Family Dinners (by: Anthony Valentine)

The dinner table can be one of the best places to bring your family together. Eating a nice home cooked meal with your whole family is a wonderful experience, and can bring great discussion, or humor to everyone attending. My family has a wonderful pasta dinner every Sunday night. My mother spends all day preparing her sauce, meatballs, and whatever else it takes to create her masterpiece. After hours of preparing it’s finally done. The family gathers at the dinner table and begins the feast. On Sundays we always sit at the dinner table. Your asking, where else would you sit? Well, during the week we have an island counter top which we eat our meals at. The island is simply more convenient, and easy to use for my mother when she’s cooking. For our Sunday feast, we always set the dinner table, and sit at the table together to eat our meal.

I look forward to every Sunday for a number of reasons. The main reason being I love to eat, and I love to eat pasta more than anything. We are an Italian family and we all enjoy a fabulous pasta dinner every week. Besides the eating part of our feast, I enjoy joining my family and starting conversation. It’s not often you get to sit down with your whole family at once for an extended period of time. Being able to talk to my all my brothers at once is pretty cool. I got three brothers, and having them all there at once can be quite exciting. Asking one brother one thing can lead to a fun conversation, or sometimes a ruthless argument. Overall it’s a fun experience and you get to learn a lot about your siblings, and/or parents.

My brothers all attend school, and two of them work full time jobs, theres just no time to spend time with them. Having a weekly dinner is a very exciting aspect of our family. No matter what is happening that week, I know that the upcoming Sunday I will see my whole family whether it’s at our dinner table, or simply out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants. Not everyone can make it every Sunday, but that’s understandable and we forgive them. Most Sunday’s we have the whole family attending, including my grandma, who I feel is the most important person at the dinner table.

My grandma, who we call “nuni” or “nonna” which is Italian for grandmother. Our nonna came over from Italy over 50 years ago on a boat, and has never been the same since. I love talking to her at the dinner table about the old times in the old country. She teaches us some cool things about cooking, and just being Italian in general. Sometimes my nunna will teach us some Italian phrases, or secrets to different things that she’s learned over in Italy. I love comparing her different ways to go about doing certain things to the way we do certain things over here in America, it’s very interesting.

One of the coolest things I’ve learned from my grandmother is how to make homemade pasta. My grandmother grew up in a village in Sicily, and was taught to produce her own pasta noodles when it came to their family feasts. Learning how to make my own homemade pasta was easily one of the coolest things I’ve learned from here. I currently attend the University of New Hampshire for Culinary Arts, and cooking happens to be my passion. Having my grandma around is so awesome, and I learn a lot from her every day. She taught me the basics of using a Pasta Machine, and how to make my own pasta from scratch. After a few hours of preparing our noodles, our product was done. I had produced enough pasta for weeks! We ate the homemade pasta later that night and it was fantastic. May not taste like it was store bought, but it definitely tastes homemade, and delicious.

The moral of the article is to make more people aware of the power of food, whether your preparing it or eating it. Take advantage of your family dinners, who knows how much longer you’ll have with them. Whether you sit and enjoy the presence, or strike a conversation with your family members, a family dinner is a great way to gather the family each week.
About The Author

My name is Anthony Valentine and I attend the University of New Hampshire for culinary arts. I run a pasta website which provides recipes, tutorials, and pasta products.

The author invites you to visit:
http://www.letseatpasta.com

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/family/article_4226.shtml

 

 

Compost Pile Quick Tips ( by: Michael Podlesny)

I am convinced that composting is the number one thing you can do as a home vegetable gardener that is beneficial for your soil and plants. Adding good quality compost to your soil helps with drainage, nutrients in the soil and so many other things. Along with the soil benefits you can also take a lot of organic material that would otherwise find its way into a landfill and actually put it to good use. The question is, if you are new to gardening, how do you get from that organic material to usable, quality compost?

First lets start with what is “organic” material. Organic material can be grass clippings, leaves, your left over dinner, coffee grinds, banana peels and so on. Plastic, Styrofoam and meat bones are NOT considered organic material for the compost pile.

Set aside an area of your yard where you will dump all of these items into. As a side note, when it comes to left over food, it is best to bury that. It could draw in unwanted animals like raccoons, opossums, etc.

Once you have your pile of organic material in place you are all set. Nature will take care of the rest. Bacteria, insects and worms will work hard together to break your pile down into usable compost. If time is not a factor then you can literally let the pile sit there and it will eventually break down. However, like you, I want my compost a bit faster, so here are some things you can do to help speed things up.

Shred

Using a yard shredder, chipper or your lawn mower, you can break down larger items in very small pieces. The smaller the pieces, the quicker they will break down.

Water

You should be keeping your compost pile moist. Do not over water your compost pile as items in the pile will get matted down, which prohibits oxygen from reaching areas deep inside your compost pile, thus creating a “rotting” smell as anaerobic bacteria takes over. A lite watering every other day, or more often if it gets hot and dry outside will do the trick.

Turn

A good practice is to get into the habit of turning your pile over. A pitchfork is all you will need to complete this task. Every few days use your trusty pitchfork to literally turn the pile over by bringing the material from the bottom to the top and vice-versa. For optimal results you want to turn the pile over when the center of the compost pile reaches 140 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.. You can pick up a compost pile thermometer for a few bucks.

Finally, remember to keep your compost pile well ventilated. The more air that reaches through the pile, the quicker and the better the outcome will be.
About The Author

About the AuthorMike Podlesny is the administrator for the largest Vegetable Gardening page on Facebook. Join in the vegetable gardening conversation today with your Facebook account and find out how you can get 2 packs of seeds absolutely free.

The author invites you to visit:
http://seedsclub.averagepersongardening.com

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/environment_and_going_green/article_1151.shtml