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Posts Tagged ‘food shopping’

Cooking Rice Elegantly!

Wednesday, April 11th, 2018

What if Colonialism had not happened and we gradually moved to a world community – discovering new ideas, ways of doing things, different foods that we are used to eating and cooking, etc. instead of developing a society which claimed some foods and ways of cooking as superior and some to be shunned.?  What a rich and very fantastic place this would be.

What if today we shun that Colonialism and come together as a one world community giving and sharing what we have with others on an equal basis.  Mine as just as good as yours and yours as just as good as mine.  What an incredibly rich place this would be and the knowledge which circulates using the new technology would facilitate an awesome life.  Instead that technology is used to manipulate, persuade, lie to, and we are all the poorer for it and enamored forever in war, brutality, white supremacy, nazism and its cousins, and so much more that destroys us and totally damages our children.

Assuming this first, we look for greatness in societies and cultures and discovered a way of cooking rice that is great.

I didn’t much care for rice, but then I only knew white rice which took 7 minutes to cook and had a skim covering on top that looked like and probably was talc powder. Hope I’ve missed the cancer that kind of rice is rumored to cause and that I discovered organically grown rice in time.  Now, today, with my new found knowledge,  I buy organically grown rice and I am careful whose organically grown rice we buy.

Problem with that was in the cooking.  It would take a long time and I could never count on the rice being great.  Sometimes it turned out in a sensational way and sometimes it was not something you wanted to eat – either too hard or too soft.

A friend came over to show me how to cook this rice and we put on a cooking show for our Bettina Network Hedge School guests.  This now very close friend is not someone who my mother would have allowed into the house as my playmate, nor would she have been a part of the many “play dates” I was taken to as a child.

Those who joined us for dinner were in my Bettina-Hedge-School-Home to learn special cooking skills and so thy were invited into the kitchen to help prepare the dinner.

Rice was the main dish since that was the reason for my very-skilled-at-cooking friends’ presence.

She started by putting what to my eyes and sensibility was a very large amount of butter in the glass corning pot in which we were going to cook the rice. I winced as I saw all of that butter.  (It actually was three tablespoons – but if you try this you should use your own judgment and your own taste.)

She let the butter melt and bubble awhile and then added the rice.  She cooked the rice in butter for several minutes and then added water, a little salt – Himalayan salt, turmeric and I added a dash of cayenne pepper (because every dish I cook has a dash of cayenne).

We put the top on the pot and in about 15 minutes we had the fluffiest rice I have seen.  And the tastiest.  I think I will give up potatoes and take on rice.  Well, maybe I will just add rice cooked in this way as another food I can add to my menus.

Everyone at dinner thought the rice was spectacular.

A SUGGESTION:

If you are vegan, you might want to start this rice in coconut oil, or some other kind of oil with a high smoking point.  I would not use the famous Olive Oil because it goes rancid quickly in heat.  We only use Olive Oil for cold dishes like salad dressings, etc.  As a society we have become so accustomed to what we call th “Mediterranean diet” which is anything but, that we assume Olive Oil is a universal oil and we try to use it in everything.  So much so we have become accustomed to the taste of rancid olive oil and assume that is normal.

Enjoy!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

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Weight Control and Good Health for a Lifetime!

Wednesday, February 1st, 2017

Look around – take a walk – go shopping – to the theatre – symphony – sports event and you will see many, many overweight people.

How on earth did this happen!  My mother’s generation didn’t share this overweightness.  Many in my generation have gaining weight and battling that weight gain as a constant.  In my children’s generation they are taller and heavier except those who border on bulimia or some other eating disorder.  What has happened to all of us? Something radical on this earth and in our environment has changed.

Have you noticed that diet food – diet drinks – exercise and body control programs – an entire industry has grown up and is thriving on your willingness to work hard and sweat even harder while that industry earns substantial amounts of money for either the foods they want to sell you to control your weight or their weight control ideas or body manipulations to feed your dream of  looking as though you are 15 years old again!

It is all a smoke screen!  A way to keep you from realizing the pit you have fallen into and can’t get out. The truth that you need to set you free is obscured and in your very distant past generations, mostly obscured from you by the need to maintain and increase the profit of this new “Health and Fitness Industry”.  That may be what it is called by many, but its goals are anything but.

Most of what you need is not in that Health and Fitness Industry, but in the secrets your past generations took to the grave.  The marketing, with which you were raised,  blinded you so thoroughly you didn’t want to hear what your ancestors had to say nor did you want to carry forward their lifestyles.  You particularly looked down on the knowledge and experience they gained from their lifestyles because you found more relevant the marketing and advertising dreamed up by those probably even younger than you are who were/are busy pumping out pipe dreams to maintain their jobs.

They were trained by experts at creating a new culture and a new lifestyle based on your giving them your money and potential possessions and they giving you the way to a miserable life – whether it be long or short – but profitable to their companies.   Is this what you bought and live by today?

Now, however, everyone around you seems to be calling you back to this glorious past where you will find redemption, salvation, a better life than we have today and at the same time those same people, industries and their marketing/advertising is creating a trap for you so you don’t even know what past you are being called to learn from and buy into.  A mythical, glorious past which actually never existed except in the movies and a scattering of novels.  What used to be sold on the ‘silver screen’ is now being sold as a distorted, pumped up on drugs, reality show which you are being told was the great, glorious past to reach back to, recreate and nirvana will arrive.

They hold out the promise of satisfaction, satiety,  for this something inside that is roiling your gut and telling you something is off and very damaged.  They hold out what looks like the cure to this wrong road you’ve taken.  Their message is full of  pretty pictures or accompanying videos so words alone no longer satisfy and those pretty pictures are characterized as the road to Oz.  But the curtain is seldom let down so you can’t see the wizard behind the screen doing all of this manipulating.

Let me lift the curtain for you – just a little.  To strip the curtain away entirely is something you are going to have to do for yourselves.  Unfortunately, it has been turned into a lifelong search and you are very devoid of the mentors who could shorten the search and reward your efforts when you hit a success spot.

Over the past couple generations we have put in place a modern lifestyle which started with our need to work constantly to be able to afford more, even though we were using so many new inventions that cut our work load in half.   We haven’t been able to get off that rodent’s wheel long enough to see if it really was generating the ‘more/better’ it promised.  Most of us are afraid to stop because the bleak future pictured by doing that is something we can’t stand to allow ourselves to imagine.

So let’s take this one thing at a time:

starting with – Our food supply and food habits.  That alone has taken books, videos and endless self-help sessions to describe and to either mislead us or to help us understand what is and what has happened.  The story that starts with once upon a time ends with corporate farms using chemicals and other substances which destroy our bodies a tiny little bit at a time so we can’t identify or point to that as one of the reasons for our current dilemma. The marketing and advertising has us in a constant ongoing argument with each other which both sides lose, because in this great information sharing age, the crucial information is kept locked up and very seldom shared.

Just a couple for instances:

Flour – that which was the staff of life for our forbears and was in many breads and other dishes is something we are warned against today and which has developed around it and trying to take its place – a new industry – gluten free – because so many are now allergic to what sustained life in their past generations.  And gluten-free is a much more lucrative end result of processing than is flour, which is now depicted as the enemy of health in so many characterizations and advertisements.  One little dirty secret = it is substantially more profitable.

How could that be?  Who did this thing?  The one substance which you could practically live off of alone is now claimed as our bodies enemy.  If you are not allergic to it, then certainly you know it makes you fat!

Flour as a profit center is what happened and the machinery went into high gear to figure out how to make ever more money giving even less to the general populations:   Farmers were encouraged to put all kind of chemicals on their wheat and to experiment with new kinds of wheat developed because, thereby,  much more could be grown on a small plot of land and even beyond that – large corporate farms popped up, quietly destroying the farmer.   The substantially increased profit to be made on land growing this ever new kind of wheat was too much for some to pass over and certainly was not to be shared with the non-corporate types.  And so ‘crush them’ was the mantra of the day and it was successful.

Greed called those susceptible, into the flour business, to press as much money out of it as possible giving to the populace whatever smokescreen and story board was necessary to hide the real reasons for that substantial profit increase from something as basic as wheat.  And along came the hiding  and holding back and creating myths for the populace (us).  The wizard was very busy with all of this going on behind the screen.

The best place to start to tell this part of the story is at the end of the processing line – the point at which flour has been robbed of everything that gave us life and all of that replaced with that which takes life and good health away from us.  The large silos in which the “finished” flour was put to be held until it could be packaged harbor many ugly secrets.  Predictably, those silos were infested with bugs and our new kind of logic said bugs needed to be killed with pesticides and that happened.  None of the silos escaped.

There was no way to get the dead bugs out of the silos so let the flour stay until the bugs deteriorated.  No one would ever ask what those black specks were in the bags of flour, if the bags and the marketing were such as to make the flour more convenient to buy and prettier to look at with the mythical story about how much ‘cheaper’ it was.  And the bonus – something light brown or a dark ivory was made very white!  The background color of this ‘revolution’.

There was no way to get the pesticides out of the flour because it just became one with the ground grain.  So the department, in the United States, which kept the public’s food supply safe just issued a proclamation which said there was not enough pesticide in the flour so it wasn’t worth demanding that the pesticides be removed – that would be too costly – nor was there enough to warrant a note on the packaged flour letting the consumer know the product they were buying was tainted.

And so, the flour moved off the shelves into our homes where it wrecked havoc with our health without most of us knowing why we were developing these low levels of something that made us feel not quite up to par;  some of us becoming quite ill with allergies; some of us succumbing to viruses and various bacteria much easier and more frequently than in the past.

….And so another industry sprung up to address that and to take us further down the rabbit hole and those addressing that issue further up the profit margin generator.

Milk – Another one of those ‘basic for life’ foods that we all eat or drink that has added to this horrendous lifestyle we are living.  We have become so accustomed to the problems with milk and other foods, we have simply adjusted and move on.  It is becoming unpatriotic to question.

Many of us are horrified if we have to drink “Whole Milk” – as though this would poison our system.  We have come to believe most assuredly that would put more weight on us and probably fool with our fat/cholesterol count and from that would come hardening of the arteries or high blood pressure or something equally awful.  Some science I remember from a small child doesn’t exist in the public mind anymore – “drink your milk, you need milk fat and milk protein in your system at the same time. ” And that is Whole Milk.  The other kinds of milk simply lowers your health and increases the corporate profit.

But, what if ‘whole’ milk was not the culprit, but the growth hormones fed to the cows producing the milk was at fault.  The growth hormones which apparently move from cow to human and cause our bodies to react by being tricked into believing the one ounce of food we just ate was really four ounces so where we want our cows to become fatter on less so our profits would be more, what really doesn’t matter to those so trapped in that profit center is the fact that they are passing that little tricked-out and chemicalized out food to the rest of us as we get just as fat as the cows and for the same reason.  Doesn’t matter if it is ‘whole’ milk or the other kind with the fat taken out.

What if problems occur because, while the cow needs to be heavier with more pounds per cow on less food per cow to increase profits, humans need to be lighter with fewer pounds per human to be healthier.  So – what to do —

Develop,  to address this problem –  a very large health industry to compensate for the health and wellness problems caused humans by this and other such food developments.  And so it should be and so it is.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg!

You should get the message by now so do your research and you will be appalled at what you find.  Some have already discovered much of this and adjusted their lifestyle and diets accordingly, but not even close to a majority of us.

Food has been turned into a political topic to maintain its outlandish growth into the nether regions, those where you can legitimately ask if this is really food when it is mostly chemicals and instead of working together for the health of all we are arguing pro and con totally ignoring reality and facts in our arguments – especially the most popular ones.  Listening to the arguments one would think some of us are not human, but our bodies have some other kind of existence.

The real culprit comes into play in our everyday lives and how we have incorporated meals into this growingly outlandish lifestyle.  Out of the food industry has come the processed food industry and the fast food industry – all detrimental to our health.

Once upon a time, meals were a family community event.  Well, that’s gone by the board.  Meals are now a catch when you can thing and mostly made up of the fast foods and/or the processed foods found everywhere.

And in-between those very unsatisfying fast food meals are the fast food and sugar or salt loaded snacks.  Today, however, it is increasingly salt and sugar in the same food product because it was recently found that combining the two makes for a quicker and more substantial addiction.  Hungry between meals?  There are thousands of snacks you can pick up to get from one “meal” to the next – competing for the title of “I can damage this body quicker than you can”.

I could go into other food groups in addition to milk and flour, but you have to do something!  So I will leave that to those interested.

Alternatives?  What did our ancestors do!

Soup:  Was a ‘go to’ dish.  Not the soup one makes with individual ingredients like pumpkin soup or butternut squash soup or, etc.  But the soup, kept on the back of the stove, constantly hot so if anyone was hungry between meals you went for a bowl of soup.  You simply found a soup bowl, ladled out as much as you felt you wanted to eat and enjoyed a very filling, satisfying and nutrient rich ‘snack’ that kept you satiated between meals and did not add extra pounds or lower your immune system making you susceptible to whatever came along.  A side benefit from this ‘family soup pot’ was the fact that if company dropped by unexpectedly you had something very lovely and elegant to serve them and in an instant.  Set the table, ladle out the soup and enjoy your visitors.

Everything was put into that soup.  Vegetables left over – instead of letting them spoil they were cut up and put into the soup.  Meat-turkey-chicken-venison, whatever,  left over from some dish or other or was not being used as quickly in another dish as expected because time to use it had run out – that was added to the soup.  It was constantly adjusted with different spices to make it something really special, very filling and incredibly nutritious to keep you in good health.

Custards and puddings were constantly being made.  Left over rice went to make rice pudding as did bread that was beginning to go stale.  As was ——etc.

Breads were used even when stale.  All one had to do was to pass the bread under the faucet to wet it a bit and then put it in the oven to heat.  The result was bread that tasted as though it was freshly baked and just out of the oven.  Today, we throw away stale bread and rice and other grains instead of reusing them and keeping them in the refrigerator for their next use – that is, those of us who still eat such things.  Or we keep them in the refrigerator, expecting to use them, but once we finally remember them when going through the refrigerator, we find them full of mold.

Cakes were baked from scratch.  They can be baked today and just as quickly as those from the box – tasting far better and with more nutrition.  The boxed cakes give you nothing.  The freshly baked cakes are a dream.  For a recipe – try the 1-2-3-4 cake.  Easy recipe to remember.  With a mixer it takes less than 15 minutes to put together ready for baking.  Make enough for more than one cake – use the stale left overs to make custards more interesting.

So many recipes are available for quick and nutritious foods – made from scratch.  But even our cookbooks have been compromised.  When I see one which says take a can of…… out it goes in the trash.

Looking for the old cookbooks is difficult because they have been so cast aside.  I find mostly the file boxes in which someone has filed recipes they had from grandparents, aunts, uncles, old friends who brought food stuff for the sick and shut in, including the recipe they used to create the dish they brought.  That doesn’t happen so much anymore – can’t when you’ve stopped at a quick food store to pick up something on the fly.

We could go into the cosmetics industry, the environment, and more – but the clouds start to form and those with vested interests become interested in us and we like to travel under the radar.

Life can be really simple because that even goes to how you clean your house and the substances you use with which you clean.  Our mantra is simple – don’t use anything to clean with that you would not eat.  Well, not as a snack, but you get the message.  And don’t put anything on your skin you would not put in your stomach.  It winds up in your bloodstream in seconds.

All of that marketing and advertising on which we have been raised is hard to undo and get out of our minds.  We have given top priority and attention to what which is put out for the purposes of selling a product – the mythical world – rather than anything factual about that product.  And far too often, that which our family and older friends have tried to teach us gets thrown out with the dirty wash water.

Our conditioning is almost complete – except for the cracks in the wall that a few have been trying to widen to let back in the flood of information that has to be kept out if our current – modern – lifestyle is to be kept and built upon.  That lifestyle is a building built on sand.  What you need for yourselves and your family is a building with a strong foundation.  The story of the three pigs comes to mind.  Each built a house on something different and the storms came or was it the fox who huffed and puffed and blew all of the pigs houses down except the one who built on that solid foundation.

The same goes for all of us as we build our lives and try to pass along the lessons we’ve learned to our children.  Hopefully, something happens which gets them to listen.  I’ve given up on that and have written many notes for them to read after I die.  That isn’t a sure thing either – because most of your belongings are given away or thrown away after death so some other way has to be found.  Libraries were one way, but the internet has sounded their death knell – so the search goes on.

In the meantime, I realize this topic needs a book not an article so let me stop here and leave the rest of this up to you.  Hopefully, you will walk the path that puts you in good health and those around you in a wonderfully supportive environment.

The one great discovery I’ve had is that walking that path gets rid of simple things like a cold.  We haven’t had colds in over five years.  They are not normal, as we have come to accept, but an indication that something in your life and in the lives of your family members who come down with colds and other such temporary illnesses has a cause that can be eradicated if you change your lifestyle.

All of these such illnesses were unheard of two generations ago.  The movement to build a huge and lucrative health industry, which depends upon regular outbreaks of bad health, has grown very quickly.  Such outbreaks are necessary for that industry  to grow, expand, and constantly see increased profits. New viruses and other infectious agents have to multiply and get stronger for the health industry to continue on its upward path and we have not disappointed.

It is not an industry that is working to put itself out of business by helping the populace in its move towards better health.  When we notice that hospitals have become profit centers with stock holders and all the other trappings which require regular profits and substantial increases in profit each quarter and year over year, we realize our health is being preyed on directly as is our food supply indirectly.

Your feedback and/or new information is always appreciated.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

A Japanese/New Orleans Creole Breakfast

Friday, March 4th, 2016

I stumbled onto this breakfast, but it is one of the best yet.

You do have to have a cosmopolitan taste for this – it is not ham, eggs and sweet breads.

……………………………MENU…………………………………

Fresh, organic fruit – Satsuma Mandarins, if they are in season

Grits (See recipe in Bettina Cookbook in this blog).  Do not use anything other than organic grits and cook it according to the Bettina Cookbook recipe – or you will be disappointed.  Instead of great grits you will have something roughly akin to white starch – good for ironing, but not for eating.

This started out as Grits and Grillades, but it hopped off the train to New Orleans and jumped onto the one to Japan.  Not entirely Japanese, but there is a hint of the country in the middle of this New Orleans Creole breakfast and the combination is fantastic.

Cajun/Creole/Japanese Style Grillades

This recipe will serve four people.  For more, you want to double or triple the amounts.

……Slice organic onions sort of thin.  For four people, one onion will do nicely

…….Slice an organic green pepper, also sort of thin

…….Slice organic garlic – several cloves, about four or five

Put the above three ingredients in a cast iron skillet in which you have melted organic expeller pressed coconut oil and let them fry together for several minutes.

……Add pork grillades (sold at Whole Foods – this is organic thinly sliced pork).  Grillades are ‘little pieces’.

……Stir and let cook a few minutes until pork turns from pink to brown

……Add organic Teriyaki Sauce to taste

……Stir and let cook another few minutes.

This is better served plated.  Serve your plates with grits in the middle and the pork Grillades mixture on top and around the sides.

This dish would have been Creole Grillades, but for the seasonings.  If I had put thyme, oregano, salt, red pepper as a seasoning instead of the Teriyaki, etc. the taste would have been very different.  It would have been Grillades from a middle-class New Orleans Creole family.

If, in addition to the above Creole seasonings I added chopped tomatoes and let the dish cook a few minutes so the different ingredients would merge – or better still, cook it the day before and just heat it up for breakfast, that would have been Grillades from an upper-class New Orleans Creole family.

The difference?  The addition of tomatoes.

Add biscuits and you have an outstanding breakfast.

For dessert – serve organic fig preserves to put in the biscuits.

For a biscuit recipe – see Bettina’s Cookbook.  Only with this Menu use only organic Whole Wheat Pastry flour for the biscuits.  They will be light, fluffy and have a taste you just can’t put your finger on, especially if you add a bit of grated nutmeg to the flour before adding the rest of the ingredients – if you are on the road to Japan.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

Bettina’s Weight Control

Sunday, December 14th, 2014

From a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member:

“Well I read through the blogs for the diet but did not find one. ”

However, I did find some great tips. I am drinking lime juice now…..  It almost instantaneously curbed my hunger.  This was so on time with this being my day of clear liquids and the gad between now and my last meal of an egg sandwich right before midnight.   Thanks for this, I will be using up my limes today.

In the spirit of giving back: before you squeeze the lime or lemon, peel it thinly, hang it to dry out.  In a couple of weeks, take it, break it apart, throw it in a processor and grind it.  You will  end up with two consistencies, the more coarse consistency on the top.  I separate the coarse pieces and set them aside to use:   to make tea; for seasoning sea food; for baking;  making marmalades; to garnish certain foods or desserts.  The finer consistency I store in a vial and place on the shelf with my baking spices.  A 1.5 oz bottle of lemon peel goes for roughly $10 and up , with organic coming in higher.

In baking I use the peel of approximately 1/2 a lime in the eggs, it helps to cut the fresh smell.  I remove the fresh peel before baking.  The dry peels I add as an ingredient and those go through the fire.  I have gotten creative in making cranberry orange muffins.  It is quite delightful to bite into tidbits of orange peel.

Lime/ lemon peel tea is great for sore throats, cold or flu. ”

By:  CN

Ed Note:  Thanks for those tips.  We are certainly ready for anything to cut colds or flu – especially if it does not have to be injected into our bodies at Drug Stores.  Oops! Sorry – you can tell my age by that slip-up.  They changed the name of those stores for this current generation.  They are now called the Pharmacy.

Ed Note:  We do not believe in diets and you won’t find the traditional kind in Bettina Network’s Blog – if you are talking about the  listing of  menus giving you what to eat at which meal on a particular day.  We believe that has developed to shore up the Diet Industry that is growing by leaps and bounds and making some people lots of money but getting the rest of us into an obese condition.  That kind of diet justifies those company‘s where you send for your meals  by the week and still don’t lose weight, except for the weight loss by the lightness of your pocketbook.  A diet for us is to squeeze an organic lemon into a cup of warm water and drink this when you first wake up in the mornings.  AND about 4pm squeeze four organic limes into a cup and drink it before you go off eating everything in sight.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

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More on GRITS!!!!!

Tuesday, October 28th, 2014

copyright 2014 by Bettina Network, inc.

Wow! Grits being discussed as a serious topic.  Unbelievable.  Am I the only Yankee reading your blog?

I used to wonder what was the big deal about grits until I tasted the grits you have described and generously provided a recipe for.

Each time you add something I try it.  I thought the “Grits and Greens” were special.  That was just the introduction.

I would like to add my two cents to this discussion:

After leaving a Bettina Home with my stomach full of grits I went home, bought Arrowhead Mills Organic Grits and tried it for myself.  I started with grits and greens.  Came back to buy more grits and couldn’t believe those folks actually put “gluten free” on the box.  Didn’t know corn had gluten.

I tried your most recent recipe for grits and added the following:

After adding the 4 ounces of organic cream cheese I also added a package of frozen organic yellow corn and a 4 ounce package of raw organic sharp cheddar cheese.  I let them bubble awhile – stirred every once in a while until everything was combined nicely – and then ate the most fantastic pot of grits I’ve ever had.  I heartily recommend it to your readers.

Most people would talk about cutting the cheese into small cubes, etc. but i just put everything as it came from their packages into the pot and let them cook.  They melded on their own with just an occasional stirring from me.

What most surprised me was that I had a great dish without tons of butter.  You go girl!

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

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GRITS/RICE – A Great Addition

Wednesday, October 15th, 2014

Thanks for your recipe for Creole Grits.

I would like to make an addition, which we have used for quite a long time and feel it has added to our family’s health and good looks:)

Once the water has started to boil, add a heaping tablespoon of Organic Turmeric, preferably the kind with active curcumin which you can get from Frontier Coop, among other places.

Don’t put in the Organic Turmeric before the water comes to a boil, that would be a waste of its active ingredients.  Don’t put in the Orlganic Turmeric and then bring the water to a boil, that is not an option if you want to enjoy whatever health benefits you can get from the curcumin in the Organic Turmeric.  Then cook the grits as usual.  Their color will intensify and look very healthy.

We also put Organic Turmeric in rice when the water boils and just at the point where we put the rice into the pot.  It also intensifies the color of the rice, but we find that a distinct improvement.

If you are not sure what kind of Organic Turmeric to buy, call Frontier Coop and ask for Megan.

I love your blog.  Keep up the good work.  Sending you this blog is the first time I have used my membership in Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community and will probably begin to get more involved.

Before I wrote this blog to you I checked your visitors’  counter and am really impressed that in one day you had over 2,000 reading the blog.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

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Food and Pharma Connected?

Sunday, June 1st, 2014

copyright 2014 Bettina Network, inc.

We had another one of those breakfasts and we are all still reeling, having put different backgrounds, experience, education, parts of the world together we came up with a startling conclusion:

The discussion centered around Bettina Network’s attempt to keep Bettina Homes as organic as possible – in cleaning, food, and everything else.  We don’t succeed 100%, but it is a constant effort and we think we do a pretty good job – considering all the outside negative influences that press in on us to go in a different direction.

One person brought up the chemicals – especially Potassium Nitrate – in most of the foods being processed and wanted to know more about it.  Another person piped up with the fact that Potassium Nitrate, when he was a boy, was called ‘Salt Peter’ and some private schools used it in the food to keep the young men toned down a bit sexually.  Well, that wasn’t new.  It was something we all had heard from time to time and we all knew the affect “Salt Peter’ has on the body.

Another came up with the connection between the processed food industry and big pharma.  The processed food industry was putting ‘salt peter’ into our food supply to give the foods they process a longer shelf life.  In the meantime, that was dumbing down and destroying the sexual performance ability of many – especially males – since that is what salt peter is supposed to do.

Enter Big Pharma with their development of the block buster drug for men called ‘Viagra” and other names.  Each company which produces it has its own name.

What a pass through.  The food industry creates the dysfunction – big pharma develops and sells the drug to address the dysfunction.  No wonder so much money is going out of the pocket of the middle class into the pockets of both the food industry and the pharmaceutical companies.

Our question was – what else has such a symbiotic relationship?  Was this a deliberate collaboration or accidental?  Some didn’t believe in accidents like this?  Others weren’t so sure! Others felt we needed to step back and take a look to see how we could expose this early on before fortunes were made, peoples health negatively affected for profit, etc.

There wasn’t enough time over breakfast to solve the problem, but we certainly left with something to think about!

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Buying Breadcrumbs!

Thursday, February 20th, 2014

copyright 2014 Bettina Network, inc.

You know our food supply is on the down slide when you hear on the food channels and find recipes which tell you to buy Panko Bread Crumbs because others -basically the kind you make from your stale bread – are not good and can’t measure up to the quality of Panko.  So throw out that day old bread, don’t buy from the day old bread shelf in the super market, buy Panko and pay the premium price for bread crumbs?  We are becoming beyond ridiculous.

Panko’s marketing budget must be huge and we must be going slightly crazy when we have to buy bread crumbs.

If you have a problem and don’t like the bread crumbs made from your bread, that seems to say to us that you need to change the kind of bread you are either making or buying.

Try using organic whole wheat when making bread – or be careful to only buy organic bread made with organic whole wheat flour or spelt or other kinds of flour and you might find your bread crumbs a bit better than even Pankos.

Ridiculous is the name of the marketing game.  This – currently – tops our list for arrogance, gall, etc. etc.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

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To Sara – Vinegar Pumps

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

Hi Sara,

Thank you for your telephone call.  It has taken a while for us to research your question, but your question opened other doors and presented information to us we weren’t looking for – so thank you and we enjoyed the research and hope this helps.

You wanted to know about finding “pumps” for your Organic Apple Cider Vinegar bottle as talked about in our blog on “More on Apple Cider Vinegar” published Monday, July 23rd, 2012.

It said “I put the second bottle in the bathroom after I found a pump which fit the top and which made my Apple Cider Vinegar bottle ‘pumpable’ for cosmetic purposes.”

We went back to the person who wrote the blog and found the following:

Such pumps are common.  We found them all over the place.  The person who wrote the blog used to buy lotion which came with a pump.  Since she saves everything she had a supply of the pumps which had been in her lotion bottles which she cleaned, stored and saved.  She told us how excited she was to find a use for the pumps she thought might languish on the shelf for years.  (A true hoarder in the making).  You might look around to see if you have such bottles to use their pumps when they are empty.

Lacking that we went looking other places:

Frontier Co-op has pumps in their catalog – try www.frontiercoop.com

Home Depot has pumps which can be used for all kinds of bottles.

The vinegar we use – Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with mother, quart size – is 2 centimeters around the top and most pumps will fit  for whichever size vinegar you buy.  We buy the quart size, which is the 2 centimeters (We called Bragg’s to make sure of the size of the mouth of the bottle).

Sometimes you can find a pump which fits the top of the bottle, but which you need to cut because it is too long to fit.  We would suggest you cut the bottom stem on the diagonal.

We also found pumps in CVS, Walgreens and more.  All of them were really inexpensive.

Hope all of the above helps.  If we come across a very elegant pump we will let you know!

In our quest for your pumps we came up with some interesting information.

We found one person, who bought her pumps from Frontier Co-op, who puts a quart-size bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar in her bathroom with a pump, but she also uses a pump on the olive oil mixture we suggested in another blog.  She pumps it out onto her rag to clean her floors.  In addition, she uses the same mixture as a lotion and since she doesn’t get what is in the bottle contaminated because of the pump, she uses the same mixture after her bath and to clean her wood floors.

That sounded a bit much for us, but we pass it along if you want to try this.

The Olive Oil mixture for cleaning floors is – one quart bottle Olive Oil (or whichever size you want to buy); add the juice from one or two organic lemons, depending upon the size of the bottle of Olive Oil; and to this add several drops of essential oil of whatever you like best.  We recommended organic essential oil of lavender because in a house that is a really soothing smell to come home to – you can almost become addicted to the smell.

If you want to also use that recipe for your body lotion, you might want to change the oil – roses, gardenia’s, every kind of flower or mix a couple essential oils as you put in a few drops of each into the bottle.

You can also use this on your hair for a little oil treatment or a bit on your hands after you wash your hair.  However, we prefer sticking to coconut oil for the hair because that seems to help control the curl.  If you have straight hair you might want to change that to the olive oil because it gives some curl – some people would say frizz.

Enjoy!

Call again if you can’t find the pumps.

All of us at Bettina’s

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Gluten Problems??????????

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc. for Marceline Donaldson

Many years ago I worked for The Pillsbury Company – for a brief time – with a long following law suit – which is the stuff of legend around my neighborhood. I offer that fact to you in the interest of full disclosure.

One, of the many things that upset me, happened when I was moved to International Marketing with one of my responsibilities being over the Silos.  It wasn’t something I actually did, it was an old hangover from another time, but the job description was never amended.

In the process of this tenure, I received a telephone call from the real manager of the Silos, the one who had been at Pillsbury for many years and who did the day to day managing of the Silos.  He informed me there was an infestation of bugs in the Silos and asked what he should do about it.

My immediate response was – throw out the flour in the Silos – you can’t sell flour to people which is or has been full of bugs.

He thanked me and hung-up.

Shortly thereafter my boss came along and said “Marceline, we can’t throw out the flour.  He wasn’t calling to actually get input from you on what to do, he has been doing this job for many years and knew what to do.  With your new job description he needs your signature and go ahead to proceed.”

Well, what did that mean!

It means his procedure, set up by who knows, was to spray the flour in the Silos with pesticides to kill the bugs.

Being confused, I asked my boss how did they get the pesticides out of the flour and how did they make the flour clean again from bug feces, etc.

He told me they didn’t.   The FDA said the pesticides were not enough to negatively affect human health and by the time the flour was packaged and reached the grocery store shelves no one ever questioned what those little black specs were or where they came from.

Being really mind blown, I checked around the industry and discovered that was common practice and why did I have a problem with it?  It was normal – everybody did it – and given that fact, they wouldn’t do such if it was problematical or would cause the public health problems.

Well, I didn’t sign off on it – the job description was finally adjusted and we all settled down to a very uncomfortable co-existence.

From that time onward, whenever I go to the store for flour I buy organic whole wheat or organic some other kind of flour whichever has minimum processing of the flour.  That has been my practice since that time in early 1970.  And given the fact that I bake quite a bit, it is possible to make extremely delicious breads, cakes, etc. using only organic whole wheat flour.  All those recipes and comments from Chefs which say you have to add White Flour or your baking won’t come out right are a lot of baloney.  Most recipes, which call for White overly processed flour translate on a one to one basis – they were probably translated from the organic whole wheat lightly milled flour to what we have today. – who said “Without a knowledge of history, we are really seriously handicapped in the way we live.”

We have had several people for breakfast lately who’ve said they don’t eat wheat because their doctor said they were ‘sensitive’.  They didn’t have celiac disease – full blown- according to them, but their ‘sensitivity’ to wheat made them – on their doctors’ advice – eliminate wheat from their diet.

It has occurred to me to question if they are ‘sensitive’ to wheat or if they are ‘sensitive’ to and/or ‘allergic’ to the chemicals used to debug the flour.

I’ve raised the issue, but this pesticide treatment of flour has been a closely guarded secret of the flour processing companies for decades.

There was not this ‘sensitivity’ to flour when I was growing up.  Its only recent that we are running into people who refuse to eat wheat because of it.

Since their doctors have no idea what’s in the wheat – they, I am sure, as well as everybody else  have no clue as to this treatment of wheat.  So, why would they test their patients for a sensitivity to the pesticides sprayed on the wheat before it is packed and shipped.  Why would they look at whether their patients are allergic to the bugs and bug droppings in the wheat when they don’t know that such exists.

It really should be investigate to determine its real affect on humans and investigated by scientists other than those related to the flour industry.

This is one of many stories I have about what happens to our flour.  We all need to be vigilant and on our toes about the food we eat, especially the food which has been processed.  The FDA doesn’t seem to have done such a great job.  But then, maybe I am confused as to whose interest they are protecting!

If you’ve stayed in our home you know some of the other stories about the wheat and the FDA – especially the strawberry story.  I won’t bore you with repeating them.

Good eating!!!  And stay responsible for your health and therefore your diet.  What you eat determines who you are and your present and future health.  Exercise is fine, but it is only about 10 percent of the equation – and – is it so highly touted to be the red herring to throw you off looking at the real problems.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Bettina’s Tapioca Pudding

Wednesday, August 29th, 2012

copyright 2012 Bettina Network, inc.

A long-known comfort food.   We have hearkened back to memories of childhood when desserts were homemade and not full of so many of the non-food ‘stuff’ they now contain.

Organic Tapioca is the basis for this pudding.  I searched through many recipe books and came to the conclusion that organic tapioca is a necessary – well maybe I also started out with a bias.  However, I came to the conclusion that the tapioca should be organic because of the overwhelming number of recipes which call for cornstarch as the thickening agent in this dish.

At first, I couldn’t understand why one would need a thickening agent in a dish whose core ingredient is itself a thickening agent.  Tapicoa is used in many sweet and savory dishes as a thickening agent and it works very well without changing the taste of the dish.  I realized why all of these recipe’s contained corn starch when we bought several kinds of  Tapioca from Organic to overly processed with a coating of talc to make it look whiter and more matte.  The corn starch was necessary because in the processing of tapioca, which is not organic,  it loses its thickening properties.

The white matte-looking tapioca was incredible.  It was so overly processed that using it made no sense ! – Why was it coated with talc, especially since much of the talc was seen floating in the water or milk that we used to test the tapioca.  It was floating in the liquid but it was incorporating itself into the tapioca pudding so we would be eating tapioca and talc.  That meant to us its use was purely aesthetic.  An aesthetic that gave us a stomach ache since  talc is rumored, and in some experiments has shown itself to be a carcinogen.  At least that is what we have read.  Why especially would you use this kind of overprocessed and staged tapioca in a dish you feed mostly to young children and those longing for their many-years past childhood?

For those of you who don’t know its genesis, tapioca is extracted from the cassava.  It is a staple in many areas of the world and is used as a thickening agent in foods.  It is gluten-free.

If you have a difficult time finding organic tapioca we suggest you try www.frontiercoop.com and have it mailed to you.  It is worth the trouble.

We started with:

——— a small light under 3 cups organic milk in a glass pot.

——— as bubbles formed around the edges of the milk we added 1/2 cup organic tapioca

——— and stirred and stirred making sure nothing was sticking to the pan.

——————-We also added  a small amount of himalayan salt to the pan and continued to stir.

———when the milk mixture looked as though it was about to boil we added 1/2 cup sugar

——————-and stirred and stirred and stirred , especially since we did not want the mixture to boil over!!!!!!!

==================We broke two eggs into a mixing bowl and whipped the eggs until they became lighter in color and texture.

==================We added a little of the milk mixture to the eggs very gradually so as to bring the temperature of the eggs up to the

==================temperature of the milk mixture and then added the eggs to the milk mixture

———and stirred and stirred and stirred somemore!!

We continued stirring until the mixture looked like a very good and thick pudding!

We added liquid organic vanilla to the mixture, took it off the heat and stirred until the vanilla was incorporated.

We then poured the mixture into four beautiful stem glasses for serving and put the pudding into the refrigerator.

———If you want more than servings for four – simply double or triple the ingredients!

We let the pudding sit in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes because we like warm, but neither hot nor cold pudding!

When we served this organic tapioca pudding it was excellent and fulfilled every one of our childhood memories.

And when we went to bed that night we stirred and stirred and then stirred the already eaten pudding some more!!

Once you’ve satisfied your longings for tapioca and your childhood you can then add all kind of extra ingredients to create memories for your children unique to their upbringing, but turning back a little to your own:

—————–raisins – coconut – soft nuts or nuts you have crushed – chocolate chips – grated ginger – cinnamon – nutmeg – orange juice –

and the list goes on…………………………

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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