The Pesach Havdalah Candle Mathematical Problem

This candle has been used for Pesach Havdalah since 1996. Given that it is not used every year, for how many more years do you estimate that it will it last?

How Many Ways Can You Say "Bad Weather"?

Parve Kosher for Pesach Chocolate Taste Test

Somehow we ended up with this variety of parve pesachdik chocolates.


So we decided it was a perfect opportunity to do a taste test.

It was a tough job but someone had to do it.

The opinions of the two taste testers was remarkably similar.

No time to go into detail (snap, texture, but the winner by a landslide was the Alprose Swiss Baking Chocolate. No way are we going to waste this in baking.

Patchzkez
Sweet almost milk chocolate taste. Fruity notes. Second best of the selections.

Oneg
Also a bit sweet, milk chocolate taste. Good chocolate saturation.

Lieber
The only poor chocolate of those we tested. Very sweet but almost no chocolate flavor. To be fair, this might have been one of the two left over from last year.

Haddar
Very dark, not sweet, chocolate. We detected burnt, coffee overtones.

Removing My Food from the Office for Pesach

I keep some food at work in case I get hungry and have run out of stuff in my lunchbag. I emptied out my desk drawers, and then ... realized I also had stuff in the fridge and freezer.

Lucky thing a ShopRite is two doors down from the office, otherwise I might feel the need to really stock supplies.

Not in Kansas Anymore ...

Head 'o Hail

In the evening of March 23rd there was a (very unusual for NJ) hailstorm. This is what the driveway looked like when Lumpy came home,

And this is what Lumpy looked like ...

Unfortunate Juxtaposition

Speed Hump on Steroids, II

Concerned About Artificial Food Coloring in Your Dog's Food?

Apparently I am not the only one obsessing about artificial food coloring.

The Minimum Daily Requirement of Food Coloring

If you are like most people, you have probably lain awake nights worrying about whether or not you are getting your Minimum Daily Requirement of Food Coloring.

The answer is surprisingly hard to come by.

So as a public service I am posting the following information:

One snack pack of M&Ms...

contains 16 M&Ms.



I rubbed off most of the food coloring from 14 of these...


Onto this paper towel.



So to answer the question, "What is the Minimum Daily Requirement of Food Coloring?" the answer is clearly, proven scientifically, "One M&M ought to cover it."

That is not even taking into account all the Titanium Dioxide used to color the white shell that is underneath the colored shell, or whatever food coloring is needed to make the chocolate on the inside such a rich chocolaty brown.

photo credit: Rick C.

Announcing A New Contest!

I am starting a new contest called (drumroll please)

Guess What is Under That Mound of Snow !

Here is a picture of the backyard, with several mounds labeled:



Post your guesses for what you think is under mounds A through M in the comments.

Person who correctly guesses the greatest number of answers will be declared the Winner.

First prize is The winner of the contest will have the glory of winning the contest.

The Winner will be announced in July. (At least I hope to be able to announce a winner by then.)

Try to remember the postition of the visible items in this picture (playgym, basketball hoop, trees) for later, when they are marked in additional installments of this contest, in February.

Further Clivia Update

I picked one of the clivia berries this evening,

and peeled it.


I was expecting a lot of smaller seeds instead of these 3 big ones.

The seed was about the size of a cooked chick pea.

There was a lot of advice on the web as to how to germinate the seeds. I went with this approach because it was easiest and because it will be easy to see if anything happens.

I have read that it takes anywhere from one to six months to germinate. If it germinates at all. Stay tuned ...