Month: November 2018

November 16, 2018 at 09:03AM Thanksgiving Day is the ultra-marathon of cooking. You’ve trained—mastering how to make cauliflower mashed potato and taste-testing different types of gluten-free stuffing. Now, it’s go-time. Without a doubt, the part of the meal that is the most time-consuming and tedious is the turkey. And considering the whole feast is named after the bird, it’s a pretty critical part of the meal. But there’s an amazing cooking method that will free up your time—and oven—cooking the turkey in literally half the time. Behold, spatchcock, the cooking technique Taste of Home says takes turkey cooking down to an hour-and-half from the three or four hours normally required. Here’s how it works: Basically, you remove the backbone of the turkey so that it lays flat in the oven. That’s it. Your entrée will still come out evenly cooked, juicy, and ready to plate. Wondering how exactly you remove the backbone of a bird? First, put the turkey on a cutting board, face down. Then, use kitchen shears to put along the spine. When you’re ready, remove the backbone with your hand. (Just like the traditional turkey cooking method, spatchcock is not for the squeamish.) And like that, you’ve freed up the oven and made room for everything else you have to use it for. (Yes, people will notice if your sweet potato casserole is missing.) This hack is so good that you just may find yourself using it year-round anytime you’ve craving some poultry for dinner. If the thought

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November 16, 2018 at 08:59AM Women-run businesses have become more and more the norm here in the U.S.—just look at Glossier CEO Emily Weiss, Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi, and Orangetheory Fitness co-founder Ellen Latham for examples. But that change has been slow to arrive to other parts of the world—particularly Libya. Libya has long struggled with women’s rights—during the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, women were largely excluded from politics and often couldn’t get an education outside the traditionally gendered realms of healthcare and administration. And although women played a large role in the revolution of 2011 that ended Gaddafis rule, continued conflict and instability (including the rise of Isis in some areas) has made it hard for women in some regions to gain a foothold in society without facing threats and violence. There are also traditional cultural norms at play prohibiting many Libyan women from leaving their homes or interacting with other men, unless they have permission from their male guardian. This context helps explain why only one out of four Libyan women is legally employed, according to The World Bank. But that may change soon, in part thanks to a new food app called Yummy. The app, founded by two Libyan women, hopes to give more women a way to grow businesses from home by selling food they make themselves. Here’s how it works: Anyone—man or woman—looking to sell their homemade food applies to be a vendor on the app. They send samples to Yummy HQ, located in southern Libya, where the dishes

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November 16, 2018 at 08:35AM Even though—for the first time in my adult life—I finally have a dishwasher in my apartment, it doesn’t get used very often. In my efforts to be more sustainable, most of our dishes are washed by hand and set in the drying rack to save water—but it turns out all that extra work isn’t more environmentally-friendly…at all. According to the New York Times, despite it seeming like hand-washing dishes would save way more water, that’s not the case. Because the typical kitchen faucet produces 1.5 gallons every minute, even a quickie, three-minute wash job could take 4.5 gallons of water. And let’s be real—most times, hand-washing takes way longer than a few measly minutes. The dishwasher, on the other hand, can make an entire load of dirty dishes squeaky-clean with just 3.5 gallons, said Einav Henenson, a deputy area director for the Arizona Department of Water Resources—which, by the way, is something that has drastically improved over the years due to most machines being certified by the government’s Energy Star program. While the typical kitchen faucet produces 1.5 gallons every minute, the dishwasher can make an entire load of dirty dishes squeaky-clean with just 3.5 gallons. Basically, the end result of this longtime debate is the best news ever, but there are some general rules to follow to make sure your newfound love of the dishwasher isn’t going to turn wasteful. Peter Brostrom, a water efficiency manager for the California Water Resources Control Board, said you should only use

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November 16, 2018 at 08:11AM Even as a full-blown adult, I’m always amazed when people guzzle down plain black coffee in all its bitter glory without adding anything into it to make it taste less, well, aggressive. (Whether or not those people are psychopaths, though, remains up for debate.) Over the years, I’ve tried taking a sip just to see if things have changed, and it always results in a puckered-up face that looks like I downed a glass of lemon juice or a shot of mezcal. And evidently, there’s a simple explanation why: I’m not a genetic “super-taster” like other effortlessly cool coffee drinkers of the world. In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers found that your genes play a big role in how bitter flavors are experienced, and that’s exactly why some people love coffee and others can’t deal. After comparing preferences for coffee or tea of more than 400,000 participants ages 37 to 73—and noting whether they carried bitter taste receptor genes or not—it became clear those who do carry bitter taste receptors for caffeine tended to be bigger coffee drinkers than the average, well, Joe. And I mean serious fanatics: They gulped down more than four cups every day and enjoyed the taste while they were doing it. According to the researchers, every copy of the bitter taste receptor gene someone had upped their chances of being a big coffee drinker by 20 percent—and because of their ability to enjoy the bitterness, they were dubbed “super-tasters” of caffeine.

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November 16, 2018 at 07:38AM The Mercury retrograde has a way of making everything go berserk. The astrological period, which starts today and lasts through December 6th, has a reputation for adding a particularly wonky vibe to your relationships. But in order to stop the celestial event from hijacking any chance you have at a civil Thanksgiving dinner, rockstar astrologer Susan Miller says you just need to follow one simple communication rule: Be crystal clear. “No, you don’t have to overcommunicate, but you do have to be clear, because you’re probably picking up the wrong info. And the person hearing you might be picking up the wrong information,” the world-famous Astrology Zone founder said at a recent event for American Greetings in New York City. “No, you don’t have to overcommunicate, but you have to be clear because you’re probably picking up the wrong info. And the person hearing you might be picking up the wrong information.” —Susan Miller She adds that people are more likely to read into conversations during this time, so a simple comment can easily snowball into a perceived slight. “People tend to say, ‘What do you mean by that?’ So you have to just be a little less judgmental so that you make sure that you communicate clearly,” Miller says. For example, be sure to very carefully mask the fake compliment you give your cousin about the gelatinous cranberry sauce she serves up on Turkey Day. And if your parents’ criticism feels a little more biting than usual,

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November 16, 2018 at 06:59AM Every woman in your life could use a little pep talk once in a while. You know how hard your best friends work, how ridiculously jam-packed their schedules are, and how generally exhausted they are—not to mention the impressive amount of BS they put up with on the daily. Because it’s easy to forget, sometimes you need to be the one to remind them just how badass they really are—and all it takes is caffeine and some words of encouragement. Rachel Elizabeth Cargle, who’s a total badass in her own right as a New York City-based activist, writer, and lecturer, started a weekly tradition months ago that’s helping build up women in her own life and beyond. Every Friday—dubbed #FriendCareFriday—she reminds her followers to “love on a friend” by Venmoing them $5 to $10 for their morning latte with some words that lift them up. “Tell them how proud of them you are…even if it’s just for making it through the week,” she wrote on Instagram. “Invest into each other. Into each other’s mental health, into each other’s happiness, into each other knowing that we are loved and cared for and ultimately enough.” It’s such a simple act, but it makes all the difference—and you can do it whether you live in the same city or 1,000 miles apart. “I started doing #FriendCareFriday after seeing Rachel Cargle post about it, and it really is such an easy way to show some love to your friends, whether it’s one who had

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