Sightings...

Cocoa, Tea, and Coffee

The three associated beverages, cocoa, tea, and coffee are known to the French as aromatic drinks. Each of these has its characteristic aroma. The fragrance and flavor are so marked that they cannot be imitated by any artificial products, although numerous attempts have been made in regard to all three. Hence the detection of adulteration is not a difficult matter.

Designing persons, aware of the extreme difficulty of imitating these substances, have undertaken to employ lower grades, and, by manipulation, copy, as far as may be, the higher sorts. Everyone knows how readily tea, and coffee, for that matter, will take up odors and flavors from substances placed near them. This is abundantly exemplified in the country grocery or general store, where the teas and coffees share in the pervasive fragrance of the cheese and kerosene. But perhaps it is not so widely understood that some of these very teas and coffees had been artificially flavored or corrected before they reached their destination.

[source: Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes]

Beer

Since Oktoberfest is just right around the corner, here’s something to booze you up...

Beer, surely, is a gift of God, one that brings together yeast and vegetation (in the shape of barley and hops) in a drink that has been enjoyed for 8,000 years, a beverage that has soothed fevered brows, nourished the hungry, and coupled friendly and unfriendly alike—it’s even seen men off into battle. “No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer,” said John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), a great British tactician and a forebear of the even more celebrated Winston.

Queen Victoria (1819–1901) was another who recognized the merit of beer: “Give my people plenty of beer, good beer and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them.” With these sentiments, the redoubtable monarch echoed the enthusiasm of the Athenian tragedian Euripides (484 – 406 BC):

The man that isn’t jolly after drinking

Is just a driveling idiot, to my thinking.

Cheers!!!

[source: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing]

DIET

A "diet" could be defined as any temporary change in your eating behavior to help you lose weight. This entire concept is flawed. When you say you are “going on a diet” the implication is that it’s temporary and at some point you’re going to have to “go off” the diet. This is not a program that you go on and off. The only way you'll ever lose fat and keep it off permanently is to adopt new habits and keep them for life.

Initially, your new dietary and exercise disciplines may feel uncomfortable. Sticking with them will take some effort in the early stages. After a short adjustment period, you will discover that it gets easier until eventually your new behaviors become deeply entrenched into your daily routine like grooves in a record. Your new habits will become as much a part of your daily routine as taking a shower, brushing your teeth or going to work. Your positive new habits will become a part of your lifestyle.