Are You a Pasta Snob?

I have been called many things in my time but I think far and away the funniest is a "Pasta Snob"!

So I'm a bit fussy when it comes to how my pasta is cooked and the shapes of my pasta I eat, and let's face it, there are many different types. But, I'm not talking about things like Ravioli or Tortellini which have various fillings or Gnocchi, which are a form of dumplings. I'm not talking about Fresh Pasta which cooks much quicker than dried pasta and isn't hard to begin with. I'm not even talking about Egg Pasta and I'm certainly not talking about Tinned Pasta! Yikes! I'm talking about plain old dried pasta. The stuff you've all probably got in your kitchen cupboards, in a 500g packet, which lasts forever. (almost)

It's all made from the same stuff but it's shaped differently. Well actually, that's not entirely true. Like everything you buy in the supermarket, there are different brands of pasta. Some are cheaper than others and are made from different types of flour. I don't care what anyone says here, there is a difference between brands. If you compare a cheap brand with an expensive one and couldn't tell the difference between them, it's because you don't really like pasta and any old stuff will do.

Here are some of the brands of Pasta that I would happily eat. (providing they're not over cooked that is) De Cecco, Barilla, Molisana and Agnesi. I can stomach Napolina but I'd be hard pushed to buy Buitoni.

All of the above have to be cooked for the length indicated on the packet. A few seconds less is good with me but if you start adding minutes, I'm no longer interested and dinner will have to be cancelled. I like my past Al dente. In other words a bit firm, not crunchy and certainly not soft. 

If I go to an Italian restaurant to eat, I will only ever choose Gnocchi as a pasta option. (you can't go wrong cooking Gnocchi) Restaurants, even though they have pukka chefs cooking, rarely cook the pasta to my liking. Many restaurants have the pasta cooked half way in preparation for an order to be placed, so all they have to do is throw the already partly cooked pasta into some boiling water for the remaining cooking time required and voila! Although there's nothing wrong with that method, I'd never do it at home and it kind of puts me off my food a bit. It also means the cooking time gets messed up and the result is over cooked pasta.

So what about the different pasta shapes? This is where it gets interesting. Let's take just one brand of pasta, De Cecco in this case, and take a look at the different shapes. I can't stand Shells (Conchiglie) or Butterflies (Farfalle)! Even when cooked perfectly, I just don't like them. I'm afraid I don't have any photos of my own for these because, I don't have any of these shapes in the house - for obvious reasons. Hence the links above.  :-)

I do, however, really like Rigatoni, Penne Rigate (I always prefer pasta rigata - with grooves - than lisca - smooth) and Fusilli.

Now we move onto the long stuff. Spaghetti, Spagettini, (same as spaghetti but thinner) Linguine, Vermicelli, to mention but a few. My favourite in this category is Linguine. They're long like spaghetti but they're flat and wide. Vermicelli I can live without, they're very fine and lack texture in my opinion and if you were to ask me to choose between spaghetti and Spagettini, it'd be Spagettini every time.

 

And how about smaller pasta shapes. Well there's Pastina which really only means small pasta, when translated. There are many many forms of Pastina and frankly, I'm not really that fussed which one I have. Well, as long as it's not made with egg or isn't too big. Pastina should be really tiny. I usually eat it in a chicken broth, never with a pasta sauce.

Finally, and this post has taken a lot longer than I expected it to, so I hope you're still with me, I'm going to mention one of my very favourite pasta shapes. Tubetti or Tubettini. As with the pastina, I never eat this with a pasta sauce. I always have it mixed with either peas, potatoes or beans, sometimes lentils or chic peas but I prefer to use other shapes with the latter. Yes, I know it sounds weird but it's delicious and so quick and easy to make. (If I get any interest from this post, I'll post a recipe some time). The only thing is, it has to be the small stuff. You can't use the larger stuff because the peas or whatever you're using, get stuck inside the pasta. Different brands are different sizes so you have to be a bit selective with these. I would prefer the Tubetti Rigati - with grooves - but they're not that easy to find in the UK so I have to settle for Lisci - smooth - here.

There are so many different shapes and sizes of pasta and I have mentioned just a few. Only the ones I really like or really don't like. If you're Italian, you can probably relate to this post and see exactly where I'm coming from. If you're not, you probably think I'm insane and will dismiss it as soon as you've read it. I'd love to hear your comments either way and will leave you with a Buon Appetito!

Is losing weight simply a case of eating less?

Why is it that some of us can eat what we like and not seem to put on any weight, while others watch what they eat, count calories and are endlessly struggling to lose weight?

Why are some of us hugely obese and others very thin? Is it simply a case of food or are there other explanations? Obviously food plays a large part in our shapes and sizes. If I spent all day eating fast foods, drinking fizzy sugary drinks and snacking on cakes and chocolates in between meals, I would probably be a lot larger than I am now.

I'm not a dieter or calorie counter and my weight has been around 9 stone for as long as I can remember in my adult life. I eat what I want and snack from time to time, I drink alcohol in moderation, but now that I think about it, I hardly consume any calories with my soft drinks. So what if I started eating as mentioned above? How big would I actually get?

A few years ago, Horizon broadcast a documentary on why thin people don't seem to put on weight easily. They took 10 thin volunteers, who found it difficult to put on weight, and carried out an experiment to see if after consuming double their recommended daily calories and limiting their daily activity to just 500 steps, how much weight they would gain.

The women had to consume 7,000 calories a day, (the average woman needs about 2000 calories a day) while the men had to consume 10,000! (the average man need about 2500 calories a day). They had to eat as many burgers, chips, cakes, ice-cream and pizza as they could possibly keep down, to get up to the calorie intake requirement. And they could only walk a short distance each day. The experiment lasted 4 weeks and the results were quite shocking in some cases.

Two members were unable to consume the designated amount of calories each day failing to complete the experiment. One member was a sportsman who found it too difficult to stick to the 500 steps a day. Five of the other members, although reaching their daily calorie targets, were unable to keep the food down and vomited at least once a week. One of these was recorded to have gained 3.5kg in weight (almost 7% gain) and another 5.5kg (9% gain). It was later reported that all the weight gained by these volunteers was easily shed without any need to diet or count calories.

Only two members of the experiment reached their target. One gained 0.5kg (1% gain in body weight) while the other put on 5.7kg of muscle! Yes muscle! His body fat percentage actually went down slightly!

Dr Rudy Leibel of Columbia University, New York believes "we all have a biologically determined natural weight which our bodies make an effort to stick to, whether it is fat or thin ... The body will constantly tend to try to bring you back to whatever your normal body weight is". Dr Leibel found that for some people, such as those who couldn't reach their calorie targets, the appetite hardly fluctuated regardless of how much they wanted, or were told, to eat.

In this Horizon documentary, there was a brief mention of an experiment which had taken place in a prison in America back in the 60's. I can't find anything about it now so I'm going completely from memory here. An obese inmate volunteered to take part in an experiment to reduce his weigh in exchange for early release from prison. (A Clockwork Orange springs to mind). He was kept on a strict diet for a year until he reached a normal, healthy weight and was then given enough food each day to sustain this weight permanently.

Although the amount of food he was consuming at this stage was perfectly acceptable for his size, the inmate was constantly complaining that he was still hungry. He was attached to a monitor and his brain was registering a person in a state of starvation. How could this be?

This proved that the only way this man could remain a healthy weight, would be to live his life in a constant state of starvation. (Now I don't know about you, but I think I'd rather eat and be fat, than live my life literally starving. Gina Kolata writes an interesting paper where she mentions "semi-starvation neurosis". Have a read if you like what I've written so far).

Professor Jane Wardle, believes that there is a gene known as the FTO gene which could have an affect on our weight. She believes the gene can influence appetite, leading some people to not know when they are full. Those without the gene, she thinks, find it easier to say 'no' to food. "It's kind of effortless because they don't even want to eat. They're not having to exert willpower and self-control whereas for other people, their brain responses to foods that they're exposed to, aren't being switched off effectively as a consequence of them already having had enough."

I now beleive that our weight is genetic and it is possible for two people to eat exactly the same amount of food and put on very different amounts of weight. Perhaps a great explanation is evolution. This is what I think. If you evolved from a tribe of hunters, you'll probably be in the overweight category. In the days where man had to hunt for his food he would gorge himself with whatever was available to eat when food was plentiful, piling on the fat which would sustain him for the months ahead when food was less easy to come by. Those who could not keep the weight on would simply starve to death. Leaving a large group of potentially obese people.

If you evolved from a tribe where food was never a problem and was plentiful all year round, you would probably fall into the thin category. Why would you need to develop the ability to store fat if you didn't have to? You would simply eat what you needed until the next meal.

I like Dr Leibel's theory about our bodies always trying to bring us back to whatever our natural weight is. So if you're constantly fighting a battle of weight loss, perhaps this post will give you a possible explanation as to why.
However; whatever way you look at it, you can't change the laws of physics. The more calories you consume, the more weight you'll gain and the more you work off, the more weight you'll lose.

Should we smack our kids?

If you'd have asked me about five years ago if I thought it was okay to slap a child, I would probably have said yes. At the time I thought a good hard slap across the legs or on the hand, never did anyone any harm. In fact, I would have said it'd probably make them a better adult.

These days I'm not so sure.
I now have a 4 year old boy who I adore and even though he has his moments of seriously winding me up, I just couldn't justify slapping him. He's 4 years old and defenceless so he can't fight back! That to me seems very unfair.

The 'naughty step', 'time out', 'carpet time', whatever you want to call it, works perfectly well for me. My little boy hates it. If I gave him a slap, the sting would be over in seconds and I think he'd prefer that to five minutes on the naughty step.
I've had people argue that if they don't smack their children, the child will never learn to do what it's told. The only explanation I can give to that is that perhaps the discipline given to their child when they were toddlers, wasn't quite effective enough.

I suspect many parents don't follow through on their threats of discipline, and the child doesn't take them seriously anymore. An example of this would be sending a child to the naughty step for five minutes and letting them get off after just one, or as soon as they apologise. Another example could be, giving a '5 count' and not doing anything when you get to '0'. Of course the child isn't going to take you seriously. Why should he. He knows he'll get away with it.

A friend of mine's partner used to start a five count when her child had misbehaved and the child would finish it for her. When he got to zero he'd say "yeah whatever" and his mum would leave it at that! Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think that child learnt much from the five count. So that's when slapping might have to come into play.
Are some parents making a rod for their own backs?

I was watching Coronation Street last week, where Owen, slapped his partner's daughter Faye, while his partner Anna was out. ITV received a number of complaints about the episode suggesting it shouldn't have been broadcast. What are your views? I have mixed emotions. I could see why Owen was angry. Faye - who is about 9 - deliberately slaughtered Owen's fish by pouring creosote into his fish pond. However she isn't his daughter so he should have let Anna deal with it when she got back. But what would Anna have done? Sent her to her room? Is that really a punishment? Perhaps Anna might have given her a slap across the legs? How effective would that be? This scenario is a bit of a can of worms because Faye is adopted and her earlier life was complicated, but if it was your child who had poisoned someone else's fish, how would you deal with it?

Tricky! I'm not totally against slapping children, I just couldn't do it myself.

Where do you stand on the matter?

Global Warming, Climate Change or Climate Disruption?

So which one is it? Perhaps it's none of the above.

Are you a sceptic or an alarmist?

We all have an opinion on the former Global warming issue but the majority of us go by what we hear on the news or read in the papers. Let's be honest, we just go with the flow. But how much do we really know about Climate Change, or whatever it's now being called? Should we be worried or is it all being blown totally out of proportion?

I have a very good friend (Graham) who I think I can safely say is a bit of a global warming nerd. He spends hours on forums stating his views, he reads anything and everything he finds on the subject of Climate Change and he's passionate about the whole issue. So I asked him for his input and as expected he didn't let me down with his feelings.

He agrees that people just “go with the flow”. “Casual believers” is what he calls it – and what he called himself, until he first saw the “Hockey Stick Graph"

It's basically a graph showing the temperature changes over the last 1000 years.

At first glance it would appear that the temperature has remained fairly stable or cooled slightly over the first 900 years of the graph and then suddenly in the 20th Century temperatures have shot up dramatically. This looks like a real "smoking gun" showing that Global Warming really is something we should be worrying about.

However, I was taught at school about the Medieval Warm Period - a period around 1200AD when it was warmer than it is today. But where is the Medieval Warm Period on this graph?

Curiosity got the better of me, so I searched the 'net to investigate and discovered the work that has already been done by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. (Expert statisticians) They have examined the hockey stick and found it to be a case of 'lies, damn lies and statistics'.

Graham says:

1) There is simply no evidence (and by evidence we mean true, empirical, scientific evidence) that we are heading for any kind of catastrophe. Oh, we have evidence that CO2 is rising, that mankind is causing it, that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, even that CO2 is behaving like a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. And we have recent warming, of course. But there’s no actual evidence that it’s the rise in CO2 that’s caused the rise in temperature. Let’s not forget that CO2 really started to rise during the Post War Economic boom in the late 1940s, but temperatures went down for the next 30 years. And currently CO2 is rising faster than ever, but the temperature rise has slowed (or even started reversing, depending on which temperature data set you look at) so far in the 21^st century.

The simple truth is that, to any unbiased person, it’s not immediately obviously that CO2 is having a large effect on temperature.

And there’s even less evidence to support the claimed looming future catastrophe. The actual empirical evidence leads to a conclusion that we will get about 1.2⁰C of warming from a doubling of CO2 – which would be largely beneficial. To get to the figures of 3+⁰C that the alarmists use, they have to add positive feedbacks. However, given our very limited understanding of how the climate works, we have no idea whether the feedbacks will actually be net positive or net negative. (In other words, whether the feedbacks will increase the warming caused by CO2, or reduce it.)
So, why do all the alarmists say they’ll be positive? Because they create computer models of the climate. But these models are filled with parameters that reflect the various different factors that affect the climate – and many of these factors are very poorly understood.
So, what values do you use for a factor that is poorly understood? Easy! You guess! And guesses, let’s be clear, simply mirror a person’s bias. If you want a warming world, you use values that produce that result. But the opposite would be equally valid. We just don’t know.

In summary; if this is a scientific debate, why the lack of scientific evidence?

2) The Climate Alarmists operate in an unscientific way. Science works by using the Scientific Method. Wikipedia define the Scientific Method in this way:

“Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable, to guard against mistake or confusion in any particular experimenter.”  (My emphasis)

But in the science of Climate Change, most of the work carried out by the Global Warming Proponents cannot be repeated, because the scientists involved commonly refuse to share their methods and/or data. Time and again, sceptical scientists request methods and/or data, to allow them to attempt to reproduce the Proponents work, in an effort to check for errors or bias, but time and again their requests are refused – often by the Learned Journals themselves, despite those Journals supposedly having strict rules concerning data sharing.

A great example of this is when Phil Jones (a climatologist at the University of East Anglia) infamously said:

“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
You can’t help but smell a rat when you hear about this sort of thing.

In summary; if this is a scientific debate, why the lack of scientific methods?

3) Why all the Ad hominems? This is supposed to be a scientific debate. Why do the Global Warming Proponents feel the need to work so hard to demonise the sceptics? If the Proponents have so much irrefutable scientific evidence on their side, why not simply shoot the sceptics down with this evidence?

Why indeed. Instead, they insist on calling sceptics “Deniers”? Sceptics “deny” nothing (at least nothing that is supported by actual scientific evidence). And sceptics have pointed out that they find the term “Denier” insulting (because of all the Holocaust Denier connotations it evokes), yet the Proponents insist on its continued use. Why? If this is a scientific debate, then let’s debate the science and stop all the childish name-calling.

On top of that the Proponents frequently miss-quote sceptics, while claiming that it’s only the “Deniers” that do that sort of thing. For example; a Proponent reading number 1, above, would probably respond by saying something like “it’s ridiculous to suggest that there’s no evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas!” – Which is not what I’m saying at all, of course.

 
Let’s be very clear here; Climate Change may be a problem, but it has yet to be proved. Until it has been, we have plenty of problems that are real, are killing people and are happening right now. My personal favourite (if that’s the right word!) is that a lack of clean drinking water kills around 3 million children in Africa every year. With enough money we could fix this – we could build power stations and desalination plants by the sea to create the needed water and then lay water pipes across the continents to supply that water to those who need it. Expensive, but fairly easy if we’re prepared to pay.
 
So, if we have the money to spare, what should we do with it? Save people who are dying now, or let them die to prevent something that may not even be a problem.

I dare anyone to say we should let 3 million children a year die, “just in case” Global Warming turns out to be real.

As always, my post is based on personal views (be them my own or someone close to me)and I am always happy to discuss them with anyone who feels the urge to contribute.

Brake lights Permanently stuck on.

I recently had a problem with my Mini Cooper where the brake lights stayed on constantly. When the ignition was on, the brake lights were on.
I went to my local mechanic who checked the wiring and did some other stuff to the car, but really, he didn't have the faintest idea what was wrong and suggested I take it to BMW.
Gee thanks!

So I phoned BMW who told me I would need to take my Mini Cooper in for a diagnostic report. That alone was going to cost me just short of £100. Once they found the fault they would repair it and charge me accordingly. Right! So I'd be looking at anything between £200 and £500 realistically.

I decided that there couldn't be that much wrong with the car so I did the obvious thing, and hit The Net. :-) And Guess what? There were a whole bunch of people with the same problem. "Brake lights constantly on", "brake lights won't turn off", "brake lights stuck on when car is on"... some even had the problem with brake lights still on even when the car was off.

Sadly, none of them had the answer I was looking for and many of them were talking about different makes and model of car. But eventually I found a forum where someone mentioned a tiny little part called a DIODE. Brilliant! (It's a spade connector for anyone who knows any kind of technical jargon - which I don't - but apparently it means you just have to shove it in. No soldering required). I wasn't sure it would work but BMW sold me one for under £10 so I thought I'd try my luck. Well actually, I thought I'd give it to someone else to try their luck, as I'm really not very clued up when it comes to fixing things. :-/

So here's what we had to do...

We removed the panel on the driver's side of the footwell. We think it's called the "sill". It was quite a tricky job which required small bendy hands and more than one pair was useful.

Inside were a whole load of very thin bunched up wires all tied together. (Sorry there are no other photos but I don't fancy pulling everything out again) :-) Somewhere amongst those wires was the broken diode. We had to look really hard for it and we missed it the first time round, but it was there. When we located it, we simply replaced it, closed everything up again and "voila"! the brake lights worked again.

So much cheaper than taking my car to the manufacturer. Now all I need to do is work out how to turn the airbag light off. :-/ 

Stop thinking about it. Do it!

How often do we put things off that we just don't want to do?

Too often would be the short answer; well not anymore, not for me anyway.

I always used to be the worse person for stressing out over things that needed to be done before a certain dead line, like my tax return for instance. It used to wind me up from the time I got it in May; to the time I needed to file it in January. It's ridiculous really. In total, it would probably have taken me about half a day to prepare. Then off to the accountant I’d go and that would be it. Job done!

So why did I leave it until the last minute and have it playing on my mind for months? It's probably because it’s stuff I don't like doing. But it doesn't alter the fact that it won’t go away no matter how long I put it off for.

So what happened to change my mind?

Well; I had this wardrobe in one of my spare bedrooms which I'd been meaning to get rid of for years! Yes years! (And yes, a wardrobe) I saw it every time I went into the room and got annoyed that it was still there every time I saw it. But did I ever do anything about it? Of course not. I just kept putting the job off and getting irritated on a regular basis.

Then one day, my brother called round to see me. When he went upstairs and spotted the wardrobe and laughed out loud because it was still there. "Just get rid of it" he said and promptly started pulling it apart. Ripping off the doors, kicking out the back and the next thing I know it's in pieces in the back garden.

It was an easy job that took less than half an hour to do, but had wound me up for about half a decade! And now it’s gone. What was all the fuss about? Why didn’t I just tackle the problem as soon as it presented itself?  I could have saved myself a lot of irritation.

So my advice to anyone interested, is just do whatever it is that needs doing as soon as you can. Especially if it’s not urgent. You’re more likely to forget about something if you put it off until its deadline and you could end up with a fine or worse, end up stressing about it unnecessarily for a very long time.

Things to know before you go skiing in La Rosiere

I've just returned from a week skiing at La Rosiere in France and I must say, it was brilliant in every way. The snow was fantastic for a start, (not really something that can always be guaranteed unfortunately), the chalet was ski to and from the door, which really is second to none. Let's face it, who can be bothered hanging around for a minibus to pick you up, (or worse, the ski bus) after a long, exhausting day skiing? Not to mention the fact that you might miss the last bus back, even though you've risked life and limb bombing it down the slopes from the last lift to get to the designated pick up point on time only to find it just left! So you have to walk back in your ski boots! Bugger that!

But I digress...

The weather was perfect (again; not really something you can pre-book before you leave) and finally, we were only a few hours away from Italy where we could ski over for a decent pizza, superb hot chocolate (with a nice touch of brandy) and be back in resort for afternoon tea at the chalet that we didn't have to worry about getting a bus back to.

So what is it that you really need to know about skiing in La Rosiere? Well; unlike many other resorts I've been to, and I've been to a few, this one has 3 ski lifts (actually they're drags) that you don't need a lift pass to use. They just happen to be right outside the chalet I was staying in which was perfect, but it doesn't really matter where you're staying, you can still use them to get your ski-legs back on if you arrive in resort early.
Below is a photo of one of the free drag lifts.

The other important thing to mention, is that if you have a beginner in your group or a child over 5, (anyone under 5 gets a free lift pass) It's not worth getting the full 6 day pass for them. Some beginners might not feel confident to leave the nursery slopes for several days. They might stay on them for the first 2 days and then if they're ready they can buy a lift pass for the last 4 days of their ski holiday. The lift pass office in La Rosiere is a short walk from most hotels and chalets so don't feel obliged to buy a pass on the transfer from the rep. The price will be the same but as I just mentioned you might not need the full 6 days. It's also better to buy the lift pass direct from the lift pass office because, should any of your party sustain an injury whist skiing, or perhaps decide they don't actually like skiing, you can go back to the office with your receipt and claim a refund on the days you no longer wish to ski. The rep will simply tell you to claim on your insurance as he/she will have one huge receipt for all the passes purchased together.

I must point out that this is a general rule and cannot guarantee a refund from the lift pass office at La Rosiere, but I'm pretty sure it works that way everywhere. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

It's also worth pointing out that hiring skis direct from the ski shop is a lot cheaper than hiring from your tour operator. This is true of any resort, but in some resorts like Courchevel, you might end up hiring from a shop that's miles away from your accommodation. (I found this out from experience). This can be very inconvenient and not worth the hassle, but La Rosiere is very small and you can walk to just about any shop from almost any hotel or chalet. This includes the lift pass office and main ski school. Which brings me to the subject of Ski School. It's cheaper to go with the guys in red!
ESF. I didn't check out all the prices but our tour operator was charging a lot more than the ski school itself.

Finally, (and I hope you're still awake at this point) eating out is actually quite reasonable. Again, I'm comparing to Courchevel so it's not hard to be cheaper, but it wasn't really that bad. Now, The Dolomites in Italy... well; that's another story.

I hope this blog has been helpful to you. All the details above come from personal experience. Things will change and become up-graded so please don't hold that against me.

I would really appreciate any comments you might have and perhaps you can think of something important that I've missed out so feel free to add it. You might have to click on the "comments" link to get the box up.