Food for thought: The Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus Oracle

Nice toy on iGoogle, for those who use & love words, and those who need to brush up their vocabulary, and finally those who are just a little lost in this world.
I currently subscribe to the latter interpretation of self.

Clicking "random word" oracles:
american lobster
cordon bleu -> blue ribbon
trespass -> transgress & encroachment

Now I will drink my wine and try to interpret the hell out of this..
What do your oracles tell you?

Muesli-daughters and culinary health advice

Odd tidbits about food and science, or tidbits of food with odd science... I don't know anymore which is which..

Eat Muesli to conceive a baby-girl! Eat more calories to get a boy! However, ignore statistics if relying on that sort of measure. But, it can't hurt to try (in case of you wanting a boy it just might get you a little on the heavy side..)

Drink coffee to have those fun hallucinations! Why spend tons of money in shady places for getting and using nasty drugs, if you can have it all at home every morning, during work all day and every one encountering you while getting yourself high just gives you that relaxed smile of mhmmm.. that fresh coffee smell...

About that coffee.. not only may it get you to see and hear things.. but do lots of good for women's health!
- Ward off dementia
- Improve sex-drive
WebMD.com has this to say about the magic potion some of us ingest daily, in more or less vast quantities: "Want a drug that could lower your risk of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and colon cancer? That could lift your mood and treat headaches? That could lower your risk of cavities?"


Another, less and less debated item is my favorite fountain of youth, red wine..

Taken together this sums up to: me as low-calory muesli- and vegetable-eating, coffee- and red wine-consuming woman should stay lean, healthy-hearted, non-dement and otherwise protected from neural issues, won't have cancer, will grow old & be sexually active, and follwing that most likely will have a daugther.

Welcome to the modern ways of reading the future from coffee grounds.. :)

Pot-roast for the economically challenged chef

Dinner for the start into the new year, an economically challenged year, if I may say so, may have to be on the lean and readily available side..
Here is a possibility that is rarely considered:

Squirrel

Read the NY times article, it is definitely interesting to hear what british chefs came up with and why. :)

In Wisconsin, it is a more common entertainment for fall to hunt squirrels for dinner - read the details of how to track, shoot and field-dress them, and how to finally prepare them for tasty consumption.
I'm sure there are many other ways to deal with them - I heard Kentucky-Tennnessee traditions that involve baking the head - but they carry a Creutzfeldt-Jakob variant that I personally would rather no want to ingest.

Either way, be prepared for the lean times, look out for those little pot-roasts! :)

Power to the wineries!

Counterintuitive point #1: Accelerating aging is a good thing.
Counterintuitive point #2: Car batteries & wine go well together.


Chinese researchers seem to have had these paradoxical thoughts. They exposed young red wine to strong electrical fields, let sommeliers test the result, et voilà: the wine had magically matured, improved beyond wildest imaginations.

Here's the recipe from their abstract:
"An optimum treatment, with electric field 600 V/cm and treatment time 3 min, was identified to accelerate wine aging, which made the harsh and pungent raw wine become harmonious and dainty."

Empowering your local winery may soon get a whole new meaning!


But for now, keep your powertools & batteries away from your glass..