| T-Coast Students Head Back To School
Kids on the Treaure Coast returned to school Monday to begin the 2007-2008 school year. St. Lucie, Martin, Okeechobee and Indian River counties all began school with warm weather and clear skies Monday morning. Palm Beach County schools begin Wednesday. .
Those pickles are from when?
When my husband goes to Chicago to visit his mother, I fear for his safe return. It's not the air travel that frightens me, nor the chance that he'll be blown around the Windy City, or taken out by an urban thug. I'm afraid his mother is going to poison him. "How was your flight?" I asked, touching base one evening by phone. "Great!" he said. "Mom and I are just sitting down to dinner." "Oh. And what (here's the part where I began to cringe) are you eating?" "Well, Mom has a nice canned ham," he said. "And a nice box of frozen peas. And a very nice box of potato flakes." Call me a snob, but it wasn't the idea of those cans and the boxes that made this fresh-food fanatic fear for my husband's life. It was the code-word "nice." Translation: Food that's been around since the Eisenhower era.
The right way to make Asian food
Forget everything you think you know about Asian food.Cancel your dinner at the Chinese buffet, drop that box of Chung King, and drive on past the pad Thai restaurant. Because there's Asian and then there's Asian.And the difference is detailed in the book "Simple Delicacies" by Candice and Hiroji Obayashi.Filled with wonderful photographs and a collection of (mostly) simple recipes, this cookbook is one for the Asian food fan in the family.But unless your family has a distinctly, cross-cultural, United Nations feel about it, it's also a cookbook that probably won't get used that often.Too bad, too.Based on Hiroji Obayashi famous recipes, "Simple Delicacies" is a compilation of traditional — and original — dishes by the chef.The former head of the historic Imperial Gardens, a well known Los Angeles restaurant located on the Sunset Strip, Obayashi opened the Hirozen Gourmet in 1989 to "serve the best quality food with the freshest materials."Since then he's continued to push the limits of Asian cooking and this book reflects those efforts.He starts with the basics of Japanese cuisine — rice and soup; he writes simply on how to cook rice and includes several recipes for soup.From there, he goes for fun.And different.Take, for example, his recipe for hamburger with crispy potato cake — with a suace of saki and soy — it's something out of this world.But sadly, not every recipe will become a favorite.I have to admit I'll probably pass on tofu steak with mushroom sauce, and I won't be making sushi anytime soon.But the grilled sea bass with asparagus and the chicken teriyaki are keepers.Just like this cookbook.While it may not get used as often as my copy of Historic Italian Cooking or the collection of recipes from the church ladies down the road from my house, "Simple Delicacies" is worth the price.And with its easy-to-follow recipes and its basic, down-to-earth writing, it's the type of cookbook I wish more chefs would write."Simple Delicacies" is published by the Crossbridge Publishing Company of Manhattan Beach, Calif.
More Runways can Prevent Delays
Air travel this summer was plagued with lots of delays at airports across the country. Weather was to blame for most of them, but some of the delays could have been prevented. Take New York's LaGuardia Airport for example. There are just two runways for more than 1,000 flights a day. In June, that means a plane is taking off or landing about every two minutes. Not enough runway space is a nationwide problem. The Air Traffic Controllers Association asked the government to start building more runways ten years ago, but it hasn't yet. Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia are at 100 percent capacity and that's why you are seeing three hour delays on a consistent basis. The nation's busiest airport, Atlanta, did add a fifth runway. Airport officials say take off delays dropped by 78 percent.
Survey: Stress divides youth by their gender
NEW YORK - Stressed out by your high-pressured job? Don't assume your kid is any less stressed out by school. Especially if she's a she. Young people experience stress at a high rate, and females more than males, an extensive Associated Press/MTV survey shows. A similar divide exists in terms of fears and safety: Girls and young women are less likely to feel safe in their neighborhoods, in schools, or from terror attacks. The source of stress changes as we get older, the survey shows. Among 13-17 year olds, school is by far the most commonly mentioned source. Among 18-24 year olds, it's jobs and financial matters. In all, fully 85 percent of young people said they felt stress at least sometimes. "I'm a pretty high-stressed person," says Katie Duda, 21, who's finishing up a degree in culinary arts and awaiting the birth of her first child in a few weeks.
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