Bettina Network's Blog - Table Talk at a Bettina Network Home

Soap for Leg Cramps

June 6th, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mosquitos and Vitamin B1

May 29th, 2010

We talked about many remedies for mosquitoes at breakfast this morning. The one we all decided to try is Vitamin B1. This conversation took over breakfast because my beautiful garden can’t be enjoyed without enduring mosquito bites and everyone was scratching from spending time outside.

One of our bed & breakfast guests gave her children Vitamin B1 before they went out to play. She didn’t believe in mosquito repellants. Since her children are all grown and have families of their own, this remedy must have been around for quite awhile. She didn’t ever use mosquito repellants because she thought they were probably harmful over the long term. The rest of us were amazed at the thought that something so simple, healthy and readily available could be used to repel mosquitoes.

The table pretty much divided into pro-mosquito repellant people and anti-mosquito repellant people.

I tried it and within 1/2 hour my skin had this slight mosquito repellant smell to it. Going out into the garden I was not bothered my mosquitoes for the rest of the day as I spent my time weeding, and spreading compost. Hope it helps Bettina Blog readers.

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Red Tea – Po Er

May 27th, 2010

We had a magnificent tea, made and served at breakfast by a bed & breakfast guest. It was an incredible experience and we wanted to share it with you. The guests carry the makings for this tea in a special box wherever they travel. The tea itself looked like a sheet of dark green paper and they cut the tip of the square of this ‘tea sheet’ and it made a huge pot of tea. So much for our tea bags, which make one cup.

INGREDIENTS:

5 Chrysanthemums (they used dried)

5 rose buds (also dried, but you could use fresh flowers if they have not been sprayed, etc.)

Tibetan red flower (small amount – they used two pieces)

Ling chi (mushroom chopped in pieces)

Tea (red, green, black, white – any kind)

Pour hot water over all and let this sit for 15 minutes

Add milk – honey – and drink.

Enjoy this unusual treat.

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Grits, Shrimp and Greens

May 25th, 2010

We combined two recipe’s from two different guests who told us one way they make grits. Both are from the deep south – one from Mississippi, one from Tennessee. We think, in this combination, we have found an outstanding way to make grits.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups organic yellow grits (we prefer Arrowhead Mills)

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper – I would not add salt to this. Save your himalayan salt for
guests to add according to their tastes.

6 cups chicken broth, vegetable broth or any kind of broth you make and keep for cooking or
some of the soup you keep in the refrigerator and add to periodically.

Collard greens, spinach or any other kind of chopped greens.

One nice-sized organic yellow onion, chopped fine.

2 1/2 cups Parmesan Reggiano Cheese – nothing else tastes quite the same

One recipe calls for 1 cup cooked bacon. One recipe calls for a couple cups of raw chopped
shrimp. We would give you another alternative – wild caught raw bay scallops. If you feel
particularly flushed with money a really spectacular grits dish would combine all three –
bacon, shrimp and scallops.

PROCESS

Put cream and broth or cream and milk (which can be substituted for broth), in a glass pot and bring it to a boil. Add grits while whirling the milk with a wire whisk so you avoid lumps.

Put greens and chopped onion in the broth/milk/grits and stir the liquids from time to time.

Add cayenne pepper, cheese, raw shrimp and whatever else you decide to put in the grits.
Constantly stir to keep from getting lumps until you are happy the grits is on its way to cooking nicely on its own.

Pour into a greased baking dish and sprinkle with the bacon (if you decided to use bacon), and extra cheese to make the top nicely browned and bubbly.

Bake for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

We owe a huge thank you to Marilee and Sherry. They haven’t met, but their grits recipes have combined to make a superb breakfast dish.

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A New House in the Bettina Network

May 11th, 2010

In CONCORD, MA. – This home is for all of you who love American history and want to explore some of its beginnings and important early events. Not to mention those who love music, outdoor activities, small festivals with meaning, historical sites, really old homes and especially those looking for a bucolic-quiet-pastoral-retreat getaway.

This “new” home to the Bettina Network dates back to the 18th century. It has all the modern conveniences, but the home, as it was originally built, is still intact. There are many fireplaces in this home, which have not been fancied-up and ruined – they work and are wonderful to sit in front of during those cold, snowy, wintry days. Breakfast, with bread baked from scratch, home-made yogurt, granola and more keep you enjoying your stay and particularly appreciating the family and how they extend themselves for you.

If you love walking around and looking at construction from the 18th century; in a home with old beams and floors in tact; BUT you also want your Wireless, your satellite TV and your modern bath; – AND you enjoy having breakfast at a table facing a large picture window where you can look out over a garden with birds and other small animals frolicking, eating, playing – this is the ideal place for you.

Have you thought of visiting Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, the Old Manse, North Bridge, Orchard House, Wayside Minuteman National Historical Park, Estabrook Woods – stop thinking about it and make reservations to stay where it will take only minutes for you to reach so many wonderful places full of national memories and historical events. You will still be only 20 miles from Boston/Cambridge and a short drive to the highway to take you to the ‘city’. You can hike, bike, boat, fish, skate, go horseback riding, visit and swim in Walden Pond. In winter you can go snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and in any season sit outside your room on the grass where you can read Henry David Thoreau’s Novel “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods” in authentic territory.

It is also a place to have a lovely wedding, birthday party, anniversary celebration or small meeting. A colonial farmhouse – furnished in a style which maintains the integrity of its origins. It is full of music, a grand piano and other instruments. To the musicians among us – avoid those anxiety attacks, don’t stay where you are away from your music, stay where you have a small vacation from your music, but access to other musicians, musical events and music lessons which you can give or take.

What more can we say!!!!!!!! It is a Bettina home with an authentic Bettina family.

Call us for more information and to make reservation.

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A Memorial to "Brother Blue"

May 9th, 2010

We spent Saturday at a memorial service to Brother Blue – Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill. I say “we spent Saturday” because it started about noon and went on until about 4pm. At no time during those four hours did you want to leave. There were several hundred people present, coming from far and near – Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Canada, California – to name a few places of which we were aware.

Ruth Hill, Brother Blue’s wife, organized a remembrance of her husband which will last in memory as long as Hugh lasts in memory.

Some of you, who frequented Harvard Square, may remember Brother Blue. He was the “Character” dressed in blue, preaching, praising, storytelling, making you feel special as one of God’s chosen. When he raised his hand to welcome you showing you his palm, on which a beautiful butterfly had been painted, letting God’s blessings fly out to greet you – it was his version of the open, giving hand.

The service started with a procession into St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Boston which set the tone and called Brother Blue back for this performance in his honor. Tejo Ologboni, drummer, led the procession. He is amazing performing by himself, but leading this procession it was as though the roof lifted off the Cathedral, light shone in and the colorful Butterfly Puppets appeared following Ologboni. Their wings moved as butterfly wings move, their faces were bright and lit up with smiles that woke those in the congregation who Tejo Ologboni hadn’t yet touched – if such existed.

Memorial services tend to be beautiful, sad, very tearful with much longing and regret from missed opportunities hanging in the air, during and after. This one started with incredible light, color, shouts of joy, drums and more.

It was the first time I saw Brother Blue in the context of his community and it was glorious to see! We mostly saw him with Ruth, his wife, by his side telling stories, exorting, praising and calling those who passed by to be their best selves. In the context of his community you understood, finally, who Blue was and what his life had been about. “…I see through a mirror dimly, but then face to face…” could characterize this event.

A very long succession of people brought their talents and their being to pay tribute to Brother Blue.
Warren Senders – composer/musician from New England Conservatory composed, sang and got the audience caught up, with great gusto, in the chorus to his song which went:

“My brother Blue, My Brother Blue,
he was the kindest man I ever knew
he took your light and shined it back on you!”

The politicians were there and they normally dampen down any event they attend. These politicians must have been carefully chosen because they added to the remembrance and took it to a higher plane – Charles Yancey from the Boston City Council – who made us remember that Blue was the Official Storyteller of Boston, Alice Wolf from the MA. House of Representatives reminded us that he was also the Official Storyteller of Cambridge and had received many other honors as well; Kenneth Reeves from the Cambridge City Council; Byron Rushing also from the MA. House of Representatives who reminded us that we are in Blue’s story because he put us there and then he insisted on our being in everyone else’s story. Steven Tolman from the MA Senate said what Blue meant to him and the affect he had on Tolmans running for the Senate.

Blue was a storyteller, preacher, prophesied, danced, entertained. He had several mantras – one “The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and to be loved in return.” And he clearly spoke that from a marriage which was an example of love and love returned.

A powerful performance was by Wendy Jehlen, dancer/Choreographer, Director Anikai Dance. The music to which she danced was a recording of Brother Blue’s breath. It was very moving and magnificent. Once you die, the one physical thing you no longer have is your breath – one thing you can no longer do is breathe. Your body begins to deteriorate because the breath which circulates the oxygen to keep you moving and living is gone. For a few very exquisite moments, Ms. Jehlen brought back Brother Blue’s breath and breathing.

Those gathered to remember Blue in the Cambridge/Boston area were the most truly diverse group I have ever seen in that area. When you die, your funeral and your memorial service say much about how you lived. As I looked around the Cathedral and saw the great diversity of people there to remember Brother Blue, it was a testament to his life. White, Black, Asian, Indian (both East and American), very prominent citizens, those who were clearly living on the edge, in various kinds of dress and comfortable in their clothes. And it was a group of people who lingered and talked in groups at the end of the remembrance and went from group to group even talking to those they did not know in a joyful, light-infused, animated conversation. A rare occurrence in this world.

Byron Rushing reminded us that one form of Brother Blues dialogue was “Praise Poetry” which came from Africa and was meant to authenticate who you are – not who the speaker is! Many spoke on the effect Blue had on them when they were in his audience. Rushing spoke on the effect it had on you when Blue was in your audience. It was a profound testament to the man we were remembering.

With Guy Davis‘ presentation – storyteller, actor, blues musician – there was dancing in the aisle and he was beautiful and extremely talented. Elizabeth Morse‘s harp music was a beautiful meditation which brought us back to the sacred. Ms. Morse is someone Blue asked to accompany him over the years.

Eliot Fisk, classical guitarist, was the final person giving a testament to Blue and it was a musical gem.

I saw, for the first time, the power of the Story. We heard about Dr. Hill’s end time in a rehab facility, which will never be the same again, and it was beautiful because you knew through the story that he didn’t ever lose his humanity or identity or interest in others, nor did he stop blessing others. The story about the “Star Child” – one born prematurely and on the life support systems in which we put some of our children – being told stories by his father with his head pressed against the plexiglass and we heard the father’s promise to continue to tell to bring his child in, the way an air traffic controller brings in an airplane.

It was the remembrance of and homage to a man who made his vulnerabilities into a tower of strength and shared his light and blessings with others. It all ended with a video of Hugh Hill over the years. His voice narrated the message which is one he preached over and over again during his life. It was all done with the background music being different renditions of America the Beautiful.

You left knowing your life had been touched by a truly great human being, who walked this earth in his bare feet and brought goodness, kindness and love to many as you heard story after story of how he so positively affected the lives of literally thousands of people.

Our “Praise Poetry” to Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill comes from his obituary: “Most often known as “Brother Blue” Dr. Hill has degrees from Harvard, Yale and the Union Graduate School…. He wanted his stories to be ‘bread for the mind, the imagination, the heart, the soul. He said, ‘I SOUL my stories out, to speak from the middle of the middle of me to the middle of the middle of you…..’ He presented workshops in prisons, schools, colleges and universities, libraries, and conferences and told stories before countless audiences via radio and television, and in person in streets, parks, and festivals in the U. S. Canada, Europe, South Africa and the Bahamas. Among them were First Night Boston, the World’s Fair in New Orleans, Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival, United Nations Habitat Forum, yukon Storytelling Festival, the National Storytelling Festival and Sharing the Fire in New England. He received many awards and was storyteller-in-residence for the Harvard Law School’s Saturday School and much more.”

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ACRI, the stock we are buying

May 3rd, 2010

Moved from .060 where it closed on Friday to .0737 today. We think the move came from a press release from the company which talked about a new Purchase Order it received for product to be delivered in two weeks:

“Acro, Inc. Receives Purchase Order for ACRO-ETK5 Plus Explosives Detection Kit From Government Agency
9:04a ET May 3, 2010 (Market Wire)
Acro, Inc. (OTCBB: ACRI), a leading manufacturer of explosive detection solutions for the homeland security market and related sectors, today announced a new purchase order for its popular ACRO-ETK5 Plus explosives detection kit from an international government agency. The purchase order will be shipped in two weeks, and will be used in the field to detect a wide range of materials used in explosives.

“This product has been successfully used by Israeli Port Authorities and security forces of other countries around the world,” said Gadi Aner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acro, Inc. “This newest purchase order demonstrates our ability to successfully grow our base of customers and increase market adoption for our products.”

The ETK5 Plus enables simple, rapid and reliable detection of persons engaged in preparing, handling or carrying explosive charges and allows for fast screening of suspects in the field. The kit aids in detection through exposure and proof of contact contamination of various surfaces by explosives.”

ACRI has a product which can be used by companies around the world and it looks as though it is beginning to get its groove on. Hopefully, it will continue to move up as more such orders come pouring in.

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For Maximum Info on ARCI

April 22nd, 2010

Go to Google.com or Yahoo.com or your favorite search engine and put in Arco, inc. You will find lots of articles from different perspectives to give you more indepth information on this stock and to help you understand what it does and why we are tweeting about it.

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More Information on ACRI

April 22nd, 2010

NEWS RELEASES

ACRO, INC. RECEIVES PURCHASE ORDER FOR EXPLOSIVE DETECTION DEVICES FROM DIVISION OF U.S. ARMY
4/6/2010 6:12:50 PM – Market Wire

CAESAREA, ISRAEL, Apr 06, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX News Network) —
Acro, Inc. (OTCBB: ACRI), a leading manufacturer of explosive detection solutions for the homeland security market and related sectors, today announced that the Company has received a purchase order for its ACRO-P.E.T., ACRO-N.E.T., ACRO-CH.E.T., and ACRO-U.E.T. explosive detection devices from a division of the U.S. Army.

“This order is very important for us because it continues our momentum in the United States and could further increase market adoption of our cutting-edge explosive detection solutions,” said Gadi Aner, CEO and Chairman of Acro, Inc.

The ACRO-P.E.T. is the first explosives identifier of its kind, effective against TATP and other Peroxide Based IEDs. It is light, easy to use and gives instant results, even when explosive quantities are small. The novel portable ‘micro-laboratory,’ ACRO-N.E.T., with its sensitive, simple, rapid, precise and reliable operation, revolutionizes the field task of police and other security agencies in the detection and identification of explosives. ACRO-CH.E.T. (Chlorate Explosives Tester) is light, easy to use and gives instant results, even when explosive quantities are small. ACRO-CH.E.T. has low false positive and negative alarm rates, is very sensitive, and can detect 10 micrograms of chlorate based explosives traces.

This initial purchase order will be used to determine the suitability of Acro’s explosive detection devices for certain U.S. Army units. The order is expected to ship within few weeks.

About Acro: Acro, Inc. develops explosives detection technologies and manufactures relevant products. In addition to the explosives detectors that are currently marketed by Acro, the company continues to develop proprietary technologies for the HLS market. Acro’s Advisory Board includes Nobel Prize laureate Prof. K. Barry Sharpless, and Prof. Richard A. Lerner, President and CEO of The Scripps Research Institute, one of the most influential scientific institutes worldwide. For more information about Acro, visit www.AcroSec.com.

Forward-Looking Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning our marketing and operations plans. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements in this press release are made based on management’s current expectations and estimates, which involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, risks related to the evolving homeland security market, general economic conditions and other risk factors. Acro does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements made herein.

For more information please contact Acro, Inc. info@AcroSec.com

SOURCE: Acro, Inc.

mailto:info@AcroSec.com

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What is ACRI about?

April 22nd, 2010

What is this stock ACRI that ANITTEB is tweeting about on Twitter?

What follows is a news release the company itself put out. We will put other info about this company on the blog as we get access to it. If you have questions that we can answer – email us at bettina-network@comcast.net

This is not a stock we recommend you hold forever – one to two weeks tops and then on to something else! You can, of course, hold it as long as you decide. Our holding is over the short term.

NEWS RELEASE

ACRO, INC. INTRODUCES EXPLOSIVES DETECTION PRODUCTS AT THE COUNTER TERROR EXPO 2010 IN LONDON
4/20/2010 5:54:49 PM – Market Wire

Company Receives Numerous Inquiries From Potential UK Customers

CAESAREA, ISRAEL, Apr 20, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX News Network) —
Acro, Inc. (OTCBB: ACRI), a leading manufacturer of explosive detection solutions for the homeland security market and related sectors, today announced that it unveiled its all-new ACRO-Mini-ETK and ACRO- CH.E.T. products at the Counter Terror Expo 2010 in London.

“We had a very successful showing of our newest products at the Counter Terror Expo last week,” said Gadi Aner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acro, Inc. “Our UK representatives reported that traffic to our exhibition booth was non-stop and received a lot of interest in our products from potential customers in the UK.”

The ACRO-Mini-ETK contains four crushable ampoules protected by plastic mini tubes, filled with liquid reagents for the detection of explosives. Each kit contains sampling paper, a quick reference table and instructions. This compact kit distinguishes between explosive and non-explosive materials. Furthermore, the kit is capable of identifying four classes comprising the majority of explosives currently in use and revealing their traces on the body and various items such as clothes, suitcases, door handles and car surfaces and has been successfully used by Israeli police and security forces of other countries around the world. The ACRO-CH.E.T. (Chlorates Explosives Tester) is a light, easy-to-use, disposable, pocket-sized device that immediately and accurately identifies chlorate based explosives and can be used independently or as part of a total systems solution. The ACRO-CH.E.T. has low false positive and negative alarm rates, is very sensitive and can detect 10 micrograms of chlorate based explosives traces.

The Counter Terror Expo offers a secure exhibition showcasing the latest solutions dedicated to the counter terrorism and specialist security arena. The products and technologies shown in the exhibition form a crucial part of counter terror capabilities. The exhibition features over 300 international leading vendors.

For more information please contact: Acro, Inc. info@AcroSec.com

SOURCE: Acro, Inc.

mailto:info@AcroSec.com

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Follow ANITTEB on Twitter

April 22nd, 2010

Anitteb is Bettina spelled backwards.

We have a twitter account and we are “tweeting” on how to build a fortune, starting from almost nothing. We are given lots from the bed and breakfast business and are doing two things with it;

1) Building a business which is fully integrated and brings in as many people and ideas as possible – and –

2) Sharing what we get from a great community of people as you all pass through our homes. The middle class is being squeezed today by the banks, and everyone else – how do you not just survive, but thrive. We think we’ve found one way and we have lots of help from all of you, so we are sharing.

With Twitter we are going to try to build a fortune, going from $500 to $10,000,000 in one year.

We need your help – if you have a twitter account, sign up to follow us on Twitter. If you do not have a twitter account it is easy to sign up. Go to www.twitter.com. They will ask for your email – a screen name – and a password.

Once on Twitter put – anitteb – in the search box. Once anitteb comes up, check ‘following’ and you can then log out. You will receive our “tweets” in your email box or you can log onto twitter and get them there.

You can then buy whatever we have bought and hopefully, with this community of people, we will all do very well and that goal of moving from $500 to $10 million dollars will be realized. You might make money and on our bad days you might lose money, Hopefully, it will all work out in the end so that the net result moves us to our goal.

Don’t have a brokerage account? Let us know and we will tell you how to get one where you only need a little money to start.

Its all in good fun and we might wind up making complete nuts of ourselves, but it won’t be the first time so what’s to lose?

We hope you will send us your feedback as you read the “tweets”.

Tell all of your friends!

Let us know what you think!

Sincerely,

All of us at Bettina’s

Keep in touch with a great community of people through Bettina’s Blog www.bettina-network.com

If you are bowled over by us and want to become a host family, putting your home in the Bettina Network to welcome guests from all over the world – call us at 800 347 9166 – and lets talk.

If you have or know of an estate that needs to be sold – redistributed back into the world from whence it has come – call us also.

Have a house you want us to take over and manage – we can do that to.

Geez! What won’t they try next?

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Creole Grits – for Sami

April 17th, 2010

Most of my young life, growing up in New Orleans, grits was a daily breakfast staple. If my grandmother didn’t make grits for me for breakfast – no matter what else she made – I would ‘pout’ until she produced grits. My favorite breakfast in those days was grits and liver. My neighbor used to tease me because he could hear me through the window in the morning calling downstairs for my ‘drits and liba, Mama’ when I was just learning to talk.

It is amazing how things change as we grow-up. Today I can’t stand to eat liver. When I think of my grandmother’s lovingly prepared calf’s liver I remember the conversations about who had the best calf’s liver, how old the calf should be -not too old or the liver would be tough with that strange taste, how long to let it cook (You didn’t want well done liver) etc. I could not hold that conversation today without getting a little sick to my stomach. I often wonder if my turning away from liver was a function of growing up or of the society changing around me having an affect on my eating likes and dislikes.

Grits, however, has remained a favorite and not just any kind of grits – Creole grits. I look down my nose at anyone who prepares grits according to the recipe on the box and tries to serve it to people for them to actually eat. It seems such a sacrilege to a great food.

The amounts below will feed about four or five people, with some left over for later to fry in butter or reheat. You need to get to know, for yourself, the amounts you want to use for the number of people you are feeding. Cooking is not slavishly following someone else’s discoveries, but taking the general idea someone else follows, making it your own. The pre=prepared pre-processed food companies have spent billions on marketing to make cooking seem like some mysterious process, which is known and can be successfully practiced only by the professionals in the food processing company’s commercial kitchens – ergo you have to buy their prepared foods. Because you couldn’t possibly make your own – cost too much, takes too much time, you don’t know how to make these complicated dishes. Many of us have bought that story-line. I am still amazed at the number of people I meet who think baking bread from scratch is a really difficult and time consuming process – it is definitely not. With a little planning, baking bread fits into the busiest lives. In reality, cooking is easy and much of it quick. Spending hours slaving over a hot stove to make a meal is an advertising guru’s creation, not a reality.

Back to Creole Grits:

1 cup organic yellow stone ground grits

(I prefer Arrowhead Mills grits. We try to stick to Arrowhead Mills products with flour and other grains, because we discovered the only place in the U. S. which does not have DDT residue in the ground is in the area around Arkansas where Arrowhead Mills products are grown. Robert says it is because the farmers were too poor to afford the pesticides which were so popular in the 1950’s and ’60s and which were going to save the world from starvation. Well, we know that didn’t happen – instead they’ve caused the world much grief. So today, those farmers and their descendants are rewarded by being able to charge a premium for their organic products because they are the only place one can get truly organically grown grains.)

4 cups water
1 organic onion – vary the kind you use when you make this dish
3 stalks organic celery
1 large organic green pepper
1 teaspoon himalayan salt – or sea salt if you haven’t changed over yet
cayenne pepper to taste
3 kinds of your favorite cheeses – we use parmesan reggiano, jack cheese and cheddar. We use Stonyfield Farms’ organic raw milk cheeses as much as possible because they are made with raw un-homogenized, un-pasteurized milk and they do not use rennet or other synthetic things to rush the cheese-making process and cut corners.

Put water in a glass corning pot and set the pot on the stove over a medium to low flame. Use a steel wire whisk to start the water swirling around and while you swirl the water slowly add the grits. You do this to keep the grits from clumping.

Let this mixture cook a few minutes, stirring it and keeping a close eye on the pot because you don’t want it to either burn or clump so stirring is essential. While keeping an eye on the pot and stirring the grits, chop the vegetables or put them in a food processor to chop pretty fine – unless you like to see the vegetables in this dish. In that case, chop the vegetables to whichever size makes you happiest.

Because we make this for bed and breakfast guests, we process the vegetables almost to a sauce. Not everyone enjoys the different textures produced when you chop the vegies. You will notice we do not fry the vegies in butter or oil before putting them into this dish. That is an unnecessary evil and produces a very different taste, which I don’t like.

Add the vegetables to the grits and continue stirring. I think putting the vegetables into the grits without pre-cooking them gives added nutrition to this dish and eliminates the oil that would come from adding the vegies after frying them in oil or butter.

When the grits look almost, but not quite done, add about 2/3 the cheese (two cups of cheese is great, but that is my taste, you might want to add more or less depending upon your taste buds.) We grate the cheese before adding to this dish. The only difference chopping the cheese into pieces instead of grating makes – it takes longer for the cheese to melt and takes you a longer time stirring the dish to incorporate the cheese. So you either spend your time grating, or you spend it stirring.

Stir the pot until the cheese is well mixed into the grits.

If this is the pot in which you want to serve the grits, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of this dish (which would be about 1/3 the amount you started with), put a cover on the pot and put the pot in a 350 degree oven for about 1/2 hour. If you do not want to bring this pot to the table, transfer the grits to your serving pot – which should be oven-proof – sprinkle the cheese on top, cover this pot and let the grits cook for the requisite 1/2 hour. The amount of time you let the grits cook depends upon how long it takes for the cheese on the top to melt and form a nice added taste and another texture. The top will look like melted cheese with a light brown color with oil, which has come out of the cheese, on top.

This is great for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It is especially good served with broiled wild-caught (not farm raised) fish – halibut, cod, etc. If you don’t obsess over fried foods you might also serve this with cat-fish, covered with corn meal and fried in butter.

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Tags: Bed and Breakfast in Cambridge MA
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Old Fashioned Tea Cookies

April 12th, 2010

1 cup organic butter
1 cup organic turbinado sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups organic whole wheat stone ground pastry flour
2 generous teaspoons baking powder
1 generous teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup organic milk (more or less)

These are wonderful cookie/cakes which go unbelievably well with tea. They remind us of freshly baked vanilla wafers, before the recipe for vanilla wafers was changed and fixed up so they could sit on the grocery shelf for a year or more without going rancid. These cake/cookies are delicate, light, cake-like with a wonderful taste whether warm out of the oven or at room temperature.

Put butter in your electric mixer and beat a few minutes until it becomes creamy. Add sugar, a little at a time, beating until the combination is creamy and light. Add eggs and beat a few minutes to blend the mixture.

Mix flour, baking power and cinnamon in a bowl using a spoon to lift up the flour and pour it back into the bowl – letting lots of air into this dry mixture.

Add half the flour mix to the electric mixer, which is now turned to low, add the milk and the remaining flour while mixing the cookie dough. Be careful to mix only to combine the ingredients, don’t mix too much because you will get a tough cookie.

Put the cookie dough into the refrigerator for an hour or more. This is a cookie dough you can keep in the refrigerator, taking a bit out as you are ready to have freshly baked cookies.

Butter a baking pan by making circles with the butter where you are going to put a cookie.

Using a teaspoon, take up a spoon full of the mixture, roll it into a ball in your hand and put the ball where you have made a circle on the baking pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 13-15 minutes. When you take these out of the oven, immediately release the cookies from the baking pan using a spatula to lift them from the pan. Put the cookies back in their place on the baking pan to cool a few minutes. When cool enough not to stick together or to stick to the plate in which you are going to put them, transfer the cookies to a serving plate. Take the cookies you would like off the plate before you serve them because they won’t last – it is hard to eat only four or five and impossible to eat only one.

4/16/2010 an email from a blog reader follows
Thanks for the tea cookies recipe. They are wonderful – they taste like fresh vanilla wafers. The ones you buy at the store in various boxes from different manufacturers are hard and stale. We are so used to them we have collectively forgotten why vanilla wafers were so popular.

I put a pecan into the top of the cookies before I baked them and it made a world of difference. The taste was barely modified with the pecan, but they looked much more elegant. I am sure other things pushed gently into the top of these cookies before they bake would also be great – depending upon the taste of the baker. Keep those recipe’s coming. I love being a part of the Bettina Network’s bed & breakfast community even though I only travel once or twice a year I read your blog religiously.

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Even More Stock Market Information

April 6th, 2010

A summary of this breakfast’s stock market conversation is only for the strong of heart.

We had a guest who was celebrating wildly at breakfast. He owns 1 million shares of a little stock called EKWX. To find it we had to go to http://investorshub.advfn.com/, an information web site for people who spend $50 and buy a few million shares of stock (I hope you realize that is an exaggeration).

This is a stock which sat dormant for several years at about .0006/share and since March 31, 2010 has gone to .002/share. Figure out that profit if you owned the 1,000,000 shares. There is no information on the company I could find. The guest knew nothing, he was totally into his euphoria over his great luck and he was going home to buy more.

Going to Investors Hub,—- when their site opened, on the landing page on the left hand side was a list of the 15 stocks with the most comments, which were left by those who regularly follow what happens on investors hub and at the top of the list was EKWX. Much of what we read was about conjectures that this was going to be a reverse merger where EKWX is a publicly traded shell, probably merging with a private company and the activity comes about because, as you know, news leaks, only we aren’t on the top of the list to get the leaks.

EKWX traded almost a billion shares today and has gone up some 350% since 3/31/2010.

We are going to follow this guest and his stock tradings. We asked him to write a blog for Bettina’s, but he spends his days watching the stocks he buys and sells and doesn’t write.

He danced around the breakfast table all morning, trying to stay sane until the stock market opened and he could watch his stock – which he did, all day. We would have danced with him if we owned any of EKWX, but since we don’t we just drank an extra cup of coffee.

If the stock goes to $1, he becomes an instant millionaire.

This has better odds than the lottery, at least you get to keep some of your money if what you expect doesn’t happen.

The blogs are hot with this stock and the conjecture on most of this is that EKWX – a public shell – is in the process of becoming a Reverse Merger. Which is what is causing all the furor.

What is a Reverse Merger with a Public Shell?

“A Reverse Merger is a transaction where by the private company shareholders may gain control of a public company by merging it in with their private company. The private company shareholders receive a substantial majority of the shares of the public company (normally 85% to 90% or more) and the control of the board of directors. The transaction can be accomplished in as little as two weeks, resulting in the private company becoming a public company. The transaction does not go through a review process with state and federal regulators because the public company has already completed the process. The transaction involves the private and shell company exchanging information on each other, negotiating the merger terms, and signing a share exchange agreement. At the closing the public shell company issues a substantial majority of its shares and the board control to the shareholders of the private company. The private company shareholders pay for the shell and contribute their private company shares to the shell company and the private company is now public.

Upon completion of the reverse merger, the name of the shell company is usually changed to the name of the private company. If the shell company has a trading symbol it is changed to reflect the name change. An information statement, called an 8-K, must be filed within 4 days of the closing. The 8-K describes the newly combined company, stock issued, information of new officers and directors, a full description of the business, and financial statements audited to US GAAP standards. The 8-K must disclose the same type of information that it would be required to provide in registering a class of securities under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
(See Sec Final Rule 33-8587, pdf file)

If the shell company is listed on the Bulletin board, the registered or “free trade” shares can continue to trade. The company can do a private placement immediately. To trade new shares offered by the public the newly combined public company must first register the shares with the SEC. This process takes three to four months and normally requires filing a Registration statement with the SEC under Reg. SB-2 or SB-1.

If the shell company does not have a symbol, an application for a symbol is usually made to the NASDAQ Bulletin Board. The application for a symbol requires filing a Form 211 by a market maker that is a member of the NASD. The Bulletin Board has no financial requirements. A listing will be granted if the affairs of the company are in order and the company answers the questions posed by NASDAQ.”

ED: NOTE; THIS WAS COPIED FROM THE Investors Hub Web site to give you an idea of what this kind of trading is like and how and where to find information when you are off the big board and onto the sub-penny stocks. We hope they don’t mind.

Of course, another possibility is that this is what is called a “pump and dump”, something which happens on these boards. Someone starts buying a stock to get your attention, little by little others jump on the band wagon seeing the action and when the stock has moved up a bit, the original person sells all of his stock and runs to the bank with the money, leaving a lot of folks holding the “bag”. Only generally, the stocks don’t go this high this fast with a pump and dump operation going.

Wheee! Isn’t this fun? It actually would be if we had money invested in EKWX at .0006. This way, as observers, it is a learning experience and especially learning how to contain our jealousy of someone who has that 1 million shares.

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A Great and Healthy Cookie

April 1st, 2010

I have been experimenting with cookies and wanted to share the recipe and the process that came out of those experiments.

The cookie is fantastic. If you have just a little will power you can eat and enjoy only one. If you have no will power, the cookies are gone before they cool and you are left with a heavy stomach-ache because these are heavy cookies meant to be enjoyed one at a time.

Ingredients:
2 cups organic stoneground whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking power
1 teaspoon salt – we use himalayan salt, some people use sea salt, try for the purest and most organic salt you can find
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1 and 1/2 sticks organic butter
2/3 cup organic peanut butter
2 and 1/2 cups organic turbinado sugar
2 large organic eggs
1 cup – or to your taste – organic dark chocolate chips
the same amount of roasted organic peanuts
1 teaspoon or 1 tablespoon or to your taste organic vanilla oil

I made these cookies without baking powder and they were almost rock hard. You had to really work at eating them. I tried them with baking soda and they were still rock hard. I sort of knew you add baking soda when baking with sour milk products, but I didn’t know why or what happened if you added it to other baking times and now I know. It was only when I added baking powder did I get great cookies.

I always wondered why add baking powder and I now have my answer. When adding baking soda or nothing, the cookies came out of the oven and they were great – soft, but not too soft, etc. When they cooled, however, they also hardened – really hardened – late night stand-up comic jokes hardened. When I added baking powder, they cooled and stayed nice.

There are many stories about cookies made for dunking in coffee and now I know why. They are cookies where the baker forgot to put in the baking powder, or picked up the wrong box and added baking soda without thinking.

I found a recipe for baking powder, but haven’t had the guts to try it. It is 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part baking soda. Anyone out there try this? Any feedback you want to give the cowards among us? With real experience from a friend I might take the plunge. When your grandmother dies, your experience corner is gone and you have to rely on your own hard-won experiences. My grandmother has been dead for quite a few years so i’ve had to rely on my own experimenting, except where friends came forward to share. Make peace with your family before the silence falls – you miss a lot after that happens – the stories, but mostly the life experience. You can either get it from those older than you in your family or you can reinvent the wheel over and over and over again. Why in your family, you ask? Because you share the same culture, tastes, history, DNA. We don’t want to recognize that and try to move on to – ‘my friends are my family’, but it is not true. Your family is your family.

You know, after all these years, and thousands of breakfast conversations I am beginning to understand why so many people have such negative feelings about their families. Mostly, they are trying to change class and culture and family is like a bright red blinking neon sign which makes that more difficult. Either they show up and ‘out you’, or your newly acquired way of speaking, eating, thinking, living are put in jeopardy because family comes along with the old ways and you have to struggle to maintain your new higher status. What a stunner! I guess you all knew that already. Reject your class, race, culture, history, DNA and you are forever conflicted and have heavy conflicts with those who knew you when. AH! Truth telling in a cookie recipe, but then when you reach my age you can take all kind of liberties.

Now – preheat your oven to about 325-350 degrees.
Put the butter in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment and mix on almost high speed until it begins to lighten in color and texture. Add sugar and continue to mix while the two blend and become sort of like whipped cream. Then add the peanut butter and mix until all are combined.

In a separate bowl put in flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon and mix with a large spoon, picking up a spoonful of the flour mixture and pouring it back into the bowl over and over again to let a lot of air get into the mix. I don’t believe in sifting. You have to do that with non-organic white flour to get the pesticides and the little lumps out before using it – you know, the tiny little lumps in the flour and the black flecks which are the remains of the bugs which were killed in the flour by the pesticides when the flour was in the Silos – where it got an infestation of bugs – which were killed off with the pesticides, left in the flour, with the pesticide residue, to deteriorate and are now the little black specks and little white flour covered lumps you have to sift out before using. Since you are using stone-ground organic whole wheat flour you don’t have to worry about that.

Back to your mixer – once the sugar and peanut butter have been added – crack your organic eggs and add them to the mixer one at a time. Don’t mix too much after adding the eggs.

Gradually add the flour mixture, turn your mixer to low and mix only until the flour is incorporated into the cookie dough. Add the chocolate chips, peanuts and vanilla, again mixing only until they are well distributed. This is the crunch time for baking – too much mixing and you get a tough product – so be careful at this point.

Refrigerate the dough until it is firm – or until you are ready for freshly baked cookies. You can bake these all at once, or you can bake them as you want freshly baked cookies. The dough will last in the refrigerator a couple days. Impress your friends, bake cookies after they have arrived in just a little over ten minutes – the time it takes to make tea and put together a pretty serving tray to gossip over.

We use them for afternoon tea. They are substantial enough to bridge the gap from lunch to dinner without eating too many. The problem is, whenever I eat them I don’t want tea I want hot chocolate. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly, or rice and gravy.

To bake you can have either small bite-sized cookies or larger ones. For small cookies, take a teaspoonful of dough, roll it in your hands to make a ball and put it on a greased baking sheet. The size of the dough you take out of the bowl and roll is dependent upon the size of cookie you want as a final product. They will spread a little when baking, but not much.

These are very rich cookies so you don’t want to make them too large, most people won’t be able to eat a large cookie and they will waste your hard work and hard-earned money by eating a piece and leaving the rest.

Bake these about 12-13 minutes. Don’t bake them much longer than that or the bottoms will burn. They will be soft to the touch when you take them out of the oven and look as though they are not thoroughly baked. Ignore that – they are – these are tricky little cookies. To get a really good final product the baking time is the most crucial stage for these cookies.

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A Change to Your Lemon Tea Bread Recipe

March 31st, 2010

by: A former guest

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

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

Thanks,

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Stock Market Talk Over Breakfast

March 15th, 2010

I love those stock market conversations. This time, I decided to buy the stock and make a few dollars (hopefully). I hope you forgive me for buying the stock before telling you about it – since I only bought a few shares it certainly hasn’t affected the market. I am not really a big spender, the stock I bought cost $.1915/share for this company which mines molybdenum. I know nothing about molybdenum, but that has never stopped me before.

The stock we talked about and that I bought is Avanti Mining (AVNMF). The same person who told us about this stock several months ago came back and we had a more in-depth conversation. When he was here before, I was a little shy about grilling him on his stock interests, but this time I found my aggressiveness and gave him the third degree.

He found the stock through www.stockhouse.com, a web site which is about American, Canadian and Australian stocks, among others. You can find information on Stockhouse about stocks you can’t find other places – like its currently traded price, press releases, comments and a blog hooked to each stock where people, who are buying the company, tell you what they know. They are mostly very inexpensive stocks.

You can do many things on Stockhouse, but if you want to know more, you should check it out yourselves. The breakfast conversation centered around the column and newsletter written by Thomas Calandra. Calandra co-founded ‘CBS Market Watch’. He has been around quite a while and knows his way around buying and selling stocks. Our bed & breakfast guest follows Calandra’s ‘Ticker Trax’, which is a newsletter which comes out on a regular basis, which has made lots of money for its subscribers. It is mostly about gold, silver, molybdenum, uranium, Biotechnology, Diagnostic Substances, drug manufacturers, etc. The stocks in Ticker Trax are low in price, so most of us can buy a nice amount. I should also tell you it is not a free newsletter, you have to subscribe and I don’t know the cost per year. You might check that out too. I think the address is www.tickertrax.com or you might try www.ThomCalandra.com. You can go on Stockhouse.com and get a free copy of the newsletter to see what its like. It will not be the latest issue because he saves that for his paying customers and rightfully so.

Calandra checks out all of these companies, follows their management and keeps up with the health of the company. His track record is impressive. I used to follow and subscribe to another newsletter written by John Embry, who was known as THE person to go to about gold miners and other miners, but he retired and I have been left hanging out trying to decide what to do so we were very interested in knowing what our bed & breakfast guest thought about Thom Calandra since he seems to be Embry’s heir-apparent.

The last stock we talked about on Bettina’s Blog was Ford Motor Co. It was selling about $11/share at the time – check out the blog – and it is now selling about $13/share. WE have also told you about other stocks which were the topic of breakfast conversations. At some point, I will do another update on what has happened to those stocks. In the meantime, you can re-read those blogs and see for yourself what happened to the stocks our bed & breakfast guests discuss.

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HELP! Google has kidnapped our web-site!

March 9th, 2010

Google is going crazy with its world control.

What did I do? I didn’t buy a domain name from Google so they could move my blog, I was happy with the domain-seller and server company with whom I do business. I didn’t want to give up my server company to allow Google to be the server company and I didn’t want to buy my domain name from Google. When I tried to navigate their new system for FTP published Google Blogs the Bettina web-site went away and Bettina’s Blog took over the site.

What to do? There is no way to talk to anyone from Google. They have ignored my emails, which have been sent to everyone we could reach at Google – including the new addresses for those supposedly ‘helping’ in problems like this.

In the meantime, we have to find someone to pay a lot of money to so we can re-establish our web-site. In the meantime, our business is being negatively affected BIG TIME!

Take care people – Google came after us in the morning – they will come after you in the afternoon.

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Grandmother’s Wisdom

March 4th, 2010

We live in a society where there is much discussion about companies – especially banks – which are too big to fail.

Is that a deflection away from the fact that actually, we live in a society where a reigning truth is today businesses can be too small to succeed. If they look successful, the load put on their backs by large businesses increases. No one or two people do this, it is in the structure!

That is sad because small businesses are the engines which create jobs.

Boston has a group formed – the inheritors of the old “Vault” – to talk about job creation. All huge businesses – no small business executives involved and no minorities. Is that to discuss job creation and do something real about it or to blow smoke in our eyes so they can continue building the wall where large corporations are on one side – where the sun shines, buildings are beautiful, money plentiful, executives very wealthy, all owners of private jets – and small businesses are on the other – where the work is hard and never ending, the stress is high and getting higher, their resources are ripped and used by those on the other side of the wall and etc? Hmmmmmmmmm, where have we seen that model?

The last incarnation of the “Vault” had a very questionable track record – this one doesn’t look as though it is going to outperform its predecessor. I suspect there will be several more such groups forming around the U. S. When you live many years you begin to put things together which you didn’t have either the wisdom or experience to do in your younger years. So many carrots attached to very strong strings – why? To quiet those who don’t like what they see and might cause a ruckus? And those carrots are unanimously withdrawn when society’s anger begins to subside. True change could have avoided what we have been through these part couple years.

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An Update on Bread Baking – Bettina Style

March 4th, 2010

We are unbelievably delighted with our bread baking. Finally, after many years, we have mastered the art of freshly baked bread every morning without getting up at 3am. We mastered this art not in the process of trying to accomplish what we thought was an unattainable feat, but in the process of trying to make great organic croissants.

Our latest breakfast experiment is organic croissants. So far, it has not been successful, but on our way to croissants, we’ve discovered other wonderful bread treats.

We are only willing to use organic stone ground whole wheat flour and everything else has to be real, whole, organic food. We’ve been given many “secrets” to a successful croissant, but they all have made us question even eating croissants. We’ve heard about using everything from a ‘starter,’ to very expensive kitchen equipment. The healthiest suggestion was a Yogurt starter, but when we read the ingredients we couldn’t pronounce some so we dropped that possibility. When we checked out the kitchen equipment there was aluminum in crucial places, so we will continue the effort without those suggestions – and you know we won’t give up.

Our ‘accidental discoveries’ on the way to a successful, organic, whole wheat croissant have been exciting and exceptionally delicious. Our latest discovery is a wonderful bun which can be used for hamburgers; a breakfast biscuit of any shape you desire; a wrap for ‘pigs in the blanket’ or beef hotdogs for those who won’t eat pork; cinnamon buns, which are a little bit of heaven; the best monkey bread you can find and more. Our ‘new’ dough discovery has many applications, however, if you want a great slice of very tasty, nutritious, substantial bread, the original Bettina Bread recipe can’t be beat – especially if you use organic apple juice for the liquid and molasses for a little sweetener.

As we experimented trying to make croissants we mixed half organic whole wheat flour with half organic whole wheat pastry flour. In addition we used one stick of organic butter for the fat in the Bettina Bread recipe. We used organic apple juice for liquid and organic maple syrup for a sweetener. Once we’ve been through the first steps of making bread and have reached the point where the dough is mixed and ready for its first rising, we roll out the bread dough with a rolling pin, cut a stick of organic butter into pats and put them on 1/2 the rolled out dough. We folded 1/2 dough without butter over the 1/2 dough with butter and continued to fold the dough in halves until it reached a small packet. We then rolled that out with a rolling pin – refolded the dough – rolled it out again, refolded it again and wrapped it tightly with a clean cotton towel and put the resulting packet in the refrigerator. We did this in the middle of the day. So at night, before bed, we re-rolled the dough, folded it into a small square packet again, covered it and put it in the refrigerator. If we were up to it we would re-roll and re-fold the dough a couple time before wrapping and putting it in the refrigerator. We found that the dough rises, even in the refrigerator, so it was always pushing hard against its cotton cover. Some people use Saran Wrap for this, but we weren’t happy with that.

The next morning, we unwrapped the dough and cut off the amount of dough we wanted to use for breakfast rolls, rolled out the remainder with the rolling pin, folded it into a small square and put it back into the refrigerator.

Keeping this going – we re-rolled the dough at night before going to bed and the next morning, took off the piece we wanted to use for breakfast rolls, re-rolled the rest, covered it, put it in the refrigerator, etc. You get the picture. There is always dough in the refrigerator if you would like freshly baked bread, pizza, etc. with very little work and time spent. It would take anywhere from 1/2 hour to 2 hours for the dough to rise and that didn’t depend upon the dough, but upon our time once we shaped the dough into its final form. If we didn’t have much time, 1/2 hour gave us a beautifully risen sheet of breakfast biscuits which took about 15-20 minutes to bake. If we were busy and didn’t get back to the rising dough for an hour or more it was still in great shape.

We did find that organic yeast was the best to use if we didn’t want bread dough which would smell like ammonia if we let it rise too long. The other stuff we had to watch carefully or we would have to throw out the half-made bread and start over again. One day we will try keeping the dough going using some of the old dough to serve as the rising agent for the dough being newly made, but that’s another year and another blog. We are feeling good about all of this bread baking, but not that good!

As we saw that we would run out of dough the next morning, we started another recipe of dough so it would continue being available. We used the dough for three mornings before we ran out so we don’t know what would happen to the dough if you kept it in the refrigerator longer than that.

The pizza we made from the dough adding tomatoes, parmesan cheese and whatever else we had in the refrigerator which fit, was unbelievably fantastic! It was so good a couple bed and breakfast guests who saw us make the pizza the night before and tasted it, requested pizza for lunch and came home from their all-day business meeting to eat pizza. That isn’t something we normally do or encourage, but we loved every minute of preparing that pizza and enjoying lunch with guests.

That’s our story! Let us know what happens if you try this, or some of your experiences making croissants. We are seeking information to make great organic croissants with whole wheat flour. We clearly don’t know how to do that!

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HELP! Google has kidnapped our web-site!

Grandmother’s Wisdom

An Update on Bread Baking – Bettina Style

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