Six Fruit Spreads

Jelly, jam and preserves are all made from fruit mixed with sugar and pectin. The difference between them comes in the form that the fruit takes. Pectin is an indigestible carbohydrate. It is found in the cell walls of most fruit. When heated with sugar in water, it gels, giving jam, jelly, and preserves their thickness.

Jam is a thick mixture of pulp or crushed fruit, pectin, and sugar that is boiled gently and quickly until the fruit is soft and has an organic shape. It spreads easily and can form a blob. In addition to being a spread, jams are also good for fillings. Jam tastes much like the original fresh fruit.

Jelly is made from sugar, pectin, acid, and fruit juice and is a clear spread that is firm enough to hold its shape. Jellies can also be made from ingredients other than fruit, such as herbs, tea, wine, liqueurs, flowers, and vegetables. Unlike a jam's fresh flavor of the original fruit, a jelly's flavor is that of the fruit after several hours of cooking.

Marmalade is a spread made from the peel and pulp of fruit. Marmalade is cooked for a long time, has no pectin, and is used as spreads and glazes. It is a balanced combination of clear jelly with pieces of fruit suspended in it. This fruit may or may not be citrus. Marmalade, like jelly, does not taste of fresh fruit, though the pieces of whole fruit maintain much of the original brightness of flavor.

Preserves are spreads that have chunks of fruit in a syrup or jam. It is a broad category that includes jam, jelly, and marmalade, as well as pickles, chutneys, and any other canned food. Basically, food which lasts longer than it would on its own is considered a preserve.

Fruit butter is a smooth and creamy spread that is created by slow-cooking fruit and sugar until it reaches the right consistency. These types of spreads are sometimes translucent and often opaque. Fruit butters are best used as a spread or filling. It is a variety of jelly and is whipped or cooked down until it becomes extremely thick

Conserves are basically a jam, made with dried fruits and nuts and cooked. They have a very thick and chunky texture. Conserves work very well as a spread and as a condiment for meats and cheeses.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration, jam and preserves are considered the same thing. Generally a fruit spread is a preserve if the fruit chunks are somewhat large and it is called a jam if the chunks are relatively small and mashed.

Jams and jellies are sweeter and have about half the calories of butter or margarine and unlike butter and margarine, contain zero fat.

Using Vocal Cords

Your vocal cords are an instrument that you use every day. The human vocal range extends from the depth of whispering to shouting. In between are talking, laughing, crying, humming, singing, and more. The entire vocal range is both attenuated and enhanced by emotions. For instance, it is not necessary to see a person speaking with fear, or happiness to notice the differences in tone and inflection.

One often underused quality of voice is silence. Most of us are familiar with the ‘the silence was deafening’. If you can't improve the silence, don't waste your time exercising your vocal cords.

World Toilet Day

Not a joke. United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, along with a coalition from Singapore, introduced a resolution to declare November 19th the first 'World Toilet Day'. The resolution was co-sponsored and adopted by 122 countries at the 67th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. On July 24, 2013, World Toilet Day became an official UN day.

Since its inception in 2001, World Toilet Day is celebrated globally by NGOs, UN agencies, the private sector, civil society organizations and the international community.

19 November is a special day for the World Toilet Organization. It was founded on 19 November 2001. World Toilet Day was established with the aim to draw global attention to the sanitation crisis. The organization’s approach of mixing humor with serious facts resonated with people around the world.

A clean and safe toilet ensures health, dignity and well-being, yet 40% of the world’s population does not have access to toilets. Over two billion people do not have access to proper sanitation, including toilets or latrines, with dramatic consequences on human health, dignity and security, the environment, and social and economic development.

Free Friday Quote

Happy Friday

If it does not make you happy, do not do it.

I am always happy while celebrating a Happy Friday!

National Kindness Day

Next Thursday, November 13 is World Kindness Day. Please be extra kind that day.

Saggy Pants

Have often wondered where the style of some youth began with wearing pants sagging much below the waist. Many US towns have banned wearing in public trousers that are slung so low as to expose the wearer’s underwear.

This saggy trend appears to have originated in US jails where the combination of a prison diet and vigorous sports leads to a slimmer waist. As prisoners are required to wear the trousers they were issued with at the beginning of their sentences, and because belts are usually banned for various reasons, this led to inadvertent sagging. The 'fashion statement' spread beyond the prison walls and has become a sought-after look among America’s disaffected youth.

Horsepower and Watts

Although he was not first to use the horsepower name, James Watt was the first to apply specific measurement to it. During the 1780s, after making a vastly superior steam engine to the common Newcomen steam engine, Watt was looking for a way to market his invention, advertising the fact that his engine was superior and used about 75% less fuel than a similarly powered Newcomen.

He came up with a new unit of measurement that those in need of his engine understood, horse power, referring to powerful draft horses. He calculated how much power a typical draft horse could generate and figured out a typical draft horse could do about 32,400 foot-pounds of work per minute and maintain that power rate for a full workday. He then rounded up, going with 33,000 foot-pounds per minute for 1 horsepower. By overestimating what a horse could do he made sure that his product would always over deliver what he said when trying to get people to buy it.

Watt’s engine was revolutionary and played a huge role in the Industrial Revolution. His unit of measure of an engine’s power became popular. Today the SI unit of power, the Watt, which was named in homage to James Watt, has widely come to replace horsepower in most applications.

Bacon Elevator

Bacon is an effective mood elevator. Bacon makes us feel happy, satisfied, and blissful, which greatly reduces stress and effectively relieves the negative effects of frustration.

Grinders, Heros, Hoagies, and Subs

The Grinder arose in New England and was likely named after the dockworkers whose jobs involved much noisy grinding to repair and refurbish the ships. However, some attribute the name to the amount of chewing and grinding it takes to work through the crusty Italian bread and tough meats on the typical sandwich.

The Hero can contain an infinite number of combinations of meats, cheeses, condiments, vegetables and pickled things. Many believe the Hero Sandwich was named by food columnist, Clementine Paddleworth in the 1930s relating to the Submarine sandwich, when she noted, “You had to be a hero to eat it.” The Oxford English Dictionary credits the naming to armored car guards.

Hoagie is what the folks in Philadelphia call it. Most claim that the name came originally from Al De Palma who thought that a person “had to be a hog” to eat such a large sandwich. When he opened his own sandwich place during the Great Depression, Al called his big subs 'hoggies'. It is assumed that the strong Philadelphia accent changed the pronunciation, and eventually, the spelling.

The Submarine sandwich originated in several different Italian American communities in the Northeastern United States from the late 19th century. So, all Grinders, Heros, Hoagies, and many other regional names for these great sandwiches are Subs and all Subs are sandwiches, but not all sandwiches are Subs.

Five Fun Facts

We eat pizza from the inside out.
Denver International Airport is larger than Manhattan.
There are more life forms living on your skin than there people living on earth.
The craters named Beer on Mars and the Moon were named for German astronomer Wilhelm Beer, not the drink.
Russia considered beer as a soft drink and not alcohol until 2011.

3D Printed Prosthetic Hand

Hayley Fraser, a five-year-old girl from Scotland, recently became the first child in the United Kingdom to be outfitted with a prosthetic limb made using 3D printing technology.

She was born without fingers on her left hand. Her parents, David and Zania Fraser, went online to try and help their daughter who had been turned down by the National Health System. They came across the website of E-nable, a group of volunteers in the United States who design and build prosthetics for children. They made a cast of their daughter's hand and sent it to the group. Professor Flood used the model to print out properly-sized prosthetic components using a 3D printer.

Now, Hayley can manipulate her prosthetic hand's artificial tendons, joints, and fingers by flexing and rotating her wrist. She can hold her teddy, peel a banana, and even paint her nails. Her new bright pink bionic hand was inspired by the movie Ironman.

Sad Presidential Fact

Theodore Roosevelt’s wife and mother died in the same house on the same day, Valentine’s Day 1884. His wife had just given birth to their daughter Alice, and the pregnancy had hidden her kidney disease. He held her for two hours, had to be torn away to see his mother die of typhoid fever, then returned to his wife, who died in his arms.

Find a Hometown Paper

Many of us move quite far from home and every now and then might be curious about what is going on at the place or places we left. I find it fascinating how different places report the 'same' news, or at least their slant on the same news.
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