Posts Tagged ‘Bettina Cookbook’
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018
From a Bettina Network Lifestyle Member:
Why is Donald Trump so consistently and insistently pushing the U. S. Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh?
Normally, if anything – no matter how small – surfaces about a Supreme Court nominee, that person immediately and usually quietly withdraws their nomination. Generally in conversation with the president of the United States they have been quietly told they are still good people, but with the U. S. Supreme Court…….. and they withdraw. Donald Trump has actively encouraged Brett Kavanaugh to keep going and Kavanaugh, thinking he has the support of the President of the United Sates, keeps going. He becomes the victim being seriously victimized by that President for his own reasons. How come?
When all of this business with Brett Kavanaugh surfaced, we knew something was coming down the road, but didn’t know what. We did know that with what is going on with this nomination, whatever was coming down that road was big – ugly – and meant to provide Donald Trump cover from some very ugly part of his life which was being uncovered and reported to the American people. Which makes you ask – was any of what was ‘leaked’ put out into the public by that same president? To take advantage of what he probably saw as “made for cover”. The New York Times was already in contact with the “Don” about the article they were writing on his family’s tax situation and the NYT had already received a threatening letter back from the “Don’s” lawyer about what they would do to the paper if they went ahead with the story – with that exchange predating the Kavanaugh hearing.
The New York Times article, which just came out about how Donald Trump and his family committed tax fraud against the American people seems to be what the Kavanaugh nomination and its ugly mess is really being used for – to provide cover for Trump by deflecting the American public away from the real story of the day. Is it only accidental that the day the story breaks about this huge and incredible story on the Trump family’s tax evasion, Donald Trump is in Mississippi stirring up the crowds at his rally through viciously attempting to humiliate and destroy Dr. Christine Blasey Ford complete with chants of “lock her up.” Trump is shrewd enough to know such a rally would emotionally explode within a lot of people – very few can understand anyone so vicious.
New York Times reports Trump received millions through tax evasion ..https://www.dw.com/en/new-york-times-reports-trump…tax-evasion/a-45734477 3 hours ago – By helping his father engage in dubious tax schemes, Donald Trump inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, The New York Times said.
It seems clear to me that this is what is driving the Kavanaugh debacle and why Donald Trump is making such a big deal about it and portraying Kavanaugh as the victim along with Donald Trump himself. This will go on until the fallout from this New York Times’ article dies down. The media can only report so much at one time and the headlines about the Trump family’s tax problems will have to share its spotlight with the Kavanaugh nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court – thus minimizing what the public will hear about this incredible bit of tax evasion engaged in by Donald Trump and his family, one of whom is Donald Trump’s sister and a Sr. federal judge. Maybe this distraction with Kavanaugh will help Donald Trump’s sister keep her job because the public will be too blown away by all the things being exposed by the Kavanaugh nomination to be able to deal with both. Hopefully, that is a wrong assessment. Certainly the possible tax fraud by the Trump family and in particular Donald Trump over a period of decades with multi-millions involved is a larger story than the apparent lies being told by Donald Trump’s nominee to be a judge on the United States Supreme Court. That is not to minimize what is happening with Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, it is just to put it in its proper context. Real or a created distraction!
The nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court is important and will reverberate throughout this country over decades if Kavanaugh gains that seat; we should not minimize that. However, for a few years now we have been forced to see how Trump manipulates the press and his base so that his past spent in an ugly, foul, filthy swamp will be minimized as the filth of a life led with gutter ethics and a foul character mired in a messiah complex is uncovered for all to see.
A postscript to all of this are the comments Trump made about veterans with PTSD – basically, it was that only the weak suffer from such an ailment. This message delivered by a man who spent quite a bit of time and energy making sure he would never be exposed to the possibility of experiencing life in such a way that PTSD was possible. He did this by getting one deferment after another never having spent time in the armed services – although he did want to spend multi-millions on a super-military-parade in which he would be center of attention as the Chief of State.
Thanks for the space you make available so those of us who are just people can put out our thoughts for others to read and react to. While this contribution is political, I am writing another which is the result of my academic research. I will send that to you for publication as soon as it is in good enough shape to be published. I noticed a couple such articles on this blog and realize this is a great forum for a lot of different bits of information, wisdom and whatever else needs to be said. I also tried your “Marshmaples” recipe in the Bettina Cookbook section of this blog and it was outstanding. We will never buy commercially made marshmallows again. The difference is astounding and they didn’t take that long to make. Somehow it has never dawned on me that I could make marshmallows. Your insistence on “organic” ingredients fell on deaf ears, but then I made another batch and tried the organic route – just for fun – and wow, the difference in taste was just outstanding. I am not a total organic person, but this did make me move on from organic Marshmaples to organic bread. Who knows what will come next.
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Tags: Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump, politics, Sexism
Posted in Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Cookbook, Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Balsey Ford, Donald Trump, Guest comments, sexism | Comments Off on Why is Trump Pushing Kavanaugh so Insistently?
Friday, September 14th, 2018
A great breakfast which is nutritious and also satisfies your taste for sweet, exotic but not white and sugary.
1. You need to find ORGANIC Steel Cut Whole Grain Oats. Nothing less!
2. For 3 to 4 people measure one cup oatmeal into a lovely glass Corning pot or something equivalent. No metals please. An attractive pot in which you can serve the oatmeal would be special.
3. Add two cups water and stir putting the pot over low heat.
4. Add one scant teaspoon himalayan salt – one heaping teaspoon organic ceylon cinnamon (if this is hard for you to find try Frontier Co-op) – using a rasp, grate about 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg from whole organic nutmegs – two heaping teaspoons organic turmeric – 1/2 to one teaspoon organic ginger using a rasp to grate whole ginger into the oatmeal. Preferably – you should use amounts to your taste. The above is what we use.
5. Cover the pot and let it simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes or until it looks done – stirring from time to time.
6. Some people use three cups water, but that makes an oatmeal too soggy for our taste. If you like that consistency then by all means use three cups water.
If you like that “bite” with your oatmeal add several dashes of cayenne pepper. You can also add cayenne pepper to the Bananas Foster sauce.
For the Bananas Foster sauce to go over the oatmeal:
Melt one stick organic butter – salted or unsalted is your choice as long as the butter is organic.
Add organic turbinado sugar to the melted butter and stir a bit – not too long. The amount of turbinado sugar is to your taste. We use a cup full.
Add organic ceylon cinnamon, freshly grated organic ginger, freshly grated organic nutmeg to the pan and stir again
Add either cream or water – also depending upon your taste. Some people can’t do without cream and some find cream too much for this dish. Try both and draw your own conclusions.
Stir and let simmer a few minutes until the sauce looks right.
Add organic bananas sliced on the diagonal and simmer again until the bananas are heated through and a little limp.
Pour the bananas foster into a beautiful pressed glass bowl with a silver ladle for serving.
Put individual servings of oatmeal in a soup bowl or two handled broth bowl and cover with the bananas foster sauce.
A little bit of heaven!
If you are not from New Orleans you can substitute cherries, strawberries, blueberries, etc. to this sauce instead of bananas. It is a lovely change and an exquisite taste no matter which fruit you add.
Enjoy!
And remember – this is an unbelievably healthy dish and way to start the day with a minimum of work and a maximum of taste and elegance.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Cayenne Pepper
Posted in Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina's Cookbook, Cayenne Pepper | Comments Off on Breakfast Oatmeal with Bananas Foster Sauce
Tuesday, September 11th, 2018
What a great discovery! You won’t believe the fantastic taste of this popcorn!
First – buy organic popcorn. There are several brands, but it must be organic.
Then you will need an air-popper. This helps because you don’t need oil for the dried corn to pop.
Then use the measuring cup that comes with the air popper – or use about 1/2 cup dried corn into the popper.
Turn it on with a bowl in front to catch the corn once it has “popped”.
While this is happening melt 1/2 stick organic butter (salted or unsalted, your choice).
Into the melted butter put two large tablespoons organic peanut butter which you ground yourself or purchased from the store and ground it in the store. No store bought/store prepared peanut butter even if it is organic.
Stir the butter and peanut butter together until the peanut butter has melted into the butter and pour this onto the freshly popped corn. You can make the sauce ahead and let it come to room temperature while you pop the corn.
Mix the sauce you just made with the popcorn until they are thoroughly mixed together. Add organic himalayan salt and cayenne pepper to taste until everything looks totally mixed and all of the popcorn is covered.
Instead of cayenne pepper, I add several good splashes of tabasco sauce, but not everyone has that kind of taste.
Best if eaten freshly made, but you can eat it hours later and it still tastes amazing.
This is also the best laxative I have ever taken. Amazing what it does for your bowel movements the next day.
Enjoy!
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: Bettina Cookbook, Cayenne Pepper, Peanut Butter, Popcorn, Tabascp Sauce
Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Cayenne Pepper, Popcorn, Recipe, Tabasco Sauce | Comments Off on Peanut Butter Popcorn Bettina Style
Saturday, May 26th, 2018
I was sitting in my kitchen enjoying a cup of tea and a guest comes along with a snack she brought with her.
My tea was accompanied by one of my favorite snacks from my days living in Mississippi. A sandwich made up of organic or home baked raisin bread with peanut butter – oops! organic peanut butter – and sliced bananas.
This was also one of Elvis Presley’s favorites. It was fairly common for children where I grew up. We didn’t have peanut butter and jelly.
She brought peanut butter and apples and wheat crackers. She put peanut butter on the crackers and topped each cracker with a very thin slice of apple.
It was nothing short of sensational. Quick to make. Elegant to serve and I enjoyed every one of her crackers.
When I repeat this for myself, however, the peanut butter will definitely be organic – her peanut butter was out of a jar with lots of ugly stuff processed in and her apples were not organic. In spite of those transgressions, it was a delicious snack.
My peanut butter will be the kind I grind at the store myself or grind at home of organic peanuts – apple crisp organic apples – and organic wheat crackers.
I highly recommend this! It makes a great lunch or afternoon snack. It is also quite healthy – what more could one ask!
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: Apples, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Elvis Presley, Peanut Butter
Posted in Apples, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Cookbook, Elvis Presley, Peanut Butter, Recipe | Comments Off on A Great Snack – Elvis Style!
Wednesday, April 11th, 2018
What if Colonialism had not happened and we gradually moved to a world community – discovering new ideas, ways of doing things, different foods that we are used to eating and cooking, etc. instead of developing a society which claimed some foods and ways of cooking as superior and some to be shunned.? What a rich and very fantastic place this would be.
What if today we shun that Colonialism and come together as a one world community giving and sharing what we have with others on an equal basis. Mine as just as good as yours and yours as just as good as mine. What an incredibly rich place this would be and the knowledge which circulates using the new technology would facilitate an awesome life. Instead that technology is used to manipulate, persuade, lie to, and we are all the poorer for it and enamored forever in war, brutality, white supremacy, nazism and its cousins, and so much more that destroys us and totally damages our children.
Assuming this first, we look for greatness in societies and cultures and discovered a way of cooking rice that is great.
I didn’t much care for rice, but then I only knew white rice which took 7 minutes to cook and had a skim covering on top that looked like and probably was talc powder. Hope I’ve missed the cancer that kind of rice is rumored to cause and that I discovered organically grown rice in time. Now, today, with my new found knowledge, I buy organically grown rice and I am careful whose organically grown rice we buy.
Problem with that was in the cooking. It would take a long time and I could never count on the rice being great. Sometimes it turned out in a sensational way and sometimes it was not something you wanted to eat – either too hard or too soft.
A friend came over to show me how to cook this rice and we put on a cooking show for our Bettina Network Hedge School guests. This now very close friend is not someone who my mother would have allowed into the house as my playmate, nor would she have been a part of the many “play dates” I was taken to as a child.
Those who joined us for dinner were in my Bettina-Hedge-School-Home to learn special cooking skills and so thy were invited into the kitchen to help prepare the dinner.
Rice was the main dish since that was the reason for my very-skilled-at-cooking friends’ presence.
She started by putting what to my eyes and sensibility was a very large amount of butter in the glass corning pot in which we were going to cook the rice. I winced as I saw all of that butter. (It actually was three tablespoons – but if you try this you should use your own judgment and your own taste.)
She let the butter melt and bubble awhile and then added the rice. She cooked the rice in butter for several minutes and then added water, a little salt – Himalayan salt, turmeric and I added a dash of cayenne pepper (because every dish I cook has a dash of cayenne).
We put the top on the pot and in about 15 minutes we had the fluffiest rice I have seen. And the tastiest. I think I will give up potatoes and take on rice. Well, maybe I will just add rice cooked in this way as another food I can add to my menus.
Everyone at dinner thought the rice was spectacular.
A SUGGESTION:
If you are vegan, you might want to start this rice in coconut oil, or some other kind of oil with a high smoking point. I would not use the famous Olive Oil because it goes rancid quickly in heat. We only use Olive Oil for cold dishes like salad dressings, etc. As a society we have become so accustomed to what we call th “Mediterranean diet” which is anything but, that we assume Olive Oil is a universal oil and we try to use it in everything. So much so we have become accustomed to the taste of rancid olive oil and assume that is normal.
Enjoy!
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, food shopping, Recipe
Posted in A new home in the Bettina Network, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina's Cookbook, Food Shopping, Hedge Schools, Recipe | Comments Off on Cooking Rice Elegantly!
Sunday, March 25th, 2018
Bettina Network, inc. has several areas within its corporate structure. Bettina Network Hedge Schools is one – to refresh your memory or read about the Hedge Schools see https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/archives/3428
Also included in Bettina Network, inc. are its publications: Bettina Network’s Blog and Bettina’s Menu of Events. Both described below. If you have questions don’t hesitate to email us at bettina-network@comcast.net
2.) Bettina Network’s Blog
is a conglomeration of conversations which take place around the breakfast table in one or another Bettina Network Hedge School/homes.
-or-
A Member or Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community sent us information which they would like disseminated to a large audience,
-or-
something happens which just strikes our fancy and we want to share it with all of you.
– all will go immediately to Bettina Network’s Blog.
Bettina Network’s Blog covers a wide range of topics —- With points of view you generally won’t find other places — you never know what will appear next — and that comes from the diversity within our corporation. An article could come from one of the Bettina Network Hedge Schools; members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community; or our own quirky people who work for the Corporation; or from those who volunteer to help us achieve our goals to “make this a better world one small step at a time”.
3.) Bettina’s Menu of Events
provides a rich, curated list of activities that will keep you busy,
entertained,
will add to your intellectual knowledge base,
and help create and expand your store of wisdom.
Use the “Menu” before your next stay in a Bettina Lifestyle Home!
Bettina’s Menu of Events also includes reviews of everything, critiques of events, places, restaurants, happenings and more.
To use Bettina’s Menu of Events you must be a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
As a member you will receive a password, which allows you access to Bettina’s Menu of Events, among other benefits.
Besides getting events to attend during your stay in a Bettina Network Hedge School you can also add events you find of interest so others can share what you found. Some of our best events have been added to Bettina’s Menu of Events by members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community. We encourage you to search the world for just that perfect event to share.
……And so we grow.
You can interact with us by:
CALLING: when you next need reservations either for yourself or from visitors coming from other cities, states, countries who would benefit immensely from spending their time away from home in a Bettina Network Hedge School.
Our homes are wonderful places to stay – some reach the appellation of exquisite.
Not much can compare to what we offer.
Our rates range from $110 through $495/night. In other cities the rates also vary depending upon what is offered.
Call if you are moving, changing your lifestyle, settling an estate – we are able to sell furnishings, jewelry, automobiles, stocks, bonds, etc.
Call if you have a home and want to join Bettina Network, inc. as a Bettina Host Family sharing your knowledge with guests who come from around the world. If your home is not currently ‘exquisite’ we have people who will work with you to make sure you are on a par with everyone else in the network.
Call if you have a home you want to donate to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. that we can use to house those who are in need and so continue to expand our training and more, recovering someone who might not find their way otherwise. Yes, we do offer a tax deduction through Bettina Network Foundation, inc. a 501(c)3 corporation.
Call if you just want to talk to get acquainted and know more about who we are, what we do and where we are going.
And in the future, coming as soon as our resources allow – Bettina Network’s Research Library.
Sincerely,
All of us at Bettina’s Bettina Network, inc.
P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238
1-617-497-9166 (or) 1-800 347 9166 (toll free within the U. S. and Canada)
-or-
email: bettina-network@comcast.net
blog: bettina-network.com/blog
Bettina’s Menu of Events can only be accessed by members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community via their personal password .
Check out our web site for more information at www.bettina-network.com .
We are an exciting company which also includes Bettina Network’s Blog – Bettina’s Menu of Events – Bettina Network’s Sales – Bettina Network Research Library and Bettina Network Foundation, inc a 501(c)3 corporation.
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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Foundation, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network Information, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, estate sale, Hedge Schools
Posted in A Bettina Moving Sale, A new home in the Bettina Network, An Estate Sale, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Foundation, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network Info, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Breakfast Table Talk, Estate Sales, Hedge Schools, Historical Homes, House Sales, Kitchen Table Talk | Comments Off on What is Bettina Network, inc. – i.e. Publications
Friday, February 9th, 2018
I have had to turn off the cooking shows. I keep looking for one that does something other than season its desserts and sweets with vanilla flavoring and its savories with chicken stock.
Ever wonder why describing how dishes taste you always have to add – they taste a little like chicken, don’t know why, but I enjoyed the dish. Or, describing a sweet you can’t really define the vanilla taste, but it is present. That is probably because every dish made today that is not sweet is full of chicken stock and every dessert has vanilla flavor.
What is that about?
Well, the desserts are easy to fathom. We use white conventional flour, white over-processed sugar, low-fat milk which has been over processed and is roughly equivalent to sugar water. Debased – with the taste stripped out as well as the nutrition. So, you have to put in desserts something to restore the flavor. Thus comes the addition of vanilla. Try baking without vanilla. Let the ingredients win the day. Try a cake with real organic cherries in the batter for a flavor component. There is always raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, hazelnuts, and so many more.
Try baking, cooking, saucing your desserts with organic whole wheat or whole any grain or whole anything else. Organic eggs add incredible taste;, whole organic milk, organic butter, organic turbinado sugar, organic maple syrup or something equivalent and you will see an amazing difference. I very seldom use vanilla and get lots of compliments for the flavor of desserts. Don’t totally eliminate vanilla, but use it on purpose for the taste not to carry the entire dish. Why? Because flavor comes from all the ingredients and does not have to be restored by adding vanilla. That just dumbs down your taste buds. Once you get them back to rally tasting what you are eating you will really see how bored you can get with vanilla. That is a real shame because vanilla is an excellent and adds great flavor, but not to everything sweet.
That is difficult to do when using almonds since the FDA has decided there should not be organically grown raw almonds. Before you get the almonds, those dubbed ‘organic’ have been toyed with and those that are not organic or have no such descriptive label have really been trashed. Someone decided almonds must be, at the very least, pasteurized or they will deliver mold, etc. to your gut. Sound like the processed food industry looking for graft or profit where it would otherwise receive none?
Organically grown raw almonds are very good and not at all a threat to your health. That is very far from the truth. Whatever the economic benefit to those delivering such an edict to all of us won the day. Those raw almonds, not organically grown, have been chemicalized to avoid the mold. Whenever I see something like that I think “shelf life”. Don’t know if that is the case, but it is my fall back reason and it has been right in the past so I have no reason to doubt it today.
With everything savory using organic ingredients, that also makes a huge difference. Put aside the chicken stock and try water for a change. The dish you are cooking provides a unique flavor all its own without the use of a “cheater” ingredient. The chicken stock industry must have paid a pretty penny to get not that position. There are other stocks on the market, but chicken stock seems to be the one used in just about everything. Whoever came up with that must have made quite a load of money.
When cooking, you can taste the difference between grass-fed and hormoned/chemicalized meat. You can also taste huge differences between wild and farm raised fish. Wild fish tastes the way one would expect fish to taste. Farm raised fish has a strange texture and the taste leaves something to be desired so additions are necessary to make a decent dish, probably the addition of chicken stock – and on and on it goes. And you can bet any salmon with Atlantic in front of the name is farm raised.
Who is behind all of these changes to our food supply? They are coming fast and furious and a stop sign is needed for all our benefits.
Homes that are a part of Bettina Network Hedge Schools are either totally organic – like one in Harvard Square – or they are on their way to becoming organic in their toiletries, food, paper products, cleaning products used and more. Any way we can move the Network in the direction of using products that don’t destroy the environment or your body that is the direction in which we are headed.
Any suggestions to help that movement are welcome!
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Recipe
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina's Cookbook, Health, Kitchen Table Talk, Recipe | Comments Off on Food – Vanilla – Chicken Stock – Horrors!
Thursday, December 1st, 2016
The Number of People
who read Bettina Network’s Blog
in November, 2016
was 37,456.
Starting this month you are able to sign up to have Bettina Network’s Blog delivered to your email box whenever a new Blog is posted.
Up until now. you had to go to the Blog to read the newest one and you didn’t always know when a new blog was posted.
Just sign up using the green form which comes up on the page about 9 seconds after you start reading. When the page becomes green, that is your sign to join a truly great group of people who are reading what Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community has to say.
If you are a member of that community you are able to have your blogs posted. Just send what you want to say to bettinanetwork@comcast.net and we will post your blog – maybe editing a bit, if that is necessary – and maybe having a bit of conversation with you before posting. if that is necessary. You can send pictures, drawings, whatever, to include with your blog.
The topic is up to you. ACADEMIC PAPERS – because we have a very large academic readership; FUN QUOTES; with the advent of Donald Trump the interest in politics has zoomed up so feel free to send us POLITICAL ARTICLES, COMMENTS< and you can even tell us how to vote – not that we will take your advice, but its worth a try.
While we are using the blog structure, this is really becoming a newsletter and on its way to becoming a newspaper – written by people in the community who want what they have to say circulated to others. If you have a response to anything, please feel free to send that via email. We do not have the comments section of the blog open to anyone who want to comment so you will have to email your response as an article. This is a CURATED BLOG.
COMMENTARY on whatever; RECIPE’s for your favorite foods; “MEMU’s you have experienced which sent you to heaven; CONSPIRACY THEORIES; ART – CRAFTS – MUSIC Videos that you have created; In other words – no end to the possibilities.
And we hope the end result is of interest to all of our readers.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network Information, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network NEWS, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Blog Response, Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Guest comments and talents, Hair Health, Health, Health and Beauty, Hedge Schools, Historical Homes, Historical Support, Kitchen Table Talk, Preserving Family History and Stories | Comments Off on 37,456 PEOPLE
Wednesday, October 26th, 2016
We bake Madeleines every day, yet by the end of the day they are gone!
It is one of those light delicacies that won’t let you have just one. And they stay in memory for long after they have been eaten.
They are the tea cakes which give meaning to the reference to ‘delicacies’.
They draw you back to that lovely plate for more until you simply have to leave the area.
AND, they are super easy and quick to make.
Within one-half hour, from start to taking them out of the oven, you should have about 36 of these beauties.
They must, however, be made of the finest organic ingredients you can find – which is the secret to their success.
INGREDIENTS and PROCESS
Turn on your oven and set the temperature to 350 degrees
In the bowl of an electric mixer put
three eggs
one tablespoon organic vanilla syrup (or organic vanilla)
2/3 cup organic turbinado sugar
start the mixer and let these ingredients whirl until they are light and fluffy
meanwhile, melt one stick organic butter (salted or unsalted – your choice)
In another bowl put the following
One cup organic whole wheat flour
One tablespoon organic corn starch
One teaspoon baking powder
a touch of himalayan salt
Mix these together with a wire whisk until they are well mixed, light and fluffy
Add the melted butter to the egg mixture and let the electric mixer whirl for a few seconds
Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture – mixing by hand because at this point you have to be careful not to over mix the ingredients and using the mixer might just do that. Once you have a feel for this mixture you can use the electric mixer, if you so choose.
Have on hand at least two Madeleine tins – no aluminum please!
No “non-stick” pans
simple, traditional, tin, Madeleine pans buttered properly will not stick
Preferably, using a brush, with a bit of melted butter, brush the Madeleine tins with the melted butter – brushing the areas around the indented parts as well.
Do not stint on the butter as you “butter” your tins – the secret to nonsticking cakes
Put the Madeleine mixture in the tine – we use 1/2 tablespoon for each tin.
That might seem like a very little bit, but these are very little bit cakes.
If the mixture in each indentation does not quite come up to the edge you are in good shape because these cakes will rise and you don’t want them to rise above the edge – that takes away from the look of these beautiful cakes.
Enjoy: You can add a small dollop of homemade marshmallows to one of the cakes and put two together for a different treat. Or you can do the same with jelly or preserves or anything else you can think of. You can add chocolate chips or shredded coconut, etc. to the mix just before spooning out into the Madeleine pans. But I think you will find these perfect just as they are. Our only vice is putting two tablespoons of organic syrup into the mix because that intensifies the taste that makes these so special. It is really a way to mainstream vanilla flavoring.
We keep them on a cake plate on the kitchen counter and they last about three minutes.
Proust isn’t the only one who will go down in history as having sung the praises of these fantastic little cakes. You will too!
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Recipe
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina's Cookbook, Kitchen Table Talk, Recipe | Comments Off on Madeleines – A Delicately Fabulous Tea Cookie
Thursday, September 15th, 2016
A suggestion we picked up from a guest from Ghana on using the skins of a pineapple to help cure a fever.
This is something Hillary Clinton could have used to deal with the fever which apparently caused her trouble at the 9/11 Memorial. A little steam infused with pineapple skins before going to the Memorial might have eliminated her problems.
Take the skins of two pineapples – I chose two for very arbitrary reasons. We had fresh organic pineapple for breakfast and used two pineapples.
Fill a large soup pot with water, add the skins from the two pineapples and bring to a boil.
Let this boil for about 20 minutes.
Put your face over the soup pot while it is boiling and make a tent over your head with a large towel to trap the steam. Let the steam get into your pores. Keep your head covered with the tent and over the pot for about five minutes.
This should take care of your fever and in addition, your face will look fantastic as the nutrients from the pineapple skin get into your skin as you let the steam get into your pores.
It will also give you a great hairdo. The steam will make your hair look as though it has increased four fold.
This is an old recipe from Ghana to cure the fever. We added the side beauty treatment to remove wrinkles, produce a beautiful gleam to your skin and do a little feeding of the skin in the process.
We could take this one step further and suggest you use the pineapple skins to make tea. It is done the same way. However, for tea, we suggest you take it to the next level and add fresh organic ginger before boiling the pineapple skins – skin and slice the ginger, add it to the pineapple skins with either honey, maple syrup or organic turbinado sugar to taste. You will have a wonderful tea to put in glass jars until you want to either heat and serve this as a proper tea – or drink it cold. Either way it is exceptionally good.
Let us know, via email, your experience with this.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, health, health and beauty, Hillary Clinton
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Cookbook, Breakfast Table Talk, Ghana, Health, Health and Beauty, Hedge Schools, Hillary Clinton, Historical Homes | Comments Off on Pineapple Skins for Health and Beauty
Wednesday, September 7th, 2016
by: Abubakari A. Adams copyright for Abu by Bettina Network
Groundnut Soup:
This is basically what I consider one of the best soups favored by most people in Ghana, and some West African countries. In Ghana some people in fact would not mind eating this soup for Lunch and Supper. The main reason this soup is call groundnut (peanut) soup is obviously because groundnut is the most dominant ingredient in the soup. The ground nut is made in the form of paste just like peanut butter but not as smooth as the commercial peanut butter and definitely with no sugar added or any of the other ingredients that come with this commercial peanut butter, – just the ground nut (the ground peanuts). The soup normally comes in different flavors which is mostly defined by the type of protein supplement used in the soup (type of meat, fish, snails, crab etc.)
Ingredients:
The quantity of ingredients in this recipe can be increased or reduced based on how thick or light you like your soup to be, or how much spice you like in your food.
* Groundnut (Peanut); no sugar just the peanuts (roasted)
* 4 relatively large Tomato
* Hot pepper (use your as much as you think you can handle I would normally use like 1 part pepper to 5 part tomato; 1:5 ratio)
* One large sized Onion
* Garlic (optional)
* Medium sized Ginger
* Salt
* 1 medium sized Garden egg (egg-plant)
* Fish (fresh fish will do but preferably smoked fish gives a better turn out), Meat (fresh meat of choice, most people in Ghana use goat meat) or Crabs. It is okay to use a combination of all three types, unless there are people who don’t eat one or more of the trio.
Tools:
Need at least two good sized saucepans
Wooden spoon or spatula
Chopping board
Knife
Blender
2 sources of fire (number is optional, saves cooking time)
Other tools that you may deem necessary
Process:
There are different processes in cooking the groundnut soup. The process outlined is my preferred method.
* First, do the most obvious of all cooking practice, (clean all the ingredients as needed)
* Put meat, fish or crab into reasonable sized saucepan; add water until it is the same level with the meat, fish or crab; add salt as needed and then put the whole tomatoes, ginger, garlic, garden eggs (egg plant) and pepper on top of the meat, fish or crab.
* Cook the combination under slightly high temperature until the vegetable gets softer or gets cooked.
* Take out all the vegetable (tomatoes, onions, garlics, pepper, ginger and egg-plant) and blend them all together into a light puree.
* Put a reasonable-sized saucepan on medium heat and put the groundnut paste (peanut butter) in the saucepan. Stir, while gradually adding a little water until the color turns dark brown and/or you start to see it getting oily.
NOTE; each time you add water, stir until the water is completely absorbed before adding more water.
* Once the paste gets to what I term as the brown stage or the oil zone, add the vegetable puree to the groundnut paste and keep stirring until you get an almost homogeneous mixture.
* Add the partly cooked meat, fish or crab and the stock, stir and add hot water to get the desired thickness.
* Allow to boil on medium heat until the oil starts to surface. This stage will take about 15 to 20 min. on average.
* Check to make sure the salt is okay and add more if necessary. NOTE: you can always add more salt after it is served
Ed. Note:
Abu is a tremendous young man from Ghana. His area of expertise is Mechanical Engineering and he has a diploma from MIT’s Fab Academy in Digital Fabrication (How to Make Almost Anything). Abu speaks six languages and since he is a world traveler and stays in different countries for extended periods of time, he will probably constantly add other languages to this repertoire. One of Abu’s passions is the FabLab. He has worked with others to set up several and will be on his way to South Africa for the next year to help set up yet another FabLab. Cooking is something Abu loves to do and we hope he will share more of his recipes with Bettina Network’s Blog. As he travels the world and picks up different ways of cooking and sometimes how different cultures use the same ingredients, we know he will not forget us and will send recipes, history and updates on how the FabLabs are developing around the world.
He is a very valued member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Recipe
Posted in African American history, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Cookbook, Breakfast Table Talk, Uncategorized | Comments Off on How To Make Groundnut (Peanut) Soup – Ghanaian Style
Wednesday, August 24th, 2016
This is a fantastic breakfast cake – which makes it a very special ending to good food, great conversation and learning serendipitously from those at a Bettina Network Table.
We share it with you and hope you enjoy this as much as we do. We do, however, have to give credit where it is due. This recipe was taken from an episode of “Martha Bakes”. A show we record so we don’t miss an episode and from which we have found some mundane and some exceptional recipes.
What we use as a breakfast cake has a long English history. It is called, by some, a Sticky Toffee Pudding.
Our recipe does not stick to the traditional recipe for a Sticky Toffee Pudding so we will call it a fantastic breakfast cake. Many cultures have such a cake – not always with dates, but sticking holes in the cake and pouring a sauce over it is a way of baking that countries over the ages have shared.
Needless to say – all of the ingredients should be Organic. The sugar we find best is Organic Turbinado Sugar. The flour we like best is Organic Whole Wheat Pastry Flour. The milk, eggs and all the rest must absolutely be organic. We use extra large organic eggs. For the salt – Himalayan Salt. And the pots should be glass for this dish. Preferably Corning Glass Pots with the blue cornflower on the side. You probably can’t find them in the stores, but they are turning up with great frequency in estate sales. Most have never been used. Before you buy one check to make sure the inside still has that shiny look and has not been destroyed by the wrong kind of cleaning products.
Process – Steps to a Great Cake
Use one cup boiling or very hot water poured over Medjool Dates to which you add 1 teaspoon baking soda. Set this aside and let soften.
(The recipe from “Martha Bakes” says to put one cup coffee over dates. We prefer the hot water.)
Mix the dry ingredients together –
2 teaspoon baking powder – 1 1/2 cup flour – 1/2 teaspoon salt
In an electric mixer –
beat together until light and fluffy – one stick butter and one cup sugar
To the butter and sugar add two eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition. Here again, some people use 4 eggs. We like the results that two eggs provide.
Add
date mixture, flour mixture, egg mixture and vanilla (if used)
Mix until moistened, but take care not to overmix.
Spread batter in a pan –
The pan can be either round or square
Before putting the batter into the pan, spread the pan with butter all over the insides of the pan. This keeps the cake from sticking to the pan.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 55 to 65 minutes.
When done, remove the cake from the oven; let it cool in the pan; using a toothpick or other similar gadget poke holes all over the cake.
Pour warm toffee sauce over cake and let it absorb for at least 20 minutes before serving.
Toffee Sauce
Combine in a medium saucepan –
preferably a Corning pot with the blue cornflowers on the side:
Two sticks butter – one cup heavy cream – one cup organic turbinado sugar – 1/4 teaspoon salt
Put over low heat –
stirring, until sugar has dissolved.
Let simmer over medium heat for about 8 to 12 minutes before pouring this mixture over the Toffee Pudding.
This is what gives it the name – Sticky Toffee Pudding.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Hedge Schools
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Cookbook | Comments Off on Medjool Date Cake for Breakfast!
Sunday, May 22nd, 2016
copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2016 for Marceline Donaldson
Tea time is one of my favorite times of the day. And what helps it to be favorite is what is served.
Not all tea times are equal. Some are fantastic and some are so bad you just want to forget they happened.
One of my favorite foods, to go along with Organic Tulsi Tea, or organic peppermint tea, or organic hibiscus tea are these English Biscuits. They take about five minutes to put together and about 15 minutes in the oven. Hot and fresh – there is nothing like them. Pastries are great, but home baked is far better, especially when you know what went into those pretty pastries and so called ‘tea cakes’. I keep trying to eat them because folks keep bringing, sending, having them for tea when I join them, but I’ve just given up. I enjoy looking at them because they are beautiful and that has to suffice. I’ve had to make some ridiculous excuses for not eating those lovely confections when I have been invited for tea, but today I just look, don’t touch and don’t try to justify not eating them. They are works of art, not food for the stomach. Those who serve them should know better so I will not justify their bad taste anymore – neither the bad taste of those serving them nor the equally bad taste of the pastries. They taste sweet and little else.
English Biscuits*
*Please remember: American-style biscuits are savory. English Biscuits are sweet – what we would call cookies in America. Although this is not a cookie recipe that looks anything like chocolate chip cookies. It is a sweet made especially for tea time.
One cup organic whole wheat flour
One cup organic pastry flour
1 teaspoon himalayan salt
1 tablespoon baking powder (no aluminum, please)
1 stick organic butter
1/2 cup or to your taste of organic raisins
One cup (or to your taste) organic turbinado sugar
One cup organic heavy cream (or if you are squeamish – one cup organic whole milk)
One or two tablespoons Organic Hazelnut Oil or whatever taste you want to add – Organic Vanilla Oil – Organic chocolate, etc.
The Process
Put the two kinds of flour, salt, baking powder in the food processor and process for a few seconds
Add the organic butter to the mixture in a food processor and process until they are one. The mixture will look basically the same, except a little as though it is wet
add the raisins and sugar and process again for a few seconds
add the milk and process until this mixture seems to hold together. The longer you process the more gluten develops – so judge your time as to how you like your biscuits. More bread like and rubbery or more crispy and flaky.
Smear a cookie sheet with butter wherever you are going to put one of these biscuits. This recipe makes about 12 English biscuits
Take lumps of the mixture, roll it around in the palms of your hands until you have a nice ball
Each ball makes a biscuit and put the balls on the cookie sheet (no aluminum cookie sheets, please)
Bake at 350 degrees until done – about 15 minutes.
If you like ‘stuff’ on top of your biscuits – use 3/4 cup organic turbinado sugar in the biscuit mixture and sprinkle the rest on top of these biscuits before baking.
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, health
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina's Cookbook, Health | Comments Off on English Biscuits for Tea
Friday, March 4th, 2016
I stumbled onto this breakfast, but it is one of the best yet.
You do have to have a cosmopolitan taste for this – it is not ham, eggs and sweet breads.
……………………………MENU…………………………………
Fresh, organic fruit – Satsuma Mandarins, if they are in season
Grits (See recipe in Bettina Cookbook in this blog). Do not use anything other than organic grits and cook it according to the Bettina Cookbook recipe – or you will be disappointed. Instead of great grits you will have something roughly akin to white starch – good for ironing, but not for eating.
This started out as Grits and Grillades, but it hopped off the train to New Orleans and jumped onto the one to Japan. Not entirely Japanese, but there is a hint of the country in the middle of this New Orleans Creole breakfast and the combination is fantastic.
Cajun/Creole/Japanese Style Grillades
This recipe will serve four people. For more, you want to double or triple the amounts.
……Slice organic onions sort of thin. For four people, one onion will do nicely
…….Slice an organic green pepper, also sort of thin
…….Slice organic garlic – several cloves, about four or five
Put the above three ingredients in a cast iron skillet in which you have melted organic expeller pressed coconut oil and let them fry together for several minutes.
……Add pork grillades (sold at Whole Foods – this is organic thinly sliced pork). Grillades are ‘little pieces’.
……Stir and let cook a few minutes until pork turns from pink to brown
……Add organic Teriyaki Sauce to taste
……Stir and let cook another few minutes.
This is better served plated. Serve your plates with grits in the middle and the pork Grillades mixture on top and around the sides.
This dish would have been Creole Grillades, but for the seasonings. If I had put thyme, oregano, salt, red pepper as a seasoning instead of the Teriyaki, etc. the taste would have been very different. It would have been Grillades from a middle-class New Orleans Creole family.
If, in addition to the above Creole seasonings I added chopped tomatoes and let the dish cook a few minutes so the different ingredients would merge – or better still, cook it the day before and just heat it up for breakfast, that would have been Grillades from an upper-class New Orleans Creole family.
The difference? The addition of tomatoes.
Add biscuits and you have an outstanding breakfast.
For dessert – serve organic fig preserves to put in the biscuits.
For a biscuit recipe – see Bettina’s Cookbook. Only with this Menu use only organic Whole Wheat Pastry flour for the biscuits. They will be light, fluffy and have a taste you just can’t put your finger on, especially if you add a bit of grated nutmeg to the flour before adding the rest of the ingredients – if you are on the road to Japan.
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Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
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Friday, August 28th, 2015
copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2015
This is fried chicken the way Grandmother made it. And remember – taste happened in Grandmother’s recipes. Todays’ processed food and processed food recipes have to use lots of salt and sugar to make their food taste. Grandmother used very little sugar in anything and even less salt and the sugar she used was not the over-processed, over-refined sugar which delivers nothing but a sweet taste that gets old and ugly when you begin to wake up your taste buds with real food.
- Pour enough organic milk in a bowl to cover the chicken you are going to fry.
- Add organic apple cider vinegar. Use your judgment for how much – you really do have taste and really do need to stop slavishly following recipes without using your judgment on the ingredients, etc. Each recipe you use should become your own.
- Let the milk and vinegar sit for several minutes while it bubbles and becomes like buttermilk.
- Instead of the organic apple cider vinegar – or if you want a change, squeeze a couple lemons into the milk and let sit until you get buttermilk.
- Put organic chicken pieces into the milk and let sit for a couple hours or preferably overnight.
- When you are ready to fry the chicken – the oil you use is crucial because it adds to the taste and health benefits of this dish. We use a couple. Half organic butter and half organic coconut oil in a skillet to about 1/3 the way to the top of the skillet. Or, if you want a change and a very different taste try organic peanut oil.
- NO! Don’t use olive oil. That is used beautifully in a salad or some other dish which you do not cook. You don’t want rancid oil as the basic taste of what you are cooking. It becomes a taste you recognize and like if you use if often, but it is not a good one.
- After heating the oil, rinse the milk mixture off the chicken under cool running water
- Put the chicken in organic flour and coat the chicken. Let sit a few minutes for the flour to sort of harden before putting chicken in the skillet.
- Sprinkle himalayan salt, cayenne pepper, thyme over the chicken before putting the chicken in the skillet. And of course, those are all organically grown spices. If you are Italian or have those taste buds, you can add organic oregano to the spices you use on this chicken. We think the combination of these four spices gives the ultimate taste, but it is your judgment call.
- Cook, turning when the skin turns the color brown you best like in chicken.
- There are two ways to finish this chicken. You can continue frying the chicken in the iron skillet until it is done or when the chicken has browned you can put it on a baking pan in the oven at 350 degrees and bake until done.
- Enjoy a powerfully great fried chicken.
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Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
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Tags: Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Hedge School, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Recipe
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Wednesday, May 20th, 2015
copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2015
Named by a guest, these ‘biscuits’ are easy to make and they destroy the marketing mythology that cooking and baking are difficult and one must, instead, decamp to the local store to buy the instant variety of anything because we don’t have the time or knowledge enough to cook – we must buy instead from the ‘professionals’. For us, such prepared food has too much salt – too much sugar – too many preservatives and other things which don’t belong in food. We like plain ordinary ingredients which one can quickly turn into great biscuits in five minutes of prep time.
These biscuits can be made in many versions. One can make plain biscuits for a great breakfast, dripping with butter; or one can put cinnamon, apples, onions, peanut butter, cheese, nutmeg, sugar, etc. into your own version of these biscuits and call them Theodore or JoAnn’s Biscuits. (Hi JoAnn, thanks for naming my biscuits.) Only your imagination limits the possibilities. We have been known to put everything except the kitchen sink into our biscuits and the more ingredients, the better the biscuit. Want something really special, try making these biscuits with raw, unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk. Now there is a biscuit that harkens back to the time when food was food and not a conglomeration of chemicals.
Start with one cup organic whole wheat flour in the food processor.
Add one cup organic whole wheat pastry flour
Add one teaspoon salt – or to taste
Add one teaspoon baking power
To remember the ingredients – it is biscuits with the power of one plus six. What is the six? The number of ingredients.
Turn on the processor and give it a few twirls to mix these dry ingredients.
Add one stick organic butter to the ingredients in the food processor – slice the butter to make it quicker to incorporate
Turn on the processor and let it twirl until all ingredients are mixed and it looks like tiny little balls
Add 2/3 cup milk and twirl for a quick second until the ingredients are in a kind of ball.
Use organic butter to make rounds of grease on a cookie sheet. Each round is where you will drop a biscuit.
Take a small handful of the biscuit dough and roll it lightly between your hands to form a ball. If your hands get sticky during this process, put a bit of flour on the palms of your hands and keep rolling the biscuit dough between them.
Drop the biscuit ball onto one of the greased rounds on the cookie sheet
When all are done, bake at 350 degrees until done. Maybe 10 to 15 minutes depending upon your oven.
Let them cool for a few minutes after you take them out of the oven or they will break up and you will have to eat biscuit crumbs.
These should be very light and lovely and give you about one dozen biscuits.
For variety – use organic coconut milk instead of cow’s milk – or goats milk – or almond milk – or whatever you like. We loved the coconut milk. It was a subtle taste. You knew something great was in the biscuits, but you didn’t know quite what.
To the plain biscuits, add grated cheese before baking. Grate cheese and just push a small amount into the biscuits. Top with a square of butter, sprinkle salt over the biscuits and then bake. These are super fantastic. The addition of the cheese, salt and butter takes these out of the everyday category into the universe.
To the plain biscuit dough, add a heaping tablespoon of organic ceylon cinnamon. Use organic coconut milk instead of regular cows milk. Add sugar to taste – a lot if you want sweet biscuits, a medium amount to make these ‘dressy’. Grate a bit of nutmeg into the biscuits or sprinkle the tops generously with nutmeg and sugar before baking.
Add chopped apples to the sweetened biscuits. Apples give an unexpected taste and texture to these dressed biscuits along with the coconut milk plus.
NO! ABSOLUTELY DO NOT SUBSTITUTE WHITE FLOUR FOR ORGANIC WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR. Organic Whole Wheat Flour is what gives these biscuits the taste of ones grandmother used to make. The good grandmother, who knew how to cook with solid, organically grown ingredients.
It takes, at most, five minutes to mix these biscuits and another ten to fifteen minutes to let them bake in the oven. The effort is minimal, the results are spectacular.
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes
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Saturday, February 28th, 2015
From a New Orleans group of folks comes the following advice:
– (we haven’t tested it, only pass it along for your use and feedback. As you can tell, folks added what they knew as this email on water went from person to person, hope you will do the same. We could exhaust human knowledge on water as a health promoter if we all joined our knowledge together in one place. All kinds of knowledge – passed down through the family; picked up someplace traveling; gems to be collected and kept before our supply of water becomes too polluted to be of any help to continue life; old wives tales, etc. Not facts from encyclopedia’s, but knowledge from the storehouse you have picked up from living – your experience.)
“Drinking Water
I suppose if we all drank the suggested amount of water a day, we’d be okay. I need to do better. Starbucks doesn’t count.
How many folks do you know who say they don’t want to drink anything before going to bed because they’ll have to get up during the night!!
Heart Attack and Water – I never knew all of this ! Interesting…….
Something else I didn’t know … I asked my Doctor why do people need to urinate so much at night time. Answer from my Cardiac Doctor –
Gravity holds water in the lower part of your body when you are upright (legs swell). When you lie down and the lower body (legs and etc) seeks level with the kidneys, it is then that the kidneys remove the water because it is easier. This then ties in with the last statement!
I knew you need your minimum water to help flush the toxins out of your body, but this was news to me.
Correct time to drink water… Very Important. >From A Cardiac Specialist!
Drinking water at a certain time maximizes its effectiveness on the body: 2 glasses of water after waking up – helps activate internal organs
1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal – helps digestion
1 glass of water before taking a bath – helps lower blood pressure
1 glass of water before going to bed – avoids stroke or heart attack
I can also add to this… My Physician told me that water at bed time will also help prevent night time leg cramps. Your leg muscles are seeking hydration when they cramp and wake you up with a Charlie Horse.
A Cardiologist has stated that if each person after receiving this e-mail, sends it to 10 people, probably one life could be saved!
I have already shared this information. What about you?
Do forward this message. It may save lives!
“Life is a one time gift”
Enjoy life NOW, it has an expiration date!”
From Bettina Network, inc. we will add – organic lemons squeezed into your water does wonderful things as do limes. We tried to drink the limes straight, but needed water to get the juice down. We looked 10 years younger after a few days of mainstreaming this Vitamin C.
“Overindulge in sugar? Drink lots of water to dilute the affect.”
=============================
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, health, health and beauty, New Orleans Creole
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Monday, February 23rd, 2015
Hi folks,
I have been trying your recipe along with the recipe of others for Kale Chips.
That is a hard thing to do – although it sounds as though it should be easy. To get the seasoning right is the key.
I suggest some changes to your original recipe which is in your Bettina Network Blog. The changes or cautionary suggestions I would have follows:
1) To use the right amount of organic cold processed Olive Oil is key. It is also one of the hardest things to do. Use too little Olive Oil and your kale chips burn. Use too much and they are greasy, negating why you make these kale chips in the first place. You can’t really tell the chips have burnt because they come out very dark looking really burnt when they are not. You can only tell when you pick one up and taste it and then you realize that strange taste is burnt kale chips.
I would suggest using only enough Olive Oil to barely coat the raw kale. That is the hardest part of this endeavor. I think how much to use only comes with trial and error, but if you are aware of the problem you will take more precautions in how much or how little Olive Oil you use.
2) The seasonings are really a matter of taste. I first tried your kale chips recipe at the xxxxxxxxxxxx house, but WOW! I don’t have that strong a tongue – my throat rebelled as well. It was hot and then some. Those who like really hot food – and I don’t mean heat from the stove hot food – will love your recipe. I had to eliminate the chipotle powder that I saw them putting on those kale chips. A huge tablespoonful was used. I used just a teaspoon because I love the taste of chipotle peppers, but I can’t tolerate much heat in my food.
I would also suggest when one makes kale chips you look at the spices you really like. At first I tried the old faithfuls thyme, oregano, lots of turmeric. I have now changed to using those I really like and not try to copy anyone else’s use of spices. I love Old Bay Seasoning so I use it on my kale chips. I have eliminated turmeric because I think it doesn’t give much taste and one must use it – in things like grits – after the boiling point has been reached. I don’t think it gives much nutritional value when I put on turmeric at the beginning of the process and it heats up with the kale as they cook in the oven.
I really like your tekka seasoning. I use it on popcorn because of your recipe in this blog for your Bettina popcorn. So I tried it on kale chips. Don’t know what nutritional value it has, but I like what it added to the chips.
Everytime I’ve made the kale chips, I have used different seasonings. After a while I expect I will find something I really think is exceptional and use that always. Too bad that is what the human condition reduces us to, but we all like to find a road that we can always travel – brag about its smoothness and how quickly it gets us to our destination – and through constant use gradually turn it into a gutter that becomes difficult to walk in, a muddy mess when it rains and heaven knows what when it snows – still seeing that road as smooth and easily travelled. But hey, who am I to complain if I can finally find an exceptional kale chips seasoning combination.
Keep those recipes coming. I would not have tried kale chips, but for your recipe. Those things cost about $6 for a small, overly processed bag, which does not have a memorable taste. I am trying to keep an organic, non-processed food diet, but sometimes what is offered on the other side dissolves my resolve. We look to you for encouragement to stay with organic, well thought through food that is good for our health.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes
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Sunday, December 14th, 2014
From a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member:
“Well I read through the blogs for the diet but did not find one. ”
However, I did find some great tips. I am drinking lime juice now….. It almost instantaneously curbed my hunger. This was so on time with this being my day of clear liquids and the gad between now and my last meal of an egg sandwich right before midnight. Thanks for this, I will be using up my limes today.
In the spirit of giving back: before you squeeze the lime or lemon, peel it thinly, hang it to dry out. In a couple of weeks, take it, break it apart, throw it in a processor and grind it. You will end up with two consistencies, the more coarse consistency on the top. I separate the coarse pieces and set them aside to use: to make tea; for seasoning sea food; for baking; making marmalades; to garnish certain foods or desserts. The finer consistency I store in a vial and place on the shelf with my baking spices. A 1.5 oz bottle of lemon peel goes for roughly $10 and up , with organic coming in higher.
In baking I use the peel of approximately 1/2 a lime in the eggs, it helps to cut the fresh smell. I remove the fresh peel before baking. The dry peels I add as an ingredient and those go through the fire. I have gotten creative in making cranberry orange muffins. It is quite delightful to bite into tidbits of orange peel.
Lime/ lemon peel tea is great for sore throats, cold or flu. ”
By: CN
Ed Note: Thanks for those tips. We are certainly ready for anything to cut colds or flu – especially if it does not have to be injected into our bodies at Drug Stores. Oops! Sorry – you can tell my age by that slip-up. They changed the name of those stores for this current generation. They are now called the Pharmacy.
Ed Note: We do not believe in diets and you won’t find the traditional kind in Bettina Network’s Blog – if you are talking about the listing of menus giving you what to eat at which meal on a particular day. We believe that has developed to shore up the Diet Industry that is growing by leaps and bounds and making some people lots of money but getting the rest of us into an obese condition. That kind of diet justifies those company‘s where you send for your meals by the week and still don’t lose weight, except for the weight loss by the lightness of your pocketbook. A diet for us is to squeeze an organic lemon into a cup of warm water and drink this when you first wake up in the mornings. AND about 4pm squeeze four organic limes into a cup and drink it before you go off eating everything in sight.
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, breakfast table talk, Drug Stores, food shopping, health, health and beauty, Pharmacy, weight problems
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Tuesday, October 28th, 2014
copyright 2014 by Bettina Network, inc.
Wow! Grits being discussed as a serious topic. Unbelievable. Am I the only Yankee reading your blog?
I used to wonder what was the big deal about grits until I tasted the grits you have described and generously provided a recipe for.
Each time you add something I try it. I thought the “Grits and Greens” were special. That was just the introduction.
I would like to add my two cents to this discussion:
After leaving a Bettina Home with my stomach full of grits I went home, bought Arrowhead Mills Organic Grits and tried it for myself. I started with grits and greens. Came back to buy more grits and couldn’t believe those folks actually put “gluten free” on the box. Didn’t know corn had gluten.
I tried your most recent recipe for grits and added the following:
After adding the 4 ounces of organic cream cheese I also added a package of frozen organic yellow corn and a 4 ounce package of raw organic sharp cheddar cheese. I let them bubble awhile – stirred every once in a while until everything was combined nicely – and then ate the most fantastic pot of grits I’ve ever had. I heartily recommend it to your readers.
Most people would talk about cutting the cheese into small cubes, etc. but i just put everything as it came from their packages into the pot and let them cook. They melded on their own with just an occasional stirring from me.
What most surprised me was that I had a great dish without tons of butter. You go girl!
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
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IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!
1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Homes, food shopping, Grits, health
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina's Cookbook, Food Shopping, Grits, Guest comments, Health | Comments Off on More on GRITS!!!!!
Why is Trump Pushing Kavanaugh so Insistently?
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018From a Bettina Network Lifestyle Member:
Why is Donald Trump so consistently and insistently pushing the U. S. Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh?
Normally, if anything – no matter how small – surfaces about a Supreme Court nominee, that person immediately and usually quietly withdraws their nomination. Generally in conversation with the president of the United States they have been quietly told they are still good people, but with the U. S. Supreme Court…….. and they withdraw. Donald Trump has actively encouraged Brett Kavanaugh to keep going and Kavanaugh, thinking he has the support of the President of the United Sates, keeps going. He becomes the victim being seriously victimized by that President for his own reasons. How come?
When all of this business with Brett Kavanaugh surfaced, we knew something was coming down the road, but didn’t know what. We did know that with what is going on with this nomination, whatever was coming down that road was big – ugly – and meant to provide Donald Trump cover from some very ugly part of his life which was being uncovered and reported to the American people. Which makes you ask – was any of what was ‘leaked’ put out into the public by that same president? To take advantage of what he probably saw as “made for cover”. The New York Times was already in contact with the “Don” about the article they were writing on his family’s tax situation and the NYT had already received a threatening letter back from the “Don’s” lawyer about what they would do to the paper if they went ahead with the story – with that exchange predating the Kavanaugh hearing.
The New York Times article, which just came out about how Donald Trump and his family committed tax fraud against the American people seems to be what the Kavanaugh nomination and its ugly mess is really being used for – to provide cover for Trump by deflecting the American public away from the real story of the day. Is it only accidental that the day the story breaks about this huge and incredible story on the Trump family’s tax evasion, Donald Trump is in Mississippi stirring up the crowds at his rally through viciously attempting to humiliate and destroy Dr. Christine Blasey Ford complete with chants of “lock her up.” Trump is shrewd enough to know such a rally would emotionally explode within a lot of people – very few can understand anyone so vicious.
New York Times reports Trump received millions through tax evasion ..https://www.dw.com/en/new-york-times-reports-trump…tax-evasion/a-45734477 3 hours ago – By helping his father engage in dubious tax schemes, Donald Trump inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, The New York Times said.
It seems clear to me that this is what is driving the Kavanaugh debacle and why Donald Trump is making such a big deal about it and portraying Kavanaugh as the victim along with Donald Trump himself. This will go on until the fallout from this New York Times’ article dies down. The media can only report so much at one time and the headlines about the Trump family’s tax problems will have to share its spotlight with the Kavanaugh nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court – thus minimizing what the public will hear about this incredible bit of tax evasion engaged in by Donald Trump and his family, one of whom is Donald Trump’s sister and a Sr. federal judge. Maybe this distraction with Kavanaugh will help Donald Trump’s sister keep her job because the public will be too blown away by all the things being exposed by the Kavanaugh nomination to be able to deal with both. Hopefully, that is a wrong assessment. Certainly the possible tax fraud by the Trump family and in particular Donald Trump over a period of decades with multi-millions involved is a larger story than the apparent lies being told by Donald Trump’s nominee to be a judge on the United States Supreme Court. That is not to minimize what is happening with Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, it is just to put it in its proper context. Real or a created distraction!
The nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court is important and will reverberate throughout this country over decades if Kavanaugh gains that seat; we should not minimize that. However, for a few years now we have been forced to see how Trump manipulates the press and his base so that his past spent in an ugly, foul, filthy swamp will be minimized as the filth of a life led with gutter ethics and a foul character mired in a messiah complex is uncovered for all to see.
A postscript to all of this are the comments Trump made about veterans with PTSD – basically, it was that only the weak suffer from such an ailment. This message delivered by a man who spent quite a bit of time and energy making sure he would never be exposed to the possibility of experiencing life in such a way that PTSD was possible. He did this by getting one deferment after another never having spent time in the armed services – although he did want to spend multi-millions on a super-military-parade in which he would be center of attention as the Chief of State.
Thanks for the space you make available so those of us who are just people can put out our thoughts for others to read and react to. While this contribution is political, I am writing another which is the result of my academic research. I will send that to you for publication as soon as it is in good enough shape to be published. I noticed a couple such articles on this blog and realize this is a great forum for a lot of different bits of information, wisdom and whatever else needs to be said. I also tried your “Marshmaples” recipe in the Bettina Cookbook section of this blog and it was outstanding. We will never buy commercially made marshmallows again. The difference is astounding and they didn’t take that long to make. Somehow it has never dawned on me that I could make marshmallows. Your insistence on “organic” ingredients fell on deaf ears, but then I made another batch and tried the organic route – just for fun – and wow, the difference in taste was just outstanding. I am not a total organic person, but this did make me move on from organic Marshmaples to organic bread. Who knows what will come next.
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Tags: Bettina Cookbook, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump, politics, Sexism
Posted in Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Cookbook, Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Balsey Ford, Donald Trump, Guest comments, sexism | Comments Off on Why is Trump Pushing Kavanaugh so Insistently?