I wrote a "merry christmas" email to a German friend of mine, and her response is a little hard to figure out. Maybe you can help?

"

I made this for the Holiday family gathering. It didn't last 30 minutes on the buffet.

You need:

4llbs of raw peeled shrimp
1 and 1/2 sticks of melted butter
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/3 cup of worchestershire sauce
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp salt (I used smoked sea salt)
1/2 tsp paprika (I used smoked paprika)
1/2 tsp oregeno
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
3 tsp garlic powder (I had granulated garlic on hand, it worked just as well)
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp celery salt
LOTS of black pepper (I used a palm full)

Mix the wet ingredients together
Mix the dry ingredients together

Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the shrimp
Pour on the wet ingredients

Mix it really well.

Marinated it in the fridge for at least 2 hours (you can marinade up to 24 hours)

Preheat over to 350 degrees and bake it for about 30 to 45 minutes, turning it once at least, you will know it's done when all the shrimp are pink.

You will want to bake this in a glass baking pan or other pan because it makes an incredible sauce!

Have french bread on hand for soaking up the sauce!

Enjoy!

Do red velvet cupcakes have to be red?

I want to make red velvet cupcakes but dye them rainbow (like this). Will all of the colors still come out vibrant even though I use cocoa powder and vinegar in the recipe?

For New Year's Eve, I'm hosting a party for the extended family; some will be coming earlier for a dinner before the actual festivities begin. Because the NYE party will involve lots of the usual appetizer-type foods, as well as a bunch of desserts, I'm keeping dinner light. I want to do a sort of soup sampler thing, where people can have small bowls of a few different soups.

I know for sure I'm going to be making Creamy Cauliflower Soup (because my brother requested that one). The problem is, I'm not sure what other soups to make. I'd like to keep the soups similar enough that they'll "go together," but not so similar that it just seems like a bunch of the same soup. Make sense? I'd like 2-3 soups in addition to the cauliflower one.

Suggestions? Recipes included are always a plus :) The only restriction I have is no seafood, as the grandfather-in-law is allergic. Thanks in advance!

Tags: help: what to make, type: soup

So I finally have a cast iron pan (thanks Santa!!), and although through the years I know I've always lusted after all the recipes that require cast iron, I have failed to bookmark any of them, since I've never had one. So if you please, I would love to see your delicious recipes that require a cast iron pan. This can be anything, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, cooked just on the stove, or finished in the oven. I have a 10-1/4 pre-seasoned Lodge one that I am so excited to use, so please help me out! Thanks

Mood: hungry

does anybody know any good recipes or drinks or appetizers to make with LIMES?

my mom wanted to order two limes and accidentally got 2 kilogrammes of limes.

i already made virgin mojitos last night, with ginger ale. other ideas for cocktails? preferably alcohol free, but still. I also maybe want to make a few appetizers for new year's eve with them, so ideas there are very welcome. Plus, of course desserts, like muffins or something?

Thanks so much in advance, and if you'd like some limes... I got plenty.

Tags: help: what to make

Two questions here. -- Some years back (fivish?), a friend in Maine gave me a jar of deer stew. Then I sort of kind of mislaid it during a move. Having recovered it, I'm thinking of having it now.

What are the chances it's still okay after several years? This is homemade stew that was canned and put up, not a commercial product. What should I check for upon opening it?

Assuming it's still good, how should I prepare it? Just dump it in a pan and heat it up? Should I add anything? What should I prepare to go with it?

Thanks!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Truthdig/~3/iYZj-JSHvUk/

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/meet_the_press_terror_and_health_care_20091227/

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano talk about the recent terror attempt and more on this full episode of “Meet the Press.”

Related Entries

• December 17, 2009 The Fallacy of Good vs. Evil in Afghanistan
• December 10, 2009 Our Murderers in the Sky

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rawstory/gKpz/~3/z3uEIGxg5KQ/

http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=14468

Iraqi security forces said Sunday they defused nine bombs as millions completed the annual Ashura rituals in Shiite shrine cities, free of the massive attacks that have marred recent years.

But violence again hit the ceremonies elsewhere in Iraq, with five dead in the bombing of a procession near the northern oil city of Kirkuk among a total of 32 faithful killed since Tuesday.

The chief of military operations in Karbala, which is the focal point of the rituals, said two Al-Qaeda cells were arrested north of the central shrine city.

"They had a plan to target visitors and even put several IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on the main road," General Usman al-Ghanemi told a news conference as the 10 days of ceremonies concluded.

Around three million people thronged the streets of Karbala for the main rituals commemorating the slaying of the revered Imam Hussein by the armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680.

"Over the past 10 days, we have received around six million visitors who have come from all over Iraq, some coming by foot," Karbala provincial deputy governor Nasaeef Jassim said, adding that at least half had stayed for Sunday's climax.

He said that among the pilgrims were some 105,000 worshippers from abroad, mostly from the Gulf but also from other countries with significant Shiite communities including Pakistan.

Sunday's bomb in northern Iraq ripped through an Ashura procession in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, killing five people and wounding 27, including five women and a policeman, police said.

The Tuz attack came a day after three Shiites were killed when bombs struck separate Ashura processions in Baghdad.

Since Tuesday, 33 people have been killed and more than 160 wounded in violence targeting Ashura, including attacks on worshippers in Karbala and Baghdad earlier in the week.

A peaceful Ashura was seen as crucial for the electoral prospects of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has built his reputation on bringing security to Iraq and is contesting March 7 elections on a new multi-confessional ticket.

In a statement released by his office Sunday evening, Maliki praised the "exceptional efforts" of Iraq's security forces, which he credited with having "averted several terrorist attacks" during the day's rituals.

Previous years' ceremonies were marred by attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents and disrupted by intra-Shiite fighting.

In March 2004, near-simultaneous bombings in Karbala and at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad killed more than 170 people.

This year's ceremonies began with thousands of devotees drenched in blood after ritually slicing their scalps and ended with a re-enactment of the battle for Karbala in which Imam Hussein was killed.

Tradition holds that the revered imam was decapitated and his body mutilated.

To show their guilt and remorse for not defending Hussein, Shiites cut their scalps and flay themselves with chains attached to sticks during processions.

Sad songs were played on loudspeakers throughout the city and mostly black flags were on display, along with pictures of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas, both of whom are buried in the city.

Masses of black-clad pilgrims took part in a ritual five-kilometre (three-mile) run, known as the "Twairij", around midday (0900 GMT) to Imam Hussein's shrine while hitting their heads with their hands and screaming "Labeikeh Hussein" (We are your followers, Hussein).

They then set fire to tents set up in the city to re-enact the scene of the final battle between Hussein and Yazid's armies.

Shiites make up around 15 percent of Muslims worldwide. They represent the majority populations in Iraq, Iran and Bahrain and form significant communities in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rawstory/gKpz/~3/cwp3dwRKNZQ/

http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=14464

The White House warned political foes Sunday not to provoke a partisan tug of war over terrorism, with President Barack Obama yet to publicly address the thwarted attack on a US airliner.

A political storm erupted over the attempt by a 23-year-old Nigerian to bring down a Northwest jet carrying 290 people, as senior Obama aides cranked up a sweeping national and homeland security operation.

But the president, vacationing in Hawaii, conspicuously has not commented on television about the Christmas Day drama, apparently seeking to project calm and avoid the political trauma and panic unleashed by past terror incidents.

"The president believes strongly that this has to be a non-partisan issue," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told NBC in one of a string of television appearances he and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made Sunday.

"This should not be a tug of war between the two political parties. I hope everyone will resolve in the New Year to make protecting our nation non-partisan -- rather than what happens in Washington, devolving into politics," he said.

Obama got a 6 am (1600 GMT) briefing on latest developments in the probe into the airborne terror bid from top national security aides, the White House said in the latest regular bulletin on his response to the crisis.

Gibbs also said that Obama ordered a review of US no-fly watch-lists and demanded information on how a suspected radical could board the Detroit-bound airliner rigged with explosives.

After his security briefing, Obama headed to the gym for a game of pick-up basketball, as the native son recharged in balmy Hawaii.

But the president's Republican foes made the first political thrusts following Thursday's attack on a Northwest jet heading to Detroit, accusing him of softening the US focus on radical Islamic terror threats.

They also questioned Napolitano's statement that the air security system "worked," referring to the fact that alert passengers and crew jumped Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before his device could fully detonate.

New York Congressman Peter King said there was no need for Obama to "rush for a microphone" but noted the president's media ubiquity over the past year and asked him for a "calm, reassuring" pep talk.

"Tell the American people, 'this is what we're doing; we're on top of this; we're going to win, but this is a reminder of why we always have to be alert to the evils of Islamic terrorism,'" King told CBS.

"There has been a virtual vacuum for the last day- and-a-half."

The White House countered that Obama has constantly monitored the situation, ordered probes into airline security and the use of intelligence and hiked airport precautions.

"The president refuses to play politics with these issues as he said at West Point (in December). We must put aside petty politics and recapture the unity that we had after 9/11," said another Obama spokesman, Bill Burton in Hawaii.

Democrats repeatedly accused ex-president George W. Bush's administration of exploiting terror scares for political gain.

But Republicans leveraged Thursday's drama to bolster their theme that Obama's policies, including reaching out to the Muslim world and closing the Guantanamo Bay terror camp, were making Americans less safe.

"This whole thing should remind us, that the soft talk about engagement, closing Gitmo -- these things are not going to appease the terrorists," said South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint on Fox.

"They're going to keep coming after us."

Republican congressman Pete Hoekstra added "What do we have here? this is an international movement of radicalization.

"The Obama administration came in and said, 'We're not going to use the word terrorism anymore' ... trying to, you know, I think, downplay the threat from terrorism."

Obama aides have been less prone to use the phrase "war on terror" than the previous White House, but insist they have refocused the US anti-terror fight.

"The president certainly has taken steps in his time in office to re-orient our priorities as it comes to fighting that war on terror," Gibbs said.

"We are drawing down in Iraq and focusing... on Pakistan and Afghanistan, the place where the attacks of 9/11 originated," and also focusing on Yemen and Somalia, he added.

I experienced my first ever white Christmas this year. Three inches of snow! Pretty cool. I love watching animals out in the snow, which is why this new Simon’s Cat cartoon seemed so timely:




And this is another one I hadn’t seen:



I love these little animated films. If you haven’t seen them, do yourself a favor and go watch ALL of them: http://www.simonscat.com/films.html.

Even though I have only a week until a major deadline at work (deadline #1, with four or five deadlines right behind in quick succession), I decided to take the day off today – my first day without obligations of any kind. I worked yesterday, but was basically so pissed off at having to give up a four-day holiday weekend that I got very little done. I just sat at my desk, fuming, with a Lucy van Pelt fume-scribble over my head. I’m going through another one of those feeling-completely-invisible-at-work phases in which it becomes a real effort to go to work, to do any work, or to stay at work.

Speaking of work, my brother took this photo a week or two ago. This is the view I see every night from my desk:




Today I watched a movie I recorded weeks ago, Her Twelve Men (1954), starring Greer Garson and Robert Ryan (and a surprisingly hunky James Arness). It’s a hokey, feel-good, teacher-winnning-the-hearts-of-unruly-boys movie, but it was kind of sweet, and even though Greer Garson and Robert Ryan have no screen chemistry at all, it was an enjoyable movie to watch on a Sunday morning.

There seems to be absolutely no news other than the Nigerian Detroit-bound bungling terrorist, news which I haven’t really paid attention to. This afternoon CNN was on in the background, and I heard that policeman were searching the previous London home that the guy lived in when he attended “a London university.” I went online to see which university, and it was University College London (UCL). Yes! My alma mater. How sweet. Several news reports have said only that the guy’s flat was a block off Oxford Street, near the diplomatic quarter. I, too lived a block off Oxford Street, in the diplomatic quarter. Oh, the kinship I feel with this terrorist. So, in addition to having walked the same hallways as Ricky Gervais, those Coldplay guys, Gandhi, Francis Crick, and Alexander Graham Bell, I can brag to bored listeners that I was *this close* to a guy who is probably a laughing stock to terrorists everywhere (*this close* even though we didn’t attend the university in the same decade … or even in the same CENTURY). Still, it’ll give me some street cred with the hoodlum set I’m so hell-bent on hanging with).

That internet search led me on another one where I came across this article that informed me that UCL is now such an "academic powerhouse" that it is considered the #3 best university in the world, following Harvard, Cambridge, and Yale. Yes, UCL has beaten Oxford to a bloody pulp. Bloomsbury must be very proud.

As the Christmas holiday winds down, I hope my 70-something year old aunt has finally gotten the hang of her brand new laptop (and might I say here how un-user-friendly I find Windows 7). She hasn’t called with questions since Christmas Day. I hope she hasn’t just quietly turned it off, closed the lid, and shut it away in her closet. I’m pretty sure she still doesn’t understand what a router does.

I've been reading up trying to find some natural nail polishes and found out my old staple OPI nail polish has ingredients that can cause cancer??????
It seems that everything causes cancer nowadays :(
Have you ever heard anything bad connected to OPI nail polishes?
And if so do you use any "natural" nail polishes ( if such a thing exists..?)

Have you ever been eligible to be a guest on The Jerry Springer Show? I'm not talking about whether you've been asked to be ON the show (but if you have, please share!), just if your life has ever been THAT messed up.

If you've been under a rock for the past couple decades or live in a coutry that doesn't get this gem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jerry_Springer_Show

Tags: horror stories

Don't you just hate the post-holiday/Sunday-night-I-don't-want-the-weekend-to-end blues? What do/are you doing to combat it?


My answer tonight:

We're going for Mexican food then back home to see what I hope will be a funny, escapist movie (The Hangover).

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

Now Playing: ted lewis

Her foster mom says of little Lily, “She really is the sweetest kitten. She loves to kiss and cuddle—and loves to play of course, too.”

http://foreverhomewanted.com/2009/12/27/lily-is-looking-for-a-forever-home-boston/

Poll #1504120
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 71

What would you call this:

Where are you from?

Tags: poll, words

No big deal, but I thought I'd throw this out to any power users or people otherwise more clueful than I. Read on if you'd like to check out a disk permissions question.

( Cut for the uninterested. )

Mood: curious

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rawstory/gKpz/~3/L2PtdrqMXI0/

http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=14461

President Barack Obama ordered Sunday a review of US no-fly watch-lists and demanded to know how a Nigerian man managed to board a Detroit-bound airliner wearing an explosive device.

The system used by US security agencies of lists that become shorter as the risk increases has come under fire since it emerged that the 23-year-old bomb suspect was on one of the terrorist data bases when he embarked on his deadly suicide mission.

"There's a series of data bases that list people of concern to several agencies across the government. We want to make sure information-sharing is going on," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told NBC news.

The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was added to one of the larger watch-lists last month after his father is said to have told US embassy officials in Abuja that he was concerned by his son's increasing radicalism. Related article: Bomber 'trained' by Al-Qaeda in Yemen

The suspect, whose father is a prominent Nigerian banker, remained off the no-fly list of just 18,000 names and was able to retain his US visa issued in 2008 and fly from Lagos to Amsterdam on Christmas Eve and on to Detroit the following day.

Obama had ordered a second review to examine how "an individual with the chemical explosive he had on him could get onto an airliner in Amsterdam and fly into this country," Gibbs said.

The attack led to tighter security and traveler jitters around the world, which were heightened dramatically on Sunday when another man on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit -- the same route and flight number as Friday's attack -- was detained on landing after causing a disturbance by barricading himself in the bathroom for more than an hour.

With worldwide media attention riveted on Detroit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation later issued a statement saying Sunday's was a "non-serious incident."

US investigators are trying to piece together any terrorism connections of Abdulmutallab, who was charged Saturday with attempting to blow up the jetliner after reportedly confessing that he had been trained by Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

But Obama's top security official said Sunday there was "no indication" that Abdulmutallab was acting as part of a larger plot and warned against speculating that he had been trained by Al-Qaeda.

"This was one individual literally of thousands that fly and thousands of flights every year. And he was stopped before any damage could be done," US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN.

Airport security was stepped up worldwide after the botched terror attack as British police combed premises where the suspect lived while studying mechanical engineering at the University of London between 2005 and 2008. Related article: The London link

Abdulmutallab was arraigned Saturday at the University of Michigan medical center where he was being treated for burns sustained while trying to bring down the flight.

Judge Paul Borman read the charges against him during a 20-minute hearing. Reporters allowed to witness the event said Abdulmutallab was handcuffed to a wheelchair and wore bandages on both wrists and parts of his hands.

Preliminary FBI analysis found that the device the suspect used "contained PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a high explosive," the charge sheet said.

The explosive material was allegedly sewn into Abdulmutallab's underwear and officials believe tragedy was averted only because the makeshift detonator failed to work properly, ABC News reported.

Abdulmutallab confessed that he had mixed a syringe full of chemicals with powder taped to his leg to try to blow up the flight, according to senior officials quoted by US media. Related article: Story of a Dutch hero

Other law enforcement officials quoted by ABC News and NBC said the suspect also admitted he had been trained by Al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen and instructed specifically on how to carry out the attack.

According to The New York Times, Abdulmutallab told FBI agents he was connected to an Al-Qaeda affiliate, which operates largely in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, by a radical Yemeni cleric whom he contacted online. Related article: Nigerians pulled to radicalism by education, poverty

But the newspaper said the cleric is not believed to be Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born imam who has spoken in favor of anti-American violence and who corresponded with Major Nidal Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist accused of shooting 13 people dead last month at Fort Hood, Texas.

The plane attack, which sparked alarm and fear among the 279 passengers and 11 crew aboard the Airbus A330, had echoes of British-born Richard Reid's botched "shoe-bomb" attempt eight years ago almost to the day.

It has renewed concerns over security and air travel despite recent upgrades following the Reid attack and a plot uncovered in Britain in 2006 to blow up transatlantic jets with liquid bombs. Related article: Fresh questions over air security

"We've known for a long time that this is possible," Richard Clarke, a former White House counter-terrorism czar told ABC News, referring to chemical explosives.

"We really have to replace our scanning devices with more modern systems."