Recipes for Health - Winter Squash Gratin

This gratin is an easy vegetarian main dish to make and resembles a quiche, but without the crust.

This series offers recipes with an eye towards empowering you to cook healthy meals every day. Produce, seasonal and locally grown when possible, and a well-stocked pantry are the linchpins of a good diet, and accordingly, each week’s recipes will revolve around a particular type of produce or a pantry item. This is food that is vibrant and light, full of nutrients but by no means ascetic, fun to cook and a pleasure to eat.
See previous recipes »

1 1/2 pounds winter squash of your choice

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

1 teaspoon minced fresh sage

3 eggs

1/2 cup low-fat milk

2 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated (1/2 cup)

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated (1/4 cup)

1. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Cover a baking sheet with foil and brush lightly with olive oil. Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy membranes, brush the cut sides with olive oil and lay cut side down on the foil-covered baking sheet. Bake 40 minutes, or until soft enough to pierce easily with a knife. Remove from the heat and allow to cool, then peel and either mash with a fork, puree in a food processor fitted with the steel blade, or finely dice. You should have about 2 cups of pureed or finely diced squash.

2. Turn the oven down to 375ºF and oil a 2-quart gratin or baking dish with olive oil. Heat the remaining oil over medium heat in a medium heavy skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute. Stir in the parsley and sage, and squash, and remove from the heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Beat the eggs in a large bowl and whisk in the milk. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir in the squash mixture and the Gruyère. Taste and adjust seasonings. Scrape into the prepared baking dish and sprinkle the Parmesan over the top.

5. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until lightly browned on the top and sizzling. Serve hot, warm, or room temperature.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6

Read full recipe - Recipes for Health - Winter Squash Gratin

For some, Christmas is more than a tree, gifts: Seasonal fanatics have a holiday obsession

By MAGGIE GALEHOUSE HOUSTON CHRONICLE

A hurricane and a recession could easily spread a serious case of the bah, humbugs this season.

But not for the Christmas fanatics. For these self-taught decorators who transform their homes into holiday havens thick with Santas, ornaments and things that go blink in the night, Christmas always arrives early and stays late.
A tale of two Michaels

For every Christmas addict there is an enabler. And between the months of October and December, this pretty much describes Michael Briden and Mike Lowery.

“I have the inspiration, and he has the installation,” Briden deadpans.

Briden is the collector, favoring glass ornaments by Christopher Radko and Santa figurines by Brian Kidwell and Jim Shore. He decorates each of the holiday trees in the Heights bungalow he and Lowery share — no small job, since there’s at least one tree in every downstairs room.

Lowery does the traditional “dad” jobs: hangs garland around the window frames, puts the toppers on each tree before Briden starts to decorate, picks up ornaments on his way home from hunting and fishing trips.

Every year, the two transform their handsome bungalow with sage green walls into a holiday wonderland where first-time guests are hard-pressed to focus on anything but the dé cor. As Lowery says, “Christmas has definitely exploded in this house.”

It helps that the pair co-own Another Place in Time, a garden center in the Heights that sells some of the decorative items and ornaments Briden collects.

Briden, who is also a loan operations manager at Integrity Bank, admits that he is particular about the quality and presentation of his collections.

He likes his Santas to look friendly, not scary. He enjoys creating new vignettes with his Christmas ornaments; this year, Santa’s Sweet Shop appears in his kitchen window, with a jar of gingerbread men and cookies and glass candies. And each of his Christmas trees has a theme, from the hunting and fishing tree in Lowery’s room, to the Grinch tree in the bathroom, to the slim and showy “Feathered Friends” tree in the family room.

The show-stopper is “The Night Before Christmas” tree, which gathers Santas, reindeers, gifts and all the usual Christmas Eve suspects.

When one goes to so much trouble to create a Christmas atmosphere, it’s a shame not to share it. Briden estimates that he and Lowery host half a dozen social gatherings every December so that friends can see the house.

As thrilled as Briden is with this year’s décor, he is always in the market for something new. Gazing at his animal tree, he ticks off the rarer ornaments that adorn it. A buffalo. A rhinoceros. A skunk. A giraffe. But he can’t help but notice what he’s missing.

“I don’t have a platypus,” Briden says, “and I don’t have any dinosaurs.”

The holiday decorating gene is strong with Jennifer Emshoff. Growing up in Klein with a mother who’s a part-time interior designer, she learned early that every holiday deserves festive dé cor and special dishes.

So when Emshoff, a senior contract analyst with El Paso Exploration & Production, moved into her Eastwood bungalow in 2001, it was a fait accompli that the holidays would be well-represented.

Her Christmas decorating schedule begins the day after Thanksgiving at her childhood home, when her mom starts pulling out her own Christmas finery. Emshoff is always on hand to assist.

“I give her all day Friday,” she says, “then I come back and start working on my own house. It takes two full days for the inside and then a night to put up the lights on the outside.”

This year presented a new challenge for Emshoff, who recently transformed her bright blue and yellow living space into a richer, ranchy style, with dark leather and rustic touches. This meant a new backdrop for Christmas.

Dominating the living room is a full-size white tree with shiny, multicolored ornaments, many with a Texas theme. On the floor of the dining room, ranch meets Christmas in a pair of ceramic cowboy boots stuffed with holly and red berries. The formal dining table is set for Christmas dinner and a long kitchen counter that usually serves as the bar has become a winter village.

Read full article: For some, Christmas is more than a tree, gifts

Zephyr Announces Business Partners in Germany and South Africa

Following the establishment of its UK branch earlier this year, Zephyr are pleased to confirm international business partner contracts for Germany and South Africa. The new business partners will distribute the Zephyr PASSPORT family of terminal emulation products.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) December 14, 2008 — Following the establishment of its UK branch earlier this year, Zephyr are pleased to confirm international business partner contracts for Germany and South Africa. The new business partners will distribute the Zephyr PASSPORT family of terminal emulation products.

In Germany, Zephyr is represented by UBS Hainer GmbH (www.ubs-hainer.com), who manages and supports PASSPORT products at such customer accounts as Allianz Suisse, Daimler Bank AG and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW).

In South Africa, Zephyr is represented by JMR Software Ltd (www.jmr.co.za), who supports Zephyr products at First National Bank (FNB), Business Connexion (BCX), Cadiz and others.

“We have a wealth of current international customers and many new prospects that we feel will benefit from having fully trained partners in their own countries” said Russell Martin, Zephyr Vice-President Sales and Marketing. “Familiarity with local business practices and the ability to support the Zephyr products and business model is essential”.

“We really want to send a clear message to international organizations that use Attachmate®, MicroFocus® (formerly NetManage®), IBM® and other terminal emulation products: Zephyr can save you substantial sums of money with an easy and transparent change to PASSPORT”, Martin continued.

PASSPORT 2009 is slated for release in January and will have localized language support for the Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese markets.

Zephyr Announces Business Partners in Germany and South Africa

For rent: Is office space the final frontier in financial crisis?

As the recession devastates the banking, brokerage, retail and automobile industries, landlords and commercial real estate brokers in lower Fairfield County ponder when and if the office market will be the next victim.

The region could be vulnerable because financial service companies rent much of the office space in Greenwich and Stamford. Greenwich has been called the nation’s unofficial hedge fund capital.

“We are still in a very good market. However, a lot of our clients are financial services companies,” said Jim Fagan, senior managing director of the Westchester County, N.Y., and Connecticut operations of New York City-based Cushman & Wakefield Inc. commercial real estate. “They include everything from hedge funds to reinsurance companies to investment banks, not to mention advertising agencies and other professional services companies.”

Those former mainstays in the office market will be shrinking, he said.

“As tenants try to lower their fixed costs, they are slimming down their commercial real estate exposure, where it is practical and pragmatic,” Fagan said. “The market is going through an adjustment. While it was white hot in July of 2007. It certainly is less than that now.”

John Hannigan, principal of Choyce Peterson commercial real estate in Stamford, said, “The quantity of tenants looking to grow has decreased precipitously.”

Reported office vacancies are not really bad - yet.

In the third quarter, 17 percent of the 14.5 million square feet of office space in Stamford was available for lease or sublease, up slightly from 16.4 percent at the same time last year, according to an average taken from five real estate firms. Available space are locations that are empty or slated to become vacant soon.

The numbers do not include large, single-occupant buildings such as the main UBS AG investment bank and trading floor in downtown Stamford.

But vacancy reports might not tell the whole story, said Jeff Gage, executive managing director at the Stamford office of Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle commercial real estate. Some companies have space they are not using but will not admit it unless a broker approached them about subleasing, Gage said.

Sublease space, that which is leased but currently unused, is rising in Fairfield County, he said.

“We are going to see vacancy rates going up to 25 percent or higher (countywide),” Gage said. “My guess is that 40 percent of that will be sublease space.”

The big subleases include 112,000 square feet that UBS put on the market at 201 Tresser Blvd. in Stamford at Purdue Pharma’s headquarters. Others in the city are 50,000 square feet from Legg Mason at First Stamford Place and 120,000 square feet at 290 Harbor Drive.

Greenwich has smaller office vacancies, but its 4.8 million square feet of office space depends largely on financial services, hedge funds and private equity firms. About 9.3 percent of the town’s office space was available in the third quarter, which was unchanged from the same time last year.

“Greenwich and Stamford are not immune from the downsizing and reorganization from a new model of doing business,” said John Goodkind, managing principal at the Greenwich office of New York City-based Newmark Knight Frank commercial real estate. “The days of abundance are gone.”

“Large users are unlikely to make decisions on space unless they have to,” he said, referring to lease expirations.

On the positive side, Goodkind said many people who had worked for hedge funds, financial institutions and banks will be looking for office space in which to start their own companies.

“We have already seen significant numbers of new companies looking for smaller spaces,” he said. “That will be the mode for the next 12 to 18 months.”

But Gerald Celente, a trends forecaster known for gloomy predictions, said the downturn in the retail sector will affect office space because fewer customers will exist for service firms such as ad agencies.

“In 2009, the focus will broaden to include a range of calamities that will leave no sector unscathed,” Celente said in a report issued by his Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based Trends Research Institute. “Next in line is retail, which accounts for some 70 percent of consumer spending, 26 percent of which is holiday sales.”

“Add to the (retail) empties the commercial space vacated by defunct financial firms and an array of troubled businesses from restaurants to architectural firms, to high-tech operations, to offset printers, etc.,” the report said. “The inescapable result (that we predicted over a year ago and is only now being discussed in the business media) is a commercial real estate bust that will be costlier, wreak greater havoc and prove more intractable than the residential market decline.”

Local landords, by contrast, are more optimistic.

“We have been here before (in a recession), and we will get through it,” said Jo Ann McGrath, director of leasing for the Merritt 7 Corporate Park in Norwalk. “We just have to stay positive.”

She said the 1.4 million square feet of office space in Merritt 7’s six buildings is 95 percent occupied.

A 51,000 square feet sublease might occur in the complex’s 301 Merritt 7 building. Applied Biosystems is moving out of 301 Merritt 7 in July because it merged with Invitrogen Corp.

Applied Biosystems’s lease expires in 2011, and it has an option to sublet the space, McGrath said.

Margaret Carlson, director of leasing for New York City-based RFR Realty’s seven office buildings in downtown Stamford, said the market is slowing, but not to a crisis stage.

“We are still continuing to sign deals, and we are starting to see concessions for tenants creep in,” Carlson said. “Velocity is slowing down, but we remain optimistic. There are a lot of deals out in the marketplace, and we do not have a lot of sublease space in our portfolio.”

RFR’s Stamford buildings are 90 percent leased, she said.

Another landlord representative, Jeff Newman of W&M Properties, said the recession offers a chance to recruit new tenants. W&M manages First Stamford Place and Metro Center office complexes in Stamford and the MerrittView office building in Norwalk.

“We are well-positioned to ride out a down market,” Newman said. “We always have more than enough cash flow to cover debt service and operating needs.”

Gage of Jones Lang LaSalle predicted rents will drop 20 percent to 30 percent during the recession, which offers local companies a chance to move into better buildings.

In March, Stamford-based Choyce Peterson began telling its clients to pursue renovation subsidies and lower rent from landlords.

The average asking rent for Class A office space in downtown Stamford is $48 per square foot per year, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

“We have been out there ahead of this (recession) news and have been meeting with many area companies to help them navigate these tough economic times, with regard to their office space,” said Hannigan of Choyce Peterson.

“The smart landlord are the ones who will lead the market in (lower) pricing,” Gage said. “If you follow the market, you are already too late.”

- Staff Writer Peter Healy can be reached at peter.healy@scni.com or at 964-227
Read article source - http://web-best.info/2008/12/for-rent-is-office-space-the-final-frontier-in-financial-crisis/

Source: For rent: Is office space the final frontier in financial crisis?

7 Facts on Mortgage Refinancing

By Chris Edison

Getting a refinance on your mortgage is common practice nowadays due to the drop in interest rates and the receptiveness of borrowers toward the idea of refinancing. Although many have vouched for its benefits, house owners should evaluate their personal preferences, financial standing, and current mortgage status and compare these with the various options available before planning their next move.

There are many facts surrounding the concept of refinancing and this article will provide you with an insight of important aspects which you need to know in order to make an informed decision. Refinancing your mortgage is for the long-term and thus needs to be a choice that is thoroughly considered.

1. Penalty Costs
The process of refinancing basically means paying off your current mortgage and obtaining another mortgage at a different interest rate (usually at an adjustable rate) and loan term. This causes penalty costs to be imposed on your current mortgage by your current lender, as you have opted to pay off your loan earlier than agreed upon. Occasionally, depending on the status of your current loan, penalties incurred may be higher than the cost savings obtained from refinancing your mortgage, therefore making the idea of refinancing no longer attractive.

2. Savings on monthly repayments
When you refinance your mortgage, you may most likely switch to a new mortgage structure that will benefit you in the long run, especially with lower monthly repayments. With the availability of Adjustable Rate Mortgages, interests incurred are relatively lower than the traditional Fixed Rate Mortgages, which has been incentive enough for home owners to switch their mortgage loan plans. However, although interest rates may seem to be lower at first glance, home buyers should practice due diligence in tabulating the actual amounts paid over the long term in comparison with their current mortgage repayments.

3. Transactions costs
As with any mortgage transactions, a refinancing exercise will involve transaction costs such as attorney fees, points, appraisal fees, inspection fees and prepayment penalties. All these hike up the cost of refinancing, which need to be balanced out with the cost savings obtained from switching loans in the first place. As a rule of thumb, if you plan to stay in your current property for the long-term, transaction costs will be offset with savings in repayment amounts over the long-run. Therefore, refinancing will then be a good option for you.

4. Tax deduction possible
Refinancing may help you regain tax deductions on interest if you have already used up your allocated amount for tax deductions. Therefore, with a new mortgage, you will be able to deduct interests paid from your taxable income, thus helping to reduce your taxes payable.

5. Get cash out of your equity
Read this full story: 7 Facts on Mortgage Refinancing

Front yard decorations get more elaborate for WVC couple

A West Valley man does not need many hands to make light work — he has two to make 18,000 of them light up his front yard.

Dan Nelson has made and bought Christmas decorations for about eight years, and he is planning to expand his collection.

“Every year, I just want it to be brighter,” Nelson said. “I have more lights in my shed — in boxes that I don’t take out — than most people put up.”

“I think he’s obsessed, but I think it’s a good obsession,” said Jewel Nelson, his wife.

Dan Nelson, an architect, became fond of making Christmas decorations after a friend had asked Nelson to help with his. Ironically, the friend lived on Christmas Street.

Nelson got hooked.

“People go on vacations, and I buy Christmas lights,” he said.

In his front yard, Nelson has 10 ?plywood angels representing his granddaughters and 11 gingerbread boys representing grandsons. Each of them has a name written on it, and its eyes are painted, respective to the grandchild it represents.

Nelson said he made 21 reindeer for his friends and family members during the second year.

Among other decorations are reindeer and moose, three wise men and a nativity scene, a snowman, two soldier boys and pine trees, all decked out in lights and connected to 10 outlets. Onlookers can also hear Christmas songs in the background.

Nelson said he started getting his house into a festive mood the week before Halloween. He has since spent every weekend adding decorations.

Although the rest of Bluebird Drive doesn’t shine as brightly as the Nelsons’ home, neighbors don’t seem to mind. One of the neighbors, Randy Garcia, let Dan Nelson use a corner of his yard to set up some moose and pine trees.

“We’re actually waiting for Dan to expand all the way over,” Garcia said.

Nelson’s lights shine from 5 to 10 p.m. every night and help Rocky Mountain Power survive the country’s economic crisis.

“I don’t look at [the electricity bill],” Dan Nelson said. “We’re on a year-round [billing plan], and it goes up every year. I probably wouldn’t do this if I looked at it.”

He said that he’s trying to buy more LED lights, which run cooler and therefore save energy.

“It’s not like we’re saving anything because he keeps adding more stuff,” Jewel Nelson said.

Read full source - Front yard decorations get more elaborate for WVC couple

The Snoring Has to Stop!

We all long for a quiet night’s rest. But, for some of us, the snoring just blasts our eardrums!

It’s loud and it’s irritating. But, is it serious?

Patti from Pitman, N.J. e-mailed:

“My snoring wakes me up. Could this be a warning of a problem?”

Sometimes, snoring can just be annoying to your bed partner and annoying to yourself. But, sometimes, snoring can be the indication of a more serious problem like sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a common condition that leads to interrupted breathing for very short periods of time during sleep, usually the result of narrowed airways. Untreated, it can lead to health problems including, high blood pressure, memory problems, weight gain, and headaches.

“It’s associated with nighttime awaking or daytime sleepiness, so if that’s something that is occurring where you snore at night, you awake and feel tired, you’re sleepy during the day, you should talk to your doctor about perhaps having a sleep study done,” Dr. Helena Schotland said.

Doctors may recommend a device called a CPAP, which helps keep the airway open.

Darrell from Philadelphia asked:

“I have sleep apnea, but the device hurts my nose.”

“Just because you don’t like your particular mask doesn’t mean that you are stuck with it. There are a huge number of masks. Some are nasal masks that go over your nose. Some are nose and mouth. There are also little nasal pillows that are just little prongs that go over your nostril that are great for people with claustrophobia,” Dr. Schotland said.

Other treatments include:

Weight loss
Sleeping on your side instead of on your back
Read full story - The Snoring Has to Stop!

Corporate spies clean up - The financial crisis means boom times for spooks-for-hire

The financial crisis means boom times for spooks-for-hire.

By Barney Gimbel, writer
Last Updated: December 8, 2008: 11:16 AM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) — If James Bond’s “License to Kill” gets revoked, he’d have no problem finding work as a corporate spy. To the short list of sectors that stand to gain from the financial crisis, add corporate intelligence firms.

They are seeing a dramatic uptick in business from a surge of banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds that need to make sure those pesky multimillion-dollar investments they made when times were good will hold up.

Firms like Control Risks, a London-based risk consultancy staffed by ex-CIA agents, and its rival, New York-based Kroll say they have seen a 20% jump in new business over the past two months. Together the two firms control the majority of the market.

These spook outfits have long carved out a lucrative business investigating corporate fraud, performing due diligence, or simply ferreting out the things not on a balance sheet - be they a company’s shady associates in Brazil or corrupt investors in Texas.

But in the recent heady times, some fast-moving investment outlets cut corners.

Now they are hoping to save face - and money - before precarious deals fall apart altogether. “The tolerance for failure has diminished,” says Jim Brooks, who heads North American operations for Control Risks.

Already, spies-for-hire are finding a couple of embarrassing flubs.

Consider the more than $300 million that one international bank lent to a sketchy Russian magnate (we’d tell you who it was, but then we’d have to kill you). When he stopped paying his bills, the bank brought in Control Risks to find out where the money had gone. (They found the Russian could have funneled money out of the country through various, seemingly unrelated shell companies.)

Full story: Corporate spies clean up - The financial crisis means boom times for spooks-for-hire

Women Who Breastfeed Are More Likely to Shed Their Baby Weight 6 Months After Giving Birth, Study Shows

By Caroline Wilbert
WebMD Health News

Dec. 8, 2008 — Breastfeeding may help new mothers shed the baby weight.

A new study examines the relationship between breastfeeding and postpartum weight retention. The study, which looked at data for more than 25,000 women participating in the Danish National Birth Cohort, measured how long women breastfed and also how intensely. Each woman received a breastfeeding score. Results showed that women with higher breastfeeding scores were more likely to lose their pregnancy weight six months after giving birth.

Researchers concluded that women who gain a reasonable amount during pregnancy and breastfeed exclusively are likely to lose all pregnancy weight six months after giving birth. They also estimate that women who breastfeed retain 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) less than women who don’t breastfeed at six months after giving birth.

Participants, all recruited by their doctors during their first prenatal visit, were interviewed four times — twice during pregnancy, as well as six months after giving birth and 18 months after giving birth. They answered questions about their weight and how they were feeding their babies.

Read this full article - Breastfeeding Helps Moms Lose Weight

Stop snoring with SnorePro?

We get some odd-ball press releases and story pitches here at TechFlash HQ. And this one, from a Fremont, Calif.-based company that has developed a $99.99 anti-snoring device called SnorePro certainly would qualify.

“HBI-USA, a biomedical device company, announced today its new SnorePro which uses its proprietary Dynamic Snore Detection (DSD) technology to precisely detect snores and to gently issue a programmable digital pulse to prevent snoring. The digital pulse functions like a spouse by nudging their snoring bedmate, which in turn trains the body to change sleep positions to eliminate the snoring. Bedmates of snorers lose an average of one hour of sleep per night due to snoring. The stimulation may disturb the snorer; however, it helps their bedmates to enjoy and regain sleep as they won’t have to nudge the snorer any more.”

Described as a wrist-watch style device with a built-in LCD screen, the press release goes on to say that the SnorePro can track the improvements of the snorer over time.

Read full article here

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Different Types of Taxi Insurance

Looking at the increasing number of road accidents, as well as vehicle theft, insurance for your vehicle is a must. Getting coverage for a vehicle means that at the time of damage or theft, the company from whom the policy is taken will cover the cost of damages, or will pay for the cost of the vehicle in case of theft. Many of the firms are offering insurance policies on a commercial basis as well, one example being the introduction of taxi insurance in which cover is provided for taxis, cabs and even vans. Private hire insurance policies, as well as public hire insurance policies, are two types of taxi insurance policies available. In comparison to the public hire insurance policy, private hire insurance policies are a lot more expensive as they involve a higher risk.

These types of taxi insurances are very popular these days, as having taxis for public as well as private hire includes a lot of risks, and not opting for any kind of insurance policy will make the running of taxis unaffordable. But one must also be very careful in choosing the company from whom the insurance is obtained, as it is a very specialised field, and very few companies are providing it at genuine prices. Getting a cheap taxi insurance policy may not be a very hard nut to crack because of the competition between the companies.

Obtaining these taxi insurance policies is very easy, as one may register directly over the net or can even consult any executive from the taxi insurance company. The best way to get cheap taxi insurance is to directly get in contact with the wholesale insurance agents as they are well trained and can calculate the minimum amount of premium required to obtain a taxi insurance policy. The prices, or the premium, of the policy is relatively cheap, if there is a good number of a taxis included in the policy. Apart from this, there are three types of taxi insurance policies offered by companies and they are: third party, fully comprehensive, and third party fire & theft.

Read full article: Different Types of Taxi Insurance

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