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A Readers Comment

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

On 2012-02-14 11:41 PM, lani stacks wrote:

> It’s is for sure such a major tragedy for Whitney Houston’s life to
> be cut so short. She was such a magnificent woman and
> out-of-this-world voice and singer. The evolution of a relationship
> with Mr.Brown just illustrates how much a man that is not beneficial
> to a woman can cause harmful affects on them (us). I have cut off
> relationships when I see these kind of signs in someone, therefore, I
> am living a single life – with my cats. Well, one thing that I can
> feel relief for her is that she is now in a safer and more peaceful
> realm forever with the Lord. I loved the interview with Diane Sawyer
> when she said, “Jesus loves me”. That is courage in this day and age
> to speak one’s heart and soul. To say that is affirmation where her
> heart really is and for sure, she is living this eternal reward now. I
> think of her daughter having to live without her now. That will be
> tough, but she will be surrounded by many loving relatives. Lani

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Whitney Houston
Posted in Guest comments, Making Connections, Reader Feedback | Comments Off on A Readers Comment

Good Words around the Breakfast Table

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

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Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments | Comments Off on Good Words around the Breakfast Table

Thanks for the Whitney Houston Blog!

Monday, February 13th, 2012

I read the blog and was homesick for my Bettina fix – to use the current language being thrown around about Whitney Houston! I love staying in your homes. You didn’t say which home had this breakfast conversation. It doesn’t matter. I’ve stayed in two different homes, loved every minute and went home excited about life.

I appreciated the blog because I expect every media will be rushing to get out a story of how Whitney Houston died from drugs – whether its true or not – they have to create that impression. The same thing happened with Michael Jackson. It is so sad that we don’t have a media doing great investigative reporting and giving us the results, which are facts and not this mythological creation.

My concern is for Whitney’s daughter. With her mother gone, Bobbi Brown will probably be a larger influence on her and that is so sad. After helping to destroy her mother, the other women in Whitney’s family – who are clearly very strong and very independent, need to take hold of this young woman and keep Bobbi Brown away. That sounds cruel, but she needs a chance to get to adulthood and into a secure life without him taking advantage of a very vulnerable moment in her life and working his ugliness.

I am sure he loves his daughter, but from everything I’ve seen he will not take care of her in a way that is beneficial to her, but to him and we have seen what that meant in Whitney Houston’s life. The sorry thing about that is I don’t think Bobbi Brown is aware of just how negative an influence he is on the women in his life. That is the tragedy of all of this – he will continue and probably live a long life destroying women along the way.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Whitney Houston
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Reader Feedback, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Thanks for the Whitney Houston Blog!

Whitney Houston Around the Breakfast Table!

Sunday, February 12th, 2012

One never knows in which direction breakfast table talk will go! Talking around a table with people you don’t know and probably won’t meet again, but there you are, breaking bread with strangers who feel like old friends. It is an incredibly freeing experience.

Ed Note: That is one of the things which makes bed & breakfast such a great way to travel.

This morning, of course, the topic was Whitney Houston all the time. It was an amazing conversation.

To share some of the highlights:

1. There was a comparison made with Whitney Houston and Michael Jacksons death.

Both deaths happened at the point where both people were in the process of organizing and rolling out a comeback!

Michael Jackson was preparing a large tour which – the conjecture was – probably made more money because of his death because people were more focused on him with the thought that this would be the last time they would see something from Michael Jackson, except for older performances.

Whitney Houston filmed Sparkle and it is to open in August. The conjectures continued that attention will be far more focused and many more people will see it than if she were still alive and moving to do other things. As they will to her other products. Now someone other than Whitney Houston will organize and put out for public consumption her ‘come back’ – as happened with Michael Jackson. And, they will probably make more money for themselves or for their investors especially with the timing of this death.

2. There was talk of her life:
She was a fantastic woman – full of light and ‘sparkle’ until she married Bobbi Brown. Then the realities of ‘choice’ entered her life. The reality of living in a society full of sexism, especially against an African American woman; the reality of being a huge celebrity with so many people around and about trying to control another human being for their own benefit. Much talk about the arrogance and very negative influences on her from Bobbi Brown. How different her life could have been had she made another choice. No one doubted that Brown loved her, he was just so self absorbed and living on the negative side of life dragging her with him, he was a horrible choice for her to overcome.

There was talk about her having overcome that part of her life, which was awesome.

There was talk about the drugs coming into her life with Bobbi Brown.

Breakfast table talk about Houston’s death became very intense with lots of questions about why now? and much talk that one could call conspiracies developing around the table. Mostly, questions about who – among those who managed her and/or benefitted from her professional life – stood to gain the most and who could have done this, if it was not an accident. By this time, it was all around the internet and commented on by a few tv people that she drowned in her bathtub – and that, I think, is what generated the conspiracy theories which were in full swing around the table.

There was laughter and a few good jokes about the LA Police being the ones to investigate this – as they did Michael Jacksons death – so nothing was expected except cover-up if there was something wrong here, or a not very thorough investigation if not.

It could have been the coffee, but it was an amazing conversation.

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My Feet and Liquid Vitamin C

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Please copyright this under my name and the Bettina Network’s name. I don’t know why – it just strikes me as the thing to do for this blog.

I discovered Liquid Vitamin C a couple years ago and was excited to read your blog on using Liquid Vitamin C as a cosmetic. It works beautifully.

My discovery was with my feet. As I grow older, my feet grow uglier and have a tendency to puff up if I sit too long. By accident almost, I massaged my feet with liquid vitamin C and put white socks on over the C. I left them on and forgot what I had done, going about my daily life.

Imagine my surprise when I went to bed, took off my socks and found beautiful feet. It was such a freeing feeling. I felt great all day, but that was the real treat at the end of the day.

Since then I make it a part of my health regimen to massage my feet with Liquid Vitamin C after every bath and if I skip a day and don’t take a bath I still wash my feet, give them a liquid Vitamin C massage and put them in white cotton socks. What a difference a small thing like that makes. My first shock at seeing my feet come out of the white socks the first time I tried this was nothing compared to how much more beautiful my feet have become since I started doing this on a regular basis. I could have had plastic surgery on my feet, which I was considering seriously because they looked so awful, but now I don’t have to do that. It took quite a few months to achieve this result, but constancy gave me a good result. If I had plastic surgery the recovery time would have been much longer – given the pain, inconvenience, adjustment and inability to walk for quite some time. This way, I have beautiful feet and this whole process made me feel a lot better given the influence of the liquid C into my body on a daily basis coming from my feet.

Hope my experience benefits someone else.

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Posted in Growing Old, Guest comments, Health and Beauty, Uncategorized | Comments Off on My Feet and Liquid Vitamin C

Olive Oil and Windows

Sunday, September 25th, 2011

Ed. Note: We had three letters from people who use the Bettina Network about the Olive Oil blog. I have tried to combine them into one blog taking the different points made by each one so all the information from all three letters is contained herein. Hopefully, I have been true to each persons points in their letter. They were responding to the blog we wrote on using Olive Oil to clean and polish your wood furniture.

“Thank you for your information on olive oil. I have been using it for sometime now and have found it works beautifully on my windows. I clean them once a year and when they’ve been cleaned, I rub all around the inside and outside of the windows with olive oil. Thank goodness I found this in time because otherwise I was looking at replacing my windows, but I would only have gained about 20 years and either me or the next person would have had to change windows again. That’s great for this throw away society, but not great for our middle-class pocket books. I don’t mean to get political here, that is simply my observation and experience, please don’t take it out of context.”

“Thank you for the blog on olive oil. That is not the first one you have put in your Bettina Blog. I followed through and started to clean my furniture with olive oil. That worked so well I have been using olive oil on everything. I splurge and use organic first cold pressed oilive oil. I know that is kind of ridiculous and probably also extravagant, but it makes me feel better. I hope you will write something about cleaning your windows with olive oil. I have a hard time during the winter opening and closing my windows. They worked very nicely when they were first installed about 12 years ago. They are now very hard to deal with, so after reading the furniture blog and realizing windows are made of wood just like furniture, I cleaned my windows (with the help of the young man who cleans for me) and I was awed by the results.

He didn’t want to use the olive oil. He thought it was going to make a mess whicdh he didn’t want to have to clean up. So I gave him a choice – use olive oil and only olive oil or don’t work for me anymore. Its my house and I call the shots here.

I have noticed the smell in the house has changed. I’ve begun smelling my friends’ houses. We are all clean freaks and have our houses cleaned once a week thoroughly. What I thought was a great clean smell when you walked in the door is really the smell left behind by petroleum. I didn’t recognize it as such because I had connected that with a clean house. My mother used every new product that came on the market and I have followed her using more expensive products thinking I was really getting my house clean. I wonder how much illness I have caused in my family by using those petroleum based products.

I firtst washed my windows all around with Mrs Meyers – I like her essential oils added to her all around household cleaner. I especially like the smell of the geranium oil. After I’ve washed the windows I use a rag with olive oil and go all over the windows again, especially using the olive oil rag on the inside of the windows and the grooves on the sides of the windows where the windows and storm windows go up and down. I make sure those two “weep” holes at the bottom of the storm windows are open so water or condensed water vapor can drain to the outside.
When I finished with the olive oil treatment on the windows I closed them and had a cup of coffee wondering what had I just done and why! It began to seem rather foolish to have done all of that wiping of olive oil into the wood. I even used “OOOO Steel Wool” in a few places where the wood looked a bit dirty and then wiped the residue from the steel wool off with my olive oil rag.

The guy who works for me came to get me in the kitchen. He was kind of excited and wanted me to see what happened. I was amazed and so was he. He was delighted not to have to use rubber gloves to clean and what he was so excited about was the fact that the windows went up and down the way they did when they were new. He didn’t expect that result and quite frankly, neither did I. It is a side discovery that has solved a number of irritations about my windows. When I saw how the inside and sides of the windows looked the next morning I was thrilled. I was especially happy about the new smell in the house. It was not a petroleum smell, but a nice, non-existent odor that would not hurt anyone.

I don’t know if you will use this or not, but even if you don’t I wanted you to know how grateful I am to have been pushed over the edge to giving up my harmful chemicals for something as simple and natural as olive oil. Who would have thought it would produce a better result and solve more than one problem. If I had cleaned my windows the way I normally do, the sticking and hard to move them up and down would have continued and worsened until I replaced them. Now I have beautifully working windows, smooth hands and a good conscience. Thanks Bettina!”

“I love the blog you wrote about using Olive Oil to clean. I started with my furniture and have been cleaning everything with my olive oil. I have two bottles – the organic, cold pressed which I keep in the kitchen for cooking and for salads and the bad kind which I keep in the basement for cleaning. I used it most recently on my windows getting ready for winter and it worked so well I had to write and tell you about it. Thank you for the suggestion.

I especially like what it has done to my hands – working with no rubber gloves and my hands are truly beautiful and soft. I think I am going to start a movement to seek out and get rid of every cleaning substance in my house which is petroleum based and then move on to my family, then my friends, then to just anybody who will listen to me. I might even start my own blog on “cleaning with olive oil”. I might not succeed since there are also petroleum derivative products which are hard to know about, but give me a year and I will be expert at it. Hope you will publish my writings as I discover more and better ways to clean with substances which are good for me and thee health-wise.”

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Posted in cancer, Guest comments, Health, Housekeeping | Comments Off on Olive Oil and Windows

Post Office Failing?

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

comment received from a Bettina Network bed & breakfast guest about the blog “Why the Post Office is Failing?

“Thank you for that blog. Really, one truly never knows what will appear on your blog.

I was delighted to see this topic because it has to do with one of my pet peeves – the technology people, the computer programmers and others in that same area use their technology knowledge and assume it is everything. So what is happening here is the tech area telling the rest of us how we now have to do business. Technology is a staff function. It supports the rest. It has become the only function in charge with everything else taking a secondary seat and sometimes supporting, but most times just pushed out of the way as though generations of experience don’t matter, only the increasing tech takeover of everything in this society.

I’ve seen many places where this is true. This post office box thing is indicative of how the tech area will change the rest of society and not always for the better. In fact, most times it is for the worst.

You don’t have to be a business to have run into this problem. My personal address is a post office box number because I travel a lot. I don’t want mail accumulating outside my door when I am gone and I don’t want to put a stop on my mail at the post office so my brilliant alternative was to have a P. O. Box. I can pick up my mail when I am in town and no problems. However, I am having the same problem – I can’t get a lot of things on line because of my Post Office Box. My co-worker also travels and has a post office box with xxxxxxxxxxx (Editor’s wipe out). She has no problems because her post office box has a street address and suite number. I didn’t follow her example because it costs more and I couldn’t justify the extra expense. If this becomes more common, as it seems to be on that path, the Post Office will suffer declines in income from this part of their service.

Keep up the good work. Root out all of the problems – then its up to the rest of us to fix them. Hopefully, we will not be too lethargic to address this problem and others. All it takes is many, many people protesting to change this.”

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Posted in Guest comments | Comments Off on Post Office Failing?

The Trek from Home to School 2011

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

“It is that time of year when the exodus starts – from home to school; from what is known culturally, socially, economically, food-wise and more to something new. It is the Exodus from, not the biblical-type Exodus to. For some of us that biblical Exodus will never happen. For the lucky few, that biblical-type Exodus back will be a life-fulfilling time. Having resided in those hallowed halls, the biblical-type Exodus brings a handful back home.

For others, – the unsuspecting, the innocent, the thoughtless, – friends are left behind; relatives are left behind; old institutions which formed a comfort level for most of us are left behind and even our identities are shed and strip-searched. Everything is ripe for forming new attachments, new loyalties, new cultural mores, food habits, clothes styles, friends, and we attach ourselves to new institutions. Most poignantly we adopt new identities without even being aware of that process happening. We feel the pain of the change, but because this is all such an integral part of the society in which we live and because this has all been pictured to us in ways which remove our defenses and understandings, we simply feel the discomfort, the frustration, the confusion that comes from putting in place our new identities. At one time in history these many would have been called the strivers. They are the ones who will succeed beyond their own and anyone else’s expectations because they have that something which brought them out of their own to this new territory without incident, question or immediate guilt.

And yes, what arrives for all in this process is the guilt. A new kind of guilt which will neither surface nor grow for at least a decade. A slowly developing guilt from actions that, to those of us in this process – in our late teens to mid-twenties – has nothing to do with guilt, but is simply life moving ahead.

In this re-ordering process, the new identity is what will be most troublesome over the next several decades. If we are not upper-middle class Northern European we will re-order our family relationships drastically. To move ahead in this ’new’ society we must cut off and keep family at arms length. They will expose our background, our class, the economic base from which we’ve come and more. The exceptions who are used to disprove the rule, are allowed to move ahead and keep family and there are not many of them. They can discretely keep some family around. The others have to move away from family. Find fault with them, keep them at arms length because whatever is wrong is their fault so they will not walk into this beautiful – though painful – place with us.”

Ed. Note: This is a small excerpt from a letter we received from a former guest. He had been part of a conversation around the breakfast table in one of the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network, inc. when parents were bringing their children to college and he was doing the same thing. The conversation from a couple older parents, who are now grandparents was about how they missed their children who were “busy”, had very little time to ‘come home’ and from whom they heard very seldom.

Over the years he has stayed in other homes in the Bettina Network, inc., was a part of conversations with parents who had effectively been ignored by their children for decades and he was beginning to experience the same thing.

We have not put the entire letter in this blog because it is very painful to read and revealed a lot of information personal to the guest. We don’t know your experience, but over the years this certainly parallels many conversations we’ve had with parents as their children left home for school and the years that followed cut them almost totally out of their children and grandchildren’s lives.

The end of his letter follows:

“What is most painful about having packed up my children several years ago – one at a time – and brought them to college – and then to watch them grow away from all of us is the thought that this is what I did to my parents. Without even a thought; not realizing the pain it must have caused them. I became part of the prior generation – leaving home – establishing a very successful career – and looking back today on my childhood and family, which I miss terribly, but can’t replace or even belatedly go back to visit because they are all dead. I did everything I was raised to do – finished college, established a business and now am living comfortably several steps above where my family lived financially and class-wise. But in the end, when I look back, what I wanted and expected was to finish college, go home and move ahead with my life in the context of family – my family. To have grown and maintained my original identity was my goal, although not put in those terms as a young person. That was taken away from me without either my knowledge or consent. How did that happen? Is this how a multi-national economy is formed, grown, expanded? Was I fodder for that process and are my children the new fodder needed for this to continue? I don’t think I even like the new identity I put in its place.”

We hope it is not your experience, but we add it to Bettina’s Blog because the guest sent it for the blog and because we think it is illuminating to life today. Your comments are welcome.

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Posted in An editorial just because, Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Making Connections | No Comments »

Anti-Perspirant Follower

Saturday, August 13th, 2011

A blog from a guest at a Bettina home

I have been reading your blogs on giving up deodorant and anti-perspirants. That is quite brave of you because we all know people in our society now judge you as immoral if you have any odor at all. In fact, we are beginning to judge people as immoral even if they have a perfume odor where once we considered using perfume a good thing. Now using perfume is a low class/trashy thing to do. Times do change and sometimes really quickly.

I have been trying to give up deodorant and especially anti-perspirants because I believe they contribute to our epidemic of Alzheimer’s. The aluminum Chloride? – not sure which aluminum compound is in it, but that aluminum closing your pores so you can’t perspire cannot be a good thing. I imagine aluminum stuffed into my pores under my arms and it gives me the chills. I have not been successful at giving up deodorants, however, until I read your blog.

Several ideas came to me since reading and re-reading your experiments. The first – after a few weeks – I realized this is a great, unintentional weight-loss program.

I keep a food diary and write down everything I eat. It took about two weeks to begin to get it as a regular thing without missing foods or forgetting to write down what I had eaten. The diary has made giving up deodorants without smelling loud quite easy.

I noticed as I kept this food diary that when I eat heavily processed, pesticides, antibioticized foods – in other words foods that have been doctored and are not organically grown – my bad smells went up. Really horrible smells came out of me when I ate beef – non-organic. I smelled almost immediately after I got out of the shower and the smell was not pleasant.

The more of the “wrong” foods I ate also turned my body into a foul smelling center. So gradually I started the food diary so I could ascertain which foods were the culprits and gradually I have become extremely aware of my body and the reactions I have to what I eat. It has been an amazing revelation – and I am a very busy person so being busy is not an excuse to remove yourself from your own responsibility to take care of yourself.

When I go out to a restaurant with friends or an evening on the town or wherever I am going to eat foods that cause foul smells to emanate from my body I use deodorant. If its going to be a long night, I even use anti-perspirants because I need to be careful to not be ostracized by those who can’t stand to smell the human body when it is doing its job of getting rid of toxins through the pores.

It has felt like a long journey, but I like where I have reached. I have lost 15 pounds in the process. Apparently, the foods that make you stinky also make you fat.

This is an awful note to send you, but you have opened the door to such a discussion and I want to air my experiences. Maybe they will help someone going through what I’ve been through or maybe they will just peak someone else’s curiosity. I look forward to reading responses and suggestions from someone who has been through this and can help me go the next step in understanding more about my physical self and how society has intruded on the health of my physical self in a very negative way and what I can do to either mitigate or reverse those problems.

Ed. Note: This was from someone who has been a guest in a Bettina home. We are sharing it in the hopes you find it useful. If you are a Bettina Host Family or have been a guest in one of the Bettina Homes, please feel free to send us your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, discoveries and we will add them to the summaries of discussions we get from conversations over breakfast in Bettina homes.

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Is Deodorant/Anti-Perspirant Necessary?

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

We have had quite a time of it with this topic. It all started when we received a request from a guest to please follow up on how to live an organic life without smelling when you give up, especially anti-perspirants.

Several of us took up the challenge. We will never be the same and we will never have the same friends again. People looked at us funny! They moved away from us when we were in meetings during our trial time! We had great and as you can guess, hilarious discussions about this. One bottom line result for all of us – we now know who our true friends are. The others dropped away because they wouldn’t come close to us until this was over – and from them, they said “we love you, but don’t come near me until you have regained your senses and started wearing deodorant or anti-perspirant again – nothing personal, they just couldn’t stand how we began to smell!!!”

Here is what we found – and you have to remember this ‘scientific’ experiement was done by just a hand full of people – women and men:

1) Much to our chagrin, the men didn’t smell as ‘ripe’ as the women throughout this experiement. We don’t know why, that is just what we found. Maybe they cheated and didn’t go to tennis and other heavy activity occasions so they wouldn’t smell and alienate their friends and co-workers.

2) Our bottom line discovery is that it is possible to go without deodorant and anti-perspirants, but it does not happen overnight. You have to work up to it or go around smelling until you have your bodily reactions under control.

Diet has a lot to do with how we smell. And I mean – smell bad.

Lots of fast foods, grease, beef or other animal proteins raise your smell level to almost intolerable by someone sitting or standing next to you if you went two days without a bath or shower. You can do that if you use deodorant. In fact, we found that is probably why people use the stuff because they can go a week without bathing or showering, use anti-perspirants and get by tolerably well.

We tried the suggestion of one persons friend – to use Tom’s deodorant, but we found while it didn’t have the bad stuff in it, it also didn’t work. It worked well for only one person. It left the rest of us smelling bad within an hour or so.

Without using deodorants or anti-perspirants it is imperative that you bathe daily – or shower daily.

The adjustments you have to make to your diet to go without deodorants and anti-perspirants are also good for your weight. I didn’t weigh myself during this time and only stepped on a scale this morning and found I had lost a very appreciable amount of weight. Probably, thinking about something else and concentrating as hard as we had to with this experiment, kept my mind off food and my hands out of the chocolate.

We realized the answer to this question had to be that deodorant and anti-perspirant were not necessary because our ancestors didn’t have the drug companies churning out these products, nor did they have all the tv ads making you feel like a really dirty swamp if you didn’t use them – so – something kept our ancestors from smelling and kept them close to one another without a negative reaction to their mutual body odors.

We found many helps:

1) If you must eat animal protein, use beef, chicken, etc. as though it is a condiment rather than the entire meal. A little bit goes a long way and your body stays ‘fresh’ smelling longer. We don’t know why, we just know that was our experience. We also conjectured if this was the reason anti-perspirants came along and why as humans we are needing stronger and stronger products to keep us from smelling loud and wrong as our diets go further off kilter.

2) Bathe or shower daily – preferably in the morning – so you can get the perspiration or dead skin cells or whatever accumulates overnight, off your skin giving you the best chance at not smelling all day. Of course, there are the overachievers in every group and a couple of us bathed before bed and in the morning while another person bathed in the late afternoon before going out for the evening, at night when she returned and again in the morning. You will recognize her – she is the one whose skin has turned colors from the chlorine in the water.

3)There are ‘helpers’ we found, which we believe, increases your health level and reduces the likelihood of your smelling bad as you participate in life. The biggy is organic, virgin, cold pressed or expeller pressed coconut oil. To give yourself a massage with coconut oil – or if you don’t have the time for an all-over massage to rub coconut oil under your arm pits after bathing, helped a lot. If you also used a couple drops of essential oil after you massaged the coconut oil under your arms you are almost guaranteed not to smell bad, but to smell like whichever essential oil you chose. I liked rose oil. Someone else used lavender oil, and there is the renegade who used rosemary oil. Her smell was a little different, but you got used to knowing when you smelled rosemary oil it was your friend and not stewed chicken on the stove. One used cinnamon oil and one used nutmeg oil, but all of the results were the same; bad body odor was banished.

A second good result came from the person who used organic aloe vera gel either as a massage all over, or when she didn’t have time for a massage, only under her arms. She also used essential oils – only a drop or two under each arm – over her basic massage medium.

We all found that it takes time – from a couple weeks to a month to get good results living without deodorant and/or anti-perspirant. Probably, we guessed, because you have to detox your body of the things which cause you to get that ‘ripe’ odor.

So our conclusion is that you can live very comfortably without either deodorant or anti-perspirant. It takes thought and care and paying attention to your diet and your body and bathing daily, but it is worth it to get ride of those toxins. You know that whatever you put on your skin is in your blood stream in seconds. So if you can’t eat it, don’t use it in your body. AND – there is not a deodorant nor anti-perspirant on the market that I would eat or drink.

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Industrialization of Information

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

What follows is a summary – as best we could – of a very interesting breakfast conversation in one of the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network, inc. It is a woefully inadequate summary, but it is one we think you will understand from the bits and pieces we picked up.

“Our ancestors lived through and saw their lives dramatically changed by the Industrialization of Agriculture. Some good, but a whole lot not so good, has come out of that still-ongoing movement.

We moved from a pastoral, family oriented, farm society in which we knew where our food came from; we knew how it was grown; we didn’t eat food very far from its source; and we created much of what we needed. From that era we have moved to a society where we eat food which has been processed so much that we don’t know what it was originally; have to read the labels to find out what’s in the food being sold; and when we do we discover food is the last ingredient on the label, most of the other ingredients are words we can neither read nor pronounce. The dilution, pasteurization, manipulation of real food has happened while we were all looking in another direction.

Huge machinery has been designed and built to produce things like potato chips, bread, cookies, jam, rice, pasta and to make vegetables into things we could never imagine and wouldn’t eat if we hand’t been introduced to some really grotesque abominations from childhood. Healthy real foods have been processed and industrialized into out of control and life denying addictions. Animals are being raised and slaughtered in ways that make science fictions’ most abominable and ruthless monsters cry at the thought of what we do to the animals with which we share this earth.

Today, the big industry is the food industry with processing taking place on nearly every food item available and those which are not now in the processing industry are being pushed there by the ever increasing and more ridiculous requirements of the FDA – i.e. the edict that raw almonds have to be pasteurized before they can be sold because of the fear of mold negatively affecting those who buy and eat raw almonds. Almonds, which have been sold and eaten raw for thousands of years with no bad effects on those who have eaten them.

We are a society with increasing kinds of illnesses happening from this processing, genetic expansion, experimental development from the corporate farm.

The same type of thing is happening in the information arena. We are digitizing, organizing, exploding the information available to the average person. We are organizing people into social networks and feeding them all kinds of information which is becoming a necessity instead of a some-time thing. Where is that going? How will that affect everyday people? What will it do to how we live and what is considered necessary for modern survival?

It is bizarre with some of the equipment, which has become indispensable. If you are of an age, you went about your life without a cell phone and felt very secure in where you were going, how you were going to get there and some smattering of what to do in case of an emergency.

Today, many children hyperventilate at the thought of their parents going around without a cell phone. They feel and articulate that they have no emergency outlet if something horrible befalls them. These are parents who didn’t know anything about cell phones and let’s not even mention grandparents.

If you moved from one city to another, you found your way around and found your way to the local library, city hall and other places to become acquainted with your new surroundings. Today, many feel stripped naked if they move and don’t have access to their computer and Google, Yahoo or some other search engine. They absolutely can’t function without it.

The first thing many of us do when meeting someone new is to “Google” them to see what is on line about them; click on their address to see what kind of house they live in, etc. We don’t feel comfortable with another human being until we have “Googled” them.

We moved on from there in a very lively debate, but I think you get the gist of the breakfast conversation. – Huge amounts of money is being made taking what was in the public sphere and putting it in the technology sphere making money on this information in the process. Much more will gradually be put into some form of this informational industrialization with many more making obscene amounts of money manipulating what was free.

In the process we become more and more tied to machines and the developing technology as we get sicker by the minute from what this technology and its developing delivery utensils are doing to our bodies. They irradiate, and do all kinds of other things to us, our genes, our bodies, our environment, our lifestyle AND the food we snack on while engaging in and enjoying this newfound power. The Industrialization of Information ties into and promotes the Industrialization of our food industry. One promotes the other. And where will it all end? In the industrialization of yet another part of this society? Or in leaving this world to robots which will be the only things which will be able to survive the atmosphere and environment we are creating.

Maybe we need a group to look into and study this, presenting their findings globally in a webinar which will compete with another study groups’ webinar encouraging us to go back to the primitive life before all of this happened and outlining how to do this.

We won’t be able to run off to Vermont as one could do to escape much of the Industrialization of Food because Vermont is well into the Industrialization of Information. Those who are going back to the ‘old ways’, the ‘non-consumer’ ways by running off to Vermont usually do so taking with them their technology toys. So we will have to find another safe haven to which we can escape when we have made millions from this new Industrialization and find it too difficult to sustain ourselves as humans through old age in the world we created.

Ed. Note: Hmmmm, isn’t that the Christian definition of sin? Probably the definition of sin in many of the world’s religions

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A Political Breakfast Conversation

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Neither politics nor religion are off-limits at the Bettina breakfast tables. I have tried to report on several, but some I didn’t understand as one or another host family tried to give me a synopsis of breakfast table conversations they thought were particularly interesting.

This one was very relevant and timely and amazing as it hooked so much together. I understand this breakfast lasted until after 1pm and the host family made lunch to keep everybody well fed. They must have been exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. Wonder what happened to all of their plans for the day! A stay at a Bettina Network bed & breakfast can lead to some interesting and unexpected places.

This came about because the subject, at breakfast, changed to closing down the government. A couple was concerned as to what affect it would have on their jobs and if anyone else had the same concerns.

Because a couple people were older, they remembered when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House with designs on becoming President and the national political scene looked very much the way it looks today. He led the threats to close down the government if his/their conditions weren’t met by a certain date. Today, so many years later, the same threats have emerged and ‘voila’ Newt is once again thinking of running for President. The conversation outlined the parallels between then and now and amazement went around the table that so many people are following Newt down that same tired, worn-out road once again.

The result of that was the presidency was lost to the Republicans and the Democrats stepped up to the plate. A few Republicans were elected in the interim time, but the big prize was lost. People were kind of disgusted. We suspect those feelings will or already have returned.

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Beauty in 2011

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

“This is the year I throw out my cosmetics and follow organic beautify treatments. Not organic cosmetics, but organic foods used the way I have been using cosmetics.

I was part of a fantastic breakfast conversation at one of the Bettina Network bed and breakfasts which talked about – basically – only using on your face, skin and hair, those products that you would eat because within seconds what you put on your skin shows up in your blood stream.

I was the one denying this and talking about the block your skin has from products getting any further than just on the surface – certainly not getting as far as your blood stream. And then, when I got home I looked up what we were talking about and realized folks must have thought me really ignorant because I didn’t really know anything about the topic. I didn’t let that stop me from spreading ignorance. I don’t normally act like that, but these are emotional topics and everyone thinks they are experts. I thought I knew everything there was to know about cosmetics, etc. because I spent a few thousand dollars a year on cosmetics and here I could have had better results spending only a couple hundred for everything.

I’ve gone over Bettina’s Blog and found some of the things talked about and have tried a few. The one that has produced the best result for me is the virgin organic coconut oil. That is the one I objected to over breakfast because over the years, everything I heard about coconut oil was telling me to stay away from it because it was bad for your health. Imagine my amazement to hear folks talking about how great it was over breakfast and their experiences with it. And just think how uninformed I was and sounded, especially since I insisted I knew what I was talking about.

This letter is my way of ‘eating crow’ from my bad behavior at breakfast. I hope you will share it by putting it in Bettina’s Blog. If you don’t I will thoroughly understand. Also feel free to edit it anyway you feel necessary, in case you have space requirements.

The woman whose beauty regimen I have been following, was very quiet at breakfast, but she did describe how she uses coconut oil all the time. She looked stunning. She is not a great beauty – sorry – but she had this aura around her, which apparently comes from her beauty regimen. She uses coconut oil as an all over massage after her bath (yes, Virginia, she takes a bath – that freaked me out) – who in this day and age takes a bath.

Once I got over her bathing instead of showering – I could hear her again – she massages with coconut oil and uses it to give her scalp and hair a real good massage as well. Another quiet person around the table suggested coconut oil was being touted as being good for Alzheimer’s and for thyroid problems. Since I am at that change of life stage, the thyroid sounded good to me. I don’t have a thyroid problem, but I am at the age where that is possible, so I massage my neck every day with the coconut oil – hitting the spots where I think my thyroid lives. I know about thyroids thanks to Dr. Oz.

I’ve been using it for a few months and feel great, – I look much better – and my skin and especially my face have taken on the brightness and healthy look of the woman who I admired. I love the soft sheen her face had and that is what I’ve been trying for. Some of the other stuff talked about I haven’t yet tried. The use of beta carotene on your lips instead of lipstick struck me as really great, but so far I have been going without lipstick. Once I get the coconut oil down, I will move on to the beta carotene and then the aloe vera as an alternate massage to coconut oil.

There is so much I heard around that breakfast table that today sounds really great to me – I really regret getting up on my high horse of knowing it all and not really listening. I could have learned so much more.

Thank you for providing this forum. I’ve added a lot of good habits to my daily life which I had no knowledge about before staying at your bed and breakfast. Do all of your homes have this kind of breakfast? If so, I will never travel another way. To visit friends and pick up good habits which will last a lifetime and make me look really good, what more could I ask. Thanks also for putting up with me – I wasn’t the best breakfast conversationalist. a bit too pushy, but I am really nice deep down. When I’ve made a nute of myself I always apologize. In this case, please accept my apologies and my thanks for what I took away from your bed and breakfast.”

Ed Note: We published the letter we received in its entirety with no edits.

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Time to Get Back to Work

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

Well, 2011 is well on its way to becoming 2012 and before that happens it is time for us to get back to work.

We have a few emails from our bed & breakfast guests who read Bettina’s Blog.

Let’s start the New Year with a great suggestion for baking.

“I was in the kitchen one morning when my host family was making breakfast. They baked a wonderful sour cream breakfast cake. I would love to have the recipe.

Although the cake was really good they had a hard time getting it out of the cake pan. It eventually came out, but not as pretty as they had hoped. I gave them a suggestion, which I decided to also send to the blog. It is one which has served me well over many years – and I never have and never will use that spray stuff you see being put into baking pans on the cooking shows.

When I start to bake a cake, the first thing I do is oil the pan with organic butter and put it in the refrigerator until I have finished with the cake batter and it is ready to be poured into the pan. I have never had a problem getting my cakes out of the pan. Once out of the oven, let the cake cool about five minutes (no longer) and then put a plate over the cake pan invert it and the cake will come right out of the pan.”

Ed. Note: We tried this several times and it worked beautifully. Needless to say we passed this suggestion on to the bed & breakfast host family who was mentioned as having a hard time getting their cake out of the pan.

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From a Guest on Cayenne Pepper

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

“Before I get swept away by the holidays, I want to thank you for a wonderful blog. Keep up the good work, I’ve used so many of your ideas and I am very grateful. Some have been real life savers.

We also had a wonderful stay at a bed & breakfast in Harvard Square Cambridge for about the umpteenth time. Each time I don’t think it can get better and each time something new and different happens that makes me want to return soon.

This is about your blog on Cayenne Pepper. I read it, thought it was interesting, but didn’t follow through until I returned to the bed & breakfast, which now keeps a bottle of cayenne pepper at the door as you come in or leave. They do it because several guests have requested the cayenne pepper, since that is the last thing you would think to pack and I’m not sure it would get through security anyway. (By the way your blog on “Security at the Airport” is a stitch – probably because there is so much truth in it that it is really funny).

I got into the habit of sprinkling cayenne pepper in my shoes everytime I went out and it saved my life. Travel is hard on my feet and I come home with aching pinched feet. My own fault from the shoes I insist on wearing. This time, I had no problems, walked all over and found lots of energy without aching feet. I don’t know what the cayenne pepper does, but I’ve used it constantly since returning home and it has changed my way of living.

Thank you! By the way I was at the table when the folks from Canada talked about Cayenne Pepper as they sprinkled it in their running shoes several years ago before going out the door to join the hordes of runners for the Boston Marathon. It has taken this long for me to take up the suggestion, even though I saw the guy come back who didn’t have to crawl into the house and crawl up the stairs to his room. He was still walking upright and stopped to talk to me without seeming to be exhausted. Well, I now know how that feels.

enjoy your holidays and thank you so much for the ideas in Bettina’s Blog. hope you continue it for many more years and I can read it for many more years. As soon as I get a minute I am going to go over that blog for other ideas that might help me get through life a little easier.”

ed. note: Thanks for your comments. It is nice to know someone is out there reading and benefitting from what we write.

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I tried Bettina’s Coconut Cake

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

THIS WAS SENT TO US BY A VERY LOYAL GUEST. SOMEONE WHO HAS USED THE BETTINA NETWORK FOR OVER 10 YEARS. WE ARE DELIGHTED SHE IS NOW FOLLOWING US ON BETTINA’s BLOG.

The cake was stupendous. I had requests for cakes from everyone I know. That’s not a good thing because I am not a bakery and am so busy I don’t know how I found the time to bake the Bettina’s Coconut Cake.

I learned a little when making this cake that I would like to share with you. The greatness of this cake, for me, is the icing. I have been trying to make a good butter cream icing and haven’t been able to get it right. This recipe did it for me.

I used one cup organic turbinado sugar in a Corning glass saucepan with one cup water. I heated this until it reached 240 degrees – following your directions. When it got close, I put three egg whites into a mixer and let it go until the egg whites were stiff. I then poured the hot simple syrup into the egg whites and let it beat until it looked like the marshmallows I tried from your recipes. That was great. Then I added three sticks of organic lightly salted butter – (I used Organic Valley), putting in one small pat at a time. After about 15 minutes of letting the mixer beat at almost high speed I had the best butter cream icing I have ever tasted. I worried when I started about how much butter I would use and didn’t want to use a couple pounds which other recipes call for. I decided the number of sticks of butter I would use would equal the number of egg whites. I have no logic for that decision, it just popped in my head because I didn’t want to spend any more money on this cake. A huge investment in butter seemed a waste.

I was a bit worried because when I saw the icing look like liquid again I was panic stricken, but kept my ground because I didn’t want to use anymore butter.

The texture and taste of this butter cream is unbelievable. When put on the 1-2-3-4 cake the combination was shameful it was so good. The cake lasted about an hour. Oh! I also put powdered organic vanilla powder – one teaspoon – in the icing. You recommended that several blogs ago and I experimented with it because I don’t particularly like the vanilla extract which seems to be held together by alcohol.

I am going to use your cake recipe for every cake I make. It beats those boxed cakes and doesn’t take that much more time to make, especially compared to the difference in the results. One can forget how good a cake made from scratch can taste and how easy it is to make.

I love the way the organic coconut milk adds something to the cake that you can’t quite put your finger on and we all now know that Coconut Milk, etc. is exceptionally healthy. I’ve thrown out my cooking oils and cook exclusively with Organic Virgin Coconut Oil. The smell and taste it adds is great.

Thanks! Keep those recipe’s coming. I will probably lose my job if I spend anymore time in the kitchen, but the results would be worth it. Your recipe’s are dynamite. Of course, then you would have to give me a job working in your test kitchen – if you have one. Something you are doing is turning out these great dishes.

A VERY LOYAL GUEST AND BLOG READER. (PLEASE DON’T USE MY NAME).

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Searching for Goats MILK!

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

We are searching for Organic Whole Raw Goats Milk Kefir! If we can’t find the Organic Whole Raw Goats Milk Kefir – if you know of a source for Organic Whole Raw Goats Milk let us know that to – we will make our own Kefir.

We have received lots of mail about one of our bed & breakfast home’s morning Smoothie Drink which is available to their bed and breakfast guests as an addition to or instead of the regular breakfasts they prepare. We would like to make the recipe and information available on the Blog, but sources for the Goats Milk are impossible to find – except in the most hidden places. What country is this? A democracy? Or has our open government been replaced with a dictatorship when we weren’t looking?

Don’t know why those foods that are best for us are the hardest to find? Are we being marketed and programmed into sickness and problem health issues?

The smoothie made with Organic Raw Goats’ Milk Kefir is getting rave reviews from some of our guests. One guest credits it with getting rid of his “pot belly” which he cultivated by drinking beer and which exercise did nothing to flatten.

The recipe:

Put the following in a blender –
1 cup organic raw whole goat’s milk kefir
Add a frozen packet of your favorite organic fruit – blackberries, pinneapple, cherries, strawberries, etc.
Add one organic banana – very ripe
Add organic maple syrup to taste

If you like your smoothie very cold and a little like a soft ice cream add about 4 ice cubes
If you prefer your smoothie more liquid, don’t add the ice cubes and you will get a wonderful thick drink.

Blend for several minutes – depending upon how you want the outcome – experiment until you get your favorite consistency.

We’ve started trying it, but can’t get the proper milk. We are using organic whole milk pasteurized cows milk kefir. Its still good, but not as healthy, nor does it give the kind of results the organic raw whole goat’s milk kefir is giving and we are jealous of the results and frustrated in this search.

At least we can find the organic whole milk – Lifeway is the only label we’ve found selling the organic whole cow’s milk kefir.

I am sure you all know the difference between the whole milk and low fat. We are discovering claims that low fat is what is producing the osteoporosis epidemic. All the research we’ve done and the breakfast discussions we’ve been made aware of talk about the difference and the false bill of goods, particularly women, have been sold thinking low fat milk products will help them control their weight and provide their needed calcium, etc.

Apparently, milk fat and milk protein have to be present in the body at the exact same time and the only way that can happen is if your milk is “whole”. All the unnatural things that are being done to milk is amazing. What ever happened to good, plain, clean milk straight from the animal without all the expensive equipment now needed to produce a bottle of milk to sell to consumers. It certainly has limited who can go into the dairy business and produce the end product – And, especially – who receives the real profit from milk. It looks as though that will not be the farmer with the dairy animals producing the milk. That is only the first step – after which those who make the real profit on milk step in, collect milk from many dairy farmers and up the price beyond anything any dairy farmer could hope to make.

There have been some hot breakfast table discussions about milk lately. We buy organic milk, but hadn’t thought much beyond that. We now have been pushed to look at a lot more and think carefully about this whole topic. There is even a bit of controversy over kefir. Are there 10 or 12 probiotics in Kefir or are there 36 and are we being short changed even in that area?

Bed and breakfast opens doors we didn’t even realize were doors and throws open windows we couldn’t see through. What a startling new view through those windows with the painted glass panes. This milk business is certainly an area that has us dizzy. And it all started with smoothies for breakfast.

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Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Food Shopping, Guest comments, Health, Making Connections, Shopping | No Comments »

Good News in New Orleans

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

There are many catastrophes in the Gulf these days. Most of the news emanating therefrom is dismal and seems as though the place is falling apart. This news, however, is good and may help the light to shine through and the creation of a new and better day for New Orleans. New Orleans has a new Labyrinth. It is beautiful; well sited; and wonderful to walk.

check out: www.labyrinthataudubonpark.org

“Purpose of the labyrinth
The Labyrinth at Audubon Park has been waiting for its own timing and purpose and that purpose has now become clear, particularly as New Orleans is consumed by the gutting of homes, the rebuilding of levees and the removing of debris from many neighborhoods. The labyrinth stands as a symbol of hope and will offer the New Orleans community a place to heal, to walk together, and to celebrate new life.

Who did this?
The labyrinth has been a five-year collaborative effort of the Audubon Nature Institute and The Friends of The Labyrinth at Audubon Park. One of America’s most well-known creators of labyrinths, Marty Kermeen of Labyrinths in Stone, was commissioned to construct it in Audubon Park.

Where
The permanent labyrinth is located among the oak and sycamore trees on Audubon Park’s East Drive where Laurel Street meets Audubon Park near the Tree of Life. View map

Walking the Labyrinth
The labyrinth’s archetypal symbol of the spiral is the universal representation of transformation. The labyrinth is a tool that provides a sacred place for meditation, centering, and healing. A labyrinth is a walking meditation. All people and all cultures are invited to journey along the labyrinth. As in life, you will encounter many turns. Trust the path. There is no right or wrong way to walk a labyrinth. There are no tricks or decisions, just follow the single path, one foot in front of the other, until you reach the center. Return along that same path.

Our thanks for this bit of heaven on earth goes to: The Friends of The Labyrinth at Audubon Park
They are a non-profit organization whose mission is to build and support the first permanent labyrinth for the New Orleans community. The Friends are also active in projects to educate the public about the history of the ancient labyrinth and to raise awareness about the resurgence of the labyrinth as a meditative and spiritual tool.”

(Ed. Note) Most of the above in quotes was taken directly from the New Orleans Labyrinth’s web site.

Our thanks for letting us know about this new Labyrinth goes to Anne Gordon, whose book – “Numina” will soon be followed by another on Trees. We hope you have purchased a copy and have read through. When you have finished reading “Numina” you know you have been changed, but you aren’t sure what happened. It is a very good life experience.

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Posted in Guest comments, Labyrinth | No Comments »

Soap for Leg Cramps

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

We have had interesting guests who have given us much over breakfast. Our knowledge and wisdom has increased exponentially. I don’t know of any school, degree, or learning center of any kind which is better. This mornings breakfast, however, left us amazed – and don’t you know it had a New Orleans connection.

We had a guest who asked for a bar of soap. We do get such requests every once in awhile, but generally from people who are not accustomed to using the organic liquid soap we provide in the bathrooms. This requesst for soap was different. This guest – with Mobile, Alabama connections – needed a bar of soap because he has leg cramps and is accustomed to putting a bar of soap under the bottom sheet so he can sleep without leg cramps bothering him.

Now I believe in this kind of ‘medicine’, however this was a bit much, even for me. So I did a bit of research and found several new sources of information.

If you have leg cramps and want to try it, it is supposed to work with all soaps except Dove and Dial. No one knows why it works nor why it does not work with those two bars of soap. Since we gave him a bar of Dove soap – we put a bar of Irish Spring soap in his room while he was out so he wouldn’t have to spend a night with leg cramps.

We discovered a new source of information you might like to check out. This information is on the web at AskDrGottMD.com. We have reprinted below what Dr. Gott had to say about nocturnal leg cramps.

DEAR READER: Since I first published this remedy for nocturnal leg cramps, I have received dozens of letters from readers who endorsed this novel approach.

Recently, I also received mail from patients with restless legs syndrome, a serious and uncomfortable disorder of unknown cause. These RLS patients have had success with the soap.

Although it would be irresponsible of me to endorse this as a cure for RLS, the initial responses have been overwhelming. I’ll update you in a future column as I receive more feedback from readers.

To review the technique briefly for people who may have missed previous columns, here is what to do: Take a bar of soap (large or small, new or used, but no Dial or Dove) and place it under the bottom sheet of the bed in the area of the feet and legs. Go to sleep and see what happens. If you sleep, undisturbed by leg cramps or RLS for a full night, let me know. Of course, write me if the technique is ineffective. I’m looking for honest and objective analyses.

Of course, Dr. Gott has a New Orleans connection – his medical degree is from Tulane Medical School. Before you think any other thoughts, he meets the Northeastern Establishments criteria for credibility by also being a graduate of Princeton University. He writes several medical columns and you can get many of his past articles and columns through his web site and several other sites – just Google or Yahoo Dr. Peter H. Gott and see what turns up.

I was a little wary of this advice because the couple claimed at breakfast that Mardi Gras first happened in Mobile, Alabama before Mobile folks brought it to New Orleans. Now that is rumor spreading that we have very little patience for so I was all ready to throw out this soap business, until I realized I should put aside my prejudices and listen, thereby learning a lot.

See: AskDrGott.com His His daily column has been syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association since 1984. Via postal mail Dr. Peter Gott, P.O. Box 433, Lakeville, CT 06039.

In this bed and breakfast business you never know what tomorrow will bring or who will cross the sill of your door bringing information you didn’t know you needed or that existed and we thank God for it every single day.

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A Change to Your Lemon Tea Bread Recipe

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

by: A former guest

I tried your Lemon Tea Bread recipe several times and love it. The problem has been, it is a little dry for my taste so I added 1/2cup heavy cream – organic, of course and it was perfect for my taste. Others may have the same problem so I decided to share my change with you.

I also have a question. How do I find heavy cream which is organic, but not super-pasteurized? I have looked all over with no luck. The only kind I can find will last in the refrigerator for almost 3 months, but I want fresh, organic heavy cream which only lasts days because it hasn’t been super treated.

Thanks,

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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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Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Guest comments | No Comments »

Archive for the ‘Guest comments’ Category

A Readers Comment

Good Words around the Breakfast Table

Thanks for the Whitney Houston Blog!

Whitney Houston Around the Breakfast Table!

My Feet and Liquid Vitamin C

Olive Oil and Windows

Post Office Failing?

The Trek from Home to School 2011

Anti-Perspirant Follower

Is Deodorant/Anti-Perspirant Necessary?

Industrialization of Information

A Political Breakfast Conversation

Beauty in 2011

Time to Get Back to Work

From a Guest on Cayenne Pepper

I tried Bettina’s Coconut Cake

Searching for Goats MILK!

Good News in New Orleans

Soap for Leg Cramps

A Change to Your Lemon Tea Bread Recipe

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