Cooking Perfect Steak- Is it rare or well done? Is my steak rare, or medium, or well done?  How can you tell without cutting it open and destroying the steak?  Cooking perfect steak is easy with the help of Chef Tips host Jason Hill. Hill explains how to tell when a steak is done by [...]

Money-saving tips for the middle class Part 1: Transportation Unless you work from home, transportation is a necessity. But it need not be expensive. You don’t need three cars. You probably don’t even need two cars. And you could likely get by with no car at all, especially in the city. If you live in [...]

One-dish harvest stovetop recipeThis is one of those great recipes that I made up on the spur of the moment to use up ingredients I had on hand. Hope you like it. A great way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers. 1 medium cooking apple (use golden delicious if you have to. Or check your local [...]

The River Why by David James DuncanThis is one of those rare perfect books that I will want to keep forever to loan out to friends in need of enlightenment or encouragement. It has everything: a good storyline; characters that are real, complex and that you would want to meet in real life; it’s funny; [...]

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette WintersonThis is a neat little book that I read almost in one day. I found a lot of myself in it. Some of you may think that this statement is odd. After all, it’s about a British girl growing up in a small town under a severely [...]

20 Minutes to Dinner by Bryanna Clark GroganThe subtitle for this book is Quick, Low-fat, Low-Calorie, Vegetarian Meals. And it should be noted that they are also vegan: no eggs, no milk, cheese, butter, or other dairy, and of course, no other animal products. Most of her recipes include some kind of tofu, or other [...]

All About German BeerGerman. Beer. These two words just seem to go together. Beer makes us think of bratwurst, Oktoberfest, crazy drunken Germans in leiderhosen, beer steins, and so on. And German beer tastes great! Even many of the popular US beers, Busch for example, are from original recipes brought to America from Germany. According [...]

Goddess MoonsOK, this is a post for girls. Guys, you may want to skip this one, although it is interesting. Girls (women) you are familiar with the choices out there for your monthly period. Tampons, and pads, right? Tampons can be uncomfortable, and can give you toxic shock syndrome. Pads can be bulky, may leak, [...]

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan I’ve just finished reading The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan. As with The Joy Luck Club, I was very impressed and found myself lost in the realism and emotion of the story. As with many of her books, Tan brings in the elements of the mother-daughter relationship, and old [...]

Plain and Simple: A Woman’s Journey to the Amish by Sue BenderI loved this little book (just 152 pages, I read it in a few hours). It was not only a delight to read, but also aesthetically pleasing and nice to hold in my hands. It is an autobiography, but also a spiritual book. Although [...]