Fluffy Eggs

A friend of mine, Jeff Flanagan passed along this quick scrambled egg tip. Instead of butter or spray for a pan coating, use a little olive oil.  Much fluffier eggs.

Bacon Bandages

A friend of mine, Jeff Flanagan came back from a recent trip and gave me a gift he picked up along the way. (Likely after a few beers.) Anyway, the gift was a tin of real bandages. These are no ordinary bandages, these are bacon bandages.

I quickly went home to administer a small cut to test the 'die cut sterile strips' and see how they worked. Below is a picture of my hand with the beautiful medical strip attached.

It really is a good mini bacon replica. Alas, it does not have the bacony goodness smell, but it is a true bandage. However, it also makes me hungry just looking at it. Time for breakfast. Thanks Jeff.

White Chocolate is Not Chocolate

This tidbit came up in a recent conversation and Jeff Flanagan suggested it might be a good topic for Friday Thoughts. In order to be labeled chocolate (as defined in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration) a product must also contain cocoa solids from chocolate liquor. Chocolate liquor is not real alcohol, but is the thick liquid produced when fermented, dried, and roasted cocoa beans are shelled, then ground. The chocolate liquor is the key ingredient in all of the chocolates on the market, except for white chocolate.

When the chocolate liquor is pressed, the fat can be removed from it. This fat is called cocoa butter, and it is the primary ingredient in white chocolate. In plain chocolate, the cocoa butter is re-blended with the cocoa solids from the separation process in order to make unsweetened chocolate. It may also be sweetened and blended with additional ingredients such as milk to make the chocolate confection we commonly eat.

However, with white chocolate the cocoa butter is not reunited with the cocoa powder. Instead, sugar and milk are added to create the final treat. Also, since the caffeine in chocolate is in the cocoa solids and not the cocoa butter, white chocolate does not contain any caffeine.

Since white chocolate labels are not standardized, some manufacturers market products that do not even contain cocoa butter as white chocolate. Usually, these contain vegetable oil and taste different.

The cocoa butter used to make white chocolate is a very stable fat and has a long lifespan without spoiling. It contains several natural antioxidants and it has a shelf life of several years. It is also used in other products, such as soaps, moisturizers, and other skin care products.

How Tall is. . .

Jeff Flanagan challenged me to find the height of an actor, and I got carried away. Although there is some discussion on the web, with varying heights (especially for the shortest actors), and I did a bunch of digging and these are the best estimates I can find. The  heights listed are without shoe lifts, which many of the men wear. 

Michael 'Sylvester' Gardenzio Stallone 5'7, Halle Berry 5'5, Gary Coleman 4'8, Tom Cruise 5'7, Dame Judi Dench 5'1, Nicole Kidman 5'10, Carlos Ray 'Chuck' Norris 5'9 (born 1940), Angelina Jolie 5'7, Dustin Hoffman 5'5, Mel Gibson 5'8, Salma Hayek 5'1, Walter 'Bruce' Willis 5'11, Mike Meyers 5'6, Jack Nicholson 5'9, Regis Philbin 5'4, John Travolta 6'0, Ray Van Damme 5'8, Tina Turner 5'4, Rene Zellweger, 5'4 Jon Stewart 5'7, Dolly Parton 5'0. That is the tall and short of it.