Dear Folks,

Well, this is the fifth day of a five day juice fast. Actually: 8am herb tea, 9 am fresh fruit juice, 12 pm herb tea, 3 pm fresh vegetable juice, 6 pm warm vegetable broth, and 9 pm herb tea. That's it. More or less. Five days in a row. Then, two days to break the fast intelligently: Saturday, add fresh fruits, and Sunday, add a small salad for dinner. Then a couple more days of just vegetarian cooking. Then back to normal cuisine; however with a lot more restraint for awhile. I've gone as long as two weeks in the past. Fasting is hard to actually start, but once I do, and get past the second day, it's like an old friend come over to visit. It's been awhile since I've fasted, but it's got me through a lot of health wobbles in the past, and actually helped me to stop smoking. Because it's more than about not eating - it's about breaking patterns - physical and psychological.

I did an interview with Frank151 Magazine, in the US this week, and they requested permission to reprint one of my recipes in their summer edition. Guess which one they wanted? KANGAROO BRACIOLONE! The article won't be in for a few months but they have an extremely creative website and here's the link if anyone is interested in viewing the magazine: (site)

Also, a reminder that DIFFICULTWOMEN is performing next Friday night, Apr 17th, in Somers, VIC. (details)

Favourite Reader Feedback of the Week

Joe,
Re: Newsletter: http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~dwomen/files/nlSept2003.html

You have:' Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE from being PLASTIC'.
This is false. It was made up to make an email more interesting. The question of whether or not, "margarine is but one molecule away from being plastic." is the equivalent of asking whether or not corn oil or soy bean oil or peanut oil is "one molecule" away from being plastic. Like butter, margarine is about 80% fat and 20% water and solids. But being from vegetable sources, it lacks cholesterol. It is flavoured, coloured, and fortified with vitamins and so "nutritionally" it is very similar to butter - without the cholesterol. Today, soy and corn oils predominate as the source - eating margarine is really not that much different from eating the raw oils from either corn or soy. Yes, it has been hydrogenated but it is certainly a lot lower in saturated fats than butter. Indeed, the proportion of saturated fats in liquid oils, tub or soft margarines, hard margarines, and butter increase in that order. For me it is a matter of taste. I eat butter. JP

PS. This is also falty logic. Oxygen, really is one molecule away from being deadly ozone! I am not giving up breathing based upon that argument.

(Note: JP, Wow! That was from a newsletter back in 2003! Holy timelag, Batman. You've got a bit of catching up to do, JP. It's also worth noting in your letter that 'falty' is one letter away from being a correct spelling. But that's not going to keep us from writing, is it? Yours in breath and butter, Joe.)

Hi Joe,
. . . on the subject of musical jokes (eg '3 notes walk into a bar...')

 Q: You drop a banjo player and an accordion player from the top of the Empire State Building. Who hits the ground first?

 A: Who cares?

(This may be specifically a jazz players joke, not necessarily appreciated by bluegrass people, Argentinean tango players etc.) harris

Hey Joe!
I visited the website for your World Idol pick but found that the clip wouldn't download. However, the whole thing was surrounded by hard core porn ads. Now whilst I don't mind myself (ed note: wink wink nudge nudge say no more), I think the page is inappropriate for any minors that subscribe to your letter and indeed for anyone that's offended by the graphic content. If you didn't realise, then maybe reconsider next time, before suggesting something ostensibly harmless to your readers. Other than that - have a nice week. Paul R.

(Note: Paul, you may not believe this, but I must be getting immune to hard core porn ads, with all the spam I get, because I didn't even notice those ads on that site until you drew it to my attention! My apologies to all the minors who might have read that. I hope it didn't disrupt their mining. (Ouch!) However, for those of you who are interested in the creative erotic, here's a link for you -)
Facettes de la Petites Mort - beautifulagony.com

Hey Joe,
Lets clarify this, you mean Greek? What's with the goat jokes? You wanna end up sleepin' with a horse head? or worst the whole horse? you won't walk for a year, i've seen what it does to jockeys. your lucky some of the gumbas dont get your mail. ciao John B.

(Note: Gianni - even worse, I could end up with a goat's head in my bed - or 'en culo alla capra'. Put in a good word to the Capra de tutti Capras for me, please. Ciaow!)

Living Will is the Best Revenge
By ROBERT FRIEDMAN, Perspective Editor

Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here's what mine says:

* In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me.
* I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.
* I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.
* I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well. article
(thanks to John Jacobs)

US military Weaponry of the Near Future

If You Build It, They Will Kill
By Nick Turse

Lets face it, making war is fast superceding sports as the American national pastime. Since 1980, overtly or covertly, the United States has been involved in military actions in Grenada, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Haiti, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Liberia, Sudan, the Philippines, Colombia, Haiti (again), Afghanistan (again) and Iraq (again) and that's not even the full list. It stands to reason when the voracious appetites of the military-corporate complex are in constant need of feeding.

As representatives of a superpower devoted to (and enamored with) war, it's hardly surprising that the Pentagon and allied corporations are forever planning more effective ways to kill, maim, and inflict pain - or that they plan to keep it that way. Whatever the wars of the present, elaborate weapons systems for future wars are already on the drawing boards. Planning for the projected fighter-bombers and laser weapons of the decades from 2030 to 2050 is underway. Meanwhile, at the Department of Defense's (DoD's) blue-skies research outfit, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), even wilder projects - from futuristic exoskeletons to Brain/Machine Interface initiatives - are being explored.

Such projects, as flashy as they are frightening, are magnets for reporters (and writers like yours truly), but it's important not to lose sight of the many more mundane weapons currently being produced that will be pressed into service in the nearer term in Iraq, Afghanistan, or some other locale the U.S. decides to add to the list of nations where it will turn people into casualties or "collateral damage" in the next few years. These projects aren't as sexy as building future robotic warriors, but they're at least as dangerous and deadly, so lets take a quick look at a few of the weapons our tax dollars are supporting today, before they hurt, maim, and kill tomorrow. article

FIRE DANGER

This was received from a friend in the home insurance business.   It is well worth reading. 
 
The original message was written by a lady whose brother and his wife learned a hard lesson this past  week. Their house burned down....nothing left but ashes. They have good insurance so the home will be replaced and most of the ontents. That is the good news. However, they were sick when they found out the cause of the fire. The insurance investigator sifted through the ashes for several hours. He had the cause of the fire traced to the master bathroom. He asked her sister-in-law what she had plugged in the bathroom. She listed the normal things.... curling iron, blow dryer. He kept saying to her, "No, this would be something that would disintegrate at high temperatures".  Then her sister-in- law remembered she had a Glade Plug-In air freshener in the bathroom. The investigator had one of those "Aha" moments. He said that was the cause of the fire. He said he has seen more home fires started with the plug-in type room fresheners than anything else. He said the plastic they are made from is a THIN plastic. He also said that in every case there was nothing left to prove that it even existed.

When the investigator looked in the wall plug, the two prongs left from the plug-in were still in there. Her sister-in-law had one of the plug-ins that had a small night light built in it.   She said she had noticed that the light would dim and then finally go out.   She would walk in to the bathroom a few hours later, and the light would be back on again. The investigator said that the unit was getting too hot, and would dim and go out rather than just blow the light bulb. Once it  cooled down it would come on. That is a warning sign. The investigator said he personally wouldn't have any type of plug in fragrance device anywhere in his house. He has seen too many homes that have been burnt down due to them. .
(Thanks to Maggie Morgan)

Music

The singer in new girl group The Faders is Midge Ure's daughter.
(Note: Alan Howe, are you thinking what I'm thinking?)

The Ten Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pictures of All Time (website)

News

Goldencasino.com, who bought Tawny Peaks' fake boobs, and a cheese sandwich which looks like Virgin Mary, have also bought a Dorito in the shape of the Pope's hat.

SISTERS

Hill of Death, the gospel song I co-wrote with Henry Lawson's mother, Louisa, (you didnt know I was that old, did you?) has just been released on a compilation CD called 'The Winners - 2004 Australian Gospel Music Awards.' The first song on the CD is by Sister Janet Mead, called,'The Lord Our God is King.' It's an incredible melody, too. Actually, an awesome tune! It's the first time I've ever heard Sister Janet but I recall her name from a few years ago when I was working on a bio-song about Soeur Sourire (aka 'The Singing Nun' - real name Jeanine Decker). During my research on Decker's life, and her Dominican Order of Nuns, I kept coming up with references to Sister Janet Mead in Australia. Both women have unique innocent pop-folk styles and a great sense of melody.

Here are the LYRICS to my song about Jeanine Deckers, using the original tune to 'Dominique,' her classic hit song.

And a link to my essay about ST DOMINIC (1170-1221), the founder of the Order of Preachers, commonly known as the Dominican Order, and his part in the Albigensian Heresy.

(Excerpt: "Pope Innocent III declared Catharism a heresy and drove it underground by relentless crusades. But like every powerful idea that is driven underground, it reappeared in another form - a supposedly 'secular' form. The teachings and ideals of the Cathars suddenly reappeared in the cult of courtly love, in the songs and poems of the troubadours and in the 'romances'. Some cultural historians believe that courtly love was a deliberate 'secular' continuation of Catharism, that the knights and ladies who first practiced courtly love were Cathars continuing their religious practice under the guise of a secular cult of love. To outsiders it looked like a new and elegant way to make love, to woo and flatter pretty damsels but for the inside who knew the code it was an allegorical practice of Catharist ideals." (from Robert Johnson)

Things Creationists Hate
Bob Riggins

The following is not meant to be an all-inclusive list, nor is it meant to characterize the views of all creationists. But there are certainly some, if not most, who can be so characterized. The main objects of my satire, for so it is intended, are the young-Earth, biblical-literalist types, although other generations of creationists may detect some of their views skewered here also.

Sample:

The Whole Silly Flood Story

Creationists are probably more defensive about the Flood than any other part of their mythology. One indication of that is the fact that the seminal work of modern creationism (oxymoron) was called The Genesis Flood. The Flood story apparently required lots of explanation and justification if anyone were to take creationism seriously. An instantaneous supernatural creation by an omnipotent God is somehow easier to swallow than the cobbled-up mish-mash of legends that became the biblical Flood story. Consider a few minor difficulties and childish questions:

Were pairs of every species living on Earth taken aboard the Ark? All living and extinct species? All 50 billion or so species that have ever lived on Earth? Or only land animals and birds that couldn't survive by swimming for several months? We're still talking many millions of species. And while we're at it, why does my Bible state clearly and unambiguously that two of each kind of animal were taken aboard, then immediately afterwards it seems to correct itself by informing us that seven of each "clean" animal were boarded, and then immediately after THAT it insists that two of every kind were loaded? How did Noah know which species were clean several thousand years before God imparted those laws to Moses? And if Noah knew about "clean" animals, why wasn't that knowledge passed down through the generations? Is it possible that the whole business about "clean" animals necessary for sacrifices was tacked on later by a bungling editor who forgot to check the context for obvious contradictions?"

(Other topics include: Craters, Footprints, Insects, Goosebumps, The Order of Creation, The Hair on the Backs of Their Necks, The Cause of Cancer, Viruses, Ribs, Honesty and Moral Behavior, Their Appendixes, Their Own Coccyges, DNA, Elephants, Unusual Babies, Human Embryos, Fossils, Plate Tectonics, The Sky, The Number of Species in the World, The Slow Rate of Evolution, Size of the Earth, Ice Ages, Micro-organisms, Universal Gravitation, Pi, Geology, Original Thought, The Earth, Stars, The Human Mind, Bats, The Holy Bible, Noah's Ark, Each Other, The Scientific Method, Physics, Charles Darwin, Planets, "In our image," Deep Sea Fish, Faith, Wisdom, Teeth, The Last Little Piggy, Doggie Toes, Australia, Lower Back Pain, Koalas, Humility, Truth, Their own eyes, Thermodynamics according to Isaiah, Authentic degrees and credentials, Their Third Cousins, Carnivores, George Washington, Chemistry, Dendrochronology, Flat-Earthers, Varves, The Nobel Prize Committee, Fingers, Snake Hips and Whale Pelvises, Gonorrhea, Chicken Legs, Male Nipples, Beetles, The Efficacy of Science, Noah and His Ancestors, Libraries, The Power and Majesty of God Almighty, Sloths, 1,000 pennies, Tornadoes, Junkyards, and 747's, Their Own Lack of Faith, "Balanced Treatment," Cute Little Bunny Rabbits, The Order of Becoming a Creationist, Real Flood Evidence, Europeans, Inconvenient Biblical Laws, Egyptians, Blind Cave Fish, The Lord's Honesty, The Missing Laws, The Gilgamesh Epic, Plants, Fruit Flies, Snowflakes, Convergent Evolution, Insulin for Diabetics, Big Numbers, The Definition of Christian, Creationist Research Projects, Hemoglobin, Commandments Against Incest, Pseudogenes, Vitamin C, The Genesis 1 & 2, Resolution Playing Cards, The Tower of Babel, Digitized Natural Selection,The Two Great Lights, The Plantaris Muscle, Shark Reproduction, The Joshua Business, Population Centers, Astronomy, Catalysts, Penicillin, Artificial Selection, Their Own Eye and Teeth, Their Own Children, Colour Blindness, Other Cultures, Asexual Animals, Constellations, The Human Genome Project, Another Genesis Oops, Sudden Jerks, Supernova 1987a, Alternative Creationist Explanations, Vestigial Bits and Bad Engineering, Farmers, The Geologic Strata and "Ecological Zonation," Revelation of Their True Allegiance, A Pile of Sand, The Apostle Paul, Ambiguous Gender, The Missing Milk Commissar, The World-Swap, The Sabbath Millennium, Evolved Plagues and Pestilences, Isaiah's Shadow, The Poor Fossil Record, Satan's Rapid Deployment Force, The Improbable, Ice Caps, Parasites of Animals, Lengths of the Day, Month, and Year, Lactose Intolerance, Amber, Their Prostate Glands, The Other Economic System, Intuition.) article

News that the 'Rapture' Has Come and Gone Alarms Many Christians

What if the 'Rapture' happened but you were left behind? That's what millions of Christians are wondering amid mounting evidence that the Rapture, the much-anticipated event in which God summons his faithful to the heavens, may have happened earlier this month. article

Rapture Letters

After the rapture, there will be a lot of speculation as to why millions of people have just disappeared. Unfortunately, after the rapture, only non believers will be left to come up with answers. You probably have family and friends that you have witnessed to and they just won't listen. After the rapture they probably will, but who will tell them?

We have written a computer program to do just that. It will send an Electronic Message (e-mail) to whomever you want after the rapture has taken place, and you and I have been taken to heaven.

How is this accomplished, you might ask. It's a dead man switch that will automatically send the emails when it is not reset.

If you wish to do something now that will help your unbelieving friends and family after the rapture, you need to add those persons email address to our database. Their names will be stored indefinitely and a letter will be sent out to each of them on the first Friday after the rapture. Then they will receive another letter every friday after that. article

What Calls You, Pilgrim?
By Ravi Ravindra
Departments of Physics and of Comparative Religion
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

" . . .However, the Eurocentricism, and the associated sense of superiority of the European races and culture, which has very much coloured Christian doctrine, does not seem to have yet suffered the fact of the shift in religious demographics. The late Paulos Mar Gregorios who was the Metropolitan of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Delhi told me of an incident which illustrates this. Metropolitan Gregorios was a man of much substance: in addition to his religious qualifications he was a distinguished scholar. At one time he was the President of the Indian Philosophical Congress. He was also for some time the President of the World Council of [Christian] Churches. In this capacity he had an audience with the present Pope at the Vatican.

Metropolitan Gregorios asked the Pope what he thought was the reason for such a small percentage of Indians having converted to Christianity although it had been in India for such a long time. The Pope said to him the reason was that the Indian mind was not developed enough to understand the subtlety of thought of St. Gregory of Nyssa or of St. Thomas Aquinas. Somewhat taken aback, Metropolitan Gregorios asked the Pope if he had read Shankara or Nagarjuna. He was immediately shown out of the room where the audience was taking place. I found the incident merely amusing because I did not find this surprising at all, but he had been much saddened by it, for the issue was more personal for him. As he said, he realized for the first time and first hand that every Indian Christian is considered to be a second class Christian in the Vatican. This was even more galling for him because he belonged to a branch of Christianity as ancient as any. . . " article
(thanks to Stefan Abeysekera)

His Essence is a new South Dakota company inspired by, "All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia..."  Psalm 45:8 The Bible verse refers to the garments of the Messiah when He returns.  We carefully combine these fragrances and the result is a scent, which serves as a reminder of His Presence. (website)

(Note: I wonder what the baby Jesus's Essence would have smelled like? I would have thought straw, donkey dung and hommus.)

Options . . . .

HOODOO VOTIVE CANDLES
Run Devil Run

PURPOSE: Send Satan and his minions packing! (site)

Some dangers, of course . . .

HOLY SMOKE
By JOSEPH MOLLICA
March 14, 2005 -- An elderly woman's makeshift altar turned her Brooklyn apartment into an inferno yesterday after her votive candle, bearing a picture of Jesus, fell to the floor and set her bedroom ablaze, officials said. article

For those who require a more balanced vibe, try the His Essence candle combined with the:

Devil Candle Holder (site)

And for those readers that are just plain part of that confounded Axis of Evil . . .

THE DEVIL CANDLE

Can the Devil be a bringer of good luck? Yes, indeed, according to old European traditions. This devil -- known variously as Old Nick, Old Scratch, Old Split-Foot, and Der Teufel -- did not begin his career as the "Satan" (adversary) of Christianity and Judaism or the "Prince of Darkness" and "fallen angel" popularized by John Milton in his epic poem Paradise Lost" (1667 - 1674).

The old Devil is a Teutonic woods-spirit, an ogre-like trickster who may desire to eat human flesh, but is often friendly to wood-cutters and footloose soldiers. (Note: That's reassuring. I like to chop wood.) In Germanic folk-tales like those collected by the Grimm brothers, he is usually described as living out in the woods with his aged grandmother who combs his hair to put him to sleep at night. (Note: I like that, too. Call me kinky.) Among Americans of Anglo-Saxon heritage, he is sometimes said to have a wife who quarrels with him. (Note: I . . . . . er, no comment!) article

Instructions for your Candle . . . .

CANDLE DIVINATION

As a candle burns it releases not only it's wax but it's color into the atmosphere. What ever has been connected with the candle as in the form of embedded energy or written on the candle will transmigrate to a plane where it can do what you have intended and focused on it to do.

Some examples:

Why does the Candle Emit BLACK SMOKE when lit?
This signals that the candle is beginning to remove negative energy from your desire.

Why does the Candle Emit WHITE SMOKE when lit?
This signals that your prayer will be answered but not without a struggle.

NEVER use MATCHES...THEY ARE TABOO. Why?
They are tipped with phosphorous and sulphur (Brimstone), elements which release noxious fumes when ignited, and invoke demonic entities. Striking matches to light candles which have been blessed and charged would therefore seem hopeless.

IF THE SMOKE WAFTS TOWARDS YOU:
Your prayer has been acknowledged and will be granted quickly.

IF THE CANDLE SMOKE WAFTS AWAY FROM YOU:
Perseverance will be needed to achieve your desire.

IF THE SMOKE TURNS TOWARDS YOUR RIGHT :
You will need to use a bit of patience with success coming from using your head.

IF THE SMOKE TURNS TOWARDS YOUR LEFT:
You are becoming too emotionally involved with the situation and are in danger of subconsciously sabotaging yourself so that your prayer will not be answered.

WHY DID MY CANDLE EXPLODE? (boom boom!)
There are two different ways to interpret this. If it is a protection or reversing candle it means that the candle protected something from attacking you and/or alot of negative energy has been directed towards you. If the candle is being used to dominate or cause conflict to someone, it means that the person is being protected spiritually. If this is the case, you are to light another candle of the same type to break their protection to allow the spell to work correctly. article

NEWS

US in Race to Unlock New Energy Source
By David Adam
The Guardian

Green groups warn against moving methane hydrates from beneath seabed

More than a mile below the choppy Gulf of Mexico waters lies a vast, untapped source of energy. Locked in mysterious crystals, the sediment beneath the seabed holds enough natural gas to fuel America's energy-guzzling society for decades, or to bring about sufficient climate change to melt the planet's glaciers and cause catastrophic flooding, depending on whom you talk to.

No prizes for guessing the US government's preferred line. This week it will dispatch a drilling vessel to the region, on a mission to bring this virtually inexhaustible new supply of fossil fuel to power stations within a decade.

The ship will hunt for methane hydrates, a weird combination of gas and water produced in the crushing pressures deep within the earth - literally, ice that burns. article

Woman Challenges North Carolina Anti-Cohabitation Law
Feminist Daily News Wire

A former sheriff's dispatcher is challenging North Carolina's law against cohabitation after losing her job for living with her boyfriend out of wedlock. Debora Hobbs, who had been living with her boyfriend for about three years when she was hired as a Pender County 911 dispatcher in February 2004, left her job last May after her boss told her to get married, move out of the house they shared, or quit her job, reports the Associated Press.

The anti-cohabitation law, which prohibits unmarried, unrelated adults of the opposite sex to live together, is nearly 200-years-old and is rarely enforced, according to the Associated Press. If convicted, offenders could face a fine of up to $1000 and up to 60 days in jail. North Carolina is one of seven states which such a law, reports the News and Observer. article

The Undoing of America
Gore Vidal on war for oil, politics-free elections, and the late, great U.S. Constitution
by Steve Perry

(Note: Gore Vidal's most famous TV moment came during the 1968 Democratic Convention, when ABC paired him with William F. Buckley on live television. On the next to last night of the convention, the dialogue turned to the question of some student war protesters raising a Vietcong flag. The following exchange ensued:
 
Vidal: "As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of proto- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself. Failing that, I'll only say that we can't have--"
Buckley: "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." The following interview was conducted with him recently at the age of 80.)

City Pages: I'll start with the broadest of questions: Why are we in Iraq, and what are our prospects there at this point?¨

Gore Vidal: Well, let us say that the old American republic is well and truly dead. The institutions that we thought were eternal proved not to be. And that goes for the three departments of government, and it also goes for the Bill of Rights. So we're in uncharted territory. We're governed by public relations. Very little information gets to the people, thanks to the corruption and/or ineptitude of the media. Just look at this bankruptcy thing that went through--everybody in debt to credit cards, which is apparently 90 percent of the country, is in deep trouble. So the people are uninformed about what's being done in their name.
And that's really why we are in Iraq. Iraq is a symptom, not a cause. It's a symptom of the passion we have for oil, which is a declining resource in the world. Alternatives can be found, but they will not be found as long as there's one drop of oil or natural gas to be extracted from other nations, preferably by force by the current junta in charge of our affairs. Iraq will end with our defeat. article
(thanks to Maireid Sullivan)

Videogame

ESCAPE FROM WOOMERA
The controversial Escape from Woomera game puts players into so-called "Australian detention camps," so that people will understand what it's like to be a political refugee seeking asylum. (site)

CREEPY GAME

This is creepy . . . (don't cheat and will you be surprised!)
Scroll down slowly . . ..

Think of a letter between
A and W.
.  
.
Repeat it
out loud as
you scroll down.  
.
.
Keep going . . .
Don't stop . . .  
.
.

Think of an
animal
that begins
with that letter.
.
Repeat it
out loud
as you
scroll down.
.
.  
.

Think of
either a man's/woman's
name  
that
begins
with the
last letter
in the
animals name
.
.

Almost
there........
.
.

Now
count out
the letters
in that name
on the fingers
of the hand
you are not
using to
scroll down.
.
.

Take the
 hand you
counted with
and hold it out
in front of you
at face level  
.  
.
.
Look at your
palm
very closely
and
notice
the
lines
in  
your
hand
.

Do the lines
take the
form of the
first letter
in the
persons name?
.
.
.  
. Of course not.......
.

Now smack yourself in the head with that hand, and GET A LIFE!
(thanks to Blaise Van Hecke)

Mother-in-law Jokes

My mother-in-law's cooking is so bad, she joined Gourmet Magazine, but a few months later they tried to buy back her subscription. (boom boom!)

My mother-in-law's such a shopaholic, IKEA recently applied for planning permission to open a branch in her house. (boom boom!)

My mother-in-law once applied to join a lonely-hearts club, but they told her they were not that lonely. (boom boom!)

Recipe

Steamed Gingered Salmon with Warm Citrus Sauce

* Canola oil to cook
* 2 tablespoons ginger julienned
* 1/2 cup sliced scallions
* 1 tablespoon fleur de sel
* 1 teaspoon coarse ground szechuan peppercorns
* 1/2 teaspoon coarse ground white peppercorns
* 4 (3-ounce) pieces of salmon fillet
* 4 eight inch rice paper, softened in warm water
* 4 red leaf lettuce leaves for steaming
* 1/2 tablespoon pink peppercorns, for garnish

WARM CITRUS SAUCE
* Juice of 1 orange, separated
* Juice of 1 lemon, separated
* Juice of 1 lime, separated
* 1 tablespoon clear soy sauce
* 1 tablespoon lychee honey
* 1/2 tablespoon butter
* Salt and white pepper

1. Set up a steamer. In a saute pan coated with oil on medium heat, saute the ginger and scallions until soft, about 2 minutes. Set aside.
2. Wipe out pan and toast the salt and peppercorns until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Grind the peppercorns and salt. Season the fillets on both sides with the salt/peppercorn mixture.
3. Place 1 wrapper on a clean dish towel. Place a thin layer of the ginger/scallion mixture and top with fillet. Roll bottom towards the middle. Fold in both sides and continue rolling. Finish roll and let rest. The top of the package will be the ginger/scallion mixture.
4. Place packages in a steamer lined with a leafy vegetable. Steam for about 8 to 10 minutes.
5. Ladle citrus sauce on small plates and place salmon on top. Garnish with pink peppercorns

WARM CITRUS SAUCE
In a non-reactive pan, combine juices and reduce on low heat by 5 percent. Add the segments, soy sauce and honey and heat. Whisk in the butter. Season to taste and check for seasoning.