FIKA Citrus and Whiskey Spread
Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who love marmalade and those who don’t. I’ve never met anyone who seems indifferent to this Scottish creation made with the juice and small chunks of fruit rind boiled with sugar and water, although there are those who dispute the origin and claim the English or the Europeans were the original creators. Whoever created marmalade realized the flavor and the ingredients used to make marmalade are key because the presence of citrus peel is what distinguishes marmalade from jam and preserves.
Where does a $1 contribution to United Way of Central Iowa Go?
United Way of Central Iowa (UWCI) is just one of 35 United Way chapters in Iowa and one of 1,256 chapters in the United States, but this mid-west chapter office raised more than $29 million last year and distributed $21.9 million (75%) in grants to local organizations that focus on health, education, and income. United Way is – for lack of better words – a way to unite people and organizations – with UWCI focused on the people and organizations in central Iowa. Read more 
Minis: Non-Dairy “Ice Cream” Sandwiches
An ice cream sandwich is the childhood dessert we never outgrow even as we pass through the stages of adulthood. A simple concept – ice cream enveloped between two chocolate wafers – is what makes the ice cream sandwich so timeless because, really who doesn’t like ice cream, chocolate, and wafers?
Being on a dairy-free or plant-based diet doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy an ice cream sandwich because So Delicious Dairy Free makes a creamy and rich vanilla “ice cream” sandwich with almond milk instead of cow milk. Read more
Introducing the ZBLT
You can be a vegan and have your bacon, too!
The Zucchini Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato (ZBLT) Sandwich – crispy zucchini bacon, crunchy green lettuce leaves, and vine-ripened tomato slices piled high on whole grain toasted bread slathered with mashed avocado or Just Mayo – a plant-based mayo by Hampton Creek – is the vegetarian and vegan’s answer to the classic BLT. Read more
Facebook Friends
This past week, I decided to take a different approach to Facebook because I just wasn’t feeling authentic about the whole social media world. With sincerity guiding me, I went through my “friend” list and started unfriending people because (a) I don’t really know them; (b) I’ve known them for decades but have not kept in contact with them (grade school or high school acquaintances); (c) I do business with them; or (d) because they are in another group of acquaintances (i.e. kids of friends). It’s not that I don’t like these people. In fact, there are several “friends” that seem very nice but whom I hardly know which makes sharing personal moments awkward. Read more
“My Name is Lucy Barton”
Elizabeth Strout – the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, recently published My Name is Lucy Barton, a novel that explores one person’s emotional quest to connect with her mother. Told from the perspective of Lucy Barton, the 188 page novel tells the story of a woman who longed to escape her childhood and become a writer in New York City. Along the way, she marries and has two daughters, embracing motherhood. When she enters a hospital to have a routine appendectomy, a complication arrises that results in a 9 week hospital stay. While her husband is busy working and her two young daughters cared for by an overzealous nanny, Lucy whiles away the days until her mother shows up to visit – a mother she hasn’t seen since she before she was married. Read more
Pining for a Volvo with Cadillac Service
My husband says that car service departments see me coming and that I may as well have a sign on my back that says “TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME” The thing is I am – like most people – at the mercy of a car service department. If a mechanic or service manager tells me I need to spend $386 to have my shocks replaced, I have no way of knowing whether this is true or not. For that reason, my husband, who owned automotive service centers for two decades, usually handles the car repairs. He is not, as I say “snowable.” Read more
10 Key Executives Made $7.7 Million at the NRA
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a non-profit 501 (c) (4) organization that fights tirelessly for our second amendment rights. Whether or not you believe the second amendment refers to “militia” or “the people” has always been controversial but is even more so in the wake of the near daily occurrence of mass shootings in this country. People are screaming out for gun control because quite frankly, there are too many guns and assault weapons in the hands of the wrong people. Read more
6 Ways to Make Your Donations Go Further
Tis the season for giving. We receive mail and on-line requests, buy tickets for charitable events, and get solicited at work, the grocery store, drug store, the mall, and a zillion other places. Many charities do really good work in our communities but many also have very high administrative and fundraising expenses along with high executive salaries which means our donations don’t go as far as we want them to go. To make your charitable dollars go further, consider the following six recommendations: Read more
Spotlight
Many years ago, there was a postal carrier who delivered mail to our home nearly every day. A quiet guy who rarely spoke, the mailman often looked at the ground as he walked from house to house delivering letters, bills, catalogs, and packages. One day, the local newspaper carried a story about a group of adults who came forward claiming they were sexually abused by priests in the Catholic parishes they attended as children. Filled with shame and often told to be quiet, many of these children grew up deeply disturbed and troubled, unable to reconcile the sexual assault or the way their families and the leaders of the church treated them. Our mailman was one of those children and it was heartbreaking to be a bystander and read about the personal violation of a person we both knew and didn’t know in the local paper. Read more
Paddock Post 