TURKEYS AND CHOCOLATE!

 

 

Hello everyone,

I  was going to give today a miss as far as an entry was concerned.  I feel so lethargic and everything is an effort.  Flipping cold,  I`ll be glad when it`s gone just so I can breathe again.  Tomorrow morning early, Jim and I are going to brave Tesco`s shopping aisles for the last time so we can get all our potatoes and veggies, cheeses, salad stuffs etc.  That will be it then, no more shopping except for bread and milk.  The freezers are both full and we won`t starve so I will have a much reduced shopping bill this week.....hooray!  Later in the morning I`m supposed to be going out with Kerry and Danny to Uxbridge to have lunch together, but it will depend how I feel.  Unless I feel much better I will have to back out and let them go on their own, which may be a good idea anyway because of a potential argument between them that I don` want to be caught up in.  It was bad enough when they argued as children but as adults it`s best to run for cover before the storm breaks...lol!

                                              

This afternoon I walked past the `Crime House` as usual with Jake.  There was no-one there but I did notice that the house`s extension roofing felt away where it meets the wall.  By the looks of it they are in for a serious leak when it rains and whoever was responsible for it`s construction  obviously isn`t the greatest builder in the world!  I wonder what else can happen to them now?  I doubt they`ll ever see there beautiful shiny new cars again, maybe they aren`t even out on bail.  If they are you can guarantee that their passports have been confiscated.

                                              

Did I mention Jim`s new exterior hard drive?  Well,  it doesn`t work at all, a friend had it tested and found it to be faulty so Jim has asked for a full refund.  He has seen a better one in PC World cheaper, very unusual for them I must say, so he is going to buy that one, saving money is always a plus.  The company sent  DHL to collect it this afternoon and hopefully it will be sorted out soon.  They are a good company so there shouldn`t be any problems.  The sooner he gets his drive he can then use his new photo imagining program.  It take up an enormous amount of space so he wants to keep it separate from the main hard drive.  He can also use it for his music downloads that he wants for his new mp3 player that he`s getting for Christmas.  I had another weird dream last night.  I had to kill my own turkey for Christmas dinner and I really didn`t want to do it.  I was told that if I cut it`s leg off it will die instantly...I did and it didn`t...UGH, it was horrible, I was screaming, the turkey was screaming.... this cold has a lot to answer for!  Oh yes, and the turkey hadn`t any feathers either.....or beak...UGH UGH  !!!  The thing is, it was a frozen one, but still alive...lol!   That`s it from me today, I`m going to spend some time reading journals and then maybe I`ll have a rest from the computer.  I`m shattered despite a good nights sleep (apart from the dream!).  I hope you all have a lovely day and take care.

 

 

 

 

Trivia about chocolate

 

A 1.5 oz. milk chocolate bar has only 220 calories.
A 1.75 oz. serving of potato chips has 230 calories.

A recent study indicates when men crave food, they tend to crave fat and salt. When women crave food, they tend to desire chocolate.

American chocolate manufacturers use about 1.5 billion pounds of milk -- only surpassed by the cheese and ice cream industries.

Americans consumed over 3.1 billion pounds of chocolate in 2001, which is almost half of the total world's production.

Aztec emperor Montezuma drank 50 golden goblets of hot chocolate every day. It was thick, dyed red and flavored with chili peppers.

Bittersweet chocolate is what is usually called for in baking. It contains more chocolate liquor (at least 35%) and less sugar than sweet chocolate. Semisweet chocolate contains 15% - 35% chocolate liquor.

Chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA), a natural substance that is reputed to stimulate the same reaction in the body as falling in love.

Chocolate syrup was used for blood in the famous 45 second shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's movie, Psycho, which actually took 7 days to shoot.

Chocolate Timeline:
1824: John Cadbury, an English Quaker, begins roasting and grinding chocolate beans to sell in his tea and coffee shop. In 1842 Cadbury's Chocolate Company in England creates the first chocolate bar.
1875: A Swiss chocolate maker, Daniel Peter, mixes Henri Nestle's con- densed milk with chocolate and the two men found a company to manufacture the first milk chocolate.
1894: Milton Hershey adds a line of chocolate to his caramel manufacturing business. Soon he invents the Hershey Bar by experimenting with milk chocolate. Hershey's Cocoa appears next.
1896: Leonard Hershfield invents the Tootsie Roll, named after his daughter.
1897: Brownies are first mentioned in print, listed for sale in the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogue.
About 1900: A machine called the enrober is invented to replace the task of hand-dipping chocolate.
1930: Franklin Mars invents the Snickers Bar.
1939: Nestle introduces semisweet chocolate morsels.
1940: The Mars company invents M&M's for soldiers going to World War II.

Cocoa butter is the natural fat of the cocoa bean.It has a delicate chocolate aroma, but is very bitter tasting. It is used to give body, smoothness, and flavor to eating chocolate.

Cole Porter got a kick from fudge. He had nine pounds of it shipped to him each month from his hometown.

Columbus brought cacao (chocolate) beans back to Spain on his fourth voyage in 1502.

German chocolate cake did not originate in Germany. In 1852, Sam German developed a sweet baking bar for Baker's Chocolate Co. The product was named in honor of him -- Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate.

Hawaii is the only US state that grows cacao beans to produce chocolate.

In 1900, Queen Victoria sent her New Year's greetings to the British troops stationed in South Africa during the Boer War in the form of a specially molded chocolate bar.

In Hershey, Pennsylvania, the streetlights along "Chocolate Avenue" are in the shape of Hershey Kisses.

In the United States, approximately seven billion pounds of chocolate and candy are manufactured each year.

One plain milk chocolate candy bar has more protein than a banana.

Per capita, the Irish eat more chocolate than Americans, Swedes, Danes, French, and Italians.

Pet parrots can eat virtually any common "people-food" except for chocolate and avocados. Both of these are highly toxic to the parrot and can be fatal.

Ten percent of U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance of iron is found in one ounce of baking chocolate or cocoa. Chocolate also contains Vitamins A1, B1, B2, C, D and E as well as calcium, potassium, sodium and iron.

The American Heart Association recommends that daily cholesterol intake not exceed 300 mg. A chocolate bar is actually low in cholesterol. A 1.65 oz. bar contains only 12 mg! A one oz piece of cheddar cheese contains 30 mg of cholesterol - more than double the amount found in a chocolate bar.

The botanical name of the chocolate plant is Theobramba cacao, which means "Food of the Gods."

The daughter of confectioner Leo Hirschfield is commemorated in the name of the sweet he invented: Although his daughter's real name was Clara, she went by the nickname Tootsie, and in her honor, her doting father named his chewy chocolate logs Tootsie Roll.

The theobromine in chocolate that stimulates the cardiac and nervous systems is too much for dogs, especially smaller pups. A chocolate bar is poisonous to dogs and can even be lethal.