When cooking meat, particularly beef, you can eliminate the need for cooking oil completely. Heat the pan. Sprinkle salt evenly through the pan. Add meat to the pan, and you will hear it sizzle and crackle. The salt draws moisture from the meat, and enough fats to take the place of the cooking oil you might have used. I've been told this does not change the flavor of the meat, although common sense dictates that it must. I must say, I have used this method for many years and never experienced overly salty meat using this method.

I was kindly invited to spend Christmas Day with friends up in Ft. Collins, Colo., last December, and I offered to bring a Cheesecake made with the world's bar-none best New York-style Cheesecake recipe.  The day prior, I set aside for baking.  This was one of my first attempts at baking since moving to Colorado, and while I'm keen on improvising in cooking, I'm less likely to stray from a baking recipe.  I completely forgot that adjustments needed to be made to my favorite recipe for the change in altitude. What do you suppose my first clue might be?  The mellow filling in the spring-form pan rose much more than usual.  I thought nothing of it, because everybody likes a mile-high slice of Cheesecake, right?  Well, clue number two was the baking time.  The cheesecake requires a very high temperature of 500 degrees for (I believe) 90 minutes.  At 30 minutes, the top crust was already golden brown.  At 45 minutes, it was black and charred....

Your body is like a barber-shop quartet.  When you are feeling at your peak, everything works in  harmony with everything else.  Sounds great, looks great, feels great.  Diet plays a major part in the orchestration of those harmonies, and when you hear those sour notes prick your ears with more frequency, you may want to check to see if you have a pH-armony problem.  I apologize up front:  This is a rather complex issue and I am giving it  a basic blog overview.  For more details, consult a registered dietician (RD) or a doctor. For most non-space alien people, the body operates with an average blood pH of 7.35-7.45, which is slightly “alkaline.”  In this range, the body maintains stores of minerals, nutrients and raw materials to maintain its peak performance.  To keep the body in this range, an alkaline diet is helpful. In today's world, however, many of us thrive on or fall prey to pre-packaged foods, meats, white bread, sugared drink...