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The BOILER opens 2nd outlet at Esplanade– Roll up your sleeves and eat seafood with your hands here.
If you love seafood, especially the seafood-in-a bag kind where all dining etiquette goes out the window and everyone gets stuck in with their hands, you’ll be glad to know that The Boiler has opened a second outlet in town at the Esplanade Mall. This expansion comes with an al-fresco bar in addition to the air-conditioned main dining area. Their original outlet is in Tai Seng, and this is in fact their 4th year of operations.
The Boiler takes pride in its sauces to set it apart from similar seafood boil concepts. The seafood boil concept is Louisiana-inspired, but The Boiler has developed seasonal sauces with local twists, such as sambal and laksa which customers may choose to have with their seafood.
Check out more photos I took of Shenton Way at night. I love taking photos of buildings at night. Firstly, it’s so much more cooling and peaceful. Secondly, I can avoid the mid-day glare of the sun bouncing off any shiny surfaces. And thirdly, the buildings don’t merge together in a a grey haze. They actually look more individual in the picture below, than in the photo I took of Shenton Way during the day.
Shenton Way used to be almost exclusively occupied by office buildings. Now, you can find condos and hotels here too. I sure wouldn’t mind stepping out of my house and arriving at my office 5 minutes later. That’s 1 hour of traffic avoided both ways. I think it’s worth the premium paid to live in town, no?
Closer look of The Sail. One of the condos situated in the new Marina Bay Financial district area. They used to have clear views of the sea, but now newer buildings block their views.
The Fullerton Bay Hotel. Waterfront luxury at it’s best! And you can be sure no other building will sprout out of the Singapore river to block the lovely views. I wonder why the lights are on for the building on the left when it isn’t even finished. What a waste of electricity.
The Esplanade. Ok no matter what people say, and no matter what angle, I still don’t find the facade nice looking at all. Once inside the theatre area, it’s posh and grand, but on the outside, I just feel it’s weird. And there’s the Swissotel, the lone tall building in the City Hall area. Sometimes I feel there is no need to take a ride on the Singapore Flyer if views is all that you seek. There are so many tall buildings and hotels to get your fill of the wonderful views of Singapore. Almost every tall building has a restaurant perched on the top floor!
You know what? On a recent trip to Vivocity, I made a startling revelation. I couldn’t find a single nice and unique cafe to sit down and have a cuppa! I came across Coffee Bean, Gloria Jeans, 2 Starbucks (!), Tom n Toms etc but these you can find in many locations around Singapore. I wanted to experience something different!
Alas, I had no choice but to finally settle for Max Brenner Chocolate Bar. At least, they only have one other outlet which is at Esplanade. The thing I know about Max Brenner is that their expertise is in chocolate and chocolate drinks. I think they serve one of the best chocolate drinks in Singapore – the Pure Chocolate Truffle Granita Drink. It costs about $7.50 and is 1 tall glass of pure rich and sweet chocolatey goodness blended with ice. 1 glass of that fills me up so much I normally have to split it with another person. I still get 100% of the happiness though.
Well that’s what I would have definitely ordered at Max Brenner, had I been hankering for something chocolaty. BUT, it was 4pm and a coffee was in order. So we decided to order their iced cafe latte.
The iced cafe latte was served in their signature Alice Cup, with metal straw. I was wondering who Alice was the whole time there. The Partner lost no time in humming the song “Who the F*** is Alice” to irritate me. Well I googled and the Alice so referred to is Alice of Wonderland. No wonder the glass says Drink Me!
The iced latte was not bad but not strong enough. At least it had a smooth taste. And because the sugar syrup was not pre-added, we didn’t end up with a sickly sweet drink. Still, I would recommend ordering their Pure Chocolate Truffle Granita Drink if you’ve never tried Max Brenner before. That, in my opinion is their best drink in the house by far.
According to this article at Mercola, it is actually myoglobin, which is used to bring oxygen to muscles. The more myoglobin there is, the more red it is.
Three times recently I have had friends or family members who have either had their Facebook account hacked or they have had someone impersonating them. That makes this a fine time to discuss how to protect yourself on Facebook.
The easiest of the two issues to fix is stopping the bad guys from taking over your Facebook account. There are a number of things everyone should consider, and the truth is that some of this may be more than most people are willing to do.
First: Do you have a good password? A good passwords is a minimum of 8 characters, though I prefer 10-12 characters. Each additional character exponentially decreases the likelihood it can be guessed. This isn’t enough though. Your password should also include uppercase and lowercase characters, numbers, and symbols. By the way, if you really want to have a strong password, do not use the symbols on the number keys. The others are less commonly used, and are therefore not used as often in password cracking tools.
Second: Change your password. Periodically you should change your password on a schedule commensurate with risk. What does that mean? It means that if you were to wake up tomorrow and find your account hacked, would you ask yourself why you didn’t change your password the night before? I would suggest you change the password quarterly, though for most people that is too much for their comfort. If that describes you, at least consider semi-annually or annually. Changing your password prevents two things: first, if someone learns your password, this will stop them from using it after a certain point. Second, it lessens the chances your password will be discovered through password cracking or guessing.
Third: Enable “Login Approvals”. This is a form of dual factor authentication, which means it takes more than just a password to access your account from non-familiar machines. This is an easy step to implement, but some will find it more trouble than it is worth. If you are interested in implementing this, here is what you do:
You will then be walked through a process to set up login approvals that will require you to receive PINs on your cell phone via text.
The second, and more common, issue is impersonation. How the bad guys do this is easy. They find your Facebook profile, and copy your profile picture. They then set up an account with a name identical to yours. Then they peruse your friend’s list, sending as many of them as possible friend requests. Each friend who accepts then becomes a target. Your friends will likely be sent messages asking for money. One of the current tactics is for the bad guy, while impersonating you, to contact your friends and tell them that you need money because your car has broken down and you are away from home. They might even assure your friends that you will pay as soon as you get home, but right now you are in a real bind. Your friends may pick up on this immediately, but one or more of them may want to do everything they can to help you, so they send some money. Unfortunately, there is very little you can do to prevent someone from impersonating you, but you can make it as hard as possible. While there are many things you can do, the three most important are to not accept friend requests from people you do not know, limit who can see your posts, and to limit who can see your friends.
In order to limit who can see your posts, you will follow the same instructions as above, except instead of choosing “Security”, you will choose “Privacy”:
Now, at the top of “Privacy Settings and Tools” you will see the words, “Who can see my stuff?” I highly recommend you change this to “Friends” or “Friends except Acquaintances”. This will limit the people who can see what is on your page to those you know.
Next, you will want to limit who can view your friends. This keeps a bad guy from targeting those you know easily. To do this, first go to your Facebook profile:
While this won’t totally stop the bad guys, it does make their job significantly harder, and thus they will likely go somewhere else. I can’t reiterate enough that you need to be careful who you “Friend” too. If you know someone is already on your friend list, you probably don’t need them again. 😀 Just remember, if it is a bad guy, you are opening yourself up to an attack, which is sometimes conducted by some really smart folks.
One last thing, if someone is impersonating you, what do you do? You need to report them. That is the only way Facebook can know to delete the account. To do this, go to imposter’s profile and click the ellipsis near the top:
Can you believe our chickens are still laying well? This week we had a total of 47 eggs, with the Rhode Island Reds laying 22 of them! Good girls! 😀
You may be wondering what we do with all those egg shells. Or maybe you don’t care. 😀 I’m going to tell you anyhow though. Though I am not good at it all the time, I like to use everything I can of what I have at my disposal, egg shells included. Egg shells are a great source of calcium, which happens to be a mineral that is needed in the soil. We save all our eggshells, and then we dry them in the oven before crushing them up to spread over the yard.
I mentioned above that the ladies are laying well still, but that doesn’t mean we have a lot of eggs around here. Besides giving some to the neighbors, it seems my boys have turned into egg eating machings. We are going through them like there is no tomorrow right now, which doesn’t bother me a bit. I think they are one of the healthiest foods there are.
I know it is a little early to be thinking about this, but I am seriously considering getting some more chickens next year, though probably only two. I would like to supplement the flock by two a year, with a maximum of 16 birds. This would help account for reduced laying as the birds age, and the unfortunate death of a bird or two, which will likely happen over time.
Speaking of that, I think we may have a predator trying to get into the hen house. We are noticing some digging around the edge on one side. For now I have covered this with a heavy board and brick, but I have plans to fill the hole up soon. Thankfully, even if they got into the run during the night, they couldn’t get to the hens, as we lock them in the coop during the night.
Whew! This has been a busy weekend around the homestead, though that doesn’t mean much at all when comparing it to the busyness of the spring, summer, and early fall.
The number one task I had for the weekend was to get the Carolina Reapers potted for the winter, and that is done. I also had hoped to pot the Pineapple Sage, but I didn’t have enough room on the drying trays to dry it all yet, so I will pot it later this week.
Speaking of the Pineapple Sage, this little beauty is still in full bloom! It is such a refreshing jolt of summer red in a world of fall-like colors right now. Look at this shot taken yesterday:
In addition to Pineapple Sage, I needed to dry some Horehound as well. As soon as I get a little more room, I’ll trim back the Pineapple Sage some more, dehydrate the rest, and then pot it up for the winter. Speaking of that, I am still trying to determine if I will pot the Horehound or not. I don’t know if it can survive the winter or not outside. Okay, I just checked. The Horehound seems to be hardy, so I will hope it survives the winter.
I do have at least one other plant I need to pot up for the winter – a small Eucalyptus tree. This thing is kind of amazing. The leaves smell just like Vick’s Vapor Rub. 😀 It won’t survive the winter here unless it is older and more established, so I will pot it, I think, for the winter so it can live another year.
I almost always write these posts over the weekend, and this post is no different. After I wrote it though, I ended up shelling some of my flour corn. I shelled all the Cherokee Gourdseed Corn that I grew this year (about 2 gallons shelled) and about half or a little less of the Cherokee White Flour Corn (about a gallon shelled so far). I was shocked at how easy it was to shell the gourdseed corn – more to come on that later.
The other big task of the weekend was knocking down corn stalks, which my oldest son took care of for me. He also worked on burning a big pile of brush and weeds that has needed to be taken care of for quite some time. I am not sure he knows this fully, but I really appreciated his help. He wasn’t alone though. My middle son also was out there with a machete whacking away at weeds and brush, trying to clean up this corner of the yard. Good boys, they are.
I am so ready to start spreading these woodchips I have been collecting for next year’s garden, but I am still at least two loads short of what I need. I am not sure where the wood cutters are working this week, but they only dropped off one load. I might try to catch them again Monday morning at the gas station to encourge them to drop off some more. It’s too bad this isn’t the same priority for them that it is for me. 🙂
Science confirms: the more coffee you drink, the longer you will live! – Did you know that coffee is a major source of antioxidants? There are also major studies that show coffee drinkers have a lower risk of dying from total and cause specific mortality. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine states, “… after adjustment for tobacco-smoking status and other potential confounders, there was a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and mortality.” I love this image from AuthorityNutrition.com:
Lighter roasted coffee has more caffeine that darker roasted coffee – According to Wikipedia (and other sites as well), Caffeine diminishes with increased roasting level: light roast – 1.37%, medium roast – 1.31%, and dark roast – 1.31%.
Coffee is a fruit! That is right, it is not really a bean, it is a fruit. What we call coffee beans are actually seeds of this fruit that somewhat resembles a cherry. Among other things, the seeds are separated from the fruit, and the seeds are dried, which gives us what is known as a green coffee bean. Now, the next time someone says you have had too much coffee, just remind them that you are getting your daily fruit intake.
You can thank coffee for the webcam. No, coffee didn’t invent the webcam, but an empty coffee pot (the Trojan Room Coffee Pot) inspired it. Coffee drinkers at the University of Cambridge were tired of walking to the coffee pot to only find it empty, so the webcam was invented to monitor the coffee pot.
Civet Coffee has been called the most expensive coffee in the world. At $700 a liter, that is not hard to believe. It is not a type of coffee though, but instead it is coffee that has been specially processed. Civet coffee is made from coffee beans that have been eaten and excreted by the Asian Palm Civet, a wild cat from southeast Asia. Yes, you read right. People actually pay for coffee that comes from beans dug out from the dung of a cat. SIGH. No thank you.
Apparently it is just a rumor that Civet Coffee is the most expensive. Black Ivory Coffee actually takes the award. It is not fished out of cat dung, but instead, it is fished out of elephant dung! EWWWW! Get this: it sells for $1100 a liter! Again, SIGH. No thank you.
Over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world every day. Just for comparison’s sake, there are 12.7 billion cups of oil consumed in the US daily (18.89 million barrels a day x 672 (the number of cups in a barrel)). That means coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, behind oil.
Coffee can protect against Alzheimer’s and Type 2 Diabetes. Like I need another excuse to drink a cup!
You may have heard of The Bible Belt, but did you know there is a Bean Belt? All of the world’s coffee is grown between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, otherwise known as the Bean Belt.
Though coffee snobs, of which I am one, mostly think of the region that the bean comes from, there is another consideration. The type of bean. Most coffee sold is Arabica, but there is another common bean: Robusta. According to www.thekitchn.com, Arabica tends , “to have a sweeter, softer taste, with tones of sugar, fruit, and berries.” Robusta has, on the other hand, ” [a] stronger, harsher taste, with a grain-like overtone and peanutty aftertaste.” Oh, and Robusta has twice the caffeine. Even so, I, for one, prefer Arabica.
A few weeks ago I had my first egg-bound hen, and this week I have my first double-yolked egg. Check this mammoth out:
Obviously, the egg on the left is the double yolk egg and the egg on the right is a single yolk egg. I know some of you are wondering if we cracked it yet, and we have:
So you might be wondering, can a double yolk egg produce two chickens if it is fertilized? Yep! Check it out in this hatching video. Apparently, it is rare for them to hatch, but as you can see, it is possible. Mine, of course, aren’t fertilized, so that was never a consideration. 😀
The ladies are producing well still, laying 46 eggs this week. I am still amazed that the Easter Eggers are outlaying the Rhode Island Reds. The Rhode Island Reds are supposed to be the heavier layers and winter layers, but they are only averaging 0.71 eggs a day per bird, whereas the Easter Eggers are averaging 0.62 eggs a day. Wait, did you read that? It just goes to show we can’t always go by what our minds tell us. I was sure the Easter Eggers were outlaying the Rhode Island Reds per bird, but the facts this week do not show that. That means the Rhode Island Reds are laying almost five eggs a week each, and the Easter Eggers are averaging just 4.3 eggs a week. I’m not complaining, that is for sure.
Both of the two on the left are the “pink” eggs, which we think are laid from Easter Eggers, but they could be laid from Rhode Island Reds. You can see a normal Rhode Island Red egg in the two eggs second from the right.
I think that is all the exciting egg news for the week other than the neighbors sure are loving the free fresh eggs. One lady returned the favor this week with a fresh loaf of sourdough bread. The boys said it sure tastes good.
If you look in the second row from the bottom, second egg from the left, you will see what I call the “pink” egg. Even after all this time, I can’t with certainty say this is an Easter Egger’s egg, but I think it is. You will notice the Rhode Island Reds’ eggs are much darker brown. They are the far bottom left, right side of the second row from the bottom, and the left egg on both the first and second row from the top. The Easter Eggers mostly lay blue eggs, though there are a few that are more olive or green. This pink one is the unidentified egg though. Chickens are supposed to lay the same color egg, generally, daily. Easter Eggers can lay pink eggs, but I am supposing the coloration for one of the Rhode Island Reds may be off too. In other words, I DON’T KNOW! You have no idea how tempted I am to set up a camera. 🙂
I have been surprised lately – the Rhode Island Reds’ egg production has really slowed down. They are only averaging 3.75 eggs a week now, whereas the Easter Eggers are averaging 4.16 eggs a week. That isn’t a big difference, but the Rhode Island Reds are supposed to be the more voluminous egg producers. I keep whispering to them that they have to earn their keep, it’s either eggs or meat, but I don’t think they believe me. 🙂
Speaking of egg production, this is the lightest week in a while. There were only 40 eggs total produced, which has really impacted what we can give away. Thankfully, they upped the production the last few days of the week.
The number of eggs is not the only thing we are watching. I also pay attention to the weight of the eggs, which I haven’t reported lately. In the past the ladies were laying small eggs with a few mediums. Since that time the egg size has grown quite a bit, and we are solidly in the medium egg category now. The Rhode Island Reds’ eggs are averaging 1.85 ounces, and the Easter Eggers’ are averaging 1.775 ounces. The average for the flock is 1.78 ounces. We did have two much larger eggs this week, both weighing near the extra-large egg weight (above 2.25 ounces).
The rain we have had lately has put a real damper on their outside time. Though they play in the run all the time, Charity usually tries to let them run out in the grass daily, and that hasn’t happened as often due to the rain. I suspect it will become even less as the days get colder.
This travel schedule I have been maintaining for work is really putting a damper on what I am getting done around the homestead lately, but thankfully the plants haven’t all give out yet. We should be getting our first frost any time now, but the extended forecast seems to indicate we have at least another week.
Speaking of plants not giving out, check out the blooms on the Pineapple Sage! This is really a late blooming plant, and it is said that if I were to pot this and bring it indoors, it would continue to bloom until Christmas. If you know me very well, you know I am strongly considering that.
Next look at this lettuce. One of the things I love about the cooler weather is the ability to grow good lettuce again. Unfortunately, I got this one started a little late. Even so, we should still be able to enjoy some of it before the cold kills it off for the winter.
Finally, I have an unidentified green. What that basically means is that I am too lazy to walk upstairs and read the seed packets. 🙂 It is some lettuce-like plant that is supposed to be good in salads though, and wow, it is growing like gangbusters!
The one thing I am a little regretful about is that I didn’t get the mini-greenhouse built over the lettuce garden for the winter. There may still be time, but it won’t happen this weekend, but perhaps next weekend I can get to it. The one year I did this, I had lettuce all winter, even when the temperatures outside were down in the teens. LOVED IT.
This past week while working in Fort Collins, Colorado, my collegues and I decided to have a dinner at the Canyon Chophouse. You may recall, I had eaten at the Rodizio Grill the week before, and unfortunately had a pretty bad experience, so we needed a different place to eat.
The reviews of this restaurant led me to believe this was a successful dinner in the making. Finding the restaurant was somewhat like running the labyrinth though. It was buried on an odd street near old town Fort Collins, which makes sense, as the restaurant is an old bank building. We arrived early though, and parking was great, however, our initial reception was not.
The lady at the front desk asked if we had reservations, which we did not, and she hesitantly said she thought she could get us in. Then we waited, and waited, and waited. It was hard to understand why, as the restaurant was nearly empty. Had we had another alternative nearby, we probably would have left. Even so, as we stood there talking, we started noticing people coming in, which led us to believe the restaurant would soon be full.
One of the neat things we first saw was the vault. Yes, the old bank vault! It seems this is one of the choice rooms for dining at the Canyon Chophouse, though I am sure there is a waiting list for the room. You can see it in this image from the restaurant’s website (which you should visit for more information!)
When we finally were seated, my high hopes for the restaurant had settled to a mere simmer. It wasn’t long until this changed though. The lady who seated us alse ended up being our waitress, though I cannot remember her name. She was very attentive from this point forward, and quickly overcame my earlier hesitation.
The menu seemed robust enough, though I have to admit, I immediately knew what I would eat: a bone-in ribeye. And wow, was it good. Honestly, this was probably the best steak I have ever had, and that says a lot. It was tender, flavorful, juicy. WOW. The sides were a different story though. I had asparagus, which was good, and sauteed spinach. The spinach was the real disappointment, as it had been cooked in so much alcohol that it was almost inedible. In fact, I didn’t eat it. Even so, the steak. Wow, the steak! Mmmmm!
In short, this is certainly a place I will visit again, though don’t expect to eat an inexpensive meal at the Canyon Chophouse, but the price comes with quality to match – a definite winner! Just be sure you have reservations. 🙂