Eggs can be fresh or dried, the latter being only hens’ eggs without the shell and water. Dried egg should be stored in a cool, dry place - not in the fridge! Store eggs for a few days or a week in a cool place away from strong-smelling foods. An egg stand is ideal for this. If the eggs are dirty, wipe them clean - washing will remove the natural oils which help preserve the eggs.

Pickled Eggs: eggs laid in the Spring keep better than those laid in the other seasons. Eggs that will not clean-up, must be rejected. Waterglass or the special preparations should be used. If an egg floats to the surface, use it immediately. Try to maintain the ambient temperature between 2 and 8 C and they should keep for 6 to 9 months.

Preparing Eggs for Cooking: break each egg separately into a cup, before adding it to the other ingredients to ensure it is not ‘off’. If you wish to separate the white from the yolk, tip the contents back and forth between the two eggshell halves and the white (albumen) will run off. Beat eggs with a whisk or a fork in an appropriate bowl; whip egg whites with a knife on a dinner plate - a pinch of salt will help.

Raw eggs used to be prescribed for invalids as they are easily digestible, but, this not advisable these days due to the ubiquity of salmonella. One method, presented here for the curious was to strain a beaten egg into a mug and slowly add a cup of hot milk (or tea, coffee or lemon water; add sugar to taste. Sherry was often added too.

Cooking Eggs: eggs should be cooked slowly because the white cooks at a temperature lower than that of boiling water and becomes ‘tough’ at higher temperatures. Similarly, if raw egg is used to thicken a sauce and the liquid is later allowed to boil, the sauce will ‘curdle’, i.e. the egg will solidify into small specks, spoiling its texture.

Coddling: produces easily digested egg-whites, making it an ideal meal for invalids and children. Lower the eggs into 75mmof boiling water; replace the lid and remove from heat. Let it stand for: 7 mins for medium-, 5 mins for soft- and 20 mins for hard-boiled eggs .

Boiling: lower fresh eggs gently into 75mm boiling water with a spoon. Cover and boil gently for 3-3″ mins for soft-, 4-5 mins medium- and 10 mins hard-boiled eggs.

Place in egg eggcups and tap the shell to crack it. Allow the steam to escape, which will prevent the egg further cooking. For sandwiches, salads etc,. boil the egg for 12 mins and plunge into cold water. This enables the shell to be easily removed and discourages a black ring around the yolk.

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Retirement and Online Stock Trading

May 9th, 2009

Retirement usually brings two big changes to the life of the retiree: more time and less money. The discovery of the Internet changed the way we conduct our lives and our own business. We can take care of our bills online, shop online, bank online, and even make a date online!

People can even buy and participate in online stock investing. This activity could fit in very nicely with the extra time and may even make up the shortfall in income. Online stock investors like to have the capability of looking at their stock investment accounts whenever they want to, and online stock brokers like having the facility to take stock orders over the Internet, as opposed to using the phone.

You start by reading the newspapers and watching the news. Any news items that suggest good news for a company can be followed up by greater research into the company concerned. The majority of stock brokers and brokerage houses now offer online stock research to their customers as well as online stock trading. One other great thing about online stock trading is that fees and commissions are often lower. While online stock trading is great, there are some drawbacks.

So, if you are very to trading, having the ability to actually speak with a stock broker can be quite beneficial, if you aren’t stock market savvy, online stock trading may be a rather risky thing for you to do, although advice from a stock market trader is expensive. If this is the situation, make sure that you learn as much as you can about trading stocks before you start online stock trading. If you are new to online stock investing, make sure that you learn as much as you can about researching companies and trading stocks before you start to trade online stock for real.

You could run a dummy portfolio. For example, most online stock brokers offer the facility to run a ‘watch list’ or dummy portfolio, where you can ‘buy and sell’ without using real money.

You should also remember that not everyone has a computer with Internet access on them every minute of the day, although many mobile phones can get online, so you might not always have the ability to get online to make a trade. You will need to be sure that you can call and consult with your broker if you use an online stock broker. This applies whether you are an advanced stock market trader or only a novice.

Furthermore, it is also important for the retiree to open an account with an online stock investing company that has been around for a long time. Sure, you won’t find one that has been in online business for 30-50 years, but you will find a company that has been in business that long and that now also offers online stock trading.

To be sure, online stock trading is a wonderful opportunity for retirees - but it is not for everyone, the impetuous can lose money quickly. Think carefully before you decide to opt for online stock trading, and make sure that you really know what you are letting yourself in for!

And so, in summary, pensioners can use their extra free time to investigate the stock market for nothing by finding leads in newspapers, magazines and news items. These leads can then be followed up by doing online research using a free online stock investing account.

These hunches can then be tracked using a dummy or trial portfolio. When you have gained sufficient experience, you can go ‘live’ by opening an active online stock investing account.

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VST Platinum - 1,700 plug-ins for just $39

April 25th, 2009

Many music lovers want to go beyond the pure pleasure of just listening to music. There are people out there like myself that believe that way deep down inside them, they have the creative juices it takes to create and produce their own chart topping hits. The problem is most of those people like me just do not have the pocket books to accommodate the cost of expensive synths and a professional studio setup.

Having said all this you can imagine my joy when I stumbled across a system that would allow me to make the music I have always dreamed about. Of course, there are professional types on the market with the price tags of thousands of dollars. However, the beauty of this system though is that it is professional quality, priced at a reasonable level for beginners to start out. This is a review of “VSTPlatinum”.

The package promises a “push-button” and easy solution to start making professional music. My first concern was how much studio experience would I need? Within a matter of seconds, I got my answer. Absolutely none! Now I knew that within days I would be on my way to making my own music. Surely, it would be just the basics but that was ok, it’s a start. I was just thankful to find something outside of the professional VSTs price range.

As excited as I was, I was still a little skeptical. After all what credibility was there to this proposal? As I read about Greg Hoffman and his credentials, I knew he wasn’t going to risk his character on selling something inferior. After all, he’s a reputable sound engineer and after being in the business for 25 years there’s little doubt that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

By now, I’m convinced that the VST platinum is soon going to be mine, now I wanted to hear about all that I was going to be able to do with it. With over 1700 plugins and 4000 sound effects, this is definitely an easy headstart for home studio enthusiasts. No longer do you have to mess with complicated hardware or overprice synthesizers.

VST Platinum promise that I would able to create great sounding music and sound samples easily and quickly with software based systems. It wasn’t also likely that I would outgrow the system in the near future as it has over 1700 VST plugins of superior plugins and 4000 sound effects.

At the price Greg is offering, I think it is a “no-brainer”. I went ahead and placed my order and I couldn’t wait to get my VST platinum DVD in the mail because I knew once I didn’t it wasn’t going to take days of reading manuals and constant learning. I would be at it within no time at all.

By not having all that extensive learning, hardware tweaking and jargon to follow, it meant more time for what I loved to do most - and that’s making music. Now with state of the art VSTs like those offered in VST Platinum - look out world here I come!

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