Quick and Easy 15-Minute Sautéed Chicken Breasts with Mustard and Tarragon

Prep and Cook Time: 15 minutes—[that said I always have trouble getting this right—haven’t tried it yet—and I usually skip the garlic]. From the newsletter of The World’s Healthiest Foods, which I enjoy because of the good research and documentation, and a minimum of trendy opinion.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion cut in half and sliced medium thick
• 5 medium cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 3 TBS Dijon mustard
• 1 TBS + 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 2 tsp honey
• 1 TBS chopped fresh tarragon (or 1 tsp dried tarragon)
• 2 TBS chopped fresh parsley (or 2 tsp dried parsley)
• salt and white pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Slice onion and press garlic and let sit for 5-10 minutes to bring out their hidden health benefits.
2. Heat 1 TBS broth in a 10-12 inch stainless steel skillet. Healthy Sauté onion in broth over medium heat for 2 minutes.
3. While onions are sautéing, cut chicken into pieces. Add chicken pieces and continue to sauté for another 3 minutes, stirring frequently to seal chicken on all sides. Add garlic and continue to sauté for another minute.
4. Add mustard, 1/2 cup broth, and honey. Mix thoroughly and simmer uncovered for about 7-8 minutes on medium-high heat stirring occasionally to cook chicken evenly. This will also reduce sauce.
5. While chicken is cooking, chop herbs and add at end with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4

Serving Suggestion: Serve with

• Mediterranean Swiss Chard

New exercise suit

Oleg Cassini from Volunteers of America.  $5. A zipper pocket in the back of the jacket for jogging, I suppose. Very comfortable and beautifully made. Perfect for the slightly chilly spring days, or walking the lakefront at Lakeside on early summer mornings. Now 141 down from 168 in December. Leg pain is gone; some clothes moved to storage.

I love cabbage

I like it raw, or grilled in a little butter, or shredded on lettuce for some crunch in a salad.  I really enjoy coleslaw, either plain or with apples or raisins in a sweet dressing. 

Look at this list of pesticides for cabbage found in lab research. But before you say “eeyu” and swear off cabbage, these are pesticides which the cabbage plant produces.  99.99% of all the pesticides we eat are produced by the plant itself. Plants produce toxins to protect themselves against fungi, insects, and animal predators.  Tens of thousands of these chemicals have been found and tested, and each plant is different.

Glucosinolates: 2-propenyl glucosinolate (sinigrin),* 3-methylthiopropyl glucosinolate, 3-methylsulfinylpropyl glucosinolate, 3-butenyl
glucosinolate, 2-hydroxy-3-butenyl glucosinolate, 4-methylthiobutyl glucosinolate, 4-methylsulfinylbutyl glucosinolate,
4-methylsulfonylbutyl glucosinolate, benzyl glucosinolate, 2-phenylethyl glucosinolate, propyl glucosinolate, butyl glucosinolate
Indole glucosinolates and related indoles: 3-indolylmethyl glucosinolate (glucobrassicin), 1-methoxy-3-indolylmethyl glucosinolate
(neoglucobrassicin), indole-3-carbinol,* indole-3-acetonitrile, bis(3-indolyl)methane
Isothiocyanates and goitrin: allyl isothiocyanate,* 3-methylthiopropyl isothiocyanate, 3-methylsulfinylpropyl isothiocyanate, 3-butenyl
isothiocyanate, 5-vinyloxazolidine-2-thione (goitrin), 4-methylthiobutyl isothiocyanate, 4-methylsulfinylbutyl isothiocyanate,
4-methylsulfonylbutyl isothiocyanate, 4-pentenyl isothiocyanate, benzyl isothiocyanate, phenylethyl isothiocyanate
Cyanides: 1-cyano-2,3-epithiopropane, 1-cyano-3,4-epithiobutane, 1-cyano-3,4-epithiopentane, threo-1-cyano-2-hydroxy-3,4-epithiobutane,
erythro-1-cyano-2-hydroxy-3,4-epithiobutane, 2-phenylpropionitrile, allyl cyanide,* 1-cyano-2-hydroxy-3-butene, 1-cyano-3-
methylsulfinylpropane, 1-cyano-4-methylsulfinylbutane
Terpenes: menthol, neomenthol, isomenthol, carvone*
Phenols: 2-methoxyphenol, 3-caffoylquinic acid (chlorogenic acid),* 4-caffoylquinic acid,* 5-caffoylquinic acid (neochlorogenic acid),*
4-(p-coumaroyl)quinic acid, 5-(p-coumaroyl)quinic acid, 5-feruloylquinic acid

“ 27 natural pesticides that are rodent carcinogens are present
in the following foods: anise, apple, apricot, banana, basil,
broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cantaloupe, caraway,
carrot, cauliflower, celery, cherries, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa,
coffee, collard greens, comfrey herb tea, currants, dill,
eggplant, endive, fennel, grapefruit juice, grapes, guava,
honey, honeydew melon, horseradish, kale, lentils, lettuce,
mango, mushrooms, mustard, nutmeg, orange juice, parsley,
parsnip, peach, pear, peas, black pepper, pineapple, plum,
potato, radish, raspberries, rosemary, sesame seeds, tarragon,
tea, tomato, and turnip. Thus, it is probable that almost
every fruit and vegetable in the supermarket contains natural
plant pesticides that are rodent carcinogens. The levels of
these 27 rodent carcinogens in the above plants are commonly
thousands of times higher than the levels of synthetic
pesticides.”

Pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables are minuscule compared with the cancer-causing potential of some natural chemicals in plants.

Psoriatic Arthritis—light after darkness by guest blogger Sarah Terry

Sarah has PsA (Psoriatic Arthritis) and a year or so ago I visited her in a nursing home after a terrible flare up. Today on Facebook Sarah wrote about her long and successful climb back to encourage those new to the disease, but I believe her message is also an encouragement for those facing other health challenges.

“Today I had an appointment with my rheumy, who I have come to like very much. When we first met last January 2014, I was in a wheelchair, it was 23 degrees below zero outside and I was in so much pain, I could barely move. I was so weak that I couldn't even kick off sheets from my legs. Everything hurt and I do mean everything, because I'd been off my Remicade since August due to a tooth infection that went nuts in my body and gave me what I call my super flare and led to 2 weeks in the hospital and 3 months in a nursing home, because I literally could not stand, toilet, walk, wash- -nothing.

Fast forward to today. My rheumy said he thought that I was glowing (I thought ... glowing?? I'm certainly not pregnant, lol). He said that with as many things as I had going on and all the meds, I looked absolutely joyful - to which I replied, I try and when I'm down, I very much remember the distance I've come. That I can now walk, go to the store, drive a car, take a shower, take out my trash, pick up my cat, change her litter box - most all of what I did before, except working. But even that is all right because I had 32 years at Ohio State University.  Although I had planned to work another 10 years, this is what happened and I am now in a better place than I had been for the past 15 yrs.

So what is my message?  Well, it is that there is light after darkness. That often you will have to dig deeper in yourself than you ever thought possible. That things happen for a reason, although you might not know that reason. That there are always options, even though you thought you might not ever have considered those unknown to you. That you are here for a reason and you will learn the lessons and you will be of help to others. That your pain is real and so is your joy and in time, you can learn to experience more joy than pain or even both at the same time - but you won't be held down by the pain, unless you choose to be.

The good news is that medicine has made advances and those of us with this disease have so much more available to us than previous generations. With the internet we can become educated and better advocates for ourselves. Now we have choices.”

Why April 22?

It’s no coincidence that Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D) founded “Earth Day” on April 22, 1970, the centenary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s birthday. http://patriotpost.us/alexander/34776

Happy Earth Day

Here in Columbus we're in winter recovery mode--green grass and beautiful flowers everywhere. And the winter debris. Today I'll drive to the west side for my volunteer job and I'll pass through some light industrial and "emerging" neighborhoods. I'll see people walking to the bus stops along roads with no sidewalks and a few who appear to be homeless. The grass and easements around the fast food businesses, gas stations, lumber outlets, and car lots will be pristine. The city of Columbus with responsibility for the exits, overpasses and other easements has a lot of work to do. Plastic bags, trash, newspapers, bottles. Do your part. It's Earth Day, a good time to clean up your own messes.

On Earth Day when we remember Rachel Carson whose poorly researched book contributed to the deaths of millions of Africans. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/earth/05tier.html…

One of the founders of Earth Day, Ira Einhorn,  in 1970 murdered his girl friend.  He was on the run for 23 years, but is in jail now. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42711922/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/earth-day-co-founder-killed-composted-girlfriend/

Consumer Reports says coupons save money—they don’t

"All told, consumers saved $3.6 billion by using coupons [out of $310 billion], which makes it difficult to understand why only 59 percent of subscribers we surveyed used manufacturers coupons." (Consumer Reports).

Oh, let me count the ways American consumers are fooled into using coupons that

• 1) cover up price increases,
• 2) introduce yet another new product we don't need,
• 3) convince us to buy processed rather than steaming or grilling it ourselves,
• 4) deliver us into obesity with a bazillion snack offerings, etc. etc.

Yes, I know, I can't convince you that food companies don't stay in business by giving away their products, or that coupons add to the cost of your food, so just continue to fool yourselves--with the help of the media that prints or distributes the coupons. The first coupon was a wooden nickel.

Unemployment for some is not ending

"Long-term unemployment has fallen in recent years, although it remains high by historical standards. Five years after the Great Recession ended, the number of long-term unemployed still made up a larger share of unemployment than during any previous recession." (BLS, Spotlight on Statistics, March 2015). Actually, the recession ended in June 2009, almost six years ago—so these figures are from 2014 apparently. This has been the slowest recovery from a recession in history. I believe the ARRA made it worse.

Men more than women, blacks and Asians more than whites, older more than younger are the faces of the long term unemployed. Education level doesn't change things. Washington, DC, home of our federal government,  has the highest rate of long term unemployed. http://www.bls.gov/.../2015/long-term-unemployment/home.htm

Are these men really missing?

The New York Times Upshot column claims: “In New York, almost 120,000 black men between the ages of 25 and 54 are missing from everyday life. In Chicago, 45,000 are, and more than 30,000 are missing in Philadelphia. Across the South — from North Charleston, S.C., through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and up into Ferguson, Mo. — hundreds of thousands more are missing.”

I'm not sure why they are called missing. Black women abort at a much higher rate than white, so let's assume over half of those babies are male (birth ratio statistics); the crime rate for black men is about 8 times that of white, and their victims are black, so unless you want the police and courts to ignore the victims so the perps won't be in jail, what is the solution? More males than females are born, except among blacks; all boys are less healthy than girls, and by age 13 there is quite a discrepancy; visit the prisons and talk to the men of any race who grew up without fathers married to their mothers and in the home. CDC estimates that blacks account for almost half of all new infections of HIV in the U.S.each year, and although that's not the death sentence it used to be, it's also not the road to health, employment and marriage--and in a number of cities about 1/3 of the gay/bisexual black men are infected. When black men marry, about 24% marry outside their race, decreasing the opportunity for marriage for black women (Pew Study) so they might as well be missing. There is no plot.They aren't missing. But there is some negative behavior that can be changed.

Also, the author doesn’t seem to grasp the connection that the higher prison rate has resulted in lower crime rates for black communities.

Since the 1990s, death rates for young black men have dropped more than rates for other groups, notes Robert N. Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both homicides and H.I.V.-related deaths, which disproportionately afflict black men, have dropped. Yet the prison population has soared since 1980. In many communities, rising numbers of black men spared an early death have been offset by rising numbers behind bars.

ISIS kills more Christians for show terror

Last night millions of Americans watched “Game of Thrones” with elaborate sets, made up languages, sexy female monarchs, fantasy creatures--very violent and blood thirsty. Meanwhile ISIS slaughtered some more Christians, this time Ethiopians, and made a video of it. Most Americans yawned. They'd rather shut down pizza shops owned by Christians than lift a finger to stop the massacre of Christians. One group was beheaded on a beach along the Mediterranean Sea, while the other group was shot in Southern Libya, hundreds of miles away. "The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama bin Laden's body in, we swear to Allah, we will mix it with your blood," the narrator said in English. He's talking to us.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/19/africa/libya-isis-executions-ethiopian-christians/

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4416389.ece

http://rt.com/news/251037-isis-christians-killing-video/

Ancient Roads from Christ to Constantine

Last night I watched Ancient Roads from Christ to Constantine, pt. 2 of 6, on WOSU. It seems to be quite faithful to church teachings (at least this segment) and I enjoyed seeing the places we've visited (tour with our church group in 2009).

Gwyneth Paltrow’s food stamp challenge

I think Gwyneth Paltrow has learned her lesson about food stamps (SNAP), but just in case, here's $29 of food purchased this morning, and even the government knows Paltrow's cupboard isn't bare and she probably has some flour, sugar, potatoes, carrots, some left over Easter ham in the freezer and coffee from last week. This grocery run includes 8# of oranges, $6; 6 bananas $.81; 1 lb. of strawberries, $1.50; 1/2 gal 2% milk, $2.39; bag of mixed salad greens with sunflower see...ds and dressing included, $2.50; 6 Lite yogurt with fruit, $3; and ground sirloin $6.50. I was not shopping to budget, and if I were, I wouldn't buy partially processed items. The rules are complicated and the household is expected to contribute its own money to the food budget. The S in SNAP is Supplemental; they changed it thinking people would understand it better--but they obviously don't. At least Gwyneth didn't.

Republican Thaddeus Stevens changed his grave site

Shortly before he died on August 11, 1868, Thaddeus Stevens learned that the grave he'd purchased was located in a whites-only cemetery. Incensed, he bought another plot, this one in an obscure graveyard in Lancaster with no racial restrictions. Then he wrote an inscription designed to carve his creed into his headstone:

I repose in this quiet and secluded spot,
Not from any natural preference for solitude
But, finding other Cemeteries limited as to Race
by Charter Rules,
I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death
The Principles which I advocated through a long life:
EQUALITY OF MAN BEFORE HIS CREATOR.

Story at History Net

Monday Memories—what was your first car?

David Graf (lives in Florida, but grew up in Mt. Morris) had a Face Book post about his first car. This is probably more significant for guys than gals, at least from the 1950s when Dave and I were in high school. But it did give me a chance to remember the 1951 Packard Dad bought for Carol and me to drive to college in 1957 (a 6 hour drive), she was at Goshen and I was at Manchester. We could get 6 girls with all their luggage in that 4 dr. sedan. What was your first car?

I don’t have a photo of the car, but do have a vivid memory of a flat tire with it fully loaded with girls and luggage.  Some nice man helped us change it after we unpacked everything. Because I was a freshman, I couldn’t keep the car at Manchester, so it was parked in Goshen, where according to Carol, they locked up the Coca Cola machines on Sunday.

This is a photo of a restored 200 series Packard, which is the lowest end model.

That’s the way the feta crumbles

They can't fool me. If feta cheese crumbled is $1 more for 2 ounces less than block feta, I buy the block and crumble it myself. If "lite" salad dressing's first ingredient is water and is $1 higher than regular, I buy the regular and add water.

How to crumble feta cheese   I was surprised there were actually “how to” sites for this.  I just sliced the block and cut it up.  It sort of fell apart.

Presidential candidates of 100 years ago were invited to address the Convention of Former Slaves

http://ghostsofdc.org/2012/07/06/ex-slave-convention-1916/

Amazing photos, including four people, two men and two women who were over 100 years old.

Arthur Godfrey and FDR

I'm not an FDR fan, but I'm surprised I didn't see/hear more on the 70th anniversary of his death/funeral this past week. Was I napping? Was the TV off? The recording of the funeral has now been added to the Library of Congress under the National Preservation Act of 2000.

"Following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death on Thursday, April 12, 1945, the national radio networks suspended regular programming until after his interment on Sunday, April 15. In its place, they ...aired a round-the-clock stream of reactions from home and abroad, including formal tributes, memorial services, and live coverage of the journey of the funeral train bearing the president’s body to Washington, D.C. On Saturday, April 14, a solemn funeral cortege made its way through the streets of the nation’s capital from Union Station to the lawn of the White House, with relays of radio announcers describing its progress.

Arthur Godfrey, a local broadcast personality with many years of experience covering public events in the area, was added to the CBS national broadcast team. As the last announcer on the route before the White House, he gave beautifully detailed and dramatic descriptions from atop a bank building at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue for nearly half an hour, with his tone changing from solemn and journalistic to personal and emotional. When the caisson bearing the president’s body came into his view, Godfrey was dumbstruck, finally murmuring "God help me to do this" and choking out a few more sentences before breaking down on the air, forcing CBS to return to the studio briefly before resuming coverage on the White House lawn. Godfrey, a veteran of 15 years in radio, was deeply embarrassed by this incident, but soon became one of the country’s most popular broadcasters when he started his national morning show on CBS. His emotional coverage of this event now helps to illuminate the depth of the nation’s grief over Roosevelt’s death."

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-041.html

Educators who make race relations worse

I haven't checked out this story--someone is clearly misguided if it is true. But what is true is it was completely unnecessary: Among 2014 high school graduates, 86.1% of Asians enrolled in college, compared to 70.9% of black graduates, 67.3% of white graduates and 65.2% of Hispanic graduates. So why are educators still trying to create hard feelings, entitlement and victimhood?

What we really need is some direction for students who won’t be going to college, a place they’ll rack up debt for jobs that won’t be able to support the debt.

Race Relations and Law Enforcement—Jason Riley

“The shooting death of a young black man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last year touched off a national discussion about everything except the aberrant behavior of so many young black men that results in such frequent encounters with police. We talked about racial prejudice, poverty, unemployment, profiling, the tensions between law enforcement and poor black communities, and so forth. Rarely did we hear any discussion of black crime rates.

Homicide is the leading cause of death for young black men in the U.S., and around 90 percent of the perpetrators are also black. Yet for months we’ve had protesters nationwide pretending that our morgues are full of young black men because cops are shooting them. Around 98 percent of black shooting deaths do not involve police. In fact, a cop is six times more likely to be shot by someone black than the opposite. The protestors are pushing a false anti-cop narrative, and everyone from the president on down has played along.” . . .

“If liberals want to help reverse these crime trends, they would do better to focus less on supposed racial animus and more on ghetto attitudes towards school, work, marriage, and child-rearing. As recently as the early 1960s, two out of three black children were raised in two-parent households. Today, more than 70 percent are not, and the number can reach as high as 80 or 90 percent in our inner cities.

For decades, studies have shown that the likelihood of teen pregnancy, drug abuse, dropping out of school and other bad social outcomes increases dramatically when fathers aren’t around. One of the most comprehensive studies ever undertaken in this regard concluded that black boys without a father are 68 percent more likely to be incarcerated than those with a father—that overall, the most critical factor affecting the prospect of young males encountering the criminal justice system is the presence of a father in the home. All other factors, including family income, are much less important.”

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/race-relations-and-law-enforcement/

Capra’s America

Frank Capra was an immigrant--he rejected the theories of progressivism, communism and socialism popular in Europe. ". . . he did not understand America, as many Americans do today, in terms of personal categories of identity such as race, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality. He understood America in terms of its political principles—the moral principles of America that can be shared by all who understand them and are willing to live up to them. . .

In his last and most personal tribute to his adopted country, Capra recalled his family’s arrival at Union Station in Los Angeles after their long journey across America in 1903. When they got off the train, his mother and father got on their knees and kissed the ground. Capra’s last words to his assembled audience were these: “For America, for just allowing me to live here, I kiss the ground.” Capra did not believe that he had a right to be a citizen of America. Rather he was grateful for the privilege of living in America."

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/frank-capras-america-and-ours/

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/03/books/it-wasn-t-such-a-wonderful-life.html

http://rougholboy.com/capra/