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Good afternoon gardeners. I have been debating all day if I should post this week’s thread. And can’t help myself at this point. I do not like stepping on JADB’s ownership of the thread and I hope y’all and she understands. As many of you know my wife and I are moving from Meridian, Ms to Marshall, Tx and I was not sure I would be able to keep on gardening at the house we are leasing. Peggy has received a written approval letter from the owner for us to put in a small garden. So I will be trying...

Did any of you Freepers ever thought you would see the day where now we have The Obama Chicago Thug Machine sending "Lunch Nazi's" to Kindergartens and Grade Schools? And yet polls say 50% of Americans still approve of Obama and Michelle running the country? What next? A Restroom Nazi making sure we only use 4 sheets of Charmin to wipe ourselves? Or maybe a Burger Czar sneaking into McDonalds observing what are kids are ordering for lunch? Lets all hope the term "Moochelle The Soup Nazi" gets around. The Left Wing Media wont know how how handle it.

The most important factor in determining when to plant a certain type of vegetable in your garden is the “Last Freeze Date” in the spring for your area...

Twinkie lovers may want to stock up on their golden Hostess treats. This time it is not the food police who are threatening the yummy cakes. ABC News says teamsters are making strike threats to Hostess, which is in an operational bankruptcy at the moment. If there is a union strike, production of Twinkies will cease

A 50-year-old woman accused of dousing her dad with iced tea on Super Bowl Sunday was arrested, even though she said the chilled beverage soaking was an act of "self defense," a recently released report states. The apparent tossed tea tumult began brewing Feb. 5 as a 79-year-old man told Port St. Lucie police he argued with his daughter, Jacqueline Collins, the Port St. Lucie police report states. He said the disagreement at his Southeast Victory Avenue home in Port St. Lucie was over food. After quarreling briefly, the man sat on the couch to watch the Super Bowl, a...

BOULDER, Colo. -- They're shiny, tiny and in demand. Buckyballs are powerful little magnets you can form into any shape. But a Colorado mom learned the hard way the powerful magnets can also be life-threatening. CALL7 Investigator Theresa Marchetta found out how such a dangerous toy could so easily end up in the hands of a child. "It could have been dire. Really dire," said Stephanie Thompson. In September, her 5-year-old son, Finn, had emergency surgery. The scar on his stomach is healing, but for his mom, the emotional wound is still fresh.

Eating chocolate cake as part of a full breakfast can help you lose weight, say scientists. It sounds too good to be true, but new research says having dessert—along with the traditional fry-up—burns off the pounds. Morning is the best time to consume sweets, because that's when the body's metabolism is most active—and we have the rest of the day to work off the calories, a new study shows. Eating cookies or chocolate as part of a breakfast that includes proteins and carbs also helps stem the craving for sweets later. Researchers split 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults into two...

Welcome to the 10th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or ten- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

Good morning Gardeners!!!! I know I'm not part of your usual cast of gardening threadmasters, but it's afternoon here and the thread hasn't arrived yet! So I'm going to start one, and if it turns out later that I shouldn't have, then I'll appologize really nicely. *Ahem*: The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political,...

First lady Michelle Obama was in Dallas Friday to judge a Top Chef cooking competition as part of her three-day Let's Move national tour. Obama joined White House chef Sam Kass and "Top Chef" host Tom Colicchio as judges in a televised competition that paired child sous-chefs with professional chef — all former contestants on the Bravo television show. Fabio Viviani, Jennifer Carroll and Spike Mendelsohn were the celebrity chef contestants. "Are you guys fired up?" Obama asked the kids before the event started. "The whole point of this is making sure you're healthy." At the end of the 30...

TV’s smartest chef, Alton Brown, is ending his blockbuster show after more than a decade. More than 250 episodes later, Brown has achieved his goal of tutoring the masses, introducing terms like “hygroscopic,” “Maillard reaction,” and “polyphenol oxidase” into the vocabulary of the average home cook. He was the first TV food personality to get cerebral about groceries, helping viewers get to know the properties of ingredients and how best to manipulate them for maximum taste. (What other chef would use Tinkertoys to explain sugar crystallization?) Brown and his wife, DeAnna, built the Good Eats empire from scratch, shooting the...

An Irvine company has developed what it calls "the world's first self-chilling can" that drops a beverage's temperature 30 degrees in minutes at the push of a button without electricity.

When the economy hit the skids a few years ago, we responded with tactics that have gotten us through previous recessions: We stopped eating out and traveling as much, curbed our discretionary spending and chose generic items for basics like groceries. But then something strange happened: We began to prefer many of those store brands. Increasingly, we’re willing to pay even more for them. What’s going on here? According to the Wall Street Journal, stores have raised the prices of private-label nonperishable food by 5.3%, compared to a 1.9% increase for goods made by national brands. Store-brand versions of perishable...

Today in Washington, First Lady Michelle Obama announced dictates of Obamacare and her Healthy Kids Initiative will require pork, bacon, ham and other non-kosher, non-halal foods be served the nations’ schools, including those operated by Jewish or Muslim organizations. “Everyone understands the benefits of chicken in a diet, but pork is often called “The Other White Meat” said the First Lady. “Lean pork is a great alternative to fatty beef” added Second Lady Jill Biden who joined Mrs. Obama for the announcement, held at the new Mother Seaton – Christ the Redeemer Birth Control Pill Distribution Center. The only hitch...

Good morning fellow gardening Freepers. I'm in need of a good affordable garden tiller and was wondering what you folks think. I used to simply rent one but that option is pretty much out now since nearly all the rental places quit carrying tillers. The one place left that does rent tillers is prohibitively expensive. So, I'm considering just buying a smaller one. The Mantis XP fits my budget and they make a convincing sales pitch (good warranty, free shipping, Honda Engine) but I don't have a clue if they're any good. I'm open to any and all suggestions. I'm...

(WXYZ) - Sipping on coffee and downing energy drinks could soon be a thing of the past. A new product called AeroShot is an inhalable form of caffeine. Sound futuristic? It’s not. AeroShot is already on the shelves in New York and Massachusetts, plus you can purchase it online.

[snip] Bread and rolls are the No. 1 source of salt in the American diet, accounting for more than twice as much sodium as salty junk food like potato chips. That surprising finding comes in a government report released Tuesday that includes a list of the top 10 sources of sodium. Salty snacks actually came in at the bottom of the list compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Potato chips, pretzels, and popcorn - which we think of as the saltiest foods in our diet - are only No. 10," said CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden. Breads...

Some of you may have a Berkey water purifier. It is touted as the best there is. From their wabsite: "Berkey® Systems are the World’s Most Powerful and Cost Effective Personal Water purification Systems Providing Reliable and User-friendly Water Purification in Both Normal and Hostile Filtration Environments." "Moreover, Berkey® systems are capable of purifying both treated water and untreated raw water from such sources as remote lakes, streams, stagnant ponds and water supplies in foreign countries, where regulations may be substandard at best. So powerful, this system is able to remove red food coloring from water without removing the beneficial...

Obama's abortion rules for the Catholic religion are no different than requiring Muslims to eat pork.

Ramirez says he named the pig FreddyThis little pig never made it all the way home. Sergio Ramirez said he was approaching the Sawgrass Expressway by Atlantic Boulevard in Coral Springs on Saturday when he noticed a black-spotted pig running in the middle of the road. People were crowding around him, concerned he would get hit by a car and he wasn't running away, so Ramirez picked him up and loaded him in the back of his truck, he said. "He was very thirsty and hungry," said Ramirez. "Seems like he had not eaten for a couple of days." "He...

Sitting here now smoking a pork shoulder...not exactly a NY dish, but I'm in MD now and have Virginians coming, so they get it. Son-in-law bringing Boston Baked Beans for the Pats symbol; also, my beautiful wife making pizza appetizers using sliced-in-half pita bread and fontina cheese. Veggies and dip, chips and dip (crab dip for MD), mac and cheese coming, potato salad and cole slaw for pulled pork. Also, Kosher hot dogs for friend who won't eat the pork...plus sauerkraut and fried onions to go with the dogs.We are all Giants fans...so GO BLUE! We always have LaBatt's Blue...

Welcome to the 9th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or nine- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

When Girl Scout cookie season starts up in your neighborhood, those earnest young saleswomen bearing boxes of sweets may be armed with a new secret weapon: a mobile credit-card reader attached to their smartphones. That's right people. The Girl Scouts have firmly entered the digital age, and our waistlines may never recover. Think of the implications: Before, if you saw a tempting table laden with Samoas and Thin Mints outside the grocery store, being low on cash could prevent you from buying a box or two, or five, or 10. Not anymore.

The kid is back in town. That means long lines outside Russian River Brewing Co.'s downtown Santa Rosa brew pub on Friday and lots of voice mail messages on brewer Al Gorton's phone. “I get a lot of friends this time of year,” Gorton said Thursday at the company's south Santa Rosa production facility. Gorton was in the process of filling kegs with Pliny the Younger, a Triple IPA (India Pale Ale) that is so popular with beer aficionados that people come from all over just to sample it. Last year, that included beer enthusiasts from Japan and Denmark, said...

Good morning gardeners! Red Devil here. JustaDumbBlonde and her husband are on their way up to Montana for a well deserved vacation. She should be able to post the thread from her remote Montana location next week.  I am sure she will continue with her plans for a soil structure thread next week. Her Thread subjects are so informative and interesting. Although I have not been real active on the thread, I read each and every post. Y'all have been doing a great job!I should be able to get some sort of a  garden going this year, at our...

Two infamous Swedish murderers, the "Skara Cannibal" and the "Vampire Woman," hope to get married, according to Expressen, a Swedish newspaper. The couple met at their high-security psychiatric ward in eastern Sweden, the paper said, and flirted over Internet chat rooms. ”We got together on November 13th. 'Do you want to be my girlfriend?' he asked on MSN. Then we decided to get engaged, which we did on December 9th,” Michelle Gustafsson, aka the "Vampire Woman," told Expressen. Gustafsson was convicted in 2010 of the stabbing death of a father of four in Stockholm, the paper said. She wrote chilling...

The Feb. 18 Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival, as we all know, is sold out. But if you reeeeeaalllllyy want tickets to the event, we’ve got a few to give away as part of the Bacon Festival’s Bacon Queen pageant. Upload a fun Bacon Queen-worthy photo, and answer the short questionnaire by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8. Then, beginning 8 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, we’ll let readers vote for the ladies they deem worthy of the title.

Linky Here>

Wine lovers looking to expand their palates by light-years have to look no further than this small Chilean vineyard where a British astronomer and winemaker has combined his two passions to create the first wine infused with celestial elements. Mr Hutcheon whose vineyard in San Vicente, 140 90 miles south of Santiago, has produced a Cabernet infused with a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite. He first selects the grapes from his vineyard and then ferments the fruit for 25 days before beginning the year-long Malolactic fermentation process in a wine barrel containing the 7.6 centimetre (three-inch) meteorite. After 12 months, the meteorite-infused...

Jamie Oliver has won an apparent victory by persuading McDonald’s to remove a form of ‘reclaimed meat’ from its burgers. It’s a victory built on ignorant scaremongering. News from America, where McDonald’s has responded to a segment in Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution by removing an ingredient called ‘finely textured lean beef trimmings’ from its burgers. This luxurious-sounding product is in fact another form of ‘reclaimed meat’, where meat processors try to get every last bit of meat from an animal’s carcass. In the segment, Oliver shows a group of parents and children a cow and explains the value of each...

Even if you’ve never had a McNugget, you could be guilty of eating a high sodium diet. Imagine eating nothing but salt-filled McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets. For 15 years. That’s exactly what Stacey Irvine, a 17-year-old factory worker from England did—and it just may kill her. But before you write this story off as just plain crazy, do you know how much salt you’re taking in? And what it’s doing to your health? As reported by the Daily Mail, when Stacey Irvine’s mother first took her to a McDonald’s restaurant 15 years ago and bought her some Chicken McNuggets, it was...

Friday, January 27, 2012 Friday Night Dinner Party For First Lady: Michelle Obama & Friends At DC's Oyamel Restaurant A repeat visit to Chef José Andrés' Chinatown eatery... Perhaps tired from his three-day, five-state tour this week, President Obama was not part of his wife's dinner party on Friday night as First Lady Michelle Obama paid a visit to Washington, DC's Oyamel. Mrs. Obama arrived at the Chinatown restaurant at about 6:30 PM with a large group of friends, according to a source inside the popular eatery, and stayed for more than two hours. Owner/executive chef José Andrés, a...

A pub landlord and ­landlady have been ­suspended and ­threatened with the sack for serving pints “too full” of beer. Pete and Debbie Gibson were ordered to close their Junction Inn pub on New Year’s Eve ­because brewery bosses said the heads on their pints of beer and lager were not big enough. Pete, 48, and Debbie, 47, say they have been told they owe brewing firm Samuel Smith £10,733 in lost stock for topping up customers’ pints. The dispute centres on whether or not customers are entitled to ask for more than 95 per cent of their pint glass...

It was Jamie Oliver’s toughest challenge... getting US ­youngsters to ditch junk food and eat a healthier diet. But six months after he ­convinced an LA school to swap fattening burgers for low-calorie salads, his ­revamped menu is – literally – being binned. Hundreds of students at West Adams Preparatory High School, where his hit show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution was filmed, are ­refusing to eat his cuisine. Instead, bins are overflowing with the TV chef’s veg curries, quinoa salads, Thai ­noodles and wheatbread burgers. Many youngsters even go without lunch altogether. Anna Redd, a cookery teacher at the school,...

“SOME like it hot,” Tony Curtis told Marilyn Monroe in the 1959 movie of the same name, referring to music. Since then, Americans have grown to like something else — food — even hotter, as evidenced by the popularization of spicy fare like Buffalo chicken wings, made with cayenne pepper hot sauce. Now, a hot sauce war has broken out in time for the Super Bowl, perhaps the most snack-centric day of the year. According to a survey from the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, consumers who plan to watch Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday will spend $11 billion on...

A monster breakfast which weighs the same as a small child and could potentially kill diners is attracting criticism from angry health campaigners The Kidz Breakfast at Jesters Diner in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, includes 12 rashers of bacon, 12 sausages and six eggs and weighs on average 9lb - 1lb 5oz more than the average newborn baby. Health experts are demanding its removal from the menu and are warning someone with a heart condition could die if they eat it, with each helping amounting to at least 6,000 calories, up to three days' food intake for an average person.

Disgust is one of our most basic emotions—the only one that we have to learn—and nothing triggers it more reliably than the strange food of othersDisgust is one of our most basic emotions—the only one that we have to learn—and nothing triggers it more reliably than the strange food of others In the last several years there has been an explosion of research on disgust. Disgust is one of the six basic emotions—along with joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear—but it is the only one that has to be learned, which suggests something about its complexity. Most children get their...

It has been 40 years since the "The Godfather" drew fans into the iconic saga of the Corleone family, reinventing the mob-movie genre and embedding the phrase "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" in the American idiom. But the blockbuster film and its two sequels, with more than $1 billion in revenues, are about far more than crime and punishment to Tom Santopietro, the author of "The Godfather Effect." Mr. Santopietro, a theater manager who has written books on Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Barbra Streisand, saw "The Godfather: Part II" (1974) as a college sophomore, and it...

You've heard of the Berkey water purifier, right? It is supposed to be the best of the best. And they charge according to that reputation. For years, that reputation was well deserved. However in 2010, they had a batch of bad filters. The ceramic filter was not properly glued to the plastic base, and this allowed unfiltered water to rush around the filter, rather than through it. They thought they fixed that problem, and released more filters in early to mid 2011, that were also bad. This time, they used an adhesive that sticks to the ceramic element, but doesn't...

Waffle House has a reputation for strange encounters. Round-the-clock service makes the bright yellow restaurants an attractive spot for people from all walks of life — students cramming for exams, workers eating after the graveyard shift and drunks and stoners out for a 2-AM snack. Not surprisingly, Waffle House has also been the scene of many strange crimes.

Welcome to the 8th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or eight- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it had detained orange juice shipments from Canada after they tested positive for low levels of a banned fungicide previously found in Brazilian juice. The FDA announced earlier this month that it would begin testing foreign orange juice shipments for the presence of the fungicide carbendazim before allowing them to enter the country. On Friday, the agency said that among 80 shipments from around the world it tested so far, six from Canada and five from Brazil had tested positive. The samples that have tested positive so far...

I have a dear friend and neighbor who is elderly and not in the best of health. Day in and day out during gardening season she sits at her kitchen table and watches me work in my yard and garden, living vicariously through me. Once or twice a week I'll take her some vegetables and we discuss gardening, which was such an important part of her earlier years. You can see the love of gardening in her eyes every time we have a talk. I asked her one day to tell me the difference between dirt and soil. Soil,...

SUPPLEMENTAL VOL. 1 USDA Unveils New Plant Hardiness Zone Map The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released the new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map, updating a useful tool for gardeners and researchers for the first time since 1990 with greater accuracy and detail. The new map — jointly developed by USDA's Agricultural Research Service and Oregon State University's PRISM Climate Group — is available online at http://www.planthardiness.ars.usda.gov . ARS is the chief intramural scientific research agency of USDA. For the first time, the new map offers a Geographic Information System based interactive format and is specifically...

CHICAGO, IL.: A nationwide boycott of Starbucks stores and its products will be launched on Valentine’s Day 2012. Its goal is to eliminate the risk of guns in public places and ultimately to bring sane gun laws to the U.S. This boycott is being called by the National Gun Victim’s Action Council (NGAC), a network of representatives of 14 million gun victims, the faith community — including the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, United Church of Christ, Fellowship of Reconciliation — and secular groups working to reduce gun violence and many of the organizations that support passing sane gun laws.

Click image for video and sound...Two Labs [could they be Mitt & Newt?] waiting patiently to get served in "restaurant", and in spite of waiting, never get anything to drink.

Seeking to offer its customers a place to unwind in the evening, on Monday Starbucks Coffee Company announced plans to offer alcohol to customers at four to six of its Southern California locations by the end of the year. The company, however, has not yet announced the handful of locations that have been selected. The new menu is expected to include a wine and beer list that will be tailored over time to the tastes and preferences of local customers. As for new food items, customers of the chosen locations can expect more evening friendly fare, such as hot flatbreads,...

How Scottish Scientists Re-Created a Hundred-Year-Old Whisky Preserved in Antarctica since 1907, the Scotch that Ernest Shackleton drank is now available in stores In 1907, Ernest Shackleton and crew set out on the ship Nimrod to visit Antarctica and, they hoped, the South Pole. The good news was, the entire party survived the trip, thanks in part to the Rare Old Highland Whisky they brought to the frozen continent. But the expedition was forced to evacuate in 1909, some 100 miles short of the Pole they sought. And, as winter ice encroached and the men hurried home, they left behind...

Bartending Tips From Days of Old What's old is new again, and nowhere is that more true than in the cocktail world. New twists on classic cocktails are popping up everywhere, but most of us haven't even figured out how to make them sans twists yet. Luckily, the bartenders of yore have reached forward in time to give us invaluable advice on mixing these drinks of yesteryear. And publishers looking to capitalize on the cocktail craze have reached back to the of bartenders at the turn of last century to reprint some of the most storied mixology guides. Long before...

The Texas Department of State Health Services will drop vaccines from the air Wednesday. It's part of the annual effort to protect people and livestock from rabies.