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Terry Kaufman - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
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- Symbols of Saint Patrick's Day and Ireland, Part 2
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Ireland has had a multitude of national symbols throughout the centuries. These include various foods and drink, snakes, the legend of St. Patrick, Blarney Castle and the Blarney Stone, and most importantly, the Irish fairies called Leprechauns and their pots of gold.
- Symbols of Saint Patrick's Day and Ireland, Part 1
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] When a person thinks about March 17th in Ireland, what things immediately pop to mind? Of course! What else? A Leprechaun and his pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Corned beef and cabbage? Green beer? A shamrock? Legend says Saint Patrick used the shamrock's three-leaf pattern growing out of one stem to explain the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to a group of pagan Druids.
- The Wonderful World of Silicone Kitchenware
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] These days it seems inevitable that wherever a person goes, especially a foodie, he is sure to run into an extravagant display of kitchenware and bakeware made of that marvel of the 21st century, silicone. Besides being available in a panoply of wild colors, silicone is a fun-filled concept with which to play. It is so flexible it literally can be folded in half. It dissipates heat quickly and clean-up is a snap.
- Girls' Day in Japan
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Every March 3rd, the third day of the third month, is the day families all over Japan make a celebration for their daughter(s) so she may grow up healthy, happy, and beautiful. This special day is known as Japanese Girls' Day (Hina Matsuri). To make it even more special, it is also called the Japanese Doll Festival.
- Waffles - Contemporary Food with Thousands of Years of History
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] Although waffles seem to be a relatively contemporary food, they have been around, worldwide, for thousands of years. It is quite likely the Ancient Greeks ate extremely flat cakes, called obleios. However, it would appear the earliest evidence of the manufacture of waffle irons may have come up from Holland or Germany during the 1300s.
- The Art of Flambe
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] Time for a dinner with a dramatic touch? Do you need something spectacular with which to impress your guests? The next time you get the urge to prepare a fancy, yet fun, meal, think flambe.
- The Chinese Dragon Dance
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] The Chinese have always perceived the dragon as being sacred and possessing power, courage, righteousness, dignity, fertility, wisdom, and auspiciousness. One of the highlights of the Chinese New Year celebration is the spectacular Dragon Dance.
- The Fortune Cookie - From Where Did It Come?
[Reference-and-Education] With the Chinese New Year rapidly approaching, thoughts turn to colorful parades, fire crackers, spectacular fireworks exploding in the sky, and a plethora of food. What would a celebration be without those crunchy fortune cookies with the hidden messages?
- Beer Trivia for the Super Bowl
[Food-and-Drink:Wine-Spirits] The Super Bowl and its accompanying camaraderie are just around the corner. It is the perfect time to wow your buddies with Super Bowl trivia, especially that concerning odd pieces of information on that great American alcoholic beverage, beer.
- Groundhog Day - More Winter or Is Spring Around the Corner?
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Groundhog Day, a popular tradition in Canada and the United States, is celebrated every year on February 2nd. It had its origins in the observance of Candlemas Day, in the early days of Christianity.
- Valentine's Celebrations Around the World
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] No matter where in the world, love exists. Some Valentine's Day celebrations are low-key while others are full-fledged feats. Let's look at some of these festivities.
- Cooking With Wine
[Food-and-Drink:Wine-Spirits] Wine has been prominent in cooking since the earliest times, from the ancient Greek writings of Homer to those of the Romans, who consequently spread the teaching throughout Europe. The use of wine in cooking is intended to intensify and augment the flavor and texture of the food. It is not meant to disguise the flavor or quality but rather to enhance it.
- Life as a Turkey
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] The turkey is a highly social animal who has undeservedly earned the sobriquet "as dumb as a turkey." In reality, turkeys are smart animals having personality and character, and are keenly aware of their surroundings. Benjamin Franklin, in his regard for the turkey, felt it was resourceful, agile, and beautiful, calling it "a bird of courage" and a "true original native of America."
- Pumpkin Trivia Tidbits
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] See little-known information about pumpkins, and how they are grown and used throughout the world. DID YOU KNOW...
- Halloween Celebrated Around The World
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Halloween and Halloween-like holidays are celebrated in many different ways around the world. The primary language group of a particular country or culture seems to be an important clue as to the nature of the festivities. Following is a synopsis of how the holiday is observed in various countries.
- Natural Alternatives to Granulated White Sugar
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] There are many alternatives available to using granulated white sugar. For years, artificial sweeteners have been the first choice for many, when trying to achieve a sweet taste without actual sugar. However, with a little research, you can find that the evils of both granulated white sugar and artificial sweeteners can be avoided and a sweet taste achieved with any one of many other natural sweeteners.
- Stand Mixers - The Kitchen's Busiest Appliances
[Shopping-and-Product-Reviews] There is a distinct possibility the stand mixer is the most useful appliance to be found in any kitchen, from the family kitchen to that found in the finest restaurants. KitchenAid may have been the first group to manufacture the electric standing mixer but the greatest degree of consumer acceptance went to the Sunbeam Mixmaster. Interchangeable attachments, first Introduced in 1937 by KitchenAid, strongly contribute to the popularity still enjoyed by stand mixers, almost 125 years since issuance of the first patent for an electric mixer.
- If It's a Necktie, It Must Be Father's Day, Part 3
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] The necktie has become synonymous with Father's Day. For some, it is a gift by default while for others, they go out of their way to find that really special necktie for that really special dad. Whichever you might choose, each type has its own notable history. Part 3 covers neckware developments in the United States and England in the 19th and 20th centuries.
- If It’s a Necktie, It Must Be Father's Day, Part 2
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] The necktie has become synonymous with Father’s Day. For some, it is a gift by default while for others, they go out of their way to find that really special necktie for that really special dad. Whichever you might choose, each type has its own notable history. Part 2 covers 17th through 19-century neckkware developments in Europe and America.
- If It's a Necktie, It Must Be Father's Day, Part 1
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] The necktie has become synonymous with Father’s Day. For some, it is a gift by default while for others, they go out of their way to find that really special necktie for that really special dad. Whichever you might choose, each type has its own notable history. Part 1 covers the earliest evidence of neckware among the Chinese, Romans, and more.
- Father's Day - From Babylon to National Holiday
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Mankind has revered fatherhood since earliest times. White Anthropological and archeological studies have produced evidence of the honoring of fathers in Babylonian and Roman times, Father's Day did not achieve permanent holiday status in the US until the 1970s.
- Juice Lover's Guide to the Many Types of Juicers
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] The right juicer makes preparing a fresh, cold glass of juice a quick and easy task. But, depending on the type of fruit you enjoy, you need to be able to choose the right type of juicer. Juicers come in many varieties, including centrifugal juicers, single gear or masticating juicers, twin gear or triturating juicers, citrus juicers, and the manual press.
- Modern Outdoor Furniture - More than Folding Aluminum Chairs
[Home-Improvement:Patio-Deck] In the 21st century, outdoor furniture has become quite sophisticated. The choices have metamorphosed from the basic aluminum folding chairs and chaise lounges to whatever your mind can conceive. The materials used are endless. Do you want as chair of bamboo or of teak? Perhaps you might wish for a more "countrified" or natural look.
- Modern Backpacks - for Day or Overnight
[Recreation-and-Sports] It seems the ubiquitous backpack is seen everywhere these days, from the tiniest pre-schooler's backpack stuffed with toys, to that of a professional cross-country hiker, filled with the necessities of daily survival in the wild. Within this vast range of backpacks come several categories of bags, separated basically by function.
- A Traipse Through the Tulips
[Home-and-Family:Gardening] Flowering bulbs can change your garden from being merely a plot of dirt and rocks adorned with a few scraggly plants to being an absolute showplace, with splashes of brilliant color. Bulbs provide a good investment in terms of their longevity and hardiness. Your garden will benefit from the vast variety of bloom colors, length of flowering time, and the heights and shapes of flowering bulbs.
- A Red Carnation for Mother's Day
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] From the earliest rites in Greece that revered Rhea, mother of all Grecian deities, to the earliest beginnings of a Mother's Day holiday in the United States, as an outgrowth of a social reform movement led by Mrs. Anna Jarvis, almost everywhere across the world, mothers have been honored from time immemorial as nourishers of mankind.
- Fun Foods - Snow Cones
[Food-and-Drink] Who can resist an icy, frosty cold beverage on a hot day? There is nothing like a freezing cold, multi-flavored concoction such as a snow cone to bring cheer to your heart and a smile to your face on a sweltering day. So many flavor selections to make, so many varied combinations of syrups from which to choose. The basic snow cone is a sweet treat made with tightly packed, shaved ice flavored with one or more vividly colored, sugary syrups, generally fruit-flavored.
- Organic Chocolate - A Trip Along the Assembly Line
[Food-and-Drink:Chocolate] There is an intangible something about watching the creation of chocolate, from beginning with raw cocoa beans to the conclusion, delivering the finished product to the consumer that sets all my senses a-tingling. The smell wafting teasingly through the air, your mouth salivating at the very thought, the texture of the cocoa beans, even the sight and sound of the beans tumbling through the machinery, moving along the assembly line. There are 16 steps in the manufacture of organic chocolate.
- Potato Chips - Just One More
[Food-and-Drink] Potato chips are now the favorite snack of Americans, who eat more potato chips than any other population in the world. In the mid 1960s, there was a television commercial extolling the golden, crunchy goodness of potato chips. Its catch phrase was "I bet you can't eat just one!" Truer words were never spoken. It is generally thought by food historians that George Crum was the inventor of the potato chip.
- Jokers Wild - April Fool's Day
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] April 1st, otherwise known as April Fool's Day or All Fool's Day, is a day dedicated to foolishness and hoaxes. Hopefully, the worst thing that can fall upon a hapless victim is a case of profound embarrassment. But beware! You might never know what hit you. Several speculative view points, as to the origin to this innocent celebration, exist.
- The White House Easter Egg Roll
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] The White House Easter Egg Roll is one of the oldest and most unusual traditions in presidential history. It has gone through many transformations over the years, with new surprises with each presidential administration coming into office.
- The Easter Parade - One Of America's Beloved Traditions
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] New York City's Easter Parade has been called, variously, a conglomeration of religious observances, reality TV, and haute couture. Of course, this is a 21st-century rationalization of 19th-century values. However, the 19th-century version must have been rather flamboyant to be remembered so vividly after more than 150 years.
- Matzoh Balls - Floaters or Sinkers?
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] With the possible exception of the finest European dark chocolates, I think with all my heart and soul there is no finer food than the lowly Matzoh Ball. What's the big deal, you might ask? Isn't a matzoh ball just a dumpling made out of crushed matzoh crackers? On one level, I suppose the uninitiated could logically make this assumption. However, all it takes is one tiny nibble of a chicken soup-soaked matzoh ball for your senses, with gusto, to burst forth in a kaleidoscope of the warm fuzzies.
- Fun Foods - Jawbreakers
[Food-and-Drink] There probably is not another candy anywhere that has the exceptional hardness of a jawbreaker or possibly as high of a sugar content. A jawbreaker consists of sugar, sugar, and more sugar. It takes 14 to 19 days to produce a single jawbreaker, from a single grain of sugar to the finished product. The jawbreaker rose to prominence due to the efforts of the Ferrari Pan Candy Company in Forest Park, Illinois.
- Not All Slow Cookers are Crock Pots
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] The initial slow cooker from Rival was called the CROCK POT; because of trademark considerations, only a slow cooker made by Rival was entitled to be called a Crock Pot. The name Crock Pot has become so familiar to the American public, many people do not realize that Crock Pot is not a generic name for all slow cookers. What you can cook in a Crock Pot is only limited by your imagination.
- Kissing the Blarney Stone or How to Get the Gift of Gab
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Five miles from the city of Cork, Ireland, in the village of Blarney, sits the historic Blarney Castle, built in 1446. Almost 90 feet in height, it is one of the largest tower castles to be found in Ireland. The story about the Blarney Stone and its magical powers involves a witch who was saved from drowning by a king of Munster. The witch was so grateful for his intervention that she bestowed a spell upon the king: if he would kiss the Stone at the top of the castle, he would gain such glibness in tongue that it would endear him to all.
- Ergonomically Correct Garden Tools - Your Back Will Thank You
[Home-and-Family:Gardening] Any gardener, beginner or professional, needs a basic set of tools. As is the case with any job or pastime requiring specialized tools or paraphernalia, to garden you must amass for yourself a set of good quality tools which will not fall apart with the slightest provocation. Plus, you owe it to yourself to obtain the most comfortable tools within your budget. Especially for people with physical limitations, but also for others who wish to retain their physical well-being, ergonomically designed garden tools are a must.
- Beer Trivia #2
[Food-and-Drink:Wine-Spirits] Beer is consumed all over the world by young and old. Countries, from ancient Babylon to modern Japan, are proud of their brews. Let us look at some additional beer trivia.
- Beer Trivia #1
[Food-and-Drink:Wine-Spirits] Beer is loved universally. Go to any baseball game, family picnic, or casual party and what do you see immediately? Happy people, talking and playing, holding cold, frosty mugs of brew. The enjoyment of beer crosses all gender and age lines, from 20 Somethings all the way to the retirement years. Here is some beer trivia to enjoy as you drink your next beer.
- What a Can of Worms!
[Home-and-Family:Gardening] The art of worm composting is known officially as vermicomposting. The common red worm is needed to do the job.The worms can be bought at garden centers, mail order, or online. About 1,000 red worms are needed to start your compost heap. Feed and water your worms well and their castings will make fine compost for you.
- Bar Tool Time
[Food-and-Drink:Wine-Spirits] No matter what task is before an individual, you must have the proper tools to accomplish the job. If you want to tend bar, whether in the home or professionally, to make quality drinks which everyone will enjoy, you will need your box of bar tools, which will allow you to turn out delicious concoctions. Having the correct tools will ease the job of making good drinks. Let's take a look at the most essential tools.
- Chocolate-Sweet Ambrosia
[Food-and-Drink:Chocolate] Chocolate, sweet chocolate, the most sublime of tastes. Whatever other edible delicacies may tease our senses of taste and smell, I cannot think of a single one that has the power to lure as does chocolate. There are several different tastes of chocolate. People have their personal preferences and will stand strong in their beliefs. Some of these forms of chocolate are as follows.
- Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home
[Home-and-Family:Gardening] When it comes to biological pest control, the best known and most popular insects for the job are Ladybugs. Famous for their appetite for aphids, Ladybugs are also voracious in decimating white fly, mealy bugs, scales, and mites, plus many other soft-bodied insects and will consume boll worm, broccoli worm, cabbage moth and tomato horn worm. Various sources credit Ladybugs with the ability to eat up to either 1,000 or 5,000 aphids in the beetle’s lifetime.
- Candy, Candy, Candy - How I Love You!
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] Anyone, everyone, toddler to nonagenarian, no matter where in the world they live, love candy. Is it the sweetness? The taste? Texture? Hardness? Softness? Or all of the above? Sweet foods, whether they be an intricately executed six-layer wedding cake or a single piece of hard candy from a paper tube, eaten on the run, are a necessity of life, if not physically then definitely psychologically.
- The Settlement Cookbook: An Immigrant's Guide to Assimilation
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] The deep, dark recesses of the brain of any student of early 20th century American history should light up, tingling, when they compute the importance of "The Settlement Cookbook" and the Settlement House, established by Lizzie Black Kander. Both the concept and the woman made an indelible mark on America. Conceivably the most successful fundraising cookbook in American history, "The Settlement Cookbook" has been revised into 40 editions, has sold more than 2 million copies, and still funds charitable projects to the present.
- Conversation Hearts - Let's Talk
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Do you remember the excitement and anticipation that came with every Valentine's Day when we were kids? It became almost a competition to see which kid in your classroom managed to garner the most of the flimsy punch-out Valentine’s cards with their even flimsier envelopes. In spite of the enthusiasm for the cards portraying the cultural icons of that particular year, the biggest attraction of the day was getting Conversation Hearts, the more the merrier. That’s what Valentine’s Day was and still is for most kids.
- Fannie Merritt Farmer - Mother of the American Cookbook
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] When a person, whether a foodie or just someone appreciative of good, well prepared food, thinks of delicious, innovative meals, the name Fannie Merritt Farmer springs to mind. If for nothing else, she was revered by millions for her innovations in the manner in which a recipe was written. Her successes led to the public calling her the "mother of level measurements" or "the pioneer of the modern recipe." Her story is one of determination in teaching the public that one did not have to be a professional chef to live an ideal life in the kitchen and around the house.
- New Year's Around the World
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] From food to various cultural practices, one thing is a certainty: No matter where or how we live, the one constant in all our lives is that of a new year, of a time blossoming out into spiritual and physical rebirth. We are the same yet we have refreshed ourselves. As people are different, so are their ways of greeting the new year. Reaching back centuries, a great many of these celebrations involve food to insure a good, strong harvest. Many center around family and children.
- More Christmas Trivia Stuffed into My Stocking
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] By now, as the days approaching Christmas are fast upon us, the Holiday Trivia Elves (better known as librarians) at the Smithsonian Library in Washington, D C, are ready to bounce from wall to wall in an attempt to keep up with all the requests for information, great and trivial, about this popular holiday.
- Behold the Cookbook
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] Cookbooks were used in every literate society, in one extent to another, from time immemorial. Cookbooks took off with the proliferation of the printing press, as the rising middle class wanted books to tell them how to cook. When recalling the history of the cookbook, the name of Fannie Merritt Farmer rises to the top of first-class chefs and writers, and she was responsible for the standardization of cookbook measurements.
- Christmas Trivia: Animal Crackers in My Christmas Tree
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Christmas is quickly approaching and time is getting short to prepare for holiday festivities. This means hours spent searching for, transporting, and decorating the perfect Christmas tree. Liven up your holiday activities with Christmas tree trivia.
- Dad and the Menorah
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Holidays are for renewal. Family reunions on the Fourth of July. Family and friends gathered together for Thanksgiving. Picnics on Memorial Day. And then there are those days on the religious calendar which draw us together in faith and spirituality. For me, Hanukkah was the holiday that that gave validity to the concept of family.
- Eggnog, Wassail, Hot Wine -- Oh My!
[Food-and-Drink:Wine-Spirits] The genial host grandly sets down a huge bowl of Christmas cheer on the table near the fire. What is this? If it is eggnog, then we are celebrating the holiday party-filled days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. When thinking about eggnog on a cold winter night, we should always remember the joys of wassail and hot mulled wine, as well as their companion, hot hard cider. Reaching back in history to about 1775, eggnog enjoyed popularity on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, from England to America.
- Turkey Time Thanksgiving Trivia
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and it is time once again to start preparing for the fall season. Besides dreaming of succulent turkey and the trimmings, this means readying holiday dinnerware, organizing cookware, polishing silver, and searching for new and exciting recipes and great holiday trivia! Liven up your Thanksgiving holiday with Turkey Trivia #1 - Turkey Facts, and Turkey Trivia #2 - Cranberry Facts. Did you know
- Oven Mitts - Space-Age Materials for Safer Cooking
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] There are many different types of oven mitts available today. Which type you choose depends on what features you are searching for in a mitt. Probably the most fascinating and unusual oven mitts are made of the versatile space-age Silicone, and can withstand very high temperatures anywhere from 280º F ( 138º C) to over 600º F (316ºC). Some oven mitts are made of Neoprene, the same material used to create wetsuits. Other types include the type of fabric oven mitts your mother used.
- A Chef Here, A Chef There, Chefs, Chefs Everywhere!
[Food-and-Drink] You are in a 5-star restaurant, seated at a table set with pristine tablecloths and napkins, gleaming bone china plates, many kinds of glassware, all surrounded by beautifully polished silverware. But what is that organized chaos you can see when the kitchen doors swing open? it is the Master Chef and his minions, turning out extraordinary entrees and desserts. But is there any organization to it or to its workers? Let us start at the top of the chef’s ladder and work ourselves down to ground level.
- Fond of Fondue
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] It seemed as if a fondue pot was considered de rigueur in gift giving back in the 1970s and then these versatile pots found themselves tucked away in some far corner of your kitchen, never to be seen again. Three decades later, fondue has returned to its rightful position in things culinary.
- Please Pass the Candy Corn
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] What brings back fond childhood holiday memories for almost everybody? The overpoweringly sweet taste of those golden pieces of Halloween delight. Yes, candy corn, the Nirvana of gustatory bliss. Believe it or not, candy corn has been around since the 1880s. Back at the turn of the 20th century, producing candy involved backbreaking labor. Candy corn production is very similar in the present, except that it is virtually a totally mechanical process.
- How the Jack-O-Lantern Came to Be
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Like many legends about Halloween, the name Jack O’Lantern finds its origins in old Irish folk tales. Read about the history of the Jack-O-Lantern, along with hints for carving your own Jack-O-Lantern, and more about Halloween superstitions.
- Choosing Fresh Fruit or Who Put the Worm in My Apple
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] It is fairly easy to judge the quality of most fresh fruits by just looking at their external appearance. With the following list of many of the most frequently eaten raw fruits, you will be ready and able to properly choose fresh fruit to titillate your tongue.
- Pressure Cookers, Their Care and Feeding, or Is That My Dinner Hanging From the Ceiling
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] No more than a generation or two ago, cooking dinner “under pressure” had turned into hand-to-cooker combat with mops, rags, and sponges against dripping walls and puddles. Basically, the modern pressure cooker is a kitchen pot with an elaborate lid making a tight, complete seal so that the explosions of yore are not even a condition that might present itself to an absentminded chef.
- Tea through the Ages
[Food-and-Drink:Tea] A tea plant is actually an evergreen tree. The domesticated plant is pruned to bush size and maintained at a height of five feet. Teapots were not immediately used after the introduction of tea leaves. Beginning around 800 CE, tea leaves were hand-rolled, dehydrated, ground into a powder, mixed with salt and shaped into cakes which would be dropped into bowls of hot water to create a thick mixture. The early days of the Ming Dynasty brought popularity to the leaf infusion as we now know it.
- Types of Coffee Grinders
[Food-and-Drink:Coffee] One of the things a coffee drinker can do to insure a great tasting coffee is to grind their own fresh beans. The are two basic types of coffee grinders: those which have burrs and those which have blades. Which type of grinder you buy should depend upon the grinder’s intended use.
- Types of Coffee Makers
[Food-and-Drink:Coffee] There are many methods of coffee preparation. Each method has its own unique traits suited to a variety of tastes and lifestyles. Here are some of the more popular and interesting coffee preparation methods, and the types of machines or apparatus for each.
- Pots and Pans - Bring Them On
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] Remember the joy you felt as a toddler when Mom let you play with those shiny, and noisy, pots and pans? You have grown up to covet the pots and pans you see online. Your time has come. Bring them on! You will need to carefully plan your budget. Sometimes it is better to buy fewer high-quality pieces rather than grabbing every piece of cookware in sight on the bargain table. What will you need to start? Everyone, from novice to master chef, needs the basics: Roasters, Saucepans, and Skillets.
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