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Saturday Night Delights

Posted: April 9, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , |22 Comments

Hi!

Thought I’d put up an open thread with some interesting tidbits that I’ve seen in the news recently.  I also wanted to update you on a few tidbits about the blog too.  On  Thursday, we reached our 3 month name change (actually, it’s the permanent addie that changed) anniversary.  On the 27th, we’ll have left file cabinet status for six months now.  If you look down there at the print screen captured from Technorati earlier this week, you’ll see that we made Top 100 US Political blogs. Actually we did it twice this week and we’re still lingering at the high end.  This one was the second occurence and we were sitting squarely on number 100.  We’re the little blog that can ’cause we try harder!

So, here’s some interesting ‘stuff’.

NPR reports that Egyptians Mummies have been found with clogged arteries.  Guess there was high cholesterol around back then too.

Heart disease is supposedly a modern affliction, the result of a diet rich in animal fat and too many hours spent on the sofa. But recent discoveries suggest that strokes and heart attacks may have been bedeviling humans for millenia.

Dr. Greg Thomas is part of a team of scientists that recently discovered the earliest known case of atherosclerosis — clogged arteries — in ancient Egyptian mummies. The startling findings mean scientists may not understand heart disease as well as they think they do.

The Large Hadron Collider appears to be on the verge of finding a new particle according to Wired.  Physics has to be the neatest science on the planet right now.

Theorist Moira Gresham of the University of Michigan says many explanations for the Tevatron asymmetry predict new particles that could be seen at the LHC — even though it is now running at only half its maximum energy. She and her colleagues posted a paper on the proposed properties of several such particles at arXiv.org on March 18, one of a flurry of articles that have appeared in response to the Tevatron finding.

Among the possible particles is a heavy cousin tothe massless gluon, the particle that binds quarks together. Another idea, noted in a paper posted at arXiv.org on April 1, posits the existence of a particle called the Z’ boson, a heavier version of the Z boson, a messenger particle for the weak interaction. The Z’ boson would transforms one type of quark into another, leading to the asymmetry.

“Particle physicists know that the standard model is incomplete,” Gresham says. “We’ve been waiting a long time to get some more concrete hints.”

Okay, I’m going to share one that you’re sure to like. Here’s a list of the best chocolate bars from Real Simple magazine. They also have stuff there like the best 50 recipes using chocolate too.  Here’s one that sounds great!

Double Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed. Lower to medium speed and add the egg and vanilla. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. On low speed, add the dry mixture to the butter mixture. Beat until fully incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips.
  2. Form the dough into approximately 1 1/2-inch balls. Place on parchment- or foil-lined baking sheets, 2 inches apart.
  3. Bake until the centers are just set, about 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks.

This week’s Rolling Stone‘s asked the  question “Who is the best lead singer of all time?”.  You can go answer them or maybe you can offer up your own.  Here’s my two offerings.  Robert Plant singing a song with Queen in a tribute to Freddie Mercury.  Oh, and it’s a Led Zeppellin song before he switches to singing ‘Crazy Little thing called Love”.  Every time I’ve see Robert Plant in concert, I go weak in the knees. He did to me as a teeny bopper and he still does it to me today.  Even, if he’s traveling around with Allison Krause.

Okay. So, hopefully this puts you in a good mood and we forget the beltway madness for awhile!  Happy Saturday Night every one!  Oh, and share!!!   I want folks to top my chocolate recipes, lead singer suggestions, and discovery trivia!

22 Comments on “Saturday Night Delights”

  1. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 9, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    Thanks for the recipe, Dak.

    Robert Plant is fabulous, but I have to go with Jim Morrison.

  2. Jadzia's avatar Jadzia says:
    April 9, 2011 at 8:42 pm

    I’ll see you your double chocolate chip cookies and raise you a triple chocolate chunk cookie — amazing! Was going to make these this week but am sick as a dog. I am either more pregnant than I thought, having a litter, or having a 20 pound baby.

    http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2010/04/07/thick-and-chewy-triple-chocolate-cookies/

    • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
      April 9, 2011 at 8:59 pm

      I blew up like a liquid balloon with my youngest.

      • Jadzia's avatar Jadzia says:
        April 9, 2011 at 9:02 pm

        How early did you start to, um, inflate?

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        April 9, 2011 at 9:24 pm

        with the last one, really early, actually. For some reason, that pregnancy had a lot of things go on. My ankles swelled a lot too. I didn’t have toxemia but they were watching me because I was holding fluids like some big round sponge. I was like 34 so I was still fairly young.

      • minkoffminx's avatar Minkoff Minx says:
        April 9, 2011 at 9:55 pm

        I went from 98 pounds to 165 pounds with my son…and they had weighed me 2 weeks before he was born, and he was 6 weeks early. Ugh, I can’t imagine how big I would have gotten if I carried him to term.

    • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
      April 9, 2011 at 9:28 pm

      I see a run to the grocery store for ingredients in my future!!! Yummy!

      • Jadzia's avatar Jadzia says:
        April 9, 2011 at 9:31 pm

        They are beyond amazing. The recipe is from the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, which is our family’s go-to cookbook that we use at least five times a week. I am cooking my through it, and have only found maybe half a dozen recipes that have NOT been great. And that’s mostly because they were things that I just was not going to like in the first place but tried to keep an open mind about (like pork chops). Every foodie I know has one “general” cookbook for weeknights, like Joy of Cooking, Fannie Farmer, etc. But we’ve tried them all and I really think ATK is the best.

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        April 9, 2011 at 9:34 pm

        I’ll have to go get one. I’ve got tons of cook books but have basically stopped using them. I’ve gotten to the point where I can do almost everything with out one unless I try some different spice combination. Most recipes have the same basic preps, etc. It’s just the spice and a few of the different ingredients that you change up. Once you get the basics and the basic spices and sauces down. It’s pretty much the same.

      • Jadzia's avatar Jadzia says:
        April 9, 2011 at 9:35 pm

        Sounds like you’re a REAL cook! I’m just good at following directions. : )

      • minkoffminx's avatar Minkoff Minx says:
        April 9, 2011 at 9:58 pm

        If you are looking for something good…This is the best Spanish cookbook:

        Everything is so damn good. I highly recommend it.

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        April 9, 2011 at 10:02 pm

        It comes with years of practice and hungry, growing kids. I really was bad when I first started. Betty Crocker had to teach me a thing or two.

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        April 9, 2011 at 10:05 pm

        I’m going to have to check out that Spanish one for sure! Paella over the campfire was one of my favorites when I was at university.

  3. janicen's avatar janicen says:
    April 9, 2011 at 10:00 pm

    I can’t wait to try the cookie recipe, it looks delicious. Congratulations on a great blog. I can’t imagine how you front pagers with your busy lives, find the time to post such amazing stuff, but I’m so glad you do.

    I have to agree with Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant, and I love Jim Morrison, but I’ll add Ann Wilson to the list.

  4. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    April 9, 2011 at 10:12 pm

    here’s another beautiful picture of a beautiful woman … evidently Roddy McDowell shot a nude of Elizabeth Taylor to give to her third husband Michael Todd. It’s a nude of her at 24. Wow.

  5. TheRock's avatar TheRock says:
    April 10, 2011 at 12:32 am

    Congrats on the recognition! This blog deserves it. I think it safe to say that many of us come here first for news and educated commentary. Keep up the great work!

    Now if I don’t have to give you a ‘chocolate’ recipe, I have something very comforting and warm…..

    QUICK BANANA BREAD

    3/4 c. shortening or 1 c. butter
    3/4 c. sugar
    2 eggs
    2 c. or 3 med. over-ripe mashed bananas
    1 tbsp cinnamon
    1 tsp nutmeg
    1 tsp vanilla extract
    2 c. flour (all-purpose)
    1 tsp. baking soda
    1/2-1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

    Cream shortening/butter and sugar together. Add eggs. Beating after each addition. Stir in flour and soda alternately with mashed bananas. Stir in chopped nuts. Grease baking pan. Add batter to pan. Bake in 350 degree oven for 35mins.

    Serve with a redbox movie, hot chocolate and someone to cuddle up with… 🙂

    Hillary 2012

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