Monday, January 30, 2012

Last Pass, Tiny Globetrotter, Sticks,

For a few days now I have been testing a programme called Last Pass which was recommended by HoLast Passw to Geek. Last Pass will remember all kinds of information for you including all those bloody passwords you have to use on different websites. I started using the same one for a lot of sites because I was having so much difficulty and although I have them written down, it was a pain in the butt to have to keep looking up those passwords for sites I seldom visited, however, it is recommended that you don’t do that. Last Pass is taking care of this so basically all I have to remember is the password to access Last Pass. Everything is encrypted in such a way that even Last Pass cannot get at the information or even at your Last Pass password. Takes a bit of time for it to pick up all the passwords of course, but eventually……. Oh, and I forgot to mention, its totally free.

Saturday morning on GMA they were talking to Tiny who is a Tiny Sturgessmember of the Harlem Globetrotters and who is 7’8” tall. That’s tall. He’s originally from England and he is the tallest Harlem Globetrotter ever. I would think so. Paul (Tiny) Sturgess plays several sports and is very keen on golf but had to have specially made clubs. His drives are to be seen to be believed. He was drafted by the Globetrotters last year and says he is honoured to be on their team and to be able to travel widely and meet lots of people from different parts of the world. He wears a size 20 shoe by the way!!!

I was using my flash drives the other day and actually thought about them. I have a 1 Gig, 2 Gig, 8 Gig and now a 32 Gig. For someone who started with personal computers which had little or no storage dot matrixat all, that’s quite a lot of capacity. I think I have mentioned before that my first computer was tape driven and certainly had no storage at all, hard drive, what was that? My next computer, a Commodore 64, worked on large floppy disks and I got so fed up with changing disks all the time that I had a 560 MHz hard drive installed. That computer cost us $4,000 and I got a huge dot matrix printer which was about $80 or maybe more, I am no longer sure, this was in 1987. Computers are so cheap, comparatively, these days with more and more capacity. I have a hard drive on my desktop, 450 Gigs, which is way bigger than I shall ever need – I don’t use it for gaming or anything. But I am still staggered by the capacities of my flash drives let alone the computers themselves. I can carry practically all the information I have on a key ring. I don’t have an iPhone or Blackberry as they are not necessary for us. We hardly ever use a cell phone and carry a simple one for emergencies mainly.

It finally looks like winter here, it snowed all day on Saturday, and of an on Sunday, although it was very fine snow, it was constant, and now everything is winter white. There was a lot of wind on Saturday too which was in the right direction to make our apartment somewhat chilly. I don’t know why this happens but once or twice during a winter, when the wind really howls, it seems to chill us right down. Maybe because there are extracting vents in three places and it seems to me they actually let the cold air in.

EndiveWe like Belgian Endive (pronounce ondeeve), I have frequently used it in salads, Matt makes a dish of stuffed endive leaves – Endive Boats - and a Dutch friend has an interesting recipe which involves rusks, but she won’t share it – says that means she can make it for us and if will be different; reading Dragon’s Kitchen the other day I thought I would look up braised endives. This recipe is based on Julia Child’s way of cooking them. However, Julia insists on putting them in the oven for 2 hours, this recipe says you can do it on the stove top if you wish.

Butter Braised Belgian Endives

By Molly Watson, About.com Guidebraisedendive

Braised Belgian Endives

Photo © Molly Watson

Slowly cooking Belgian endives in a bit of butter and lemon juice yields these tender, luscious, almost sweet bundles of otherwise bitter leaves. It's alchemy at its finest.

Ingredients:
  • 2 Tbsp. butter
  • 10 to 12 Belgian endives
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/3 cup water
Preparation:
  1. Melt butter over medium low heat in a large, heavy frying pan, sauté pan, or pot with a tight fitting lid.
  2. Meanwhile, trim and discard any browned bits on the ends of the endives. When butter is melted, lay endives in a single layer in the pan. Sprinkle with lemon juice and salt. Pour water down along the side of the pan. Cover and reduce heat to low. Let cook, undisturbed, until endives are very tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Another option is to heat an oven to 375°F and after starting the endives on the stove, covering them and transferring the pan to the oven for about half an hour.
  3. When endives are very tender, set lid ajar and cook until endives start to brown. Turn endives over and cook until they are browned on both sides.

Makes 4 servings

Have a great day

Jo

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