Sugar Woes

So choose your poison, ie sugar, that is. Sucrose is 50:50 fructose and glucose. High
fructose corn syrup is 55% free fructose. And fructose - the sweetness of fruit - does
not trigger insulin (and eventually leptin) production but goes immediately to fat. Thus,
it won't make you hungry, just fat.

So this is the debate about sugar sources in our foods, cereals, desserts, canned
goods, whatever. Not a pretty choice.

Of course, eating fruit is praised because it contains a smallish amount of fructose
which your body has to get at after dealing with the fiber, vitamins and so forth of
natural fruit. Still, it is not recommended to the morbidly obese trying to loose weight.

I'm gonna turn into a label-reading maniac.

http://drhyman.com/blog/2011/05/13/5-reasons-high-fructose-corn-syrup-will-kill-you/

Got One

NASA is looking for ideas. They have asked private sector folks to tell them
ways in which they would want to use the Space Station. No commitment to anything,
just ideas.

I've got one.

I'm an avid follower of the fitness and weight-loss communities.
One on-going problem is how - for people who have lost weight - to reshape
the skin and viscera. Skin is elastic, up to a point, but anyone who has lost
considerable weight has what looks like loose skin, or insides. Could an
opportunity to spend time in low-earth orbit, and experience weightlessness,
help the healing and reconstructive process here.

It's all science fiction, at this point, I well know. But so was going to the moon
not that long ago.

All Wrong

Summer is time for light and sweet desserts, but one often brings the wrong instincts

as to how to put these together.

That yummy chocolate confection below is not topped with whipped cream

but with egg whites mixed in with reduced maple syrup. The whipped

cream is mixed in with the chocolate pudding and doesn't need extra sugar. Awww!

Jell-O is the player for the strawberry pie below, and one uses only 1 1/2 cups

water. The secret to firmness: corn starch and sugar in the water!

Toothache L.

Bon courage chez le dentiste, babe. Je pense à toi.

Like It

Hair solutions for little girls:

Elle France, on MSN
http://www.msn.com/fr-fr/lifestyle/style/40-coiffures-de-petite-fille-qui-changent-des-couettes/ss-BBuFbxi?li=BBoJIji#image=1

Sauce Aurore

Today, the unstoppable Yuka made Doner kebabs, which she ate with
various sauces. I found a recipe for the aurora sauce:

The basic idea is to make a béchamel, only using chicken stock instead of milk as the

liquid. One then adds tomato paste, a bit of butter, and cream. Season with salt and pepper.

The resulting sauce should be pinkish.

Take 2

Cookie Time

For those with a palate for sweets, the below crème brûlée will

seem particularly appetizing.

If we look up the recipe ingredients, the caramelized topping is made from brown

vergeoise and not with brown sugar.

The difference: while brown sugar comes from sugar cane, vergeoise comes rom beet

sugar and is a lighter product.

Beet sugar wrung dry once gives brown vergeoise; twice, white.

Vergeoise is characteristic of foods from the North of France and Belgium;

it is the basis for those mysterious Speculoos cookies.

BDAY 3

music: Kevin MacLeod, Scheming Weasel.

I wanted to put a little something together to mark the third birthday of Prince
George. Could use some dialogue, though.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GEORGE!

Awful!

I've had this demonic virus on my Edge browser for 24 hours, now. I've
been downloading and scanning with my favourite anti-virus programs, all to
no avail.

I know from experience I will eventually find the solution, but I hate that
helpless feeling. Ugh!!!

                                                 *   *   *

???

*    *    *

I am back in business. Thank you Bullguard Antivirus.

   

Fear and Loathing 2016

                                               *   *   *

Not Bad

http://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/violence-in-the-world-explored-in-an-interactive-app-a-1102798.html

Deployment

France today has called on its citizens to join the Armed Forces reserves, to back up
the police and army. There are curently 28 000 reservists and they wish to move
to 40 000 by 2018.

Vigipirate is the plan, with both a public and a confidential aspect, which serves
against terrorism: 'vigilance et protection des installations contre les risques d'attentats
à l'explosif'. This plan is built on the curent legal framework; it essentially tells
everyone how to act in moments of terrorist attack.

Opération Sentinelle deploys the French army on the territory, and is at the
discretion of the President. There are curently 13 000 deployed, with some 6 500
in the Paris region; all are in uniform.

source: le Nouvel Observateur
             Wikipedia in French

Enough!

Prisoners of our own arguments, we are refusing to see
that something very serious is happening with the Muslim
community. But they want us to be scared, so let's keep the
party going. Otherwise, we would be giving in. I fear it is
high time to give up on this view.

We are at war, at the receiving end of a declared war.
Working toward all this nastiness is going to go away
is dangerously unrealistic. We need to imagine how
different communities can live together in a complex world.

Earlier this week, I was in a Montreal pharmacy and overheard
a young woman in a hijab comment on how Montreal's humid heat
was different, and how keeping the scarf promotes head bugs.
I've been pondering this issue...

Horror

From a Le Monde reader:

Small Print

So yesterday, Lyse and I decided to take a city bus, to make a juncture with
a Montreal bound bus, twenty minutes' walk away. She was carrying a suitcase
full of clean clothes, her electric guitar and handbag full of books. I had
a week's worth of food for a camping trip, and my handbag with tablet.

No bus! We walked like army recruits, in the sweltering heat, to make the connection.
We did see a bus pass by at an impossible time. And questioned each other's
general life competence in less than polite terms.

So I looked over the schedule again today. We were on the red line: voilà the first page.

Yes friends, from Monday to Friday all buses run six minutes earlier. How about that!!

Likes

How to tell you; Theresa May likes shoes!

source: Der Spiegel

New Clothes

Clothes take a turn. Below, from Givenchy Cruise Collection 2017.

source: Figaro Madame

4th of J!!

HAPPY 4TH TO ALL!         * * *

Week-End

To those discouraged City Of London workers,

Take the week-end, guys. Brexit will have had this good aspect:
making it possible to raise interest rates on the American dollar again,
the Fed planning going to .5% first, and .75% by Christmas.

And some people think the Leave vote actually got the assent on David
Cameron's position for him, which was a desire to control immigration.

Perso, I tend to think he had it all along; just never put in place the policies
to enforce it. But that's just me. Maybe it's actually my fault; I should have
gone to England and worked there as a consultant on EU maters, given my
fluency in French and time at Sciences Po (Robert Schuman was the Dude!).

Because two of those opaque structures of the EU: the European Council and
European Commission, are actually comprised of elected Parliamentarians of the
member states, as opposed to the European Parliament, which elects from the member
states.

Very important to know, the EU has rules that apply to all member countries
(for ex. on dangerous chemicals), and directives where the goal is given, but the
implementation belongs to the individual state.

So the European Council is the Prime Ministers of the various members in
Council. The European Commission is actually many commissions of ministers
from member states, depending on the issue at hand. (It evolved from  post WW2
structures to deal with coal and industrial matters.)

source: Wikipedia

CDay16

The city of SJSR is celebrating 350 years of settlement this year. These is an exhibit of
the original city and a First Nations village. The military are also present with their latest
equipment on show at the Military College next to the parc.

I'll be taking some pics.