For The Love Of Chocolate

With Valentine’s Day just four days from now, you can’t go anywhere without seeing the association between chocolate and love. How did a mid-winter celebration of love from the Middle Ages become linked with a New World food ingredient? It happened over a period of centuries as Europeans familiarized with the South American drink so

Gene Codes Cracked For Strawberries And Chocolate

Teams of scientists have cracked the genetic codes of the wild strawberry and a certain type of cacao used to make fine chocolate, work that should help breeders develop better varieties of more mainstream crops. The wild strawberry is closely related to important food crops such as apples, peaches, pears and raspberries, as well as


Decorating Ideas For The Holiday Table

Whether you’re dining with family or a group of friends, a beautiful Christmas table really sets the mood for a wonderful evening. Here’s some festive ideas: or some body part fell off. Why not put these holiday trinkets to good use this year for your table setting? Lay ornaments in glass bowls either in a

In Praise Of The Potluck

Friends and neighbours in the Carman area sat down to a potluck meal and end-of-the-garden- year talk on a snowy night last week. The last meeting of the year for Carman Garden Club always includes a feast and seed exchange in the Home Economics Room of the local high school. As per usual, this meal-with-no-particular-


Microwave Tips And Reminders

Use only microwave-safe containers. Sour cream, yogurt or margarine containers are not safe, containing nasty chemicals that could leach into your food. When using plastic wrap to cover containers, do not let plastic come in contact with the food. Heating water to boiling can pose a risk of getting scalded unless a small wooden object

Do You Have Pumpkin Recipes To Share?

RECIPE SWAP Sandi Knight of Macdonald kindly responded to our call last week for a Gorp Bar recipe, sending us this one for Crunch Trail Mix Bars, which she clipped from a Today’s Parent magazine a couple of years ago. Sandi writes that the original recipe also called for three-quarters of a cup of sugar