator.
As a child and onwards, the mathematical side of a heaven and after life always puzzled me; most religions also have this idea of a heaven for good people and a hell for had or naughty people. When 1 began to be interested in statistics and population sizes, I was a hit worried about the problem of overcrowding of both heaven and hell! Of course, many people with the same questions in their minds devised the idea that in hell, you got cooked by eternal fire etc. Then of course, several religions have the idea of reincarnation. This time round on earth you may be a man or a woman, but according to your conduct, next time round you may be giraffe or a beetle. So throughout my eighty five years and at quite an early age, I was more and more convinced that Jesus' main teachings were good not only to believe in, but in trying to practice them, and they were the only way to find a meaning in life, and an acceptable way of living. As a child, the man next-door use to beat his wife and my parents used to go and pacify the couple. I could see that being hurt made people hitter and sad and miserable, or turned them into users of violence.
In my teens I came in contact with Quakers (members of the Society of Friends) and was much attracted to their interpretation of Christian religious beliefs and principles. I joined their society and benefited greatly in being able to accept many of Jesus' teachings. A year or so after I qualified as an architect, the second great world war started I was determined that violence was no way of settling international or any other disagreements. Knowing the damage and the hurt and suffering war creates; I immediately joined the Friends Ambulance Unit and had training in dealing with causalities in a big London hospital. Later, as the war spread round the world, I went with other Quakers to India and China to deal with civilian casualties, This in turn led me to take over an abandoned leprosy colony in China, not as war victims, but as human victims. The unfortunate people who had developed the dreaded disease of leprosy were complete outcastes from all normal society. Later, after the war, I returned to India as an architect to a society that ran over 90 leprosy homes all over India. I only mention this brief personal history, as an example that without making a fuss about developing a belief in Christian principles, and having thought things out, and seen for myself the evils and foolishness of wars, by following in my own way, whenever a way opened up. Well! On looking back now, I'd say, that this was what religion meant to one. I am glad I followed up my convictions as they came, as it were, to a cross road in the course of my life. I had to decide which road of three in front of me, I knew which one to choose and follow. To me, this is what religion has meant. I have no objection, whether for me or for others, in worshipping along with others, or belonging to a particular sect, or attending a particular branch of worshipping, or saying a set of prayers etc. but I think of religion more as a personal way of We and behavior, rather than performing certain rituals on certain days etc. Furthermore, in the quite wide range of countries, and parts of the world, I have lived in, I have seen as a born Christian, many people of other religions who have also seen as I do, the stupidity and foolishness and wickedness of hurting others, and the evils and hardships that communities based on wealth or education, hut which actually develop and cause poverty or pain or deprivation to others of the good things of the world etc. I can recall several occasions when I had found myself thinking about some Hindu or Muslim friends. He is better Christian than I am! In my 80 years, I have become increasingly convinced that violence in any form is bad. And is never a way of solving differences between people of different nationalities or religions, Infact I am inclined to conclude that to love other people, no matter what their race or religion, and to avoid all forms of violence is what religion is.
hari 209
Settling Down Finally: Trivandrum
In 1969, the Bakers family comprising of two daughters Vidya and Heidi and a son Tilak moved to Trivandrum where they have since settled and live with their families. Baker's work in just in Trivandrum includes over 1000 residences and over 40 churches, chapels and other buildings
Read the rest in Baker's own words:
I had little time for the usual sharing of my wife's hospital work as became more and more involved in building activities. Many people and institutions showed great interest in reducing costs of building. It all started when the Kerala Bishops' conference had tried to find a way of working together for the good of the common poor man. They had. with great fanfare, agreed that each parish in the state should try and put up at least one inexpensive, small house and give it to the poorest family in that parish, regardless of caste or creed. But after three years only two or three houses had been built. The Archbishop Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum called for a 'post-mortem' seminar to find out the reason for this failure. The explanation given by all was simple enough—there was no longer any such thing as an 'inexpensive building'! I offered to demonstrate, rather than to talk about ways of building inexpensive houses and spent the following two weeks putting up a small house of about forty square metres and costing, by request, less than Rs 3,000 (about US $400). The participants of the conference came to see the result of this demonstration and to our amazement declared the house to be 'too good' for 'the poor'. So the Archbishop asked for a second house to be put up for half the cost.
From this beginning there followed many small houses, schools, clinics, hospitals and churches and then the government moved in to examine what was going on. The Chief Minister of the state became a convert and I built the State Institute of Languages, at his request, for a small sum of money which the Works and Housing Department had declared was impossible. But my work for government and semi-government institutions continued, notably with a fairly large and prestigious complex known as the Centre for Development Studies, staffed and run by world-known economists of repute. The Chief Minister launched the scheme by challenging them to demonstrate and prove their economic theories by the way in which they built and ran their institution.
At this time, my greatest problems came from the vested interests of most categories of people concerned with the building industry. Most of them were paid on a percentage basis of the total or partial cost of a building. Clearly they did not wish to reduce costs! The craftsmen also were similarly paid and they too did not want any changes. It became increasingly tiresome when people who asked me to design a building for them for a certain sum of money, would return to say that the builders said it could not be done even for double the figure I had given. There was only one thing to do and that was to get together a band of masons and carpenters who would do what was asked of them and who would learn new techniques and un-learn old, wasteful ones. It was rewarding for my clients, for me and for the workmen. For example, some of them became excellent brick-workers who got enormous satisfaction from producing beautiful brickwork. Much of what has come to be described as Baker Architecture I owe to these craftsmen. Because of them it became easy for me to construct almost any type of building, and these ranged from the smallest houses to a large cathedral seating three thousand people. I was particularly pleased that three housing groups were taking advantage of these ideas. A whole fishing villages for example, was built after many of its old huts had been washed away by the sea in a gale. Several institutions also built houses for their Poor at comparatively very little cost. Then the so-called 'upper strata' of society came forward with interest which proved to be genuine, when quite a lot of them asked me to build their houses for them using these simple, cost-reducing techniques.
Low-cost housing techniques were the most rewarding for the group of people who came under the label of the 'lower middle class'. They feel they have certain standards of living to keep up, matters relating to dress and to the education and marriage of their children, but their salaries leave them very little to save for house-building—an activity which they had always considered well beyond their reach. Now they could build. They were quick to understand the principles involved in cost-reduction. They were quick to understand the real priorities of building a home. They had and expressed their faith in the 'expert', and would sometimes actually help where they felt they could.
Again the government showed further interest and called for a report on the methods of cost-reduction. There was strong opposition to the idea of requesting a private individual with 'funny' ideas to present an official report to the government. Three outside government experts joined me and the report was presented, and, accepted, after the Chief Minister had organized a seminar in which all the suggestions and recommendations in the report were thrashed out and either agreed upon as possible and feasible, or, if impossible, rejected. Finally everything in the report was accepted, but over the years very little of it has been implemented.
Industrialists are often hard realists and the principles of cost-reduction have been taken up by some of them in different parts of the country. It seems a far cry from small low-cost houses' to big foundries and factories, but that is what has happened. The wheel seems to have turned a full circle because it is these industrialists who are now employing many handicapped persons and my work for the industrialists includes hostels and training-centres for these handicapped people, along with their huge factory buildings.
Lastly, I have found, consistently, throughout my working life, that the whole business of planning and designing is intensely absorbing and fun! Always living close to nature I learnt many lessons from the design of God's creations. Very rarely do we find the square or the rectangle but very often the circle is used. The straight line is rare, but the graceful curve is frequently seen. An interesting scientific observation is that the length of the wall enclosing a given area is shorter if the shape is circular and longer if the shape around the same area is a square or a rectangle. This is an important factor in cost-reducing exercises! Furthermore, I have found the answer to many spatial and planning problems by using the circle and the curve instead of the square and the straight line—and building becomes much more fun with the circle!
In 1969, the Bakers family comprising of two daughters Vidya and Heidi and a son Tilak moved to Trivandrum where they have since settled and live with their families. Baker's work in just in Trivandrum includes over 1000 residences and over 40 churches, chapels and other buildings
Read the rest in Baker's own words:
I had little time for the usual sharing of my wife's hospital work as became more and more involved in building activities. Many people and institutions showed great interest in reducing costs of building. It all started when the Kerala Bishops' conference had tried to find a way of working together for the good of the common poor man. They had. with great fanfare, agreed that each parish in the state should try and put up at least one inexpensive, small house and give it to the poorest family in that parish, regardless of caste or creed. But after three years only two or three houses had been built. The Archbishop Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum called for a 'post-mortem' seminar to find out the reason for this failure. The explanation given by all was simple enough—there was no longer any such thing as an 'inexpensive building'! I offered to demonstrate, rather than to talk about ways of building inexpensive houses and spent the following two weeks putting up a small house of about forty square metres and costing, by request, less than Rs 3,000 (about US $400). The participants of the conference came to see the result of this demonstration and to our amazement declared the house to be 'too good' for 'the poor'. So the Archbishop asked for a second house to be put up for half the cost.
From this beginning there followed many small houses, schools, clinics, hospitals and churches and then the government moved in to examine what was going on. The Chief Minister of the state became a convert and I built the State Institute of Languages, at his request, for a small sum of money which the Works and Housing Department had declared was impossible. But my work for government and semi-government institutions continued, notably with a fairly large and prestigious complex known as the Centre for Development Studies, staffed and run by world-known economists of repute. The Chief Minister launched the scheme by challenging them to demonstrate and prove their economic theories by the way in which they built and ran their institution.
At this time, my greatest problems came from the vested interests of most categories of people concerned with the building industry. Most of them were paid on a percentage basis of the total or partial cost of a building. Clearly they did not wish to reduce costs! The craftsmen also were similarly paid and they too did not want any changes. It became increasingly tiresome when people who asked me to design a building for them for a certain sum of money, would return to say that the builders said it could not be done even for double the figure I had given. There was only one thing to do and that was to get together a band of masons and carpenters who would do what was asked of them and who would learn new techniques and un-learn old, wasteful ones. It was rewarding for my clients, for me and for the workmen. For example, some of them became excellent brick-workers who got enormous satisfaction from producing beautiful brickwork. Much of what has come to be described as Baker Architecture I owe to these craftsmen. Because of them it became easy for me to construct almost any type of building, and these ranged from the smallest houses to a large cathedral seating three thousand people. I was particularly pleased that three housing groups were taking advantage of these ideas. A whole fishing villages for example, was built after many of its old huts had been washed away by the sea in a gale. Several institutions also built houses for their Poor at comparatively very little cost. Then the so-called 'upper strata' of society came forward with interest which proved to be genuine, when quite a lot of them asked me to build their houses for them using these simple, cost-reducing techniques.
Low-cost housing techniques were the most rewarding for the group of people who came under the label of the 'lower middle class'. They feel they have certain standards of living to keep up, matters relating to dress and to the education and marriage of their children, but their salaries leave them very little to save for house-building—an activity which they had always considered well beyond their reach. Now they could build. They were quick to understand the principles involved in cost-reduction. They were quick to understand the real priorities of building a home. They had and expressed their faith in the 'expert', and would sometimes actually help where they felt they could.
Again the government showed further interest and called for a report on the methods of cost-reduction. There was strong opposition to the idea of requesting a private individual with 'funny' ideas to present an official report to the government. Three outside government experts joined me and the report was presented, and, accepted, after the Chief Minister had organized a seminar in which all the suggestions and recommendations in the report were thrashed out and either agreed upon as possible and feasible, or, if impossible, rejected. Finally everything in the report was accepted, but over the years very little of it has been implemented.
Industrialists are often hard realists and the principles of cost-reduction have been taken up by some of them in different parts of the country. It seems a far cry from small low-cost houses' to big foundries and factories, but that is what has happened. The wheel seems to have turned a full circle because it is these industrialists who are now employing many handicapped persons and my work for the industrialists includes hostels and training-centres for these handicapped people, along with their huge factory buildings.
Lastly, I have found, consistently, throughout my working life, that the whole business of planning and designing is intensely absorbing and fun! Always living close to nature I learnt many lessons from the design of God's creations. Very rarely do we find the square or the rectangle but very often the circle is used. The straight line is rare, but the graceful curve is frequently seen. An interesting scientific observation is that the length of the wall enclosing a given area is shorter if the shape is circular and longer if the shape around the same area is a square or a rectangle. This is an important factor in cost-reducing exercises! Furthermore, I have found the answer to many spatial and planning problems by using the circle and the curve instead of the square and the straight line—and building becomes much more fun with the circle!
hari 208
Rural Kerala:Vagamon
In 1963 the Bakers moved to Kerala, Elizabeth Baker’s homeland. Laurie happened to meet a Belgian monk Francis who followed the Hindu way of monasticism and had started an ashram at Kurisumala in a place called Vagamon in the Kottayam/Idukki border. When Lauie told him about their work in the Himalayas Acharya Francis convinced Laurie to stay here since the tribal people and poor displaced people here had no medical facilities at all. Both in Pithoragarh and Vagamon, the Bakers started a hospital and several schools. These were opportunities for Laurie to build. The unique and extreme climatic conditions and topographical challenges of the Himalayas and South India meant Laurie had to use his ingenuity and skills to utmost.
Read more in Baker's own words:
For a number of reasons we pulled up our roots from our Himalayan home and moved south to the State of Kerala with its extremely beautiful local indigenous bamboo style of architecture. Again, at first, we chose a remoter rural area to live and work in, and again, we ourselves built our own home and hospital in the local style with local materials. We settled down to live in a completely different setting from that of north India. I found the relationships of Kerala to India very comparable to that of Britain to the rest of Europe. The people were 'insular' and proud, and their ways were very different (and in their own eyes superior) to those of others. Many more people were educated and literate, and this was especially true among the women folk. This had both advantages and disadvantages. For example, there were many attractive ways of using local building materials. The coconut palm leaf was split and the fronds plaited together to form a thatch which was pleasing to the eye and of extremely good insulation value. The plaiting work had always been done by the older girls in their spare time, but now almost all girls went to school and more and more of them to college and there was neither the time nor the inclination to make these stock of thatched leaves ready for the annual re-thatching. And so, for similar reasons, there was a strong move in the urban plains especially to abandon 'old-fashioned ways' and go in for 'modern' buildings using plenty of cement and reinforced concrete.
I had little time for the usual sharing of my wife's hospital work as became more and more involved in building activities. Many people and institutions showed great interest in reducing costs of building. It all started when the Kerala Bishops' conference had tried to find a way of working together for the good of the common poor man. They had. with great fanfare, agreed that each parish in the state should try and put up at least one inexpensive, small house and give it to the poorest family in that parish, regardless of caste or creed. But after three years only two or three houses had been built. The Archbishop Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum called for a 'post-mortem' seminar to find out the reason for this failure. The explanation given by all was simple enough—there was no longer any such thing as an 'inexpensive building'! I offered to demonstrate, rather than to talk about ways of building inexpensive houses and spent the following two weeks putting up a small house of about forty square metres and costing, by request, less than Rs 3,000 (about US $400). The participants of the conference came to see the result of this demonstration and to our amazement declared the house to be 'too good' for 'the poor'. So the Archbishop asked for a second house to be put up for half the cost!
In 1963 the Bakers moved to Kerala, Elizabeth Baker’s homeland. Laurie happened to meet a Belgian monk Francis who followed the Hindu way of monasticism and had started an ashram at Kurisumala in a place called Vagamon in the Kottayam/Idukki border. When Lauie told him about their work in the Himalayas Acharya Francis convinced Laurie to stay here since the tribal people and poor displaced people here had no medical facilities at all. Both in Pithoragarh and Vagamon, the Bakers started a hospital and several schools. These were opportunities for Laurie to build. The unique and extreme climatic conditions and topographical challenges of the Himalayas and South India meant Laurie had to use his ingenuity and skills to utmost.
Read more in Baker's own words:
For a number of reasons we pulled up our roots from our Himalayan home and moved south to the State of Kerala with its extremely beautiful local indigenous bamboo style of architecture. Again, at first, we chose a remoter rural area to live and work in, and again, we ourselves built our own home and hospital in the local style with local materials. We settled down to live in a completely different setting from that of north India. I found the relationships of Kerala to India very comparable to that of Britain to the rest of Europe. The people were 'insular' and proud, and their ways were very different (and in their own eyes superior) to those of others. Many more people were educated and literate, and this was especially true among the women folk. This had both advantages and disadvantages. For example, there were many attractive ways of using local building materials. The coconut palm leaf was split and the fronds plaited together to form a thatch which was pleasing to the eye and of extremely good insulation value. The plaiting work had always been done by the older girls in their spare time, but now almost all girls went to school and more and more of them to college and there was neither the time nor the inclination to make these stock of thatched leaves ready for the annual re-thatching. And so, for similar reasons, there was a strong move in the urban plains especially to abandon 'old-fashioned ways' and go in for 'modern' buildings using plenty of cement and reinforced concrete.
I had little time for the usual sharing of my wife's hospital work as became more and more involved in building activities. Many people and institutions showed great interest in reducing costs of building. It all started when the Kerala Bishops' conference had tried to find a way of working together for the good of the common poor man. They had. with great fanfare, agreed that each parish in the state should try and put up at least one inexpensive, small house and give it to the poorest family in that parish, regardless of caste or creed. But after three years only two or three houses had been built. The Archbishop Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum called for a 'post-mortem' seminar to find out the reason for this failure. The explanation given by all was simple enough—there was no longer any such thing as an 'inexpensive building'! I offered to demonstrate, rather than to talk about ways of building inexpensive houses and spent the following two weeks putting up a small house of about forty square metres and costing, by request, less than Rs 3,000 (about US $400). The participants of the conference came to see the result of this demonstration and to our amazement declared the house to be 'too good' for 'the poor'. So the Archbishop asked for a second house to be put up for half the cost!
hari 207
Some of her friends were trying to start psychiatric work in India. They were an international team but were going to work with and for Indians (the second member of the team was a south Indian psychoanalyst). They too came and dragged me away from my house in the Himalayas because, although they needed up-to-date modern hospital equipment and surroundings, they also needed buildings and an atmosphere that would be acceptable and 'right' for the mentally-disturbed Indian patients. Thus my work on hospitals and medical institutions, especially those in rural areas, grew.
In out-of-the-way districts, among the scattered and neglected population, the buildings needed were small, but whatever the size they, were essential necessities—more essential and necessary than even those in the densely-populated cities where plenty of alternative facilities are available. Furthermore, those living in these remote rural areas traded by the barter system rather than by buying and selling with money. This meant that it was extremely difficult to find money to pay for the building material, and so it was of the utmost importance to design and make buildings that were strong and durable, and as inexpensive as possible. For this and other similar reasons I became then, cost-conscious and spent a lot of time trying to find ways of reducing building costs in general—whether I was using local indigenous methods or building with the 'normal' twentieth century materials and techniques. Seeing millions of people living a hand-to-mouth existence made me come to abhor all forms of extravagance and waste.
This brings us to the two important characteristics of a so-called Baker Architecture—that 'small' is not only 'beautiful' but is often essential and even more important than `large'; and that if we architects are even to start coping effectively with the real building problems and the housing needs of the world, we must learn how to build as inexpensively as possible.
And so my interest and work spread. The medical world was cautiously interested and the world of formal education also started to nibble at Baker's baits. There were village schools and colleges and even urban colleges who wanted libraries, auditoria, etc. Designing for these various institutions became my bread-and-butter. For the dessert I could never resist the invitation to design religious buildings. So, often, there were ashrams, houses of prayer and churches on my drawing board—but always on the condition that there must be no ostentation or 'facade-ism'. I am often puzzled by the dichotomy in my nature—I claim to believe in democracy but I can find myself wanting to be an architectural dictator! I think I am more than normally tolerant about other people’s religious beliefs and practices, and yet I can find myself decrying the requests of a religious group for something which I feel is wrong or inconsistent with their beliefs. I claim that the client's needs and desires should come first and that he requires a 'client-based' building, not a 'Baker' building—but when expressions of his religious beliefs offend me I find myself unable to design for him.
Very briefly, the Quaker ideal is that there is a form of direct unity with the Creator, that Man experiences this at any time, in any place and under any circumstances. Special 'religious' surroundings and appurtenances are not essential, though many people find them a help. But, however much we hoodwink our fellowmen, it is impossible to be deceitful or put up a false front to the Creator. So all efforts to 'put on a big show' or indulge in deceit to make ourselves look greater than we are, seems to be quite pointless. A house has to be designed as a home for a particular group of people to live together as a family in their own inimitable style and if this planning and designing for them is done well it is highly unlikely that the outside of the building will be ostentatious or showy. It is even more so with religious buildings where people usually gather together for purposes of worship and prayer, with their own particular form of ritual or liturgy. The architect will do his utmost to provide the 'right' space in which these acts of worship can be made. As this mainly concerns our search for union with the Eternal it seems particularly 'not right' to indulge in a pretentious façade with these buildings. This anti-façade-ism has definitely been a very noticeable and is a deliberate characteristic of Laurie Baker's architecture, no matter what type of building is being designed.
It was towards the end of our stay in Pithoragarh and while these interesting, special buildings were being built that the government itself started mild enquiries, especially concerning the possibilities of cost-reduction in building. Senior government secretaries showed genuine concern at architectural practices which were apparently not actually essential or even desirable, but which they were assured were necessary. At first I was only unofficially asked whether there were in fact any possible ways of reducing costs for government buildings done by Government agencies.
My unpopularity among fellow professionals probably started at this time. I remember being shown drawings of a monumental façade to the proposed State Archival Buildings. The entrance portico looked very much like St. Paul's Cathedral West Facade with a huge flight of steps and rows of ornate columns. The public would not use this building and those who were to work in it would number less than forty. I asked for the reason for the great entrance portico the answer I received was that it was because Mr Nehru himself would declare the building open! Needless to say I enjoyed these skirmishes with the government personnel and eventually became an official adviser!
The Bakers stayed in Pithoragarh from 1948 to 1963.
Read a piece on Pithoragarh life by the Rogers who were one of the many set of friends who used to routinely stay with the Bakers in their Himalayan home on holidays here
In out-of-the-way districts, among the scattered and neglected population, the buildings needed were small, but whatever the size they, were essential necessities—more essential and necessary than even those in the densely-populated cities where plenty of alternative facilities are available. Furthermore, those living in these remote rural areas traded by the barter system rather than by buying and selling with money. This meant that it was extremely difficult to find money to pay for the building material, and so it was of the utmost importance to design and make buildings that were strong and durable, and as inexpensive as possible. For this and other similar reasons I became then, cost-conscious and spent a lot of time trying to find ways of reducing building costs in general—whether I was using local indigenous methods or building with the 'normal' twentieth century materials and techniques. Seeing millions of people living a hand-to-mouth existence made me come to abhor all forms of extravagance and waste.
This brings us to the two important characteristics of a so-called Baker Architecture—that 'small' is not only 'beautiful' but is often essential and even more important than `large'; and that if we architects are even to start coping effectively with the real building problems and the housing needs of the world, we must learn how to build as inexpensively as possible.
And so my interest and work spread. The medical world was cautiously interested and the world of formal education also started to nibble at Baker's baits. There were village schools and colleges and even urban colleges who wanted libraries, auditoria, etc. Designing for these various institutions became my bread-and-butter. For the dessert I could never resist the invitation to design religious buildings. So, often, there were ashrams, houses of prayer and churches on my drawing board—but always on the condition that there must be no ostentation or 'facade-ism'. I am often puzzled by the dichotomy in my nature—I claim to believe in democracy but I can find myself wanting to be an architectural dictator! I think I am more than normally tolerant about other people’s religious beliefs and practices, and yet I can find myself decrying the requests of a religious group for something which I feel is wrong or inconsistent with their beliefs. I claim that the client's needs and desires should come first and that he requires a 'client-based' building, not a 'Baker' building—but when expressions of his religious beliefs offend me I find myself unable to design for him.
Very briefly, the Quaker ideal is that there is a form of direct unity with the Creator, that Man experiences this at any time, in any place and under any circumstances. Special 'religious' surroundings and appurtenances are not essential, though many people find them a help. But, however much we hoodwink our fellowmen, it is impossible to be deceitful or put up a false front to the Creator. So all efforts to 'put on a big show' or indulge in deceit to make ourselves look greater than we are, seems to be quite pointless. A house has to be designed as a home for a particular group of people to live together as a family in their own inimitable style and if this planning and designing for them is done well it is highly unlikely that the outside of the building will be ostentatious or showy. It is even more so with religious buildings where people usually gather together for purposes of worship and prayer, with their own particular form of ritual or liturgy. The architect will do his utmost to provide the 'right' space in which these acts of worship can be made. As this mainly concerns our search for union with the Eternal it seems particularly 'not right' to indulge in a pretentious façade with these buildings. This anti-façade-ism has definitely been a very noticeable and is a deliberate characteristic of Laurie Baker's architecture, no matter what type of building is being designed.
It was towards the end of our stay in Pithoragarh and while these interesting, special buildings were being built that the government itself started mild enquiries, especially concerning the possibilities of cost-reduction in building. Senior government secretaries showed genuine concern at architectural practices which were apparently not actually essential or even desirable, but which they were assured were necessary. At first I was only unofficially asked whether there were in fact any possible ways of reducing costs for government buildings done by Government agencies.
My unpopularity among fellow professionals probably started at this time. I remember being shown drawings of a monumental façade to the proposed State Archival Buildings. The entrance portico looked very much like St. Paul's Cathedral West Facade with a huge flight of steps and rows of ornate columns. The public would not use this building and those who were to work in it would number less than forty. I asked for the reason for the great entrance portico the answer I received was that it was because Mr Nehru himself would declare the building open! Needless to say I enjoyed these skirmishes with the government personnel and eventually became an official adviser!
The Bakers stayed in Pithoragarh from 1948 to 1963.
Read a piece on Pithoragarh life by the Rogers who were one of the many set of friends who used to routinely stay with the Bakers in their Himalayan home on holidays here
hari 206
The Himalayan Era: Pithoragarh
This is an account of his early life in Pithoragarh in the Himalayan foothills in Baker's own words:
By the late 1940s, the British had quit India and Gandhiji had been assassinated, and I was settled in independent India. I got most of my encouragement and not a little inspiration from the wonderful doctor, P.J. Chandy, who had taken me into his home when I had cycled away from the sahib's bungalow in Fizabad. He had an equally wonderful Doctor sister and I married her and we settled down in a remote area of the Himalayas on the borders of Tibet and Nepal.
For our honeymoon we decided to go to Chandag, in the Himalayan foothills where there was a leprosy hospital. The doctor in charge could go to the plains for a holiday and we (my wife being a doctor and I a trained anaesthetist and nurse) could take care of the hospital in the meantime and also enjoy a holiday in the scenic and picturesque hills. Local tribal and hill people heard about the new doctor and started to come in droves from all around since there was no other doctor for many miles. However, there were strict orders not to treat non-leprosy patients. So we decided to set up our own small hospital in a nearby village called Pithoragarh.
The hospital, which started in an abandoned teashop, grew and patients came in increasing numbers. This remote and neglected hilly area had their first doctor and the news spread like wildfire. There was a need now for new building for our home, and hospital.
And there, in mainly truly local indigenous style, we built our home, hospital and schools, and we lived there for more than a decade-and-a-half. During this time I did manage to acquire quite a lot of those skills which had so fascinated me. Slowly I began to be drawn back into the more sophisticated world because, strangely enough, as I was busy absorbing these local skills, clients from the outside world came up into the Himalayas to get my help. Among them was a wonderful elderly American lady, Welthy Honsinger Fisher, who was concerned about spreading the teaching of adult literacy throughout India. She had the vision of a village which she'd planned to call 'Literacy Village' and it was here she would teach how to educate adult illiterates. She would train writers on how to write for the newly-literate adults. She would teach how to use drama, puppetry, music and art as teaching methods. But she wanted, what she described as a real 'Indian villagesque set-up'. Although crippled, and in her seventies, she'd made the long and difficult journey to our hospital Iii the Himalayas and stayed with us until she had her plans for her Literacy Village. Later I went down and helped her to lay out the site and start building
This is an account of his early life in Pithoragarh in the Himalayan foothills in Baker's own words:
By the late 1940s, the British had quit India and Gandhiji had been assassinated, and I was settled in independent India. I got most of my encouragement and not a little inspiration from the wonderful doctor, P.J. Chandy, who had taken me into his home when I had cycled away from the sahib's bungalow in Fizabad. He had an equally wonderful Doctor sister and I married her and we settled down in a remote area of the Himalayas on the borders of Tibet and Nepal.
For our honeymoon we decided to go to Chandag, in the Himalayan foothills where there was a leprosy hospital. The doctor in charge could go to the plains for a holiday and we (my wife being a doctor and I a trained anaesthetist and nurse) could take care of the hospital in the meantime and also enjoy a holiday in the scenic and picturesque hills. Local tribal and hill people heard about the new doctor and started to come in droves from all around since there was no other doctor for many miles. However, there were strict orders not to treat non-leprosy patients. So we decided to set up our own small hospital in a nearby village called Pithoragarh.
The hospital, which started in an abandoned teashop, grew and patients came in increasing numbers. This remote and neglected hilly area had their first doctor and the news spread like wildfire. There was a need now for new building for our home, and hospital.
And there, in mainly truly local indigenous style, we built our home, hospital and schools, and we lived there for more than a decade-and-a-half. During this time I did manage to acquire quite a lot of those skills which had so fascinated me. Slowly I began to be drawn back into the more sophisticated world because, strangely enough, as I was busy absorbing these local skills, clients from the outside world came up into the Himalayas to get my help. Among them was a wonderful elderly American lady, Welthy Honsinger Fisher, who was concerned about spreading the teaching of adult literacy throughout India. She had the vision of a village which she'd planned to call 'Literacy Village' and it was here she would teach how to educate adult illiterates. She would train writers on how to write for the newly-literate adults. She would teach how to use drama, puppetry, music and art as teaching methods. But she wanted, what she described as a real 'Indian villagesque set-up'. Although crippled, and in her seventies, she'd made the long and difficult journey to our hospital Iii the Himalayas and stayed with us until she had her plans for her Literacy Village. Later I went down and helped her to lay out the site and start building
hari 011
China
In 1941, Laurie volunteered to go on a mission to help at a medical camp at Kutsing in inland China. Laurie used to make several journeys from the base camp to the north. During on such journey to Pichieh he contracted malaria and was admitted to a small hospital run by a group of German sisters. They were also running a leper colony in the hills away from other human habitation. However the sisters were under house arrest since they were Germans and they could not go to the leper colony to take care of the patients.
In the 1930-40s leprosy was a much-feared disease. So much so that lepers were frequently burnt or buried alive for fear of contamination and spreading of the disease. Naturally, the sisters had not found anyone willing to go and look after the leper colony. When Laurie heard of the plight of the lepers he agreed to go until the sisters could find someone permanent. So with the FAU’s permission he took over at the leper colony. He dressed their ulcers, gave them medicines when available. He was doctor, nurse, pharmacist and pathologist. On Sunday’s he was even the parson at their church!
Read a piece by one of Baker's FAU-mates who was stationed with him in China here
In 1941, Laurie volunteered to go on a mission to help at a medical camp at Kutsing in inland China. Laurie used to make several journeys from the base camp to the north. During on such journey to Pichieh he contracted malaria and was admitted to a small hospital run by a group of German sisters. They were also running a leper colony in the hills away from other human habitation. However the sisters were under house arrest since they were Germans and they could not go to the leper colony to take care of the patients.
In the 1930-40s leprosy was a much-feared disease. So much so that lepers were frequently burnt or buried alive for fear of contamination and spreading of the disease. Naturally, the sisters had not found anyone willing to go and look after the leper colony. When Laurie heard of the plight of the lepers he agreed to go until the sisters could find someone permanent. So with the FAU’s permission he took over at the leper colony. He dressed their ulcers, gave them medicines when available. He was doctor, nurse, pharmacist and pathologist. On Sunday’s he was even the parson at their church!
Read a piece by one of Baker's FAU-mates who was stationed with him in China here
hari 205
Early Years
Laurie Baker was born on March 2, 1917 into a very staunch Christian Methodist family. The family was deeply involved in church activities. Laurie’s father Charles was the chief accountant at the Birmingham Gas Corporation and everyone expected Laurie to follow in his father’s footsteps. Laurie though, didn’t like mathematics much and was interested in design. In his childhood he would accompany his father every weekend to visit cathedrals and other old buildings and then he would build models and draw pictures of what he had seen. After his matriculation, he joined the Birmingham’s School of Architecture and became an Associate Member of the Royal Institute of Architects (ARIBA) in 1938. Hardly had he got the opportunity to start working in England when World War II broke out just a year later in 1939.
In his youth Laurie had participated quite devotedly in all church activities along with his family. However now in his teens, the traditional teachings of the church were starting to seem less appealing to him. He came into contact with some Quakers or members of the Society of Friends who believed in the power of non-violence and to live in respect of every person small or big, rich or poor. The Quakers' interpretation of Jesus' teachings attracted Laurie. Later, he would similarly be drawn to the similar beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi who would be a major influence on his work in India.
Due to his Quaker beliefs Laurie was against fighting. However recognizing the pressing need for medical help he and other Quakers provided medical help through the Friends Ambulance Unit, which went into war zones to pick up the wounded and then treat them. It was during this period that he was trained as a nurse, midwife and anesthetist.
Read about his childhood influences in his own words here and about his experience of schooling here
Laurie Baker was born on March 2, 1917 into a very staunch Christian Methodist family. The family was deeply involved in church activities. Laurie’s father Charles was the chief accountant at the Birmingham Gas Corporation and everyone expected Laurie to follow in his father’s footsteps. Laurie though, didn’t like mathematics much and was interested in design. In his childhood he would accompany his father every weekend to visit cathedrals and other old buildings and then he would build models and draw pictures of what he had seen. After his matriculation, he joined the Birmingham’s School of Architecture and became an Associate Member of the Royal Institute of Architects (ARIBA) in 1938. Hardly had he got the opportunity to start working in England when World War II broke out just a year later in 1939.
In his youth Laurie had participated quite devotedly in all church activities along with his family. However now in his teens, the traditional teachings of the church were starting to seem less appealing to him. He came into contact with some Quakers or members of the Society of Friends who believed in the power of non-violence and to live in respect of every person small or big, rich or poor. The Quakers' interpretation of Jesus' teachings attracted Laurie. Later, he would similarly be drawn to the similar beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi who would be a major influence on his work in India.
Due to his Quaker beliefs Laurie was against fighting. However recognizing the pressing need for medical help he and other Quakers provided medical help through the Friends Ambulance Unit, which went into war zones to pick up the wounded and then treat them. It was during this period that he was trained as a nurse, midwife and anesthetist.
Read about his childhood influences in his own words here and about his experience of schooling here
hari 204
Biography Summary
1917: Born in Birmingham, England. Educated at King Edwards Grammar School & The Birmingham School of Architecture
1938: Associate of the Royal Institute of Architects (ARIBA)
1945: Came to India as the Chief Architect of the Mission to Lepers
1970: Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects
1981: D.Litt conferred by the Royal University of Netherlands for outstanding work in the Third World
1983: Order of the British Empire, MBE
1987: Received the first Indian National Habitat Award
1988: Received Indian Citizenship
1989: Indian Institute of Architects Outstanding Architect of the Year
1990: Received the Padma Sri
1990: Great Master Architect of the Year
1992: UNO Habitat Award & UN Roll of Honour
1993: International Union of Architects (IUA) Award
1993: Sir Robert Matthew Prize for Improvement of Human Settlements
1994: People of the Year Award
1995: Awarded Doctorate from the University of Central England
1998: Awarded Doctorate from Sri Venkateshwara University
2001: Coinpar MR Kurup Endowment Award
2003: Basheer Puraskaram
2003: D.Litt from the Kerala University
2005: Kerala Government Certificate of Appreciation
2006: L-Ramp Award of Excellence
2006: Nominated from the Pritzker Award (considered the Nobel Prize in Architecture)
1917: Born in Birmingham, England. Educated at King Edwards Grammar School & The Birmingham School of Architecture
1938: Associate of the Royal Institute of Architects (ARIBA)
1945: Came to India as the Chief Architect of the Mission to Lepers
1970: Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects
1981: D.Litt conferred by the Royal University of Netherlands for outstanding work in the Third World
1983: Order of the British Empire, MBE
1987: Received the first Indian National Habitat Award
1988: Received Indian Citizenship
1989: Indian Institute of Architects Outstanding Architect of the Year
1990: Received the Padma Sri
1990: Great Master Architect of the Year
1992: UNO Habitat Award & UN Roll of Honour
1993: International Union of Architects (IUA) Award
1993: Sir Robert Matthew Prize for Improvement of Human Settlements
1994: People of the Year Award
1995: Awarded Doctorate from the University of Central England
1998: Awarded Doctorate from Sri Venkateshwara University
2001: Coinpar MR Kurup Endowment Award
2003: Basheer Puraskaram
2003: D.Litt from the Kerala University
2005: Kerala Government Certificate of Appreciation
2006: L-Ramp Award of Excellence
2006: Nominated from the Pritzker Award (considered the Nobel Prize in Architecture)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
