All posts by NerdMom

headlines

BounceBacks: Should Mom and Dad bail them out?

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There was an article in the AP about people losing jobs and money and their parents bailing them out. They specifically talking about 40-50 year old kids. What do you think about this? These parents are putting their retirements in jeopardy for kids that are old enough to fend for themselves. Now I am not saying that because money is more important than people but it will create a bigger financial problem. Will the kids they use their retirements to help be able to help them when they retire in just a few years? I don’t think they could even if they wanted to. If you take that money and invest it into someone’s life I don’t think they could turn it around to make enough money or stability to support their parents.

Dr. Helen brought up a really good point on this issue also.

If their kids are self-centered enough to take their parent’s retirement from them, will they really help the parent later on down the road or will they be more like this woman, who wrote to the Huffington Post complaining that her mom was a pain in the ass?

She went on to mention a book, Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream. I went over and read a really interesting write up on it. It just proves that it is the determination to support yourself that counts regardless if it is the standard you dreamed of. I think it is our belief that we deserve everything regardless of anything else that is screwing up our economy and might screw up the older generation’s retirement. Hopefully we will do a better job teaching our kids about money, self-reliance and living humbly (relative to our income) than has been done with the previous generations.

(HT: Dr. Helen)

Food

Hamantaschen

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Since Purim is tomorrow, I thought I would post my Hamantaschen recipe (or the one I use;). You make a cookie dough, then the filling dough, then you assemble. That is how this recipe will be formatted.

Cookie Dough:

Ingredients

2 cups AP Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
1/2 cup Sugar
8 tbl (1 Stick) Unsalted Butter, cold and cut into small cubes
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbl Lemon Zest

Process

Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Work butter into dry ingredients (with forks or a pastry blender) until a consistent pebbly texture. The add the eggs one at a time while mixing with a pastry blender. Then add the lemon zest and form into a ball. Then refrigerator for 1 hour.

Poppy Seed (Mohn) Filling

Ingredients

1 cup Poppy Seeds
1/2 cup Honey
1/2 cup Milk
1 tbl Lemon Juice
2 tsp Lemon Zest
1/2 cup Raisins

Process

Mix it poppy seeds, honey and milk together in a saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. The mixture will thicken. Then stir in remaining ingredients and set aside to cool. Take care to not over cook because it will cause a dry filling and therefore a dry cookie.

Assembly

Ingredients

Cookie Dough
Filling
1 Egg beaten with 1 tbl of water

Process

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Then roll out dough to about 1/8th an inch. I roll between 2 pieces of parchment, wax paper or silicon liners from my cookie sheet. Then cut dough into 3 or 4 inch circles depending on size of you cutter or glass. Place a tsp of filling in the middle and fold dough around it into the shape of a triangle. Then brush dough and bake about 20 minutes. They will brown when they are done.

Makes about 30.

Technorati Tags: Hamantaschen, Purim

tech

Best Buy Gift Card Giveaway

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Best Buy is trying to earn the good will of all the people who bought the HD-DVD players from them before February 23rd since HD-DVD so totally lost out to Blu-Ray. This going to cost them $10 million but I think it is a great idea at twice the price. Anything that will win over early adapters like this is worth its weight in gold. Think about it, they are paying out $50 to people who were willing to spend up to $500 on a player (that isn’t counting any disk purchase). These are the target market. They are automatically mailing out cards, starting in May, to people who purchased and are on the loyalty program or purchased on-line. Not one of those? Then just go into the store with a proof of purchase.

Does this rid the HD-DVD purchasers of the ill taste in their mouth over this issue? No, but it does help stop them from assigning blame to Best Buy.

Brilliant, just brilliant!

(HT: Motley Fool)

Technorati Tags: HD-DVD, Best Buy

Food

Top Chef 3/19: Live Blog

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I will date the episodes based on when they are first shown (I Tivo is and watch it when ever I want;). I am doing this in the “as it comes to me” format so forgive lack of flow.

So the contestants had 30 minutes at the farmers market in Chicago. Was anyone else surprised at how rude Mark was at the market? Maybe they all were but the show showed him. So it didn’t surprise me went he left his bag behind and no one called out to him or caught up with him. As someone who shops with kids and everything, I have had people at markets make sure I have my stuff. It would shock me to see a vendor with it on his wrist and not call out to me but, when you don’t treat the vendor with respect?? I was also shocked that Whylie gave Mark credit for working around a forgotten item. But I saw Mark as complaining so that food must have been really go to win the Quick Fire.

(23 minutes in)Team Bear worrying about decor at the store? Focus on the food!

(About 25 minute in)Erik not knowing about all the cool tech toys? Watch more Food Network, I know about immersion circulators and I am a home cook.

(26 minutes in) Valerie is really crowding the pan, I don’t think those blinis will turn out for immediate consumption much less transport. They already look to thick and a little over done for transport.

(27:27 minute in) Those are nasty looking Stuffed Mushrooms. While food can taste good even if they look bad, I won’t even try it if I don’t know the person cooking. That would be a taste risk I wouldn’t try;).

(28 minutes in)Wow, it looked like no one was ready for time to be up.

(34 minutes in) Antonia is totally separating herself from Valerie’s blinis but she was willing to jump in and help fix Stephanie’s dish with her own idea.

(36 minutes in) What was that penguin on the table made from?

(37:20 minute in) I want that Moroccan Lamb Meatball.

(38 minute in) I think Nikki offered that Mushroom just to put Dale up for that bad dish. It would have been easy enough to just tell the judges that they got pulled.

(50 minutes in) It is like no one thought that a “garnish” would effect the taste. It was pecorino cheese, in addition to the cheese flavor there is a lot of salt in that.

(50 minutes in) Is it obvious to anyone else that this batch is going to fight for themselves in judging?

Technorati Tags: Top Chef, Reality TV, Food TV

Food

Food TV

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For those of you who don’t know that I love food television, especially reality food tv. So I have decided to blog on it here. Especially since I tend to get some great technique from the shows. So stay tuned!