By Chris Ross Friday, January 14, 2011, 08:29 PM EST
Ever since a less-than-successful biscotti recipe was published in this column several months ago, I've been feeling that I owe readers a tried-and-true version. So, I asked my colleague Maria Desiderata Montana, a freelance food writer and a very talented cook, to share one of her favorite biscotti recipes with us.
Montana makes these every year during the holiday season.
We've been there and worn that for 2010 ... now what's ahead for 2011? It turns out that plenty of professionals have jobs to tell us about the "next big thing." Anne Mack is one of those futuristic wizards by directing "trendspotting" at JWT. Headquartered in New York, JWT is a global network with more than 200 offices in over 90 countries — employing nearly 10,000 marketing professionals who stay on the cutting edge of "what's happening" in the world of fashion.
In case you’re not familiar with our name, we are a leading publisher of healthcare, nutrition, parenting, and cookbooks. (You may have requested previous titles of ours through The Lisa Ekus Group.)
Our authors are the most knowledgeable ‘go to’ experts on a variety of subjects including everything from parenting to diabetes, whole grains to medicinal herbs, and they can even tell you how to manage Crohn’s and Colitis and plan nutritious vegan or vegetarian meals. Several of our books have won prominent awards including the Gourmand World Cookbook Award, the International Association of Culinary Professional Award, and the Cordon D’Or Culinary International Academy Award.
Sometimes the best Christmas presents come a little early. For Judith Hugg, her biggest dream was signed, sealed, and delivered this Christmas season—a book deal with one of the largest book publishers in the nation.
To See the Sky sees beyond the difficulties of daily experience to the loving God who created us all and loves each one of us more than we can possibly grasp--and then learning to listen when “the heavens declare the glory of God.” The “seeing” is done with the heart and soul, not just the eyes. It is a story of growing up with a loving but mentally ill mother, an angry father who was trying to protect and learn to love his children, and the interventions, large and small, of God’s powerful kindness through His Word, through nature, and through experiences of hope, love and grace along the way.
By Chris Ross Friday, December 24, 2010, 08:14 AM EST
As Christmas draws nearer, our thoughts turn to baking, among other things.
If making cookies or participating in a cookie exchange is in your plans over the next few weeks, four new cookbooks can help. Or, one of these might be a nice gift for the talented — or aspiring — baker in your family.
By Chris Ross Thursday, December 23, 2010, 08:12 AM EST
Stacey Chiang wrote in, saying she loves going to Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes (the name of the company's restaurants outside Southern California). She's especially fond of the Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup but can only get it one month a year, during the chain's Lemon Month in April. She asked us to get the recipe, so that she can have the soup year-round.
OK. Black Friday is a blur and Cyber Monday is behind us, but who has time to relax, get cozy and fire up the Kindle? Probably not many of us until after the holidays, but you can still send the gift of a stylish "book" to all your fashionable friends who love to devour the latest treatises on trends (and yes, we know they love to show these books off on their coffee tables, too!) — so much for those e-books, right?
Whether you're going to a big party or just hanging out with family and friends, this holiday season is the time when dressing up takes on a festive fashionable flair. It's time to slink into velvet and wrap up in fur. It's time to have fun and get into the spirit of the season with style.
Here are the exclamation points of fashion — the top holiday trend picks from the experts at JCPenney.
By: Alieta Eck, MD,
www.aapsonline.org
Will you trust the government to keep all of your personal medical information private and are they even capable of this? With Wikileaks, a master hacker was able to bribe a disgruntled government worker to help him access millions of very sensitive documents and e-mails and send them into cyberspace for all to see. The US government is embarrassed but worse yet, our national security and the lives of our agents overseas may be jeopardized. So if top-secret documents are now accessible to unauthorized viewers, what would stop this same hacker from putting all of your personal medical records out there?
When I mentioned to Maria Liberati that I didn’t follow recipes, that I was a sense of smell cooker, she smiled. This renowned chef said that most of the recipes handed down through the ages were done by mothers and grandmothers that only knew to put some of this and some of that into the item being cooked. This is part of the way that Maria cooks and her ease with recipes and ingredients is evident throughout her latest book.
This is a collection of Tweets/Twitters or whatever Denis wants to call it. His venture into the world of 140 characters or less led him to this mini book publication. It’s fast reading and a laugh a page. A redeeming part of his efforts is that a portion of the proceeds will go to his charity – The Leary Firefighters Foundation.
By Post Saturday, November 27, 2010, 07:04 AM EST
~ It’s as American as Apple Pie, and It’s Back ~
UPPER SADDLE RIVER, N.J., Nov. 22, 2010 – Simplicity has a long tradition in America. From the Puritans, Quakers and Shakers to the author Henry David Thoreau through the Craftsman style to the mid-century modern of the 1930s to early 1960s, simplicity has been celebrated. It’s back today, not just in sleek urban lofts populated with someone’s grandmother’s Mies van der Rohe furniture, but in homes across the America. It’s not minimalism necessarily; it doesn’t celebrate the absence of pieces.
The Conservative Way Forward on Health Care
By: Richard Amerling, MD,
http://www.aapsonline.org/
The landslide Republican victory, in taking the House and electing some strong conservatives to the Senate, can be interpreted as a mandate to rein in government spending, and specifically to repeal ObamaCare, as these issues were clearly behind the large turnout. There is still a very real possibility the Supreme Court will find the “individual mandate” to buy private insurance unconstitutional. If this provision is thrown out, it’s hard to see how the law survives, since the mandate is needed to finance it.
It is fitting to review
The Shan: Refugees Without A Camp by Bernice Koehler Johnson at a time when Myanmar (Burma) is a topic of current interest. Mrs. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition to the Burmese military government. Mrs. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had been under strict house arrest since 1989. She was recently sentenced to three years of hard labor in prison after being accused of violating her parole by harboring a man who swam across a lake to gain entry to her house.
By Post Saturday, November 13, 2010, 01:06 PM EST
We all know we need to eat our veggies, especially with the new wave of processed food companies touting how their sauces and canned pastas now contain a full day’s allotment of vegetables -- but Iva Young thinks that’s just a bit deceiving.
“It’s a tricky definition of terms,” said Young, author of Healthy Mom (
www.ivayoung.com). “It’s really not as healthy to eat processed foods to begin with, but for them to say that using vegetables as fillers somehow makes processed foods healthy is disingenuous, at best.
The battle over America's Judeo-Christian identity is heating up, and at least one author isn't taking the fight lying down. A powerful new book from bestselling author Brad O'Leary put the lie to secularist claims that Christianity isn't under an intense attack. "America's War on Christianity" is a timely and expertly documented expos that takes you deep inside the battle to save our nation's Judeo-Christian heritage, and with it, our liberty. From attacks on Christian holidays, to government efforts to stamp-out homeschooling, to the courtroom assault on Christianity and free speech, O'Leary leaves no stone unturned and lays the radical secularist agenda bare for all to see.
By Post Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 08:11 AM EST
UPPER SADDLE RIVER, N.J., Nov. 5, 2010 – Decorating for newborn or a child on the way can be one of the most exciting tasks. While satisfying, parents can often be overwhelmed by choices. They don’t need to be. It’s all about baby steps. Here are some tips from Sally Morse, Director of Creative Services for Hunter Douglas and the design expert featured on “Ask Sally & Jen” at www.hunterdouglas.com:
1. The best place to start is with choosing a color scheme – pink, blue, yellow – any color or color palette can work, as long as it suits you.
With holiday parties fast approaching, panic can set in when we think about what to wear. The dress code for the social scene is no longer "one dress fits all," but that perfect party ensemble is easy to put together if you follow a few guidelines, according to the editors at Harper's Bazaar magazine. They have put together a new book, "Harper's Bazaar Fashion: Your Guide to Personal Style," by Lisa Armstrong (Hearst Books, November 2010, $24.95).
Now that Fall is here, it will not be long before the temperatures get cold and the snow starts. That makes this a good time to get your car ready for winter. Here are some tips for winterizing your car;
Despite what the pessimists and naysayers would have us believe, America is a great nation in which we’re all privileged to live. David and Andrea Reiser explain what the true nature of patriotism is—and how you can infuse your daily life with civic pride.
Patriotism. It’s a thornier word than it used to be. To some, it conjures visions of flag-waving and parades. To many others, though, “patriotism” feels uncomfortably close to arrogance and intolerance—even xenophobia and bigotry. Yes, in the push for political correctness, we’ve somehow gotten the idea that we can’t be proud of our own country without offending other cultures—or without becoming cogs in an increasingly soulless governmental machine. However, say David and Andrea Reiser, neither is true.
