Carrot Lime Salad with Cilantro, Basil, Apricots & Pine Nuts
Sumptuous Spoonfuls
I'm Only Here For The Free Food.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn`t just how you like it, think about how things used to be.Here are some facts about the 1500s:1. Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by the next month. Even so, they were starting to stink, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.2. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children - last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty someone could actually get lost in it! Hence the saying, "Don`t throw the baby out with the bathwater."3. Houses had thatched roofs - thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It`s raining cats and dogs."4. There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house in those days. This posed a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs and other droppings could really mess up a nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That`s how canopybeds came into existence.The floors were dirt, and only the wealthy had something other than dirt, from which came the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when the door was opened it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway to prevent this, hence the saying a "thresh hold."5. In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that hadbeen there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."6. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."7. Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.8. Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust."9. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock people out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gatheraround and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."10. England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."
A man walks into a pub where everybody else is having coffee with cream. "I would like a coffee. No cream on it." "Sorry, we ran out of cream. Could it be with no milk?"
AROUND THE HOUSE * 21% of us don't make our bed daily. 5% of us never do. * Men do 29% of laundry each week. Only 7% of women trust their husbands to do it correctly. * 40% of women have hurled footwear at a man. HABITS * 58.4% have called into work sick when we weren't. * 3 out of 4 of us store our dollar bills in rigid order with singles leading up to higher denominations. * 50% admit they regularly sneak food into movie theaters to avoid the high prices of snack foods. * 39% of us peek in our host's bathroom cabinet. * 17% have been caught by the host. * 81.3% would tell an acquaintance to zip his pants. * 29% of us ignore RSVP. * 35% give to charity at least once a month. * 71.6% of us eavesdrop. FOOD * 69% eat the cake before the frosting. * When nobody else is around, 47% drink straight from the carton. * Snickers is the most popular candy. * 22% of us skip lunch daily. * 9% of us skip breakfast daily. * 66% of us eat cereal regularly. * 22% of all restaurant meals include french fries. * 14% of us eat the watermelon seeds. HYGIENE * 22% leave the glob of toothpaste in the sink. * Only 13% brush our teeth from side to side. * Nearly 1/3 of U.S. women color their hair. * 53% of women will not leave the house without makeup on. * 58% of women paint their nails regularly. * 33% of women lie about their weight. * 30% of us refuse to sit on a public toilet seat. * 54.2% of us always wash our hands after using the toilet. * 23.5% admit they don't always flush. * 46.5% of men say they ALWAYS put the seat down after they've used the toilet, yet women claim to ALWAYS find it up. DRIVING * 4 out of 5 sing in the car. * 12% of men never use their car blinkers. * 45% of us consistently follow the speed limit. * 2/3 of us speed up at a yellow light. * 1/3 of us don't wear seat belts. * 71% can drive a stick shift car. * 44% of men tailgate to speed up the person in front of them. WHAT WE SHOULDN'T BE DOING * 13% of us admit to occasionally doing our offspring's homework. * 91% of us lie regularly. * 27% admit to cheating on a test or quiz. RELIGION * 90% believe in divine retribution. * 10% believe in the 10 Commandments. * 82% believe in an afterlife. * 45% believe in ghosts. * 10% of us claim to have seen a ghost. * 49% believe in ESP. DAILY LIVING * 90% of us depend on alarm clocks to wake us. * 53% read their horoscopes regularly. * 16% of us have forgotten our own wedding anniversary . * 59% of us say we're average looking. * Less than 10% are trilingual. * 37% claim to know how to use all the features on their VCR. * 53% prefer ATM machines over tellers. * 44% reuse tinfoil. * 57% save pretty gift paper to reuse. * 66% of women and 59% of men have used a mix to cook and taken credit for doing it from scratch. * 53% of us would take advice from Anne Landers. * 51% of adults dress up for a Halloween festivity. * On average, we send 38 Christmas cards every year. * 20% of women consider their parents to be their best friends. LOVE * 2 out of 5 have married their first love. * Only 4% asked the parents' approval for their bride's hand. * 1 in 5 men proposed on his knees. * 6% propose over the phone.
Worst Analogies Ever Written in a High School Essay From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. Roy Ashley, Washington) Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who meant to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but got T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man." Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr.Pepper can. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
What's a moo hoo for a cattle dinner? Cow chow!
Farmer John had just walked into the local watering hole, when who should he see, but his old friend Chris the tractor salesman sitting up at the bar. Chris looked so down and dejected, that John just had to go up and say something to him. "Say, Chris, how ya doing? How's the tractor selling business these days?" If Chris had looked sad before, at the mention of tractor sales, his face sank even more, and a tear came to his eye. "John," he said, shaking his head, "I don't know what it is. I can't sell a tractor these days to save my life. I'll tell you, I just gotta sell one tractor and soon, or else I'll lose that dealership for good." "Well," John said, taking the barstool next to him, "If you think you got it bad, I got it worse. Now you listen to this..." "I went out to the barn the other morning to milk Bessy. That ol' cow gets more ornery as the years go by. Anyway, no sooner did I sit down on the milking stool and get to work, but ol' Bes starts a slappin' me with her tail. After a minute or so, I got fed up with it, so I threw a rope up over the rafters, and tied ol' Bessy's tail to the rafters. Then I got back to work." "I didn't even get two squirts into the bucket, when Bes gives me a kick. Knocked me clean off the stool! Boy, did that upset me! So I get me another rope an' tie Bessy's right hind leg to the side of the milking stall, and get a started trying to milk her again." "Well by this time, Bessy's about livid, and she doesn't want any part of it, so she let's me have it with her other hind leg. I wasn't about to give in to this ol' cow, so I got me yet another piece of rope and tied up Bessy's left leg to the other side of the stall." Just then John paused to take a sip his beer. Chris, distracted for a moment from his own troubles, asked John, "Well, did you finally get to milk her?" "Well, yes and no, Chris. But I'll tell ya what... If you can convince my wife that I was out there to MILK that cow, I'll BUY a tractor from ya...!"
A Doctor was addressing a large audience in Tampa. "The material we put into our stomachs are enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water. But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have, or will, eat it. Can anyone tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it? After several seconds of quiet, a 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said, "Wedding cake."
Q: What is it when an Antartian blows into another Antartian's ear? A: Data transfer. Q: What did the Antartian say when she found out she was pregnant? A: "I wonder if it's mine?" Q: Why shouldn't Antartian's have coffee breaks? A: It takes too long to retrain them. Q: What do you call an eternity? A: Four Antartians at a four-way stop. Q: How do you confuse an Antartian? A: Give him a package of M&M's and tell him to put them in alphabetical order.
When my husband and I showed up at a very popular restaurant, it was crowded. I went up to the hostess and asked, "Will it be long?" The hostess, ignoring me, kept writing in her book. I asked again, "How much of a wait?" The woman looked up from her book and said, "About ten minutes." A short time later, we heard an announcement over the loudspeaker: "Willette B. Long, your table is now ready."
Q: What is the world`s longest song?A: "Aleph-nought Bottles of Beer on the Wall."
The patient: Tell me, is it true that alcohol decreases blood pressure? Doctor: Yes, that is true. P: And, is it true that coffee increases blood pressure? D: Yes, that is also true. P: So, in average, I live normally.
Bush and Gore were sitting in a restaurant to discuss the craziness of the election. When the waitress came to take their orders, Gore said, "I'll take the steak." When she asked Bush, he said, "I'll take the quicky." Gore motioned for the waitress to come closer, and whispered into her ear "He means the quiche."
A woman asks her husband, "Would you like some bacon and eggs? A slice of toast and maybe some grapefruit and coffee?" He declines. "Thanks for asking, but I'm not hungry right now. It's this Viagra," he says. "It's really taken the edge off my appetite." At lunchtime she asked if he would like something. "A bowl of soup, homemade muffins, or a cheese sandwich?" He declines. "The Viagra," he says, "really trashes my desire for food." Come dinnertime, she asks if he wants anything to eat. "Would you like a juicy porterhouse steak and scrumptious apple pie? Or maybe a rotisserie chicken or tasty stir fry?" He declines again. "Naw, still not hungry." "Well," she says, "would you mind letting me up? I'm starving."
How to Handle the IRS By Dave Barry It is time once again for our annual feature "Tax Advice for Humans," the column that explains our complex federal tax laws to you in simple, everyday terms that have virtually nothing to do with reality. This is the only tax-advice column that has the courage to give you the following written guarantee in writing: "If, as a result of following the advice in this column, you are for any reason whatsoever confined to a federal prison, we will personally come and live in your house, until your refrigerator is out of beer." So let's get started! Most likely the foremost question in your mind, as you prepare to fill out your federal tax forms, is: "Can I cheat?" A lot of taxpayers are thinking that this is a good year to take advantage of the Internal Revenue Service, because of the way it got hammered in those congressional hearings last September. Remember? One by one, taxpayers went before the Senate Finance Committee and told alarming stories like this: "I got a letter from the IRS computer stating that I owed taxes back to the year 427 B.C., which seemed like a mistake, plus the letter addressed me as `The Dionne Quintuplets,' so I went down to the IRS office to straighten things out, and the next thing I knew I was being dangled from a helicopter by one leg." When the nation heard these stories, everybody was outraged. The IRS formally apologized to the taxpayers and ordered the dismantling of the agency's primary guillotine. So a lot of people are thinking that this year, while the IRS is under fire, is a good time to "play fast and loose" with their tax returns, and maybe even get revenge for the years of abuse by yanking the IRS' chain a little bit. One leading tax-preparation firm, which I will not identify here except by its initials, "H" and "R," has gone so far as to write taunting remarks in the margins of its clients' tax returns, such as: -- "Hey Audit Breath! If you don't believe I spent a 100 percent deductible total of $224,123 on Pez, perhaps you would like me to complain to the Senate Finance Committee?" -- "No I shall NOT enclose Form 10448275-J! I shall use Form 10448275-J for INTIMATE HYGIENE PURPOSES HAHAHAHA!" This kind of thing is of course a lot of fun, but we are not recommending it. What many people do not realize is that, after the IRS finished publicly apologizing to the taxpayers who testified against it last September, it quietly tracked them down and relieved them of all of their worldly possessions including corneas. So we are not recommending that you cheat. You should heed the words of IRS commissioner Charles Rossotti, who, in this year's Letter to Taxpayers, states: "Every citizen owes it to the nation to pay his or her fair share of taxes, unless of course he or she has made a whopping cash contribution to a key congressperson or President Bill `Mr. Coffee' Clinton or Vice President Al `I Honestly Thought That They Were Just A Bunch Of Very Wealthy Buddhist Nuns!' Gore." Here are some questions that you are likely to ask in preparing your tax returns this year: Q: Did the government change the tax laws again? A: Ha ha! That is the stupidest question we have ever heard! Of COURSE the government changed the tax laws! The government had no choice! The government found out that, despite the fact that the U.S. Tax Code is larger than the entire state of Connecticut, there was still one U.S. taxpayer, Norbridge K. Trongle Jr., who was able to correctly prepare his own tax return. The government considered handling this threat to the national security by sending a B-2 "Stealth" bomber to destroy Mr. Trongle's house and financial records, but the Air Force vetoed this plan because of the risk that the $2 billion plane would be brought down by Mr. Trongle's lawn sprinkler. So the House and Senate Joint Tax Mutation Committee swung into action and made a number of significant changes to the Tax Code, which you need to know about. Q: What, specifically, are these changes? A: Nobody knows. Q: How many taxpayers w.
What is an elf's favourite kind of birthday cake? Shortcake!
DIRECTIONS for MICROSOFT TV DINNER 1. You must first remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to accept and honor Microsoft rights to all TV dinners. 2. You may not give anyone else a bite of your dinner . You may, however, let others smell and look at your dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good it is. 3. If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set the oven using these keystrokes: mstv.dinn.//08.5min@50%heat// Then enter: 4. If you have a Mac oven, insert the dinner and press start. The oven will set itself and cook the dinner. Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your oven must be restarted. 5. Remove the dinner from the oven and enter to be repeated. Try unplugging the microwave and then doing a cold reboot. If this doesn't work, contact your hardware vendor. 6. Many users ha.
The beautiful secretary of the president of a bank goes on a sight-seeing tour with a very rich African king who was a very important client. The client out of the blue asks her to marry him. Naturally, the secretary is quite taken aback. However, she remembers what her boss told her, ...don't reject the guy outright. So, she tries to think of a way to dissuade the businessman from wanting to marry her. So, after a few minutes, the woman says to the man, "I will only marry you under three conditions. First, I want my engagement ring to be a 75-carat diamond ring with a matching 200-carat diamond tiara." The African king pauses for awhile. Then, he nods his head and says, "No problem! I have. I have." Realizing her first condition was too easy the woman says to the man, "I want you to build me a 100-room mansion in New York. As a vacation home, I want a chateau built in the middle of the best wine country in France." The African king pauses for awhile. He whips out his cellular phone and calls some brokers in New York and in France. He looks at the woman, nods his head and says, "Okay, okay. I build. I build." Realizing that she only has one last condition, the secretary knows that she'd better make this a good one. She takes her time to think and finally she gets an idea. A sure-to-work condition. She squints her eyes, looks at the man and says, rather coldly, "Since I like sex, I want the man I marry to have a 14-inch penis." The man seems a bit disturbed. He cups his face with his hands and rests his elbows on the table, all the while muttering in African dialect. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the king shakes his head, looking really sad, and says to the woman, "Okay, okay. I cut. I cut."
Q: What is crazy and walks along the sides of buildings? A: A walnut.
For the first time in many years, a an old man traveled from his rural town to the city to attend a movie. After buying his ticket, he stopped at the concession stand to purchase some popcorn. Handing the attendant $1.50, he couldn't help but comment, "The last time I came to the movies, popcorn was only 15 cents." "Well, sir," the attendant replied with a grin, "You're really going to enjoy yourself. We have sound now.."