It's Flour, I Promise

While baking and cooking I can be quite messy. I do clean up after myself but during the process I tend to get ingredients all over. My dog helps with the floor but the counters have to be washed down pretty good when I’m done.

Sunday I made biscuits and had flour from here to Texas cutting out doughy circles and placing them in a pan. (I’ll give y’all my biscuit recipe just in case you want to give it a try.)

Today, Monday, my daughter had a dentist appointment and when I took my wallet out of my purse I noticed white powder all over it… even inside where the money and cards go. I’m thinking what the heck is all of this? Then I remembered I had my purse on the barstool while I was slinging flour Sunday.

I noticed the woman at the counter kept giving me weird looks while I’m wiping dust off of my medical card but she didn’t say anything. Later I was thinking and wondered if she thought it might be something other than baking ingredients?

Anyway when I got home I took the vacuum cleaner to my purse and cleaned it all out. Next time I won’t put my purse in the kitchen.

I think I need to do like those construction guys that hang tarp over doors to keep the dust enclosed. Just kidding, I’m not quite that bad.

Biscuits

5 cups flour
¼ cup sugar
1 cup shortening
1 pkg. yeast
2 T. water
3 t. baking powder
1 t. soda
1 t. salt
2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Put yeast and water in a cup or small bowl stir with fork until dissolved.

Sift dry ingredients in large bowl, cut in shortening with pastry cutter or fork, add buttermilk and yeast together. Mix well. Use fingers to make sure you get all the dry ingredients mixed with the moist.

Sprinkle flour on counter top and fold twice. The key to good biscuits is not to over knead them. Just fold it over once and then one more time. This will make those flakes you see in good biscuits. Either roll or mash dough out to about ¾ to an inch thick.

Cut with biscuit cutter or glass. Place on greased or sprayed baking pan with about a little space in between.

Bake in oven for 20 to 25 minutes. You want them to be golden brown.

If you don’t have buttermilk, and I almost never do, you can take a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar for part of the milk amount. This will give that tart taste without having to buy a container of buttermilk no one drinks anyway.

Blogs Are Not Always Reliable Sources for Information

It concerns me that so many people, mostly young, accept anything in print as fact.

I have had discussions with people in forums who are seriously misinformed and when I ask for a source to back up their information they give places like eHow, Ask.com or Yahoo answers (which completely fits it’s title) or other opinion sites. When I pull up the link the individual gives links to other blogs as referance sources like Blogger.

Anyone can write a blog and tell you this is the way it is. They don’t have to be knowledgeable or accurate in the least. It is their opinion the same as the guy on the bus sitting next to you spouting his ideas.

Opinions are like belly buttons, everyone has one and some of them stink.

Recently Google has had to clean up their act. People no longer want advice from people who sound like kids using text speak, they want medical advice from reputable sites like the Mayo Clinic, not someone with a keyboard who happens to use the right search words to get his blog at the top of the list.

Don’t get me wrong, there are good sources of information out there and if you know what to look for you can find some good ones, but don’t count on a blog about prostrates being accurate just because someone calls themselves a doctor unless you know who they are and that they do in fact have a medical degree.

Double check everything you read before trying or believing it.

Also don’t take everything you see on YouTube as accurate. I’ve seen a few nuts giving relationship advice or heaven forbid, medical help when they aren’t in the least bit qualified to do so. Just because someone takes the time to make a great looking film clip doesn’t mean they know what the heck they are talking about.

If I give you advice I try my hardest to find reputable web sites to back up my findings and let you make your decision whether you want to believe me or not.

Here are a few web sites that I feel are a good source for answers to questions many of us have.

Medical Advice:

http://www.webmd.com/
http://www.mayoclinic.com/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/

Consumer Advice:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm

Do not take advice from:

Yahoo Answers
Wiki Answers
Yelp
Topix
eHow
Ask.com

These websites have answers from random people that post their opinions. They aren’t qualified to give advice and in many cases don’t know what they are talking about. They use SEO and other tactics to get their blogs foremost in the search lists. Many of them are making a lot of money and that is why they continue to do it.

If, however, on the rare occasion they give a reputable website you might believe what they write but don’t expect too much from them.

The Hollies- Listen to Me:

My Daughter Got Her Green Card

This summer a lot of kids around here take driver’s education class. They have more time since school is out and the weather is usually good so they don’t have to worry about trying to maneuver through ice and snow.

It’s amusing to watch them behind the wheel with serious expressions, both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. In a few months they will be multitasking texting friends and putting on make up while drinking a coke forgetting the rules of summer driver’s ed.

After finishing two or three days of classroom instruction they receive a temporary paper card showing they are now qualified for instructions with a licensed driver. My daughter came home all excited and called everyone she knew to tell them she got her “green card.”

One of her friends whose parents are first generation Americans said, “I thought you were born here.”

Her first day of driving she sends me a text:

“OMG hearts racing just finished driving I think I did OK.”

Then a couple of days later she texts me with this message:

“I drove the highway!! And I didn’t go over lines.”

You would think I would be used to this and not nervous since I have two grown sons that were once teenagers but it doesn’t seem to work that way. They will both tell you they didn’t like driving with me in the car because I made them nervous. I think they are exaggerating. I don’t remember gasping, grabbing the dashboard and pressing my foot into the floorboard looking for the brake near as much as they let on.

I’ll let her daddy ride with her for a few months until she’s mastered the wheel, then maybe I’ll be ready to sit in the passenger’s seat.