If there is one spice that reminds me of winter, it is cinnamon. The pungent, brown herb is a staple in cold-weather recipes, flavoring everything from lattes to oatmeal to cooked carrots. It mixes with nutmeg, sugar, ginger or all three in baked goods and seasons meat with a taste few spices can mirror. It [...]

“There’s venison in my freezer!” That was the statement my sister greeted me with as, one Sunday afternoon, I made an impromptu stop at her apartment. Her roommate, coming from upstate New York, had brought some of the meat back with her after her last trip home and subsequently stocked the freezer. My sister was [...]

If you are anything like the rest of us, your medicine cabinet is filled with old medications – Tylenol from 1990, prescription pain pills from your surgery three years ago, children’s cough syrup from the last time Junior had a cold and something unidentifiable in a small, plastic vial  . . . that smells funny. [...]

Walnuts are a winter wonder. Although available year-round, they are associated with the short, blustery days of December and January, as they are prominent features in hoards of holiday cookie recipes. And while you may not roast them like chestnuts, you toast them with fervor, sprinkling them in salads, chopping them for granola and stirring [...]

A few years ago, you couldn’t go a day without someone mentioning Pilates. The exercise was an out-of-control craze, attracting the rich and famous, the long and lean and everyone in between. If you were a dancer, you were doing Pilates. Sick. Pilates. Pregnant. Pilates. Alive. Pilates. Then yoga exploded on the fitness world, and [...]

A few weeks ago, a German man pulled into a gas station, filled his car, paid the bill and walked home. An hour later, authorities knocked on his door, informing him that his vehicle was still connected to the pump. He promptly returned to the station and drove home, none the worse for wear. At [...]

The holiday season means, among other things, an increase in travel. People across the country and around the world are preparing to return home for the festivities, booking flights, purchasing train tickets and gassing up their cars. They will, so as not to miss a moment of family-togetherness, cram themselves into tiny seats for hours [...]

Peanuts  – they’re as American as apple pie and even more popular. They accompany every ballgame, every circus and every southern-style steakhouse in the country. They appear in our homes raw and unshelled, honey-roasted, wrapped in chocolate, as peanut butter and mixed into a variety of snack foods. We eat them with a relish reserved [...]

During the summer months, we tend to gravitate towards cooler foods. Breakfasts consist of yogurts, fruits and cereals. Lunches are cold sandwiches or salads, and dinners lean towards lukewarm rather than steaming. However that all changes as soon as the outside temperatures drop. Soups, stews and hearty casseroles cover the table. Everything from dawn to [...]

Choosing a sport should ultimately be a matter of enjoyment. You should opt for an activity that makes you happy. Otherwise, exercise will become synonymous with dread, mental anguish and torture, none of which are strong motivators. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t account for other factors when narrowing the field. Gender and age, for [...]

Recent research has revealed some interesting information about our sexual habits. It seems that we’re a bit more promiscuous than previously thought. Approximately 11 percent of men have more than one sex partner  and one in five young travelers sleep with a stranger during their trip.  It also turns out that a woman’s desire to [...]

It’s three o’clock. You’re hungry. You want a snack. You are seriously considering the shiny bag of Cheetos beckoning you from the vending machine, but you turn away. The satanic orange feline will not ruin your diet today. You will be healthy. You will purchase the nutty, oat-filled, fruit-flavored granola bar instead. You slip in [...]

The traditional Christmas accessories from garlands to lights to Santa’s cookies offer your kids plenty of opportunities to injure themselves. Take, for instance, your tree. The sparkly lure of tinsel won’t stop calling to your toddler, and before you know it, he’s choking on the silvery string. You’re trying to decide if the Heimlich is [...]

They say that a man only needs a handful, but that doesn’t keep millions of women from wishing they had a little more. Breast implants are the third most popular type of cosmetic surgery, boosting more than a quarter million cup-sizes every year. They are performed to enhance appearance, compensate for a defect, adjust for [...]

I once stood in Panera with a group of friends, pretending to mull over my various dinner options. What I was actually doing was trying to make out the small print. I spent several minutes attempting to decipher the blurry nonsense before turning to one of my friends and asking her to read it for [...]