Miscellaneous Mondays

In the course of my week, I find lots of interesting tidbits, facts, columns, newspaper articles, etc, etc., that I want to share.  Rather than scatter these items throughout my blog posts, I decided to have  Miscellaneous Monday. 

  

Today's Miscellaneous:

Hilarious column : In the dark about light fixture rules. For more on Marni, here is her blog. 

Not another chemical ingredient we have to worry about............NOW its oxybenzone in sunscreens.  And it is on my hypoallergenic, unscented sunscreen label.  It is probably in my makeup and day cream, too, but the print on the container is so tiny.   

I learned in the local paper today that the triangle area of North Carolina has the third largest collection of modernist houses in America.  The hundreds of midcentury gems are here thanks to the Modernist influence of the NC State University College of Design over the past 61 years.  So what exactly is a modernist house?I found this youtube video, and lo and behold, these are the houses that were the 'fancy' houses when I was a kid/teen.  In fact, my nephew owns one of these modernist homes and he has a rock garden in his foyer.

In a Women's Health magazine, I saw this exercise boost from Celebrity trainer Bob Harper:

• 
  
  stand with feet together
• 
  
   take one step to the right, bending your right knee while keeping your left leg straight
• 
  
  as you lunge to the side, twist your torso and try to touch the right side of your lower back with both hands
• 
  
  return to standing position and do this on other side
• 
  
  repeat this move while the water is boiling for your pasta (that's my addition)

Did you plan fish for dinner, then realize at 7 pm that it is still in the freezer?  You can cook it from frozen.  Go to CookItFrozen.com and see how.

Food Shopping help:  this article was featured on my computer news feed today.  We all pretty much know these things, but it helps to have it all in one place and the reasons expanded.  Eight Packaged Foods to Avoid Buying.

And here is a good article on supermarket tips.  Most of them I knew, but it is always nice to find out how well-informed one is!!!

This week, Kathleen Purvis, local food writer, wrote about not cooking in the summer. She described a raw asparagus salad, a raw zucchini ribbon salad, and the thawed frozen pea salad from Mario Batali's cookbook "Molto Gusto" . All three are going onto my summer menus.

Then there was this idea, using a teeny bit of cooking, from food blogger Cheri Wiles. She blanches her asparagus and marinates it in the fridge with minced garlic, olive oil, and sesame oil.

 In the Parade magazine of Sunday's newspaper I read the column of Pulitzer Prize winning Connie Schultz.  So I googled to find more of her articles.  I love this one on Scrabble.  Personally, I am not at all competitive, so I play scrabble online, by myself.  I tend to only make 3 and 4 letter words and anybody at all competitive will not play with me.....

Also in Parade Magazine this week was Homer Simpson's Grilling Tips  My favorite tip is that a pound of ground meat really wakes up a veggie burger.  Also, Homer does not know what leftovers are!!