Is the Blue man a fraud? Doctors don’t think so, but the colloidal silver industry is trying desperately to make Mr. Paul Karason out to be just that, if not just representing him as someone who was not very knowledgeable about the uses of silver solutions in general.

For those who aren’t aware, I posted on colloidal silver just a few weeks ago. At the time, I had no knowledge of the skin condition called argyria from which Mr. Karason suffers. The condition is known to be caused by the use of silver solutions. The colloidal silver industry is trying desperately to state that it was the use of ionic silver and not colloidal silver that caused Paul’s skin condition.

Where do I stand on this? I’m not sure. Mr. Karason does not believe that ingesting the silver caused his condition. As a matter of fact, he claims that the solution has helped him with a variety of other debilitating problems and is still taking the solution, though on a much reduced basis.

The colloidal silver industry’s response however, leads me to think that there may be more to what the doctors are saying than they would like us to believe. As a matter of fact, their statement (first link in this post) reads more like a propaganda paper from a less than savory organization. I’d like to think that this response is knee jerk at best, and that the wording will be changed at a later date, but the fact that it was published at all makes me more than a bit hesitant to believe the ret of their claims.

So, dear readers, as with any other supplement that you plan to take, please, please. Please! Consult your doctor or medical practitioner. Your health and safety are always my primary concern, and I will never knowingly steer you toward something that might damage your health. (Or just turn your skin blue!)

Popularity: 1% [?]

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had received the “E” for excellence award from Ben over at What’s Cooking. Part of the honor of winning that award is that I’m supposed to pass it along to a few other bloggers that I feel deserve the honor, so here’s my list of blogs that I feel deserve to be called excellent.

1. Chef Tom Cooks. Tom is a really great guy, and he posts some pretty wonderful recipes. Now, he just needs to go get a camera!
2. If anyone deserves this, it’s Lis at La Mia Cucina. She was not only one of the first visitors here at CbsoP, but she’s never stopped popping in to leave her support. We lover her and I’m proud to shoot this her way.
3. The Homesick Texan really deserves this as well. She’s been an inspiration to me and countless others over the years and I’ll be reading her work and admiring her photography skills for as long as she keeps going with it.
4. Matt Bites has most likely already gotten this award, but I’m going to send it his way anyway. If I’m ever 1/4 the photographer that Matt is, I’ll be very pleased.
5. Last, but never by any means the least of my choices to be considered an excellent blog to read is the venerable and rather charming(in a very strange but pleasant way) Dr. Biggles of Meathenge.  If you still haven’t popped over to check out his blog, you should.  It’s more than worth the time!

I wish I were able to simply state that everyone on my blogroll deserves this award.  As a matter of fact, I am going to say that!  If you’re on that list, you deserve this award!  Feel free to accept it.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Nurse’s uniforms have a history of being a pretty bland affair. In the past the choices have been either blue, white or occasionally pink. more recently a few fun patterns came into play, but finally there has been a shift in focus, giving those paople who work so hard for others a whole new set of choices in their uniforms.

I mean really, why shouldn’t a nurse get to look good while doing his or her job? For female nurses, Scrubs and More is now exclusively carrying a new line by Katherin Heigl that sports scrub tops that are good looking enough for street wear, but still appropriate for hospital work. For the male nurse, dickies scrubs may be a better alternative, though there are also several varieties of cherokee medical scrubs to choose from

The cherokee medical scrubs have definitely changed the options both make and female nurses have. In fact, I wish these scrubs had been available when i worked in a hospital. (In housekeeeping, not as an actual medical practitioner!) I would have liked the option to look good while I was doing my job, but at the time all we had were the ever present blue surgical scrubs…

Ah well, times are changing for the better.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I don’t know if there is anything more delectable than the perfect roast chicken. It’s not only comfort food at its very best, but there is something of a bit of mystery about the proper preparation of this simple, elegant dish. Many people find it difficult to transform a piece of poultry into something moist, succulent and flavorful. They either overcook or undercook the bird. The former resulting in something more akin to shoe leather than luscous, the latter resulting in a safety hazard and the need for take-out.

Roasting the perfect bird really only requires a bit of know how and the proper tools. I don’t recommend that a novice cook try to tell when the bird is done by wiggling the leg joint. It takes years of practice to perfect this skill, and even though I have known how to tell if a chicken is done by using that method for over a decade, I still prefer to use a probe thermometer, it takes the guesswork out of it.

A properly cooked chicken should be cooked to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, or 74 degrees Centigrade. I pull my chickens out of the oven at approximately 155 degrees, then cover loosely with a double layer of aluminum foil. The heat already present in the chicken will carry the temperature to the required levels, if not a bit higher. This ensures that the bird is not only properly cooked, but that it will still be moist and delicious. Serve when the temperature begins to drop.

As for basting… I never open the oven door unless there is another dish in the oven with the chicken. Basting will not make for a moister bird. As a matter of fact, constantly opening the oven door will lower the oven’s temperature, thereby resulting in a longer cooking time and a drier chicken, so even if all of your previous experiences say to baste, resist the urge! If you must have the satisfaction of knowing that the chicken has had some liquid moving over the skin, drape some salt pork or bacon over the breast and wings, you’ll not only have your basting done for you but the bacon is a nice accompaniment to the chicken when done.

I find that a great side for roasted chicken is roasted sweet potatoes. These cooked in the same baking dish as the chicken, with the whole lot of the food suspended above the pan on a wire cooling rack. using this method assures that the chicken gets crisp all the way around and that the vegetables aren’t being cooked Con Fit, or in the fat of the chicken. They will however pick up a bit of the flavor since they are suspended over the pan drippings. All the flavor without the fat!

Read more…

Popularity: 4% [?]

I just got the notice this morning that Ben over at What’s Cooking has given my lil’ ol’ blog the “E” for Excellence award!  I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my family, my friends and all the other little people out there who have helped to make this possible.  Without crushing all of you mercilessly on my rise to stardom I never could have achieved such a prestigious honor…

Oh, Crud!  Did I actually type that!..  Um…  Where’s my attorney?

In all honesty though.  It is an honor, and one I’m supposed to pass on to a few others.  I swear I’ll gt to that tomorrow, but right now there is te matter of security and wanting to take this award back…

My people will be in touch with your people..

Ciao!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Everyone’s jumping on the low calorie snack bandwagon lately. You can find everything from cookies to hard candies that advertise themselves as “under 100 calories per serving.” That’s all well and good, but if the thing tastes like a tiny bit of cardboard, who cares how many calories it has? Besides, a large celery stalk stuffed with 1 tablespoon of chunky peanut butter comes in at around 100 calories, and I’d rather have that than some wafer thin and rock-hard cookie-thing.

But I do have a weakness for high protein bars. As a matter of fact, I have a waeakness for protiens in general. I’d rather pack down a couple of healthy snack bars in the course of a day and have a hunger-pang free afternoon than try to satisfy myself with something that’s pretending to be something it’s not. Besides, I just feel good about myself when I’m munching on an all natural energy bar, as opposed to a little bag of cookies… Don’t you?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been inundated with requests asking just how I make a living blogging. Instead of answering each and every one of those emails, I decided to simply convert my unused personal blog into a kind of an overview on the topic as a whole. It beats just having a picture of me and a link here, doesn’t it?!

If you’d like to know more about how I generate an income here and on my other blogs, pop on over to jerrydrussell.com and follow along. The blog is still extremely new, so not a lot has been done yet, but I promise that I’ll be working on it over the next weeks, months and years. It’s another one of those topics I’m pretty passionate about and since I work on getting paid every day, it’s a subject I’m pretty familiar with.

Oh, and if someone feels like stumbling the article I wrote today, I’d appreciate that, too. :D

Have a great day, everyone!

Popularity: 1% [?]

And really, all the news that is news is the news that’s important to you. I might care about the current state of foreign policy, but you might be far more interested in the state of affairs of the cast of Top Chef or Survivor. News is only important if its something that you want to read, see or are otherwise interested in knowing. If it doesn’t fit that requirement it’s nothing more than backround noise.

Entertainmet news is important to me, butcelebrity news is not unless it relates to celebrity chefs and their exploits, whether they be on-screen or off. Hollywood celebrity photos might make your afternoon a brighter place to be, but they don’t do anything for me on a day to day basis. (I will admit to going in for a peek from time to time, but only if there’s something particular I’m interested in at the moment.) Hollywood celebrities don’t necessarily interest me, but they interest a whole lot of other people. give me Tony Bourdain any day.

In any event, jut follow one of the links in this post to go and find the news you want and have it delivered straight to your inbox. I’m still trying to find the celebrity chef channel.  I’m sure it’s there somewhere, but right now I think I smell the taco meat burning, so I’ll look further later!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Community sites come and go all the time, especially in these days of WEB 2.0 (which really should have been called the age of the web community). It takes something a bit different from all the rest to really get someone’s attention and I’ve just found one that does.

3GB Communities is a lot like all the other community sites out there, except that its focus is on visual media rather than on racking up “friends”. (The primary reason that my CrYSpaCe account is almost never used.) The focus is on connection visually through photos and videos, though of course the option to start a blog is present as well. To me this really seems like a good direction to move at this point in the Web

If you’ve been looking for a new place to hang out while avoiding the friend request explosion that has become the rest of social media and maybe show off a few pictures or videos while you’re at it, this could be the place for you. Why not join 3gb community 3gb.biz and find out for yourself?

A note:  This site is quite new and doesn’t have an awful lot of members yet.  It may be that this recommendation shifts in the future, but at the moment the site has a very personal feel, which is something I enjoy.  Just my two cents.

Popularity: 1% [?]

If you thought canned tuna had to be boring, think again. If you look past the American tradition of slathering this delectable fish in mayonnaise and stuffing it between two pieces of bleached white bread, you’ll find that there is a world of inspiration waiting to be found in that tin, and this is but one of many I’ve had lately.

The same holds true of iceberg lettuce, it’s gotten a bad rap in these days of micro greens and baby field greens, but on a hot summer day in Texas there’s just nothing as refreshing as the cool, crisp texture and flavor if a good iceberg salad, whether that be a traditional wedge salad or a more composed dish like this one.

This dish stems from the need for both my wife and I to eat more Omega3 rich foods, and on the day it was served, the temperature here had soared well past 90, so a salad seemed in order, and as I dug through the pantry searching for viable ingredients the tuna caught my eye. I thought that I’d seen something similar from Elise at Simply Recipes, but when i went to look for it, I couldn’t find it. Therefore this tuna salad recipe is an original, based on my tastes for the day.

The end result was light, cool and infinitely satisfying. More than enough of a meal to carry me through a long hot afternoon until dinner and with no guilt at all, as this is probably one of the healthiest lunches I have prepared in a very long time. If you’ve been feeling a craving for seafood but don’t have the budget for a good piece of fresh fish from the local fishmonger, this is a dish that I highly recommend!

Read more…

Popularity: 2% [?]