Or Tea In Your Milk?
A British scientist has stirred up controversy with his claim that adding milk to your tea before adding the boiling water results in a more flavorful brew, especially in areas plagued with hard water.
Prof. Alan Mackie of Leeds University claims that minerals in hard water “prevent flavour compounds from forming.”
The article in The Independent goes on to describe the science behind Mackie’s claim, which I won’t bore you with here. But I tried his theory, and I’m here to tell you what I found.
I live in Rochester, New York. Our water is moderately hard, but not enough…
How The Pandemic Has Destroyed Daily Routines
My good friend Kirk paces. His friend Rick sits on the couch all day, watching television. Mostly 2020’s reruns. I write on my blogs and here on Medium and watch old NCIS reruns on Netflix. My landlord/roommate Ed watches a lot of YouTube, mostly documentaries about ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece.
Rick has a steady job, although I’m not sure how steady is an appropriate word to describe a job that has him awaiting a daily or nightly email letting him know if he has a job from day to day.
Ed is in a slightly better position: his language…
"The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans."
From "The Wild Swans At Coole"
William Butler Years
Windfall Lake is one of those hidden gems in Juneau, Alaska. Or at least it was hidden when I lived there. Since then, it's become more popular after the US Forest Service installed a cabin on the lake shore.
My adventure began one afternoon when I hiked the trail to the lake, pitched my tent, and prepared for an…
And It’s Ruining My Writing
I used to write three or four stories a week on Medium. Now I’m lucky if I write one. Part of the problem is the isolation. I don’t have reliable transportation, and the bus system here seems to be run at the convenience of the bus system, rather than the convenience of its riders.
My landlord is kind enough to take me grocery shopping when I need to go, but if I want to go anywhere else, the bus runs once an hour, meaning a simple trip to the library is an all-day adventure.
So as Duke Ellington sang, “Don’t…
But Really, It’s So Much More.
I enjoy cooking. Whether it’s Tex-Mex, Italian, Indian, or whatever, it’s all grist for my mill. The nine cooking apps on my iPhone testify to that.
But there’s a problem with all of them: They all cater to white tastes.
Did you know that there’s even a Chinese cooking school in San Francisco’s Chinatown that teaches Chinese chefs how to cook to American (read: mostly white) tastes?
EatOkra, by developer Anthony Edwards, is an app that lets you find Black-owned restaurants and food trucks in dozens of cities around the country. …
I Decided To Give It A Try
Photo by Arseniy Kapran on Unsplash
I think I was five years old when I had my first sip of tea. I don’t remember if my mother gave it to me, or if it was my Nana, as they were both devotees of the magic brew. In a way it was almost ironic: my mother was sold on it’s benefits,but it was her mother-in-law, my Nana, who definitely believed in tea’s blessings.
Mom’s remedy for everything was tea and toast. Got the chicken pox? Tea and toast. I came down with the measles? Tea and toast, perhaps with a dash…
I’m Not Crazy, You’re Crazy
Forget Roswell. Forget Area 51
This is the truth behind aliens from space.
When it comes to alien conspiracies, there are two kinds of people. And to be clear, I’m not taking about aliens from other countries. I’m taking about real, bona fide extraterrestrial creatures that have come to earth in order to conquer us.
Yes, those aliens.
When it comes to them, there two kinds of people:
Group 1. These are the people who worry that some day aliens will arrive — unnoticed and unannounced — in Washington, D.C., and take over the government. These people are generally harmless. To be sure, Donald Trump…
What Do You Use Yours For?
Photo by Author, iPhone 12 Pro Max. Post-production: Graphite, Kompressor, Snapseed.
I forget the exact date, but I know what I was doing at the time: I was sitting through a rwo-week training session prior to being part of the original Apple iPhone Support Helpdesk. It was harder than you might think, especially when you realize that Apple’s obsession with secrecy meant we didn’t get to see a photo or even a drawing of an actual iPhone until the night it was released.
But as we learned more and more about its capabilities, I told out instructor that Apple had…
Fuck You, George Bailey: It’s A Miserable Life
Winter is bad enough when you suffer from depression, but when you add Seasonal Affective Disorder, PTSD, and a couple of deaths in the family, it becomes an ordeal.
My mother died in December, 32 years ago; I lost my father in February 3 years ago. When my mother died, the period between Thanksgiving and January became the longest and darkest period of the year. My father’s death merely extended the season by a month.
For years after my mother died I couldn’t get through December without increasing my antidepressants, my anti-anxiety meds, and the number of visits to my…
