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Posts Tagged ‘breakfast table talk’

An Incredible Snack – Bettina Style

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

We discovered an unbelievable snack as we roamed the country looking for families/individuals wanting to use their houses for bed & breakfast.

It is basically popcorn, but such popcorn should be the food of the gods.

First – in a saucepan, preferably glass i.e. A Corning pot – put one cup organic turbinado sugar and one cup water with a little piece of organic ginger root. Bring this to a boil and let it summer until you have reached 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. Don’t stir this – even when you first put in the water and sugar just let it heat up and bubble, it does not need you to do anything to it, especially stirring.

Second – in a hot air popcorn popper, put the requisite amount of organic unpopped corn and plug it in. Let the popcorn popper work until almost all of the popcorn is popped. If you don’t have a hot air popcorn popper use a kettle popper or whatever you have. We use the hot air popcorn popper because it does not take any oil to pop. Hot air does the trick.

Third – let the syrup cook a bit and then carefully pour the sugar syrup over the popcorn.

Fourth – Let this cool

Fifth – melt organic chocolate and/or cacao either in a double boiler or carefully in a glass pot on top of the stove. If you use just the pot and not a double boiler, don’t leave the chocolate while it is melting. Someone else who tried this put equal amounts of chocolate and organic heavy cream letting the chocolate melt and stirring until the two were well mixed. That might be an option for you, we have not tried this way of melting and adding chocolate to the popcorn.

Sixth – This is best done with semi-sweet chocolate – we used semi-sweet organic chocolate chips and threw in about 1/3 organic peanut butter chips – just because we were getting carried away with ourselves.

Seventh – Once the chocolate is melted – let it cool a bit and very carefully sprinkle this over your popcorn – which is now covered with the sugar syrup and has cooled to become hardened. The chocolate is the second layer and once it cools and hardens again your popcorn is ready to eat.

It is best eaten lukewarm. Don’t expect to have any left. We demolished a huge amount in minutes and more had to be made.

Eighth – this is good with or without the organic peanut butter chips. The piece of ginger root which you put into the pot with the sugar and water gives a wonderful under taste, which many people will not be able to identify because we are not accustomed to the taste of real, organic ginger root. It is a powerfully hot ingredient. Not temperature hot, but spicy hot. Using just a small piece will not bring up the spicy heat, but will give a nice taste to the popcorn.

Let us know how you liked this dish.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina's Cookbook, breakfast table talk, Chocolate Chips, Ginger Root, Organic Turbinado Sugar, Peanut Butter Chips, Popcorn Snack
Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Breakfast Table Talk | Comments Off on An Incredible Snack – Bettina Style

Gluten Problems??????????

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

Many years ago I worked for The Pillsbury Company – for a brief time – with a long following law suit – which is the stuff of legend around my neighborhood. I offer that fact to you in the interest of full disclosure.

One, of the many things that upset me, happened when I was moved to International Marketing with one of my responsibilities being over the Silos. It wasn’t something I actually did, it was an old hangover from another time, but the job description was never amended.

In the process of this tenure, I received a telephone call from the real manager of the Silos, the one who had been at Pillsbury for many years and who did the day to day managing of the Silos. He informed me there was an infestation of bugs in the Silos and asked what he should do about it.

My immediate response was – throw out the flour in the Silos – you can’t sell flour to people which is or has been full of bugs.

He thanked me and hung-up.

Shortly thereafter my boss came along and said “Marceline, we can’t throw out the flour. He wasn’t calling to actually get input from you on what to do, he has been doing this job for many years and knew what to do. With your new job description he needs your signature and go ahead to proceed.”

Well, what did that mean!

It means his procedure, set up by who knows, was to spray the flour in the Silos with pesticides to kill the bugs.

Being confused, I asked my boss how did they get the pesticides out of the flour and how did they make the flour clean again from bug feces, etc.

He told me they didn’t. The FDA said the pesticides were not enough to negatively affect human health and by the time the flour was packaged and reached the grocery store shelves no one ever questioned what those little black specs were or where they came from.

Being really mind blown, I checked around the industry and discovered that was common practice and why did I have a problem with it? It was normal – everybody did it – and given that fact, they wouldn’t do such if it was problematical or would cause the public health problems.

Well, I didn’t sign off on it – the job description was finally adjusted and we all settled down to a very uncomfortable co-existence.

From that time onward, whenever I go to the store for flour I buy organic whole wheat or organic some other kind of flour whichever has minimum processing of the flour. That has been my practice since that time in early 1970. And given the fact that I bake quite a bit, it is possible to make extremely delicious breads, cakes, etc. using only organic whole wheat flour. All those recipes and comments from Chefs which say you have to add White Flour or your baking won’t come out right are a lot of baloney. Most recipes, which call for White overly processed flour translate on a one to one basis – they were probably translated from the organic whole wheat lightly milled flour to what we have today. – who said “Without a knowledge of history, we are really seriously handicapped in the way we live.”

We have had several people for breakfast lately who’ve said they don’t eat wheat because their doctor said they were ‘sensitive’. They didn’t have celiac disease – full blown- according to them, but their ‘sensitivity’ to wheat made them – on their doctors’ advice – eliminate wheat from their diet.

It has occurred to me to question if they are ‘sensitive’ to wheat or if they are ‘sensitive’ to and/or ‘allergic’ to the chemicals used to debug the flour.

I’ve raised the issue, but this pesticide treatment of flour has been a closely guarded secret of the flour processing companies for decades.

There was not this ‘sensitivity’ to flour when I was growing up. Its only recent that we are running into people who refuse to eat wheat because of it.

Since their doctors have no idea what’s in the wheat – they, I am sure, as well as everybody else have no clue as to this treatment of wheat. So, why would they test their patients for a sensitivity to the pesticides sprayed on the wheat before it is packed and shipped. Why would they look at whether their patients are allergic to the bugs and bug droppings in the wheat when they don’t know that such exists.

It really should be investigate to determine its real affect on humans and investigated by scientists other than those related to the flour industry.

This is one of many stories I have about what happens to our flour. We all need to be vigilant and on our toes about the food we eat, especially the food which has been processed. The FDA doesn’t seem to have done such a great job. But then, maybe I am confused as to whose interest they are protecting!

If you’ve stayed in our home you know some of the other stories about the wheat and the FDA – especially the strawberry story. I won’t bore you with repeating them.

Good eating!!! And stay responsible for your health and therefore your diet. What you eat determines who you are and your present and future health. Exercise is fine, but it is only about 10 percent of the equation – and – is it so highly touted to be the red herring to throw you off looking at the real problems.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bed and Breakfast in Cambridge MA, Bed and Breakfast in Harvard Square, breakfast table talk, Flour, food shopping, Gluten, Gluten Free, health, Making Connections, prevent obesity, Wheat Flour
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Food Shopping, Health, Historical Support, Making Connections | Comments Off on Gluten Problems??????????

Health and Beauty Tips – Who Holds Truth?

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

We had a wonderful breakfast with a small group of ladies all over 80 and I am under 35. It was not what I was used to, but I am going to change my lifestyle. I learned a lot, laughed harder than I ever have in life, and have some new values to put in place.

I wanted to take notes to write a blog about this breakfast, but didn’t want to offend the ladies or look too commercial or whatever was going on with me. I am new at this blog business – I can write, but how do you get the information without being obvious?

What I learned is that you can’t.

I kept running back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room and back, trying to make notes. As really great things came up, I would run into the kitchen to add the discussion to my notebook. I don’t know how reporters cope. I wanted to be a part of the conversation, yet I also wanted to document it.

We did talk about everything. On one of my trips to the kitchen, when I arrived back in the dining room, one of the women presented me with a pencil and paper and suggested I stay at the table and take my notes. They didn’t mind, but my back and forth was maddening. They were laughing uncontrollably and had been since I started these back and forths, but I didn’t realize they were laughing at me and my antics.

Relieved – what follows is that breakfast:

I loved the way one of the women – at 83 years old – had almost no wrinkles and more energy then I have ever had. I sat next to her because I wanted to know her secrets. She said she didn’t have any. She just kept the lifestyle she had as a young person and didn’t take part in the food, cosmetic, housing revolution which she witnessed over her lifetime. She thought it was all quite dangerous to one’s health.

She smelled of roses – and there was her first secret. She used organic essential oil of roses and no perfume. The oil was in her rinse water when washing her clothes and not on her skin when she got dressed. I will probably never be able to pull that off because a quick trip to the internet and Yahoo-ing ‘Essential Oil of Rose” put me into a state of money shock. Organic Essential Oil of Rose I didn’t even bother Yahoo-ing because I knew that would be even further out of my financial reach.

So what else could I copy?

None of the ladies used commercial cosmetics – no lipstick, no lotions, no makeup – like foundation, etc. They took care of themselves out of their refrigerators and their cabinets. I knew that was the coming thing – I didn’t know that was the past thing. I knew my grandmother used stuff out of her kitchen, but I didn’t pay attention to what she was doing or using.

One lady used beta carotene capsules for lipstick and a little red for her face here and there. She clipped a capsule of the beta carotene and used it on her finger. I knew about that from an article on Bettina Network’s Blog about using beta carotene to color your hair, but hadn’t thought about it for lipstick. She gave me a couple capsules and I tried it. The color was a bit orange. It looked great on me so I am a convert. I don’t know if it would do well on everyone, but it is going to be my choice from now on. I notice it changed colors as the day progressed and didn’t last all day, but then neither did the lipstick I wore. I carried the lipstick in my pocket book and reapplied it during the day. I don’t know how I can do that with beta carotene, but necessity is the mother of invention and this is all new to me so let’s see what happens. It is worth the effort to get this down to a great new habit.

The comments and sharing I liked best were from the woman with almost no wrinkles and some 83 years old. She did this “hot and cold” thing. She splashed water on her face in the mornings when she woke and it was first warm to hot water and then very cold water. When she took her shower in the morning, it was without soap – in fact, none of the ladies used soap or soap substitutes – water was all they used on their bodies. She said she showered in the mornings, first in a warm shower and while standing in the shower she gradually turned the water to cold – showered a few minutes under very cold water and then turned it back to warm again.

Her friend objected because she used this hot and cold water thing, but she got out of the shower after turning the water to cold.

Apparently, this was big when they were my age, which is when they got these beauty tips. One read – and had her collection of Prevention Magazines in her basement. Hers are from the time before Prevention Magazine was sued and taken over by the Meds (their words, not mine). They all used to read the magazine religiously, but cancelled their subscriptions after the law suit and it became, according to them – “an arm of the AMA.” The hot and cold business was something either someone wrote in about or the magazine wrote an article on and it became big in their circle at the time. Not many people they know today still adheres to the regime, but they do and they look fantastic.

My great-great grandmother used to do this – but that was because she didn’t have hot and cold water in her bathroom. She lived well into her 90’s and looked great. I don’t know why I didn’t follow her example – probably because I was quite young and not worried about health or beauty. My mother clearly did not follow the family example and today one hears all kind of ugly comments made during many commercials about looking like, acting like, wearing clothes like your grandmother. The one that comes to mind is “your grandmother’s jeans”. I guess I was made for this breakfast conversation because I like Jeans that fit and don’t hang around my hips on their way to below my butt. Isn’t there somewhere a history which says the Jeans being foisted on young people today are clothes that were worn in jail to let your fellow inmates know you were up for prostitution? When we lose our history, we lose ourselves.

We acknowledge that it looks obscene when we see young men in the “ghetto” wearing pants which show the crack in their butts, but nothing is said when young white women wear the same jeans which show the crack in their butts. That is considered high fashion. As a young white woman, keep those butt-crack showing jeans and all those marketing promotions away from me. I will look to my grandmother for advice, hints and more.

All of that – plus more – which would take me a book to write about – made me think about all the marketing that goes on around products that cost a fortune and deliver next to nothing. I have been going along with their story and buying some of their products because the ads attracted me. After using ”stuff” for a few months and having nothing except buyers remorse. I think before I do anything else I am going to look at the person recommending some kind of cosmetic to me to see if they use it and how they look as a result. The people I look to will not be the 13 year olds who model these products – I want to know what the 80 year olds are doing when they look fantastic, healthy and full of energy with few wrinkles. There is nothing holding truth like seeing results and I have not been getting any from the $300-$400/month I have been spending on cosmetics because I saw an add which made me think it was truth – and finding out it was clearly hype.

This was my first morning on my new regime. I splashed my face with warm to hot water and then a lot of cold water before I had coffee. A nice feeling – and I looked better than the person who usually straggles down for coffee early in the morning.

I also took my first hot/cold shower this morning. After I finished my coffee I tried standing in the shower under warm water, gradually turning the temperature up to hot (but not too hot, I am no martyr for beauty) and then turning it all the way to cold. It was an unusual experience. It takes a little getting used to, but I thought of those women and how great they look. I am going to slug it out until this is as normal to me as it is to them. They are going to be my inspiration. And – the biggy – the cost is only of the water, which I would have to pay for anyway.

My first Bettina Network Blog! Hey editors – you don’t have to copyright this under my name, its a gift. My next blog, however, will be a different story. Although, maybe I would like the term I just coined under copyright or whatever I need to do to claim it!!!! I think Yahoo-ing will give Google a run for its money in the search world. I love Marisa Meyer.

Ed Note: The highlighting of “Yahoo-ing” was done by the editor. It was an interesting word and since our author saw it as her creation we thought we should give it a boost.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, growing old, health and beauty, Making Connections, Marisa Meyer, Yahoo-ing
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Growing Old, Health | Comments Off on Health and Beauty Tips – Who Holds Truth?

A Tribute to The Rev. Patricia Riley Colenback (1931-2013)

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

taken from “Alla Bozarth-Campbell’s – From Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey, Paulist Press 1978

Bakerwoman God

Bakerwoman God,

I am your living Bread.

Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God.

I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf.

I am your rising bread,

well-kneaded by some divine

and knotty pair of knuckles,

by your warm earth-hands.

I am bread well-kneaded.

Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God,

put me in your own bright fire.

I am warm, warm as you from fire.

I am white and gold, soft and hard,

brown and round.

I am so warm from fire.

Break me, Bakerwoman God!

I am broken under your caring Word.

Drop me in your special juice in pieces.

Drop me in your blood.

Drunken me in the great red flood.

Self-giving chalice swallow me.

My skin shines in the divine wine.

My face is cup-covered and I drown.

I fall up

in a red pool

in a gold world

where your warm

sunskin hand

is there to catch and hold me.

Bakerwoman God,

remake me.

And how many times, Pat, did you say these words over others…………………..

“Give rest, O Christ, to your servant Pat with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.”

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Tags: Alla Bozarth-Campbell, bed & breakfast, Bed and Breakfast in Harvard Square, breakfast table talk, Episcopal Church, Friendship, growing old, Making Connections, Poetry
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Growing Old, Making Connections, Memorials, Poetry | Comments Off on A Tribute to The Rev. Patricia Riley Colenback (1931-2013)

2013 The Jubilee Year

Friday, February 8th, 2013

We declare the year 2013 to be the Year of the Jubilee and a holy, joyous, history making, sin forgiving year!

By whose authority? – by our own. Isn’t that how such things happen!!!!

Generations from now, the historical cry will be reported and everyone will forget it was declared by one little person in a tiny corner of Massachusetts in danger of being crushed by Harvard University.

Why 2013? —————– Why not 2013!

The year Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of these United States. A man of African and Colonial American origins. He not only models what African Americans can accomplish, he also models that ‘half-breeds’ can be brilliant, successful, achieve beyond everyone’s expectations and really – how can you tell his racial background from just meeting him? Doesn’t his smile wipe all of your doubts away?

His election – his person – does not go through years of ancestors stolen from Africa and forcibly put into slavery. He comes from the combination of the Africans who escaped being brought over as slaves and the very middle-class White Americans who brought some of his family/tribe/countrymen over to do their work for them – for free. And, in spite of that ancestry he is just as nice and kind and smart and thoughtful and….as he can be. The progeny of the original enemies in these United States – the original American oppressed and oppressors – those who stole the freedom of generations of human beings so they wouldn’t have to do their own menial work and those who were stolen and lived for generations outside their own country, culture, language, until they no longer could recognize from whence they had come.

This Jubilee Year, which we are declaring, also comes 50 year after Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement which broke out in this country and partially freed some of us from sitting behind signs on buses; drinking from water fountains which were never clean; going to the back door of restaurants and paying the same price for contaminated food handed to us out the back door which we then had to find a place to eat; travelling and wondering just where we were going to sleep the night because hotels, motels, inns, were not welcoming and did not allow Blacks to register; going to inferior segregated schools; not being allowed into institutions of higher learning except for those established ‘for colored patrons only’ and on and on and on.

We are a step beyond slavery, but still not free! A more qualified African American woman was passed over for Secretary of State in favor of a qualified, but less qualified White Male from a very Patrician American family – complete with trust fund, hundreds of millions of dollars and a phalanx of supporters in his chosen profession protecting him and making sure anyone threatening his path to his chosen goal was dutifully destroyed – or at the least – with reputation mangled.

With BHO’s election to the presidency we should proclaim this a great year of celebration. No, he is not perfect. No, I don’t agree with all of his stands on things. No, I suspect he has more than a little bit of sexism in his soul and it has popped out and will probably continue to do so. No to a lot about BHO, but YES, I will shout and loudly proclaim this celebration and the debt we owe him for stepping out and moving all of us out of a less equal time. If I knew about ram’s horns I would probably continuously bother all of my neighbors by playing several, all year.

This Jubilee Year, which we are proclaiming, is a year of unmitigated joy, but also a year of universal pardon for all of the sins of the past. It is time to put slavery, its manifestations in today’s society, its ruination of the lives of some of my and your ancestors (be they White, Black, Green, Pink, Brown or Purple) in the past and look to the future which this year proclaims possible. A future that is about all of us – that sees us working together to bring about a world free of the horribleness of the past.

In this Jubilee Year:

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to stop manufacturing foods and other processed goods which are harmful to us!

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to take global warming seriously and stop polluting the planet and to stop doing all the other things which are turning our living rooms into our toilets and our bodies into garbage disposals and composters at the expense of our health!

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to learn to settle their grievances without resorting to killing another human being – raping women and children – blowing up buildings out of their self-righteous hatred – playing games which hurt others, but relieves their own anxieties and covers from them the fact that they are mortal and one day will die.

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to take responsibility for each other. No one should sleep on the street or in other than a bed, have warm clothing, enough food to eat and be able to live without the fear of another human being. We are, afterall, more alike than different. We are our brothers and sisters keepers. We have heard those messages from childhood as have our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and much further back into history, heard them also, but we still have not put them into practice in our lives.

We need to call on our brothers and sisters to do at least one good deed each day for someone in need.

We need to dismantle our class structure which raises us up to believe some of us are better – as a part of a group – than others of us.

We need to dismantle what is left of racism.

We need to dismantle what is left of sexism.

We need to totally dismantle ageism.

And we need to do all of that and more before December 2013 so we can all end the year feeling great about ourselves and each other. So that no matter where we are in the world it is a safe place and if we need anything the people in that place will move to supply whatever ‘it’ is.

According to Leviticus 25:10 “Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land; for it is the year of the Jubilee.”

This needs to be a year of great goodness – great deeds – great acknowledgement of our common and shared humanity each one equal to the next, no one greater than another. We should work hard to keep this Jubilee Year and at the end, maybe we will have created habits which carry over into 2014.

50 years ago – at the beginning of this cycle of this Jubilee year –

John F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers were assassinated and W. E. B. DuBois dies!
Martin Luther King, Jr. writes his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ and later in the year gives his famous “I have a Dream Speech”, during the March on Washington.
Hoses and Police dogs turned on protestors and are nationally televised for the first time
Children’s crusade brings about a form of settlement – Birmingham juvenile court inundated with African-American children and teenagers arrested while protesting
16th Street Baptist Church bombed killing four young girls – out of which came Condoleeza Rice

and out of all of this and much more in the celebration year, the sabbatical year, has come Barack Husein Obama.

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Tags: 16th Street Baptist Church, African American history, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Children's crusade, Condoleeza Rice, I Have a Dream, John F. Kennedy, John Kerry, Jr., Jubilee Year, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Making Connections, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Racism, Secretary of State, Sexism, Susan Rice, W. E. B. duBois
Posted in Bettina's Hall of Fame, Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections, Preserving Family History and Stories, Press Release from Bettina Network | Comments Off on 2013 The Jubilee Year

Conversations about “The Flu”

Monday, January 21st, 2013

It is amazing how we could be taken over by serious and urgent conversation about something that used to be so common and harmless. A little worse than a cold, but tolerable and aren’t you glad its over. A couple days off from work; lying in bed – reading, eating, sleeping and then all is well.

Today, it is a major catastrophe. An epidemic of gargantuan size. A threat to civilizaiton. The end to life as we know it.

Most of the conversations over breakfast lately have always included something about the flu. In fact, we have had a couple guests who arrived with the flu who we had to offer to serve them breakfast in bed so the other guests would not revolt and run screaming out of our houses:)

In spite of all the talk, we have not had the flu – or a cold – in three or four years. Can’t brag about it because that’s when it happens. However, reflecting on the conversations and seeing how most of it was people who wanted to know how to strengthen their immune systems rather than whether or not they should get a flu shot, we are convinced society will survive this threat.

One thing we have changed in our lifestyle and recommended it several blogs ago – was to give up anti-perspirants and deodorants because we believe they are wicked bad. Trying to do just that we had about a one month time of being very careful when around other people – not because of the flu, but because we didn’t want to share any obnoxious odors we might generate from having given up antiperspirants and deodorants. We went around smelling under our arms constantly when out and about; getting a bit perplexed when the organic apple cider vinegar we talked about using instead of the anti-perspirants, etc. gave us a hard time because it didn’t hold.

Well, that all worked itself out. We now don’t even have to think about it. Taking a shower in the morning – without soap, just plain warm water over the body to get rid of the overnight smells and then splash a little Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother under our arms we are good to go for the day.

Something must happen – the body must adjust and need a couple weeks to get over its dependency on having its under-arm pores plugged with aluminum to keep from smelling, because after a couple weeks I can go two days without showering and without additional apple cider vinegar and smell just as nice and fresh.

I remember a time in the United States, when I was little, that people went a week without bathing. Saturday night was the big ‘clean-up’ night. You bathed – you soaked – you washed your hair – you defoliated and anti-perspirants were not around. You just didn’t smell bad all week. Today, with the diet changes, the heavy processed foods we eat, the change from having heavy proteins as another spice in the food to having it as large hunks of meat and all the rest of our new lifestyle, you can’t go a day without a shower – and bathing seems to have gone completely out of style.

There was much talk around the breakfast table about how apple cider vinegar works to quell your underarm odors. To smell – you perspire and you have all those bacteria on your skin under your arms. They drink up the sweat and then have to go to the bathroom. They don’t have constructed houses under your arms with toilets which flush to send their excretions someplace else so you smell the result of their having gone to the bathroom under your arms. Antiperspirants eliminate that because they plug your pores with aluminum. Isn’t that supposed to be one of the causes for Alzheimer’s? Don’t know if that is true, but it was certainly discussed as a causative factor. Apple cider vinegar works because it is anti-bacterial and probably kills the bacteria so they have no need to go to the bathroom under your arm pits.

The most common vinegar talked about was Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar. They have a health program and someone from the company who goes around and gives talks about staying healthy the “Bragg” way.

The television commercials are all cautioning you to wash your hands and showing people with piles of soap suds on their hands over a sink. We don’t wash our hands with soap and water. That makes things worse. All of your protective oils are washed away and for minutes after your fervent washing of hands all the germs in the world can come and find a home on your unprotected skin. We ‘wash’ our hands with Organic Apple Cider Vinegar and it works wonders for the skin. Sometimes, we even splash a little on our face taking care not to get it in the eyes because the burning will be fierce – we know because we’ve been there – done that.

Other than the vinegar as deodorant – the rest of the conversation was about the changes in our lifestyles and our environment, which seem to be breaking down our bodies at a very rapid pace, while we engage in denial. Others are worried about global warming – we are worried about poor health becoming a way of life in these United States and then around the globe since we seem to export our lifestyle universally.

We wish you good health and hope you avoid this ‘epidemic’. We also hope you will continue to read Bettina Network’s Blog and pass it around to all of your friends, colleagues, family and those you wish well.

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Tags: Anti-Perspirants, Apple cider vinegar, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Deodorant, Flu, health, Making Connections, Preventing Flu and Colds
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Happy New Year! 2013

Tuesday, January 1st, 2013

All of us at Bettina Network, inc. wish all of you a very Happy New Year!

Our wish for you in 2013 is for much joy – the company of caring people – problems which are immediately solvable – new friends and experiences you would not have dreamed about – the discovery of great books, an increasing knowledge of the past to understand and learn from our ancestors mistakes – and the very best food with dishes from other cultures infiltrating the list of what you consider ‘comfort food’. All organic – of course.

We have dealt with myth vs truth all year. This has been a counterpoint in the business, at breakfast, meeting friends, from the media. Wherever we have gone we have had to counter the over-romanticized sayings, misinterpretation of feelings, bad advice from our store of mythology that we give to others and more.

Each time we encountered such, it required us to have a bit of a conversation to work through the why of such passings along and what it achieves for us as a society.

Not having great wisdom to pass along to you we will just wish that in 2013 you will be able to instantly see myth for what it is ; to understand the function it is serving at the moment and can keep it separate from reality – both the established myth and myth in the making.

For Example: the ‘myth’ or ‘wish’ that we heard frequently this year was “I hope God gives you roots and wings. Roots so you are firmly anchored and Wings so you can take flight.

That always struck us as strange. We now use it as a joke. When we want to wish someone ill – we wish them roots and wings. Why? Because if you receive that gift you will be torn apart the way the soul is torn apart after death in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Roots anchor you and the deeper and stronger the roots the more excruciating is the tearing apart of the body and the soul when you sprout those beautiful wings. Is that what keeps us away from one another?

So, we have roots, then we grow wings – huge, beautiful, elegant wings. When you use those wings and you are fully anchored with your roots deep in the soil where they have been nurtured by generations of ancestors, comes the incredible tearing apart. We see it all over society. Those who have tried to soar, but were held back by their ‘roots’. They become dysfunctional, confused, a caricature of who they could be. They have sprouted wings, but their ‘roots’ have them totally anchored to the earth. As human beings it is only a short jump from our own cultural ways to our own cultural ways which are better than anybody else’s and therefore we are better than those who are different, who hold different values, look different, relate differently.

We wish for you a year of understanding the intent of those who pass along these kind of myths – and the reality of what they are saying.

The media has contributed greatly to our being totally ‘rooted’ in these sayings which become mythology – their cute headlines, like ‘we are about to fall off the cliff’ – really? If I hear that one more time when I turn on the television or read the paper or magazine I will probably throw up. There is no cliff to fall off – the financial matters which they have created into this ‘cliff’ image will be resolved in time for the disaster they are predicting to be averted and the media can then to go back to reporting on real news. Well, sort of real news. The media has begun to repay its debt to the politician for bringing their publication into a more profitable position by the money the politicians spend on ads, etc. during campaigns. They have had good exposure and have had time to posture in front of the cameras for quite a long period of time.

This is not the politician and their funders total pay back – you will see more of this media-covered and promoted grandstanding as the year progresses.

We have heard this ‘falling off the cliff’ image before – especially as it relates to something Congress is or is not doing and the dreaded disaster never happens. When the whole story comes out and we realize what they have turned into this ‘cliff’ never was a threat and we have been “taken to the cleaners” – this is never a great and glorious moment.

Have you noticed that this kind of constant non-stop reporting on one topic for days and sometimes weeks always seems to come when there are traditionally no headlines to grab your attention as the media fights to be the first with the flawed story? Remember Y2K? That was reported on endlessly with talking heads going on ad nauseum and then the story died because the time came and went and the disaster they were predicting didn’t happen AND if you listened closely you knew it was not going to happen. It was a flight into nothingness that would occupy lots of air time, thousands of pages of paper and endless photographs which didn’t match the story. The ‘talking heads’ make out quite well because they are always in demand to keep the story going around the round table – or horseshoe shaped table – or rectangular table, depending upon which show you watch.

We wish for you the ability to see truth every day of your life. We wish for you the ability and the need to strip away all of the maudlings, the overly romanticized, the propaganda, the flights of fancy meant to take your mind off what is happening, so power and control is not diluted by John and Jane Q. Public.

We wish for you the ability to be able to stand on your own two feet where you see truth even if you are the only one speaking it – in a crowd going along with the program.

We wish for you the inner strength to endure all of the pain and agony of this life and the ability to use the lessons and turn that pain and agony and those hard times into something beautiful which you can share with us all.

We wish for you such joy that when you enter a room it lights up and fairly glows because you are there.

We wish for you total involvement in LIFE – in which you are a very integral part of what is happening and not a bystander watching the lives of others march past, totally missing your own.

We wish for you the wisdom to know that you are human and what that means with its strengths and weaknesses, its joys and sorrows, its ups and downs, its truths and lies.

We wish for you a turning away from seeing yourselves as greater than the homeless on the street with the need to turn towards them and not away from them because they and you are the same – only on a different journey.

We wish for you the ability to see others, who may look and act differently from you, as one with you.

We wish for you the ability to create businesses, families, communities, political structures which are inclusive and which unite rather than divide.

We wish for you the knowledge and love of a great God who has created all of us even though we call God by different names and give God different attributes, and sometimes even try to create God in our own image.

We hope 2013 brings you closer to yourself -able to see and live with your flaws, your greatness, your talents and to see them as gifts – given to you by a great God, who gives gifts to others, different from but just as important as the gifts given to you.

We hope 2013 will bring you closer to being able to accept yourself without needing a scapegoat to project onto and to blame when things don’t go the way you think they should. Such a need for escape through the use of a human scapegoat created the Holocaust – we hope you will be one of those who does everything they possibly can to bring this universe to a different place. We can’t all be God, we can’t all be gods, but we can all be warm, loving, caring, giving human beings – all equal, all different, and all accepting of the good, the bad and the indifference of others.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

From All of Us At Bettina’s

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, equality, Fiscal Cliff, Homeless, Joy, Life, Making Connections, Media, New Years Greeting 2013, Political, politics, Truth
Posted in Holiday Greeting, Making Connections | Comments Off on Happy New Year! 2013

Benghazi Tells the Future?

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

Ed Note: Yes, we had a breakfast conversation – several, in fact, – about the Sandy Hook massacre. It is too early and people are too tender to join the media massacre of our collective psyche as they posture and jump on this with both feet for days and days and days. So we will keep the notes we were sent and write about Sandy Hook after a few weeks.

Benghazi, however, is a different story. There was conversation about John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and none positive nor complimentary.

I am still smarting at the way Susan Rice was treated so to hear others talk about John Kerry’s lack of ethics in chairing this committee hearing on Benghazi while he is looking to be the next Secretary of State warmed my heart. I had always liked and respected John Kerry – always voted and campaigned for him, in fact. I don’t think I would again.

After watching and listening to his Republican friends diss Susan Rice so the path would be clearer for their long-time friend and colleague John Kerry made me more than a little sick to my stomach.

Given my horror at what happened with Kerry/Rice I thought my horror at John Kerry chairing the committee on Benghazi may have reflected my left over feelings about that conflict, however, the breakfast conversations about Benghzi and Kerry backed up my feelings. How can the truth come out when the chair of the hearing is trying to be nice to the State Department employees and others on that side of the fence because he doesn’t want to go into the State Department as Secretary of State with anyone miffed at him about how they were treated, questioned, etc. at the hearing.

Whether those were his feelings or not, the ethics are clear and are like the elephant in the room. I was amazed at the intensity of the feelings around this. Americans are really angry about the quality and lack of ethics among its politicians. One hears such comments in passing, but to see and hear the feelings that this Benghazi hearing can engender confirms that we want something different from what has happened in the past. At one time, such a breach of ethics would go unnoticed. Today, the media will probably ignore the ethical implications and push John Kerry for Secretary of State, but the rumblings in the general public will not. They will go along with the program, but its going to cost and surprise someone down the road when those resentments pop out.

The funniest comment was the one about Hillary’s ‘Benghazi flu and subsequent concussion’, which no doctor can cure. These were not Republicans these were Democrats who were looking at Hillary as a possible candidate for President in 2016. This, however, had them angry moving away from Hillary. If this keeps up and spreads, her top numbers today are going to slowly slide as more surfaces about Benghazi and people start to wonder out loud what is she afraid of or hiding. If these breakfast were any indication, it looks as though she may be headed into a small storm of having her management abilities questioned – at the very least.

John Kerry should have either renounced any interest in being Secretary of State if he was going to chair this hearing or declined to chair the hearing in favor of someone who could be impartial in trying to get out what actually happened and if there was blame where did it lie. None of that will surface during this hearing with its obvious political interferences which question the objectivity and impartiality of the chair and/or the committee’s ablility to do its job because of its chair waiting to be nominated Secretary of State. John Kerry should be sitting where? – with the questioners or with those being questioned?

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Benghazi, breakfast table talk, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Making Connections, politics, Secretary of State
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Walnut Oil on Furniture?

Sunday, December 16th, 2012

From a guest and blog reader:

Thanks for your blog on using Walnut Oil on wood furniture. I tried it and it works phenomenally! I used the Olive Oil and Walnut Oil – half and half. A friend of mine used Walnut Oil straight from the Spectrum bottle. She loves her way, I love mine.

She uses hers on her wood chopping block and wood bowls she uses for mixing salads. The Walnut oil dries hard – but you have to let it sit a couple days – and it lasts awhile. She used to use Mineral Oil and I gave her a hard time about that because Mineral Oil is a petroleum derivative (ed note: from Wikipedia “mineral oil is a liquid by-product of the distillation of petroleum to produce gasoline and other petroleum-based products from crude oil.”)and I don’t think it should come in contact with food. Although with all the medicines made from petroleum derivatives and other things we use coming from distillates of petroleum we should be immune – still, I tried her straight Walnut Oil on my chopping block and it was great.

I used the mixture of Olive and Walnut Oils on my antique wood furniture and the shine is unbelievable. It also looks as though nothing will penetrate or cause the furniture harm. I even used it on my grand piano. I did take an additional step. After I oiled the furniture – which was rubbing in a half and half mixture with a few drops of an essential oil – I let it sit for a couple days and then rubbed it again with just Olive Oil.

I did this by accident trying to undo what I thought was a great mistake. The furniture was very sticky and yukky after oiling it and days later it was still sticky and yukky. I didn’t know what to do and thought I had ruined my furniture. I went back to the Olive Oil, rubbed the furniture with Olive Oil on a soft rag and couldn’t believe the results. The furniture is beautiful. The shine is incredible and old looking furniture now looks soft and with a beautiful sheen.

I put essential oil in the mixture because I would like my house to have a faint smell of lemon oil and essential oil of lemon does the trick. I might try organic rose oil next time – even though it is wickedly expensive. The smell of roses through the house should be great.

What fun to experiment like this. I lost interest in cleaning and caring for my house. I have now regained that because it has become a creative endeavor and with the products you are talking about I am not worried about giving myself a serious disease from my cleaning products. I wouldn’t even let the woman who helps me clean use products she has been using for years. She thought I was being silly, but has since changed her mind and won’t use anything else. I am sure the other people she works for are happy with the change.

I don’t know where you get his stuff from but wherever, keep those great tips coming. I am guessing, from breakfast conversations.

When I stayed at XXXXXXXXXXXX in the Bettina Network we talked about recipes for making banana bread. I expected to talk about solving the huge problems in the world. Maybe next time. My banana bread, however, is great! Your guests were right about the ingredients making the difference. I used the same ingredients that I used before that conversation, in the same amounts, but they are now organic and the best I can find and the difference is astounding. Worth the few extra quarters. I eat less of it because the taste satisfies and doesn’t leave me craving white sugar, lard and flour. We didn’t solve the worlds’ problems at the breakfasts I had in the Bettina Network, but the new discoveries around banana bread is a start. And – my now using Walnut Oil instead of XXXXXXXXXXXXX means a minute amount of petroleum is no longer being used and maybe that is also a different kind of start to solving some of the world’s problem. Who said to the flower “bloom where you are planted.”

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Tags: Banana Bread, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Cleaning Wood Furniture, Essential Oils, health and beauty, house cleaning, Making Connections, Oiling Wood Furniture, Olive Oil, Walnut Oil
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Was Susan Rice Used?

Friday, December 14th, 2012

RICE = ROGERS = GUINIER. What do they have in common besides all being African Americans!

Was yet another woman used? – misused? – abused? in this political process?

Looks to us as though Ms. Rice’s name was thrown out and then reeled in to get the deal President Obama wanted from Congress – and it looks as though not only was it a successful ploy, but he knows the political process very well and is not above playing the game. After all, he is now one of the big boys. I just hope he has not become one of the ‘good ole boys.’

Looks like something Bill Clinton did years ago when he was president and the woman used – abused – misused – was Lani Guinier . In 1993 Ms. Guinier was nominated by President Bill Clinton to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Just like Ms. Rice, Ms. Guinier was eminently qualified – Radcliffe College, Yale Law School, Assistant to the then Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights – a really brilliant and accomplished Black Woman. One of the Clintons’ Yale Law School classmates.

Congress jumped all over Bill Clinton demanding her nomination be withdrawn and who was one of those who counseled him to withdraw the nomination? – none other than Ted Kennedy (genuflecting – of sainted memory), among others, including the Black Female who we will only identify with the nom de plume “turn coat” – “sell out without knowing how much you were selling out for”. So, of course, Ms. Guinier’s nomination was withdrawn. The Wall Street Journal called her one of “Clinton’s Quota Queens” (remember the title of Welfare Queen)?. The racism and sexism of that was overlooked and instead of articulating what this was about and going ahead to back-up and support his nominee, Clinton succumbed to the pressure, even though it looked as though Ms. Guinier would be confirmed. The loud, racist and sexist voices won the day.

The claim made to derail Ms. Guinier’s nomination – at the end of the day – turned out to be false, but the media proclaimed it loudly and kept the drum beat going so Ms. Guinier would be taken down – doesn’t that sound familiar? In small print after the fact, it was acknowledged that the loud drums beat out the wrong message. Now, isn’t that what they are doing to Ms. Rice? Even louder, because they have had more experience beating drums to drum out Black women!

And then there was Desiré Rogers. Another tremendous African American woman from New Orleans. I knew her parents and her grandparents. They were very substantial people and Ms. Rogers had a very solid and ethical upbringing.

Partially because of that New Orleans upbringing, -after what she went through in Washington, D. C. – Ms. Rogers was able to continue her life almost without missing a beat and moved right on up! And Condoleeza Rice – the horrible Republican who many can’t stand to even see or speak about – gets a standing ovation from any Republican group she appears in front of. Is that some kind of contrast? Takes me back to the days of Walter L. Cohen, African American who was head of the Louisiana Republican Party!

All three Black women were charged with things which were blown out of all proportion and all those charges and innuendos were kept going by the media who turned crap, half-truths and more into something which sounded real, substantial and reason for them to be not considered, re-considered, removed. Two were exonerated in the end when things quieted down and the racist sexist goals had been achieved. Ms. Rice will also be so exonerated. That will take awhile since we saw the news people this morning showing signs of relief that Ms. Rice would not be considered for Secretary of State. One news reporter woman let out an audible sound of relief. Although in Ms. Rice’s case it looks more like racism and sexism were used to reach a political goal and not a very big one, considering the price being paid by Susan Rice.

With Susan Rice,

Should be next Secretary of State

the forces of Congress came out once again to attempt to destroy an African American woman.- the Republican forces came out against her because the Democratic forces could not. They would have been accused of pushing for the appointment of a friend – which was, in fact what the Republicans were doing. What we have just witnessed on the political stage could be called “A Time of Surrogacy” with John McCain being the star of the play.

The good ole boys coming out to make sure one of their own got what he wanted. The price someone else paid for that is really irrelevant and not to be considered. That will just go down in the books as a debt to be repaid and they will look to John Kerry, at some point down the road, to repay the debt – and he will.

This time, it looks as though President Obama threw Ms. Rice to the Congressional Wolves so he could negotiate and get what he wanted from them if he withdrew her name from the short list and went back to John Kerry instead. The games boys will play.

Don’t you think it is time we elect men – or – a woman?

Was this the same John Kerry who was President Obama’s coach for that first memorable debate – which came close to blowing Obama’s chances for re-election and at the very least promoted Mitt Romney’s campaign to a higher level?

It seems to me Mitt Romney should be the one promoting John Kerry to higher responsibilities not President Obama – but then, we don’t know what goes on behind those closed political doors. And then I could be wrong – but have you read the Bettina Network’s Blog on “Rice and Kerry”?

And – in an aside, which probably had nothing to do with deals being made – Scot Brown, solely because of his ESP – and having nothing to do with games being played, started his campaign as early as December 4th. What did he know that the rest of us didn’t? He is getting ready to run for John Kerry’s seat. We think that seat should go to Martha Coakley – or – preferably to an African American woman as an appointment. If games are going to be played – set better ground rules fellows, this is a society full of diversity with a diversity mind set. To replace a White Man whose hands are unclean with another White Male whose … tsk tsk tsk!

Our breakfast table guests are seldom wrong. They seem to have that inside track which comes out over those really scrumptious breakfasts served in the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network. Maybe its the coffee which brings out such great conversations. Check them out, especially if you have conversation to share!

If John Kerry has any sense of decency he will withdraw his name from consideration. It is the only decent and ethical thing he can do and it is the only way such games will begin to cease. But then, he has moved far away from the days in which his actions and youthful ideology first got him elected to Congress. How the mighty have fallen! Or – is it that power corrupts?

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Tags: African American history, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Desiré Rogers, John Kerry, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, New Orleans Creole, politics, Racism, Secretary of State, Sexism, Susan Rice
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A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

I read your blog on the Secretary of State fiasco and I am so glad someone has put out there what is actually happening. I am especially distressed about what I am seeing in the media and hearing about this Susan Rice thing. Imagine putting such a lovely young woman through such trials because they need to clear a path for a WUCM member to become Secretary of State. It is criminal! Almost reaches the level of Depraved Indifference to who she is – how hard she worked to gain her credentials – how even harder she worked to serve the United States for a lot of years – to serve all of us – and now the reward for her hard work is this treatment which brings to my mind ‘Depraved Indifference. ‘ A legal terms, but fully adequate in this context. And that legal terms brings Philippa Schuyler – another African American woman – to mind.

If we had a media which published the truth over the decades and generations our ruling White Upper Class Males would not have been able to buy the election for Ronald Reagan – which all of us saw, but none reported. Now, Republicans are coming to the fore to attempt to insure that their group is not left out of power – not their Republican group, but their WUCM group. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea Party etc. all belong to this group.

The media in Massachusetts is becoming confident and putting its toe in the water and beginning to talk (3:45am Channel 6) about how to persuade Governor Patrick to appoint Scot Brown to the seat that will be vacated by John Kerry when he is appointed Secretary of State. If that doesn’t confirm your breakfast blog, nothing will.

The media is clearly complicit in all of this and their tom-toms ring out around the world heralding what they are all in agreement with and see as their vested interest to the continued sharing of power.

There was or is a group researching Philippa Schuyler, to keep her memory alive and her accomplishments in front of the public. I think that is a laudable effort, especially at times like this when one can see similarities. To put what is happening to Susan Rice in a historical context brings a total different picture to the forefront.

Philippa Schuyler was a young African American woman, killed by what some of us believe was first degree murder i.e. Depraved Indifference. I’ve heard more than one person lately agreeing with me and I believe some information from the Philippa Schuyler committee also said the same thing.

The parallel to the way Susan Rice’s reputation is being ‘killed’ by a group trying to maintain the WUCM’s control is startling.

With Philippa Schuyler, there was a total ignoring of what happened to her by some and an attempt at public justification by the WUCM. There was a Congressional Hearing. No charges were brought even though clearly there should have been charges of Depraved Indifference and the culprits should have been brought to trial, but Congress held a hearing which they thought and apparently accurately so, would defuse any problems from the African American community following her death. Not a peep since. Not a peep from the minority and women groups about what is happening to Susan Rice, either. Does that show how far outside African American women are? Who are your defenders?

Ms. Rice, apparently, must be sacrificed so John Kerry can have his day in the sun as Secretary of State? Where is the African American, Latino American, Women’s groups on what is happening in front of your faces. The quiet from you is deafening. Have you not heard – ‘if they come for me in the morning, they will return for you in the afternoon?” Certainly, an outcry behind what happened to Philippa Schuyler might have changed the world for minorities and especially women – but there was none.

What is interesting about the Philippa Schuyler parallel – Philippa and her father were very conservative in their thinking and writing, except where it came to reporting on events and issues where their main criteria was the truth. They were conservative to the point of being involved with the then John Birch Society. That didn’t, however, save Philippa’s life. Liberal or Conservative doesn’t really matter does it! Isn’t that what this bit of theatre is saying? The WUCM Republicans ignore party lines when it comes to some things – and maintaining and increasing the power of two of their own is paramount. The WUCM Democrats have and will in the future, return the favor.

Philippa drowned and her parents suffered the extreme loss and grief that happens under those circumstances.

Philippa was a great child prodigy and pianist who was outstanding and traveled the world playing concerts on many world stages. She composed symphonies by the age of six. If she had lived, I think her journalistic talent would have dwarfed her music. Some of us believe it was her journalism which caused her death. But she was both and it took both sides of her to produce the articles she wrote.

She was the only one to stand tall and write the real story of what happened in Africa decades ago in the death of – oh my, was it Lumumba! Every other journalist got the story wrong, but they were consistent in what they reported. So their story came from where? to be so consistently wrong? “Intel?” Did all of the journalists who engaged in that bit of conspiracy lose their jobs? Miss promotions? etc. etc. Maybe they need to step back and take another look at this Susan Rice scenario.

Philippa, who kept her contacts with those low on the economic totem pole, had ways to find the truth and she wrote about what she found and it was accurate and truth and her parents then had to deal with her death from, what some of us believe was purposefully negligent, – depraved indifference.

How does that relate to Susan Rice? Yet another African American woman is being slaughtered for things which are minor especially when compared to things the WUCM group has done and suffered no career set-back from. Yet Ms. Rice is being set-up to lose a possible appointment as Secretary of State because the WUCM group has a member – John Kerry – who wants to be Secretary of State. And here we also have some Congressional involvement. Not the Democrats, that would be too clear, but we don’t need to be led to see through a mirror darkly, we need to see face to face.

Through the mirror darkly we see the Republicans fighting Ms. Rice – White Males all, except for the involvement of the White Woman who looks like a parallel to the African Americans who worked with the KKK. All helping their brother WUCM members by attempting to take care of two of them – Scot Brown and John Kerry. I can’t believe how this stuff happens over and over and over again and a story is spun by the media which has nothing to do with reality, but is throwing smoke in your face so your eyes sting and you can’t see what is in front of you – and throwing the work over to the other side so the WUCM can say – see, its not us – bring us that bowl of water so we can wash our hands clean and prove to you we were not involved! Whose hands are being washed here? The Republicans? No – its the good ole Democrat boys looking out for their own.

Thanks again for the breakfast article. I wish others had the guts to write the truth. Sitting around Bettina Network breakfast tables I have heard some incredible talk and hope to continue. It certainly cleared my head and got my thinking straightened out.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Governor Patrick, John Kerry, Making Connections, politics, Scot Brown, Secretary of State, Susan Rice
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Historical Support, Making Connections, Reader Feedback | Comments Off on A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

A Larry Hagman breakfast!

Sunday, November 25th, 2012

Such a discussion. We need to express sympathy to Larry Hagman’s family on his death. By all accounts he was a fun, lovely person who has done much good for those around him. We hope his soul rests in peace.

However, a breakfast conversation about Hagman was kind of different. Everyone was, at first, expressing what they had read in the media, heard from the media or saw on the internet. Somehow, the conversation turned to what Hagman was really about – looking at him from the perspective of the body of work he left behind.

The general expressions were about how skillfully and completely he had taken in an entire society and projected onto all of us a lethal kind of sexism, which influenced a generation of impressionable young people. How many are watching re-runs of “I Dream of Jeannie” and “Dallas?”

“I Dream of Jeannie” was a sitcom which I thought was cute, although I didn’t really watch more than one episode. It wasn’t described as “cute” around the table. Jeannie was described as a blond, Middle-Eastern belly dancer who was so into her inferiority and her role as fulfiller of this man’s needs, wishes and dreams that she even called Hagman ‘master’. It was a complete rolling out of a sit-com which fulfilled most mens’ dreams and which negatively paralleled the women’s movement – re-enforcing and making even worse, stereotypes which the women’s movement was trying to counter with an image of woman as equal. Was it coincidence that such a show was rolled out when the Women’s Movement was becoming an important force in American Society, Business and Culture?

“Jeannie” also parallels the stereotype of the Middle-Eastern male warrior dreaming about dying to reach his virgins. Jeannie herself, could very well be almost number one in that dream sequence – yet this was an American not a Middle-Eastern show. Hmmmmmmm!!

And then there was “Dallas”. Wow! This was the sit-com which made Hagman into a multi-millionaire on the backs of women – helping to make their lives difficult by depriving them of any vestige of equality, dignity, responsibility, etc., having to fight off other women falling all over themselves to hook up with the most machismo of men – looking to cash in on the power of the men in the show! It didn’t come in for any good comments. Nor did Hagman at this point. He lived well at a woman’s expense. May he rest in peace and the body of work he helped produce be buried with him.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Dallas, I Dream of Jeannie, Larry Hagman, Making Connections, Memorial, Sexism, sexism in television
Posted in Bettina's Hall of Fame, Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on A Larry Hagman breakfast!

Secretary of State???

Sunday, November 18th, 2012

Lordy – what did that guy say? ‘Much ado about nothing’? Well, this is NOT much ado about nothing. This is as much ado as possible to drown Susan Rice and make sure John Kerry is the next Secretary of State.

Nothing personal Susan. And it has nothing to do with what you said or didn’t say, your qualifications, your color, your sex…….It is simply the old boys rushing to protect the next step up of one of their own.

See, we can cross the aisle to attempt to accomplish something. Now if you guys would make this crossing party lines to work for real issues wouldn’t that be nice!

Sorry Susan – if you have to lose your reputation as they all strive to stomp all over you. It isn’t personal – just politics as usual.

What a hilarious route mimicing the ‘good old boys’ as they try to hide their real agenda! We should have many more such breakfasts.

And who said one should never talk about politics or religion. What else creates such a fun and interesting time. I won’t go into detail – you wouldn’t believe it anyway.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, John Kerry, Making Connections, politics, Racism, Secretary of State, Sexism, Susan Rice
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on Secretary of State???

Veterans’ Day – 2012

Saturday, November 17th, 2012

Memorial Church – Harvard University

We celebrated Veterans Day by piling all of our guests into our car and their car and going to Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.

It was a great day for everyone. Memorial Church was dedicated in 1932 to the memory of the Harvard dead of World War I and now also contains memorials of the dead of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the graduates of Radcliffe College who died in World War I. So it was the 80th anniversary of Memorial Church.

There were prayers for many illustrious names which you can recognize as being solidly a part of the New England Establishment – we prayed for Coolidges, Appletons, Nobles, Peabody’s, Woodworth’s, Ferris’ and of course, Gomes, Pusey, and Lowell, among others. I prayed for Mary Daly, whose sermon on a Sunday in Memorial Church caused many to rethink and changed lives, for Benjamin Mays from Morehouse College and so many more who chose uncomfortable – sometimes painful lives instead of comfortable existences which they could have had but for the prophetic pull which determined their life’s path and brought them to the pulpit of Memorial Church. Each, out of their own lives issued challenges from that most traditional of Churches.

President Drew Faust was present because it was also the day of the Institution Service for the new minister of Memorial Church. Rev. Peter Gomes died last year and his loss was huge. Rev. Jonathan L. Walton is the new minister and if the few remarks he made during the service were any indication of what to expect in the future his should be an interesting and thought provoking ministry, challenging many. He started his sentences with “We come to honor a Palestinian Jew who was executed…..” If that is any indication of his preaching, pastoring and prophetic sides his tenure at Memorial Church should be inspiring and challenging.

The bell tolled “In Memory of Voices that are Hushed” and in the process an honor guard of Harvard ROTC students placed a wreath of laurel in the Memorial Room.

After the service, the reception was right where you were seated in the Church. We just mingled while Harvard students who worked as waiters and waitresses served wonderful small edibles – savory and sweet along with drinks. It was an unusual ending since such receptions are held in another room or in the basement or someplace out of the way. To just stand-up at the end of the service to see Harvard students serving you as you greeted those you haven’t seen in a long time or talked about the service, or listened to others talk about the new minister was a new and different ending. Hopefully, the spirit which filled Memorial Church on November 11th will continue.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bed and Breakfast in Harvard Square, breakfast table talk, Harvard University's Memorial Church, Making Connections, Mary Daly, Memorial, Memorial Church, Peter Gomes, Veterans Day
Posted in Historical Support, Making Connections, Memorials | Comments Off on Veterans’ Day – 2012

Petraeus over Breakfast

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

Just when you think things are calmer, up comes a topic of conversation over breakfast which could have fried the organic, free of the cage eggs.

The conversation was basically – don’t you think this was a last stand to unseat Obama and turn the election victory over to Romney?

Not having listened to the news, we were floored to learn that the woman who started this Petraeus mess – a Ms. Kelly – has a good friend at the top in the CIA, or was it the FBI, or was it both? We love gossip, but don’t always get it straight, especially when sitting with mouth open listening to the latest. Apparently, that friendship is what started this investigation, not any concern from either the FBI or the CIA about ‘security leaks’ or other possibilities which fit within their commission to do such an investigation, but they carried on anyway and we will now be regaled more with the infractions of those who tried to manipulate than with the core event which started it all. Sound familiar – AGAIN!

Watch closely which Congressional people and other talking heads come forth quickly to turn this into an anti-Obama thing instead of bringing out the truth. When, O Lord, will truth prevail in our society instead of the push for power?

The push for power is an ugly thing and we have experienced it big time throughout this election cycle – and – if we don’t all, as a large United States of America community, push for something better, this is what we will continue to get. Folks are getting rich on these schemes. Don’t we have many ‘nouveau’ multi-millionaires running around stuffing their bank accounts with much dirty money from coming up with such schemes?

Kelly got an FBI investigation into Petraeus and his ‘friend’ Broadwell through her friendship connections with the CIA and FBI and according to our breakfast conversations, this whole thing was to break open just before the election to help end any hopes the Obama Campaign may have had of winning. Amazing! Wish we had such connections – we could put them to much better use. The only FBI connections we have are the spam emails we get supposedly from the FBI and CIA – oh well, such is life.

According to our breakfast conversations, thanks to the bungling and messiness of bureaucracies, that attempted influence into the presidential election didn’t happen, but it came close. Did folks really use the FBI and CIA to attempt to influence a United States Presidential Election? Don’t you think its time for us to demand that our elections be better than what they’ve been? We’ve had Florida, Arizona and now Petraeus?

Now – do we – as a Bettina Network community have such connections? Okay folks, cough them up!!! We can then bring them all together and use them for good! Well, for good maybe after we all become billionaires and are happily roaming the world in our own planes. We can then justify what we did to get there with talk amongst ourselves about our good ‘intentions’ to save the world and make this a better place for ‘our kind.’

But for the Grace of a forgiving God…………

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Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, politics
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Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

By: Marceline Donaldson, 2012

Hope everyone gets out to vote. I still can’t believe the race is so close. When you think of people supporting and giving money to elect an Archbishop of the Mormon Church for president of these United States is unbelievable in a country which believes in and has a constitutional amendment against bringing together Church and State and there is no question Mitt Romney will not and has not separated Church and State. He is one of the two to three top people in his Church – the equivalent of an Archbishop in the Catholic Church – he has not resigned nor has he said he would resign if elected president and we have never asked the question.

The theology of the Mormon Church, to which he has pledged to be totally committed and to believe everything it teaches clearly does not believe and does not allow its members to see women and African Americans as equal. What’s wrong with all of you folks!Romney is not a member of the Church – in the pew – maybe taking in everything the Church teaches and maybe not – do all of you understand he is and has been a pastor in the Church – a Stake President (which means he is over several Mormon Churches) and to be in the position he is and has been in for over 10 years is one in which he must pledge that he believes everything the Church teaches and will work to bring in and proselytize the world bringing them around to becoming members of the Mormon Church because if he doesn’t these folks out there – these non-Mormons will be damned for an eternity. Romney believes that! That is what he thinks of you and me. And you are putting up your money, time and effort to help elect him President?

I can’t see Americans voting for the equivalent of an Archbishop of any religion – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. Take a look at what happened in Massachusetts. The large number of people converting after Romney became Governor and the huge growth in Mormon Community Centers in Massachusetts coming directly from Romneys time as Governor. He wasn’t standing back and keeping his religion to himself before during and after his time as governor, he was proselytizing and Americans are now backing him for president. I heard Ray Flynn – a big time Democrat go on television in an ad to back Romney. That was scary.

Does the Catholic Church really think they can partner with the Mormons to bring about their beliefs and then what? Watch their members convert? Or will they hear themselves be talked about as among the damned and the lost? Get real folks.

A man who goes to Church – and when he enters his Mormon Church takes off his street clothes and puts on the white robes that Mormons put on in their churches to set themselves apart from the rest of the dirty bedraggled sinful world is running for President of these United States.

I’ve talked to too many Mormons who were told what to do and who knew they had to do it and there was no room for ‘back talk’. Do you really think with that way of dealing that Mormons have not been told to vote for Romney? I’ve talked to several people who were told how to vote. If I found them – without looking for any such person – why hasn’t the media done an investigation into that kind of vote tampering?

Other kind of voter tampering? Where else would you find one person running for office and his son owning and controlling the voting machines used to count the votes for his father and his fathers’ adveersary in the race?

I’ve talked to too many African Americans who were disinvited from some Mormon Community Centers and asked to go to others. They were told they were not being asked out of the Church, but they would be more ‘comfortable’ in a Church with others like them rather than the White Church they were attending.

I look at Romney and hear the lies he has been telling. Even the media and others have had to call him out on lying – and we are looking at a close vote? It is unbelievable! However, we get who we deserve.

Looking at Massachusetts, Romney was governor of Massachusetts and he is further behind in Massachusetts than in any other state. What does that say about his governorship? He got out of it what he wanted – lots of converts in Massachusetts to Mormonism.

Who has he run against while in politics? A woman and an African American. That says a lot about a man who clearly shows he thinks very little of women and minorities. These are the people he sees as not having a chance against a White Male, so he has taken them on. Would he have run for Governor of Massachusetts or President of the United States if his opponents were other than a woman or African American?

He is in a religions – to which he is devoted – which has been very clear that they think women are inferior and it is against their theology for women to come close to equality and African Americans were not allowed into the Mormon Church until the civil rights movement showed its strength. The Mormon Church claimed African Americans carried the mark of Cain and therefore were unredeemable and not proper people to join their Mormon Church.

I remember Mormon women coming forward in the 1970’s when the women’s movement was very strong and very vocal and when they did join the Women’s Movement they were excommunicated from their Mormon Church. And we are today looking at the possibility of a Mormon Bishop for President of the United States? Absurdities abound here. Is this who you Tea Party folks are going to make a deal with to keep your race pure? And White? Now that’s funny!

I could go on for pages, but that wouldn’t produce anything. I just can’t understand why this campaign is so close given the facts of who Romney is – given the horrible state of the United States at the end of the Bush administration – listening to Romney talk about and drop the blame for the slowed economy on Obama and expecting people to believe him. Is our memory so short? Do we not remember when this country almost tanked? Do we not remember when Obama was inaugurated President of these United States the economy and the country was in far worse shape than any of us thought possible and he had to bring us all back from the edge of that cliff?

Romney talks about his ‘experience’ and how he can turn this country around quickly because he is so good at doing such. But I also remember Romney saying he didn’t do any of that – he was simply an investor in the businesses to which he attached his name. What is it – the one or the other? It is the one most expedient to argue at the moment.

I understand how Germany could have been taken in by Hitler in his early days. Human beings are very gullible. We somehow don’t see the monster standing in front of us until he has ripped us to pieces. And then we don’t understand what happened.

This was written by a lifelong, but today disaffected, disappointed, disbelieving Republican. I was a Republican when Strom Thurmond was a Democrat. Wow how life changes! Do you think Abraham Lincoln would be able to vote for Mitt Romney? I don’t think so.

Marceline Donaldson

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Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, politics
Posted in An editorial just because, Making Connections | Comments Off on Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Politics at Breakfast? I’m Shocked

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

You know there would be talk about the coming election over a Bettina Network breakfast table with the media talking Romney and Obama 24/7.

You have something to say? Come to breakfast after a stay in one of the homes in the Bettina Network, inc. We don’t put your name in the blog when we take the ideas you discussed over breakfast so you can feel free to say whatever. Not every conversation winds up in a Bettina Network Blog, only those we feel are ‘hot’ or ‘interesting’ or ‘unusual’ or bring another fact to life which we feel you should know about.

The question asked over this breakfast table was WHY the media is missing the real story in this election and not printing what the public should know! And what did they think the public should know?

In the interest of full disclosure, only one person at the table was a Romney supporter and he came to pick up his friend to show him around the area. He was invited to stay for breakfast and he stayed until almost noon! It was quite a conversation.

First discussed was the major reason for voting for Obama – what was that? RYAN! What happens, if God forbid, something happens to a President Romney. RYAN BECOMES PRESIDENT RYAN! Isn’t that the major role the Vice President plays? – President in waiting? He or she does other things in the process of waiting, — in case, — but that is the Vice President’s major role – and several have played that role over their tenure in the White House!

Second thing discussed was religion! It was not an anti-Mormon discussion, but one the discussers felt was rooted in fact and their considerable concern about electing Romney president. He is, apparently, a high official in the Mormon Church, at least equivalent to the Bishops in the Catholic Church.

No one around the table would have had a problem in the 1960’s voting for John F. Kennedy – a Catholic – for president. They would not have voted for and would have actively worked against the election of Cardinal Cushing for President. Kennedy, according to the person speaking, was an ordinary citizen who happened to be a Catholic and was not beholden to the Pope. His views were his views and he had not taken any kind of oath to defer to the wishes of the Pope on any issue. Before making any decision Kennedy was not beholden nor would anyone expect him to call to consult the Pope, if the issue were one which collided with the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Cushing, on the other hand, had taken such an oath and his first fealty was to his Pope because of his position as Cardinal. He would not have been confirmed or ordained a Cardinal if he had refused to take such an oath.

Romney is a Mormon. He is not a Mormon the way John F. Kennedy was a Catholic. He is a Mormon the way Cardinal Cushing was a Catholic – his first fealty is to his Mormon religion, which means the people at the top of the Mormon Church are the ones he listens to and the ones whose decisions and beliefs he could not violate or go against. The United States comes second. He is not free to make decisions contrary to his Church’s religious beliefs and tenets because he is the equivalent to a Bishop or above in the Mormon Church and he has taken such an oath to abide by all the beliefs and issues of faith which his religion dictates.

We have all danced around this issue. We have all been trying to exercise this country’s promise of religious freedom. It is not practicing religious freedom to elect someone as President or to any other office in this country who does not practice the religious freedom this country preaches. He cannot claim religious freedom when he is in a Church which does not carry that belief as one of its tenets, but believes that Mormonism is the true religion and everyone else is going to hell 0r is amongst the damned.

If Romney is in the pew, maybe he believes that and maybe he doesn’t, maybe he follows his church’s teachings and maybe he doesn’t. Romney is not in the pew as an ordinary member of his Church. He is an official of the Church at the level of Bishop – he has pledged an oath to his Church and its leaders that he does indeed believe that Mormonism is the true religion and it is his duty to proselytize and do whatever he can to bring others out of ‘darkness’ into the ‘light’. It is his calling to move to help save John and Jane Q Public from eternal damnation. Who are John and Jane Q. Public? Those who are not current practicing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints.

Third discussion was about Romney’s claimed business experience and how he will use it to bring all of us into a fantastic, beautifully functioning economy. The discussion was basically along the lines of – if he can’t do that for his own campaign, which is small compared to the United States of America, how can he do that for this country? According to one person around the table, Romney’s campaign was a mess and has been for weeks with Romney not able to pull off or manage a well functioning campaign.

Others commented that his money is not what he is earning through his management skills, but what his money is earning on investments. One person claimed Romney earned the money and that gives him credibility as a manager. Others claimed Romney has not been engaged in management for at least six years – and probably longer. And – to our shock – what came out was that his family money – on which he is now earning money – did not come from Romney’s earnings nor his father’s earnings, but from the Mexican Government. Without that start the Romney’s would not have made it as high as they did financially. Apparently, the Romney family sued the Mexican Government and received a substantial settlement before moving back to the United States with their multiple wives.

What an amazing bit of learning! I would like to know more about that because I thought the Romney fortune came from the Father’s work in Detroit with the automobile industry and I assumed his father had worked hard to pull himself up by his bootstraps, as had most immigrants coming to this country. Apparently, Romney – the father, had a head start, which some claimed was how he rose to the top. – He was not a destitute person coming from Mexico with no money and turning that into another Horatio Alger story. He and his family came well heeled from their encounter with the Mexican Government.

Wow! I must refill my organic coffee cup and ponder these things!

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Tags: 2012 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Mitt Romney, Politics at Breakfast
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A Fantastic Diet for Good Health!

Friday, September 21st, 2012

We have discovered, through many conversations with guests, an incredible diet to end all diets. We have put this together as we gleaned information a little at a time and experimented to make sure this is workable.

It does work for a couple of us, but we aren’t guaranteeing, advising, or anything else, just reporting on what we’ve observed and experienced.

We started to hear about limes when a guest from India talked about her need to have limes in the afternoon because it was advised by her nutritionist who she absolutely trusted. So we found a source for organic limes for her and every afternoon she would squeeze four limes into a cup and drink the juice.

We knew about having an organic lemon squeezed into a cup of warm water and drinking that first thing in the morning to get your day started on the right foot and your body regulated – through a regular morning trip to the bathroom. We didn’t know anything about limes except for the jokes about the English ‘Limeys’.

Later came others who looked for lemons and limes – never organic – but we added that to what they were doing and suggested that might be a better way than just ordinary limes and lemons that you didn’t know what was sprayed, dug into the dirt, washed into the fruit and that would show up in later years affecting your health in bad ways. And they would thank us, take their lemons and limes in various ways and on different time tables to be able to travel and live without a sluggishness which brought them to their regimen with the lemons and limes in the first place.

We began to notice something amazing as we tried to do the same thing – varying it with every guests’ different usage to test for ourselves.

As we tried all these different regimens and combinations of ways to use lemons and limes, we found our weight dropping even when nothing else in our diet or lifestyle changed. We even had one guest use a lemon to rub on his face in the mornings after shaving. He was cute! We noticed it when he came to breakfast with a couple lemon bits still on his skin. When we asked what he’d been doing with the lemons – after an initial embarrassment he admitted to using one lemon each morning to smooth over his face to deal with any cuts or etc. that he might accumulate. Another guest used cut lemons to rub on her elbows and knees. And there were more! It has been a great learning for us!!!

What we have taken from all of these possibilities:

First thing in the morning, we have a lemon or lime with the juice squeezed and put into a half-cup of warm water.

Throughout the day we also have lemon or lime juice – organic, of course, – and at very particular times, which we feel is the secret to this ‘diet’.

When we come in from meetings, shopping, working in the garden, doing whatever that has made us ravenously hungry and pushes us to reach for any and everything we can to satisfy that hunger .- Instead of reaching for those 5 cookies, ice cream, instant whatever that can quench the thirst and hunger, we stop, have one lemon or lime squeezed into a half-glass of warm water and our hunger and thirst is satiated enough that we can think before we reach for those diet disasters and health saboteurs. We have the time and space to work through putting together a substantial, organic meal or snack before we move on to the next thing.

What we’ve found – not only is our hunger satisfied with that half-cup of freshly squeezed organic juice with warm water – but our energy is revived and we are ready to continue our day.

I’ve found that two or three such lemon/lime pick-me-ups during the day satisfies my needs, but it also has me losing weight. Not because I am dieting, but because when I have gone longer than I should have without eating, my hunger and thirst don’t lead me to poor choices. It gives me space to think through what it is I need to eat and time to prepare whatever my choice. I also look better. Somehow, there is a shining through from this regimen that is fantastic. No make-up could do for me what is done to me by those half-cups of juice and warm water. I use half-cups because it is so sour that is all I can get down at one time. And no, I don’t want to use those ‘helpers’ that make lemons taste like sugary confections. Over time, I am becoming more accustomed to the sour taste and my sugar tastes are becoming intolerable of that really sweet stuff. Before this, nothing was too sweet for me and I could never pass a cookie without picking one or two or three up and carrying them away with me.

A couple other friends, who have tried the same thing, have come back looking better, feeling better and are proselytizing their friends in this new way of taking care of their body’s nutritional needs and staying off the bad stuff.

One organic lemon or lime squeezed using a glass juicer – you know the kind, – non-electric, manual labor needed – with 1/2 cup warm water added and off you go to a new life.

If you have a difficult time finding a glass lemon juicer – we found this one and many more at www.laurelleaffarm.com/pages/kitchen&table/antique-glass-reamer-1909-patent.htm

Photo of old antique glass reamer, orange or lemon juicer w/ 1909 patent date

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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.

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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1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, health, health and beauty, lemons, limes, prevent obesity, Recipe, weight problems
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Food Shopping, Health, Health and Beauty, Kitchen Equipment Review, Making Connections, Shopping | Comments Off on A Fantastic Diet for Good Health!

Upholstering Walls – 1st Installment!

Friday, September 7th, 2012

This is an ongoing project – one of several we hope will end with a video which you can access showing the entire process.

The process will be blogged in installments since it is difficult to write for a long time on such a topic!

We talked to many guests, host families, friends, to decide what we could do to get ready for the fall season which would result in our utility bills being reduced over the winter of 2012-2013.

We came up with the upholstering of walls. We’ve started small with one bedroom and the results are beginning to look spectacular. Not only will our utility bills be reduced but the upscaling of the room has been substantial. We have only put up padding on two walls and already our air conditioning is practically non-essential. In spite of very warm weather – over 80 degrees – we turn the air conditioners on in the mornings for about two hours and the room stays cool all day and into the evening. Hopefully, that presages a wonderful savings on the heating bills this winter – AND we haven’t even added the material yet. So lets see what change that makes!!

I was raised in a house where the walls were covered ceiling to floor with draperies – brocade, double lined – to keep out the heat and the cold. I didn’t think much of what that meant until recently when I came across an entry in one of my diaries which described our living room.

Floating the possibility around to everyone who would listen – it started out as weird and ‘historical’, but not for todays home. Since all the conversations started, those we talked to first are coming back to say – ‘hey, that might not be such a bad idea – try it and let us know what happens.’

Well, like everything in this world, it started out as a simple project and now has become all encompassing, consuming and we are looking everywhere to find out ‘how to’.

Lots of people have ideas and some have actually upholstered walls, but that isn’t the way we want it done. Our original purpose was to save on utility bills and secondarily to add to the elegance of our lifestyle. So looking around for the original purpose we found a padding which we have stapled to the walls. No, we didn’t use furring strips. We stapled the padding directly to the walls, stapling around the windows, right below the moulding and right above the floor moulding. Seems there was enough wood or something to hold the padding – dacron.

Our biggest problem was which stapler to use. Almost no one knew anything about an upholstery stapler that we could use for this project.

We searched the internet, old magazines, saved articles, and we drove friends crazy for ‘how to’ possibilities. Stay tuned for what we used!

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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, reduce utility bills, Saving heat, Upholstering Walls, Whitney Houston
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Housekeeping, Making Connections | Comments Off on Upholstering Walls – 1st Installment!

Bettina’s Tapioca Pudding

Wednesday, August 29th, 2012

A long-known comfort food. We have hearkened back to memories of childhood when desserts were homemade and not full of so many of the non-food ‘stuff’ they now contain.

Organic Tapioca is the basis for this pudding. I searched through many recipe books and came to the conclusion that organic tapioca is a necessary – well maybe I also started out with a bias. However, I came to the conclusion that the tapioca should be organic because of the overwhelming number of recipes which call for cornstarch as the thickening agent in this dish.

At first, I couldn’t understand why one would need a thickening agent in a dish whose core ingredient is itself a thickening agent. Tapicoa is used in many sweet and savory dishes as a thickening agent and it works very well without changing the taste of the dish. I realized why all of these recipe’s contained corn starch when we bought several kinds of Tapioca from Organic to overly processed with a coating of talc to make it look whiter and more matte. The corn starch was necessary because in the processing of tapioca, which is not organic, it loses its thickening properties.

The white matte-looking tapioca was incredible. It was so overly processed that using it made no sense ! – Why was it coated with talc, especially since much of the talc was seen floating in the water or milk that we used to test the tapioca. It was floating in the liquid but it was incorporating itself into the tapioca pudding so we would be eating tapioca and talc. That meant to us its use was purely aesthetic. An aesthetic that gave us a stomach ache since talc is rumored, and in some experiments has shown itself to be a carcinogen. At least that is what we have read. Why especially would you use this kind of overprocessed and staged tapioca in a dish you feed mostly to young children and those longing for their many-years past childhood?

For those of you who don’t know its genesis, tapioca is extracted from the cassava. It is a staple in many areas of the world and is used as a thickening agent in foods. It is gluten-free.

If you have a difficult time finding organic tapioca we suggest you try www.frontiercoop.com and have it mailed to you. It is worth the trouble.

We started with:

——— a small light under 3 cups organic milk in a glass pot.

——— as bubbles formed around the edges of the milk we added 1/2 cup organic tapioca

——— and stirred and stirred making sure nothing was sticking to the pan.

——————-We also added a small amount of himalayan salt to the pan and continued to stir.

———when the milk mixture looked as though it was about to boil we added 1/2 cup sugar

——————-and stirred and stirred and stirred , especially since we did not want the mixture to boil over!!!!!!!

==================We broke two eggs into a mixing bowl and whipped the eggs until they became lighter in color and texture.

==================We added a little of the milk mixture to the eggs very gradually so as to bring the temperature of the eggs up to the

==================temperature of the milk mixture and then added the eggs to the milk mixture

———and stirred and stirred and stirred somemore!!

We continued stirring until the mixture looked like a very good and thick pudding!

We added liquid organic vanilla to the mixture, took it off the heat and stirred until the vanilla was incorporated.

We then poured the mixture into four beautiful stem glasses for serving and put the pudding into the refrigerator.

———If you want more than servings for four – simply double or triple the ingredients!

We let the pudding sit in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes because we like warm, but neither hot nor cold pudding!

When we served this organic tapioca pudding it was excellent and fulfilled every one of our childhood memories.

And when we went to bed that night we stirred and stirred and then stirred the already eaten pudding some more!!

Once you’ve satisfied your longings for tapioca and your childhood you can then add all kind of extra ingredients to create memories for your children unique to their upbringing, but turning back a little to your own:

—————–raisins – coconut – soft nuts or nuts you have crushed – chocolate chips – grated ginger – cinnamon – nutmeg – orange juice –

and the list goes on…………………………

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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.

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

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, breakfast table talk, Comfort Food, food shopping, Frontier Co-op, Making Connections, Organic Tapioca, Recipe, Tapioca Pudding
Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Breakfast Table Talk, Food Shopping, Making Connections | Comments Off on Bettina’s Tapioca Pudding

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