12 minute read
Science & Wellbeing
Dine WithMe Come
Chicken chasseur in no time at all
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Prep: 5 mins
Cook: 20 mins
Serves 4
A classic in a flash, you can also use beef. Either way - it’s a winner.
INGREDIENTS
• 8 rashers streaky bacon, chopped into large pieces • 4 chicken breasts, cut into large chunks • 200g pack baby button mushroom • 1 tbsp plain flour • 400g tin chopped tomato with garlic • 1 beef stock cube • dash Worcestershire sauce • handful of parsley, chopped
METHOD
STEP 1
• Heat a shallow saucepan and sizzle the bacon for about 2 mins until starting to brown. Throw in the chicken, then fry for 3-4 mins until it has changed colour. Turn up the heat and throw in the mushrooms. Cook for a few mins, stir in the flour, then cook until a paste forms.
STEP 2
• Tip in the tomatoes, stir, then crumble in the stock cube. Bubble everything for 10 mins, splash in the Worcestershire sauce, stir through the parsley, then serve with mash or boiled rice.
Quick and easy ... and tasty tiramisu
INGREDIENTS
• 3 tsp instant coffee granules • 3 tbsp coffee liqueur (or Camp
Chicory & Coffee Essence) • 250g tub mascarpone • 85g condensed milk • 1 tsp vanilla extract • 4-6 sponge fingers • 1 tbsp cocoa powder
METHOD STEP 1
• Mix the coffee granules with 2 tbsp boiling water in a large jug and stir to combine. Add the coffee liqueur and 75ml cold water. Pour into a shallow dish and set aside.
STEP 2
• Make the cream layer by beating the mascarpone, condensed milk and vanilla extract with an electric whisk until thick and smooth.
STEP 3
• Break the sponge fingers into two or three pieces and soak in the coffee mixture for a few secs. Put a few bits of the sponge in the bottom of two wine or sundae glasses and top with the cream. Sift over the cocoa and chill for at least 1 hr before serving.
HANDY RECIPE TIPS
USES FOR SPONGE FINGERS Sponge fingers make an ideal base for trifles too. Use leftovers in a super-quick version: pour a little syrup from any canned fruit over the fingers to soak them, then top with cream and the fruit from the can.
The nine styles of wine
AS diverse as wine is, most bottles can be categorised into nine different styles.
SPARKLING WINE
If you already love sparkling wine, give yourself a pat on the back for your exquisite taste. This wine first came about in France and is synonymous with the region of Champagne. Sparkling wines are the most technically challenging and time intensive wines made in the world.
Champagne is often too price restrictive, so instead, keep your eyes peeled for Brut-level sparklers (ie. not sweet) like Cava or Prosecco.
LIGHT-BODIED WHITE WINE
These light easy-drinking dry white wines are some of the most-sold wines in the world (even if red wines get more attention). Light whites are like the ‘beer of wine’ and, for this reason, they are perfect to drink with most foods. Some of these wines are perfect for savoury lovers (like Sauv. Blanc and Grüner) with green herbal flavours of gooseberry and bell pepper.
Wines that fit into this category include Pinot Gris (aka Pinot Grigio) and Sauvignon Blanc but they also include many lesser known wines like Grüner Veltliner, Albariño and Soave. Look for a wine from a cool climate region (imagine the places with a rainy month of June). Cool climates produce some of the best examples of this light, zesty style.
FULL-BODIED WHITE WINE
Full-bodied white wines are perfect for red wine lovers because of their rich smooth taste with subtle creaminess. What makes them different than light white wines usually involves special winemaking techniques including the use of oak-aging, (just like aged whiskeys, wine becomes smoother with barrel ageing too).
The classic choice for this wine is Chardonnay and particularly Chardonnay from a warmer climate (like California, Spain or Italy). Beside Chardonnay, another great option in this style is Viognier. AROMATIC (SWEET) WHITE WINE
Aromatic grapes are some of the oldest wine varieties in the world. In fact, Cleopatra is noted for her love of Muscat of Alexandria from Greece – a lovely rich aromatic white wine. These wines have explosive, almost perfumed, aromas that spring out of the glass into your nose. They can be either dry or sweet, but most will taste a touch sweet due to all those perfumed aromas.
There are many great aromatic wines to try, and most are shockingly affordable. A few examples of these include Moscato d’Asti, Gewürztraminer, Torrontés (great if you like a more dry style), and Riesling.
Covid and why we might be putting off going to sleep
WE all know that feeling when, in bed, we lift our eyes from Facebook or Insta and see that it’s well past the hour for beauty sleep.
We may argue that it’s the only time we get to ourselves, especially with the pandemic having everyone in the family under each other’s feet 24/7.
Scientists call this phenomennon sleep procrastination revenge, first cited in a study in the Netherlands seven years ago and which defined is as “failing to go to bed at the intended time, while no external circumstances prevent a person from doing so”. Revenge was added to the title last year with the coming of the pandemic, but as a concept, it has actually been around for much longer.
According to Alessandra Edwards, a performance expert, quoted in a report on the website Wired revenge bedtime procrastination is quite common in people who feel they don’t have control over their time (such as those in high-stress jobs) and are looking for a way to regain some personal time, even if it means staying up too late.
“When it comes to the evening, they categorically refuse to go to bed early, at a time they know will suit them best and enable them to get adequate restorative sleep and feel better,” Mr Edwards told Wired. “Nevertheless there is a sense of retaliation against life, so there is an idea of revenge to stay awake and do whatever fills their bucket.”
Scientist Floor Kroese, an assistant Professor in Health Psychology at Utrecht University and the main author on the study that first introduced bedtime procrastination, notes that there is also a link between procrastinating in daily life and sleep procrastination. “An interesting difference may be that people typically procrastinate on tasks they find aversive—housework, homework, boring tasks—while sleeping for most people is not aversive at all,” says Prof. Kroese. “It might be the bedtime routines that precede going to bed that people dislike or just that they do not like quitting whatever they were doing.”
According to Wired, Prof. Kroese and team argue that lack of self-regulation — associated with personality traits such as being impulsive or easily distracted — is a possible cause of sleep procrastination.
For those unable to selfregulate, Alessandra Edwards saysthat the time before bed may be the only time to process the emotional backlog from the day, including “frustration and anger, or fear and anxiety they may have felt during the day but shut out.”
No wonder it’s hard to find a decent razor blade ...
ANYONE who shaves on a regular basis knows that even the best of blades never last for as many uses as promised. In fact, some often only last a few shaves. Why should soft hair blunt good steel? The assumption has always been that each shave dulled the blade to the point of it losing its sharp edge.
Now, research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) finds that your facial or body hair can crack stainless steel under the right circumstances.
Scientist Gianluca Roscioli let hi beard grow for three days before shaving. He then brought his razors into the lab to examine them under an a microscope. While the team expected to see even dulling on the blade edge, they instead noticed strange C-shaped chips missing. Intrigued, they attached a camera to the microscope so they could record the blade cutting the hair. At the same time, they investigated the properties of the razors at the microscopic level. This apparatus revealed that, when the razor blade hit the hairs at non-perpendicular angles, small cracks formed. These tended to develop in boundary areas between where the steel was harder and where it was softer due to differences in the properties at each location caused by the manufacturing process.
Over time, these cracks grew into chips. While these chips are too small to see with the naked eye, they were large enough to reduce the blade’s effectiveness.
Vegans might face a greater risk of broken bones, UK study finds
A DIET without meat may help you maintain healthy cholesterol, body weight, and blood-sugar levels but these diets, particularly veganism, may also boost your risk of suffering broken bones, according to a new study published in the magazine of the British Medical Council.
While the causes aren’t totally clear, the researchers suggested it might stem from vegans not consuming enough calcium and protein, or from having a lower body mass index (BMI), which leaves the body more vulnerable to fractures.
The study is the largest to date on the relationship between fractures and non-meat diets. The researchers examined data from the long-running Epic-Oxford study, which issued health surveys to nearly 55,000 people in the U.K. between 1993 and 2001, and followed up with them in 2010.
For the recent study, the researchers collected additional follow-up data in 2016 using National Health Service records. To study the relationship between diet and fracture risk, they sorted participants into four groups: meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians, and vegans.
After allowing for variables like physically activity, sex, smoking, dietary supplements, and alcohol use, the study found that vegans had a 43% greater risk of any kind of fracture compared to meat eaters. The increased risk for vegetarians was 9%.
Kilkenny County Council Art’s Office’s
is back
Kilkenny County Council Arts Office’s a poetry phone is back with a wonderful new collection of poems selected by Deirdre Southey from the Arts Office
EVERYONE is welcome to the poetry phone. Just dial 1800 272 994 to listen to one of ten wondrous poems written by Kilkenny poets; Nora Brennan, Kevin Dowling, Mary Malin, Michael Massey, Nuala Roche, Mike Watts, Noel Howley, Carmel Cummins, Angela Kehoe and Kathleen Phelan. The poems are beautifully recited by Kilkenny actors Susie Lamb, Ger Cody and Nuala Roche.
The poems were selected for their ability to speak to the reader and to evoke memories of a certain time and place. These memories merging with your own, give a sense of solace and comfort while providing a moment to travel to afar places, unreachable in our present times. They reflect the beauty of the ordinary and the real understanding and connection between people and place, how it is experienced in the small things. The tasks and jobs that we do together, our daily companionships, gentle encouragements, the very everyday of human life and the beauty in these simple, quiet and ordinary things.
The Arts office join forces with The Kilkenny Observer newspaper to reproduce these poems over the coming weeks. This week we feature the poems of Kathleen Phelan, Kevin Dowling and Angela Keogh
Kathleen Phelan Biography Kevin Dowling Biography Angela Keogh : Biography
Angela Keogh is a Kilkenny born writer living in Co Carlow. Rowing is to some in Carlow what hurling is to many in Kilkenny. Angela rowed and competed with Carlow Rowing Club. Her poem Sculling With Grace, ‘0’ on the Poetry Phone, is set on the river Barrow in recent years and describes rowing in a single sculling boat alongside her crew mate, Grace, on an autumn morning. Absent from the scene, although remembered in ‘this aching river’, is another crew mate, Donna James, who died tragically at the age of 24 in 1999.
Angela’s novel The Winter Dress, inspired by events in Kilkenny in 1348, was selected for the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair 2020 and was published by The Harvest Press in 2020. Her second novel You Who Sleep Safely, long listed for the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair 2019, will be published later this year. Two of her radio plays were broadcast this year on KCLR.
My name is Kathleen Phelan. I’ve been happily married to Donny for 52yrs. My hobbies include writing poetry doing crafts and reading. I love animals, sadly three of my fur babies all dogs, went to doggie heaven within two years of each other, I miss them every day. I’m a member of the Nifty Fifty ladies club in Newpark Close Resource Centre. I miss meeting my friends since the pandemic, I miss our coffee mornings in McDonagh Junction. fingers crossed we’ll meet again soon.
HEIRLOOM
Augustine gave us Our wedding sheets A tight weave Of crisp white linen Folded to creases razor sharp
Weeks before we married We unwrapped them Carefully removed The ancient parchment Whose script had faded Seeped into the fibres
We soaked them for days In lotus oil And marked them With the sign of the kama sutra
Later we ironed them smooth Of religious dictates Watched a frozen landscape melting In the shadow of a saint.
From Freshford, Co Kilkenny, Kevin has been writing for a number of years, mainly poems & short stories. Poems published in Kilkenny Broadsheet, Stony Thursday Book, Kilkenny Anthology, Riposte, Mountain review, Poems from a Kilkenny Laneway.
Stories in Splinters 1 & 2 (both performed on RTE Radio 1)
