Femtalks Blog

I’m digging more info on celery diet due to that confusing part of celery on my celebrity diet post last time which is commented by chikwendu. Some people refer to taking celery as giving you negative calories intake. Here’s more information on celery diet, whether you should go ahead on doing it or not, read more and find out:

Something you shouldn’t go on. Celery has next to no nutritional value… people eat celery because they actually get “negative” calories. Celery itself doesn’t contain many calories, and in the process of chewing the celery, you actually burn off more calories than you take in. If you’re thinking about dieting, diet sensibly with proportion control and adequate cardio.

The reason a celery diet works is because celery does not give you any nutrition but by digesting it you burn calories so you could call it a workout with out pain.

more to read:

Celery is much more than a traditional summer salad ingredient. Available throughout the year, a little research on celery shows this versatile vegetable has very real health benefits and is worth adding to your weekly diet.

Research has shown that celery contains blood pressure reducing properties. Celery contains active compounds called Pthalides which relax the muscles of the arteries that regulate blood pressure allowing these vessels to dilate. Pthalides also reduce stress hormones which can cause blood vessels to constrict.

Celery is an excellent source of Vitamin C with all its health benefits. Vitamin C can help to reduce cold symptoms or the severity of cold symptoms during the winter months. This important Vitamin helps to support the immune system and is a cold fighter!

Celery also provides fibre (see High Fibre Diet), and essential minerals such as Folacin and Potassium.

Nor surprising then that Celery has a long history of use, first as a medicine and then later as a food.

Celery can obviously be eaten on its own but is also a tasty addition to many cooked dishes: stir fry dishes, soups, stews and casseroles.

Nutritional Information from the WLR database
Celery, Raw, Average
1 Med Stalk/40g

Calories 3.1
Protein 0.3
Carbs 0.4
Fat 0.1
Fibre 0.6
Fruit/Veg 0.5

source1&2, source3. related post.

Here’s another extraordinary invention of humankind: dinner in the sky. When I first come across the idea I thought of it rather amazing and twisted at the same time, just because there’s no comfort of nice warm cosy ambiance there and there’s no convenient toilet (I imagine that must be hard for long hours) however you wouldn’t get awesome panoramic views harnessed in seats that swivel 180 degrees, suspended via a crane anywhere else except in dinnerinthesky.com

By Jayne Clark, USA TODAY
Here’s a dining concept that’ll make your head — if not your stomach — spin: It’s dinner at a table suspended 165 feet in the air with chairs that swivel 180 degrees.
Dubbed Dinner in the Sky, the attraction is making its U.S. debut Monday in Orlando at the annual International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions convention. About 25,000 attendees are expected at the one-stop-shopping event, where the amusement industry rolls out new thrill rides and related products.
The high-flying dining venue was introduced in Europe last year and consists of a platform suspended from a crane. Guests are harnessed into 22 seats, with space in the center for a chef and two helpers. With local officials’ blessings, the platform can be transported to just about anywhere the crane can maneuver. One recent spot: in front of the Amiens Cathedral in France, with dinner prepared by a three-star Michelin chef.

The restaurant belongs firmly in the special-occasion category, and the cost for eight hours is about $11,444 not including the catering!!

USA Today, dinner in the sky

Michelin Guide is the most prestigious restaurant rating publication, far older than Zagat and other restaurant ratings and certainly better than Yelp.com peer reviews.

Michelin, the French tire company, has a storied history in restaurant reviews. Its rankings carry so much weight there that losing a star can drive a restaurant to ruin. For all its guides, full-time professional restaurant critics undergo a rigorous course of training before being turned loose on unsuspecting restaurants and hotels. They eat anywhere from four to eight times in any restaurant before determining its rating.

Only six Bay Area restaurants received a two-star rating: two in San Francisco (Aqua and Michael Mina), two in Wine Country (Cyrus and the Restaurant at Meadowood), and two in Silicon Valley (Chez TJ in Mountain View and Manresa in Los Gatos).

This year, 27 restaurants in the area received one star, four more than last year. The newcomers are: Ame in San Francisco, Coi in San Francisco, Cortez in San Francisco, Madrona Manor in Healdsburg, One Market in San Francisco and Redd in Yountville.

Link

2008 rankings of San Francisco Bay Area restaurants.

*** (3 stars) - A very good restaurants in its category

** (2 stars) - Excellent cooking and worth a detour

* (1 star) - Exceptional cuisine and worth the journey

	2-Star Restaurants	City	Neighborhood
Aqua		San Francisco	Financial District
Chez TJ		Mountain View	Peninsula
Cyrus		Healdsburg	Sonoma County
Manresa		Los Gatos	Peninsula
Meadowood, The Restaurant		St. Helena	Napa Valley
Michael Mina		San Francisco	Financial District

	3 Star- Restaurants	City	Neighborhood
The French Laundry		Yountville	Napa Valley

Update:

Following are several updates since going to press in late August.

Baraka
288 Connecticut St.
San Francisco (Mission District)
Under new ownership, Aug. 2007

Cortez
550 Geary St.
San Francisco (Financial District)
Co-executive chef Louis Maldonado has left after four years
Seth Bowden will now be the sole executive chef

Fifth Floor
12 4th St., San Francisco (SoMa)
Recently announced that Chef Laurent Manrique of Aqua will be acting as consulting chef

N.V.
1106 1st St., Napa
Closed late August
The former chef/owner Peter Halikas will be taking over as executive chef at Brix in Yountville

Olivia
1453 Dwight Way
Berkeley
Closed as of September

Tablespoon
2209 Polk St.
San Francisco (Nob Hill)
Recently closed and location is now Bar Johnny

This is a rather interesting find: square watermelon. I wish to be able to see it on a first-hand basis though, but they are not available in the US, and although they are available, it’s at approximately $83.00 each … so it’s rather expensive to consume one. So here’s part the story:

Farmers in the southern Japanese town of Zentsuji have figured out how to grow their watermelons so they turn out square.

It’s not a fad. The technique actually has practical applications. “The reason they’re doing this in Japan is because of lack of space,” said Samantha Winters of the National Watermelon Promotion Board in Orlando, Florida.

A fat, round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerator, and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves.

But clever Japanese farmers have solved this dilemma by forcing their watermelons to grow into a square shape. Farmers insert the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine.

The square boxes are the exact dimensions of Japanese refrigerators, allowing full-grown watermelons to fit conveniently and precisely onto refrigerator shelves.

But cubic fruit comes with a caveat: Each square watermelon costs 10,000 yen, the equivalent of about $82. Regular watermelons in Japan cost from $15 to $25 each.

At $82 apiece, Winters said she didn’t know if there would be a market for square-grown watermelons in the United States.

read the rest of the story here

more from BBC Asia-Pacific:

For years consumers struggled to fit the large round fruit in their refrigerators.
And then there was the problem of trying to cut the fruit when it kept rolling around.

The farmer, from Zentsuji in Kagawa prefecture, came up with the idea of making a cube-shaped watermelon which could easily be packed and stored.

To make it happen, farmers grew the melons in glass boxes and the fruit then naturally assumed the same shape. Today the cuboid watermelons are hand-picked and shipped all over Japan.

But the fruit, on sale in a selection of department stores and upmarket supermarkets, appeals mainly to the wealthy and fashion-conscious of Tokyo and Osaka, Japan’s two major cities.

Each melon sells for 10,000 yen, equivalent to about $83. It is almost double, or even triple, that of a normal watermelon.

link: CNN, link2, link: BBC.

In a rush? but still need to to serve a sweet breakfast for the family?Don’t worry I recently run into such a thing, and I did this modified eggo® recipe myself, it taste good it looks homemade and it’s fast, give it a try:

1.5 Tbs Block Butter
2.0 Tbs Brown Sugar
1 Golden Delicious Apple or Fuji Apple, skinned & cubbed
1 rice cup of Frozen Bluberrys
4 pieces of Eggo® waffle

1. Toss the butter block into a frying pan (medium heat), add the brown sugar till all submerge in butter liquid then toss all the cubbed apples in and about three minutes later you can toss in the frozen bluberrys. Keep on stirring for about 1 - 2 minutes then take off the heat.
2. Toss two eggos in a toaster, put 1st layer down on a serving plate and spoon the apple bluberry mixture on top of it and layer it again with another Eggo® waffle and toss another spoonful of that mixture on top of it. now just Enjoy it!

This recipe made 2 big servings (each get 2 waffles) or you can make 4 small ones (each serve with only 1 waffles)