How to use up what's in your liquor cabinet - Mother Nature Network

Chances are, if you've lived in the same place for more than a couple of years and have ever thrown a party, you?ve ended up with some random bottles alongside your go-to drink mixers like gin and vodka. We all have them. My cabinet inexplicably includes butterscotch schnapps and cr?me de menthe, neither of which I purchased. (In fact I?m not even sure who gave them to me.) These random liquors gather dust over the years because you figure you'll find a use for them some day.?

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Well, thanks to the Internet and some smart apps, that day has arrived. Now you can use up your perfectly good liquor and also look pretty smart when you break out a new and creative cocktail next time you have friends over ? and what better time of year for that than now? Or maybe you have just enough left in the bottle for a drink for one. The depths of winter are a great time to try something new post-work one evening. Either way, waste not, want not, right?

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The Webtender site is genius; it provides a selection list of every kind of weird liquor you can think of, not to mention some common mixers many of us have sitting around. You choose what you have on hand from each list, choose how strict you want your search results to be (you can choose whether one, two or all your selected ingredients must be used), and it will give you a list of recipes that fit your parameters. I mean, where else would you find a recipe for a Kilted Black Leprechaun?just because you have some Malibu rum and Drambuie lying around? And just in case you need it, there?s also advice about some of the drinks: while the Peppermint Beach?(which drains your peppermint schnapps and rum) might sound like a wacky coupling, the mixing instructions suggest otherwise. According to Webtender, ?Our studies show this drink to taste quite foul at the beginning of the evening but rather refreshing after several other drinks have been consumed.? (I feel more secure knowing the drinks I?m mixing up have been "studied," don?t you?)

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If all you have is your smartphone handy, fear not. Apps like Mixologist allow you to search its database by ingredient (so you can input whatever it is you want to get rid of), or by drink (in case you are looking for inspiration). The app, which costs $.99, will also help you find nearby liquor stores (in case you take a liking to that orphaned liquor you thought you hated) and bars (in case you throw in the towel on this experiment), as well as a notepad to record your favorite drinks. You can also see what other folks have rated as the best cocktail recipes. And there are additional databases for purchase, including a low-calorie drink menu. (This app can be downloaded by those 17 and over.)

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Similarly, the $.99 iBartender app lets you search by liquor or other ingredient (so if you have other random nonalcoholic ingredients, like coconut cream, taking up space in your pantry, you can search for drinks that will use that stuff up too). And each drink recipe includes a small image of what the finished product should look like, including suggested glassware. iBartender also has a fun "shake" feature, which lets you shake your phone like a cocktail and then see a random drink recipe pop up. (This app can be downloaded by those 17 and over.)

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Drinkspiration?is one of the few free apps and that?s because it comes from Absolut vodka, so this one is (not surprisingly) tilted toward vodka drinks. Depending on what you have left over in your liquor cabinet, this app may or may not be useful (many random liquors mix well with vodka, after all), but if you have the memory space on your phone, it might be worth adding to your drink recipe arsenal. (This app can be downloaded only if you are 21 and over.)

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There?s also the last refuge of liquor you don?t want to drink; no, it's not the drain, it's food. When heated, most of the alcohol from whatever you are pouring will burn off, but flavors will be left behind. My butterscotch schnapps, in the end, might taste best in a cake, for example. You don?t need an app for that: Just type in your leftover liquor, along with key words like ?cookies recipe? or ?cake recipe? (some alcohol even works with meat dishes, especially brandies). I found a delicious-sounding one for Chocolate Butterscotch Schnapps Cake that calls for 1/2 cup of schnapps, which looks to be about exactly how much I have left in my bottle.

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Feel intimidated? Need inspiration? When in doubt, one of the drinks listed below will make a serious dent in whatever alcohol collection you have going. (And hey, you can always experiment!)

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From DrinksMixer (another great site that will teach you everything you don't know about mixing alcohols, glassware and more), the classic Long Island Iced Tea has ranked among the top five most popular drinks for years:

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Long Island Iced Tea

Prep time: 5 minutes ?

Total time: 5 minutes ?

Ingredients

• 1 part vodka
• 1 part tequila
• 1 part rum
• 1 part gin
• 1 part triple sec
• 1 1/2 parts sweet and sour mix
• 1 splash cola

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Directions

1. Mix ingredients together over ice in a glass.
2. Pour into a shaker and give one brisk shake.
3. Pour back into the glass and make sure there is a touch of fizz at the top. Garnish with lemon.

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And a great recipe to use up two oft-left-behind liquors, the 8th Birthday Cocktail would be perfect at the end of a holiday dinner party and comes across as refined and dessert-like when you serve it in a martini glass with a mint leaf garnish.

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8th Birthday Cocktail

Prep time: 3 minutes ?

Total time: 3 minutes ?

Ingredients

• 3/4 ounce Chambord raspberry liquor
• 1 ounce dark cr?me de cacao
• 1 ounce vodka
• 1 ounce milk

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Directions

1. Add all ingredients to an ice-filled cocktail shaker, and pour into a martini glass.

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Related alcohol stories on MNN:

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Source: http://www.mnn.com/food/beverages/stories/how-to-use-up-whats-in-your-liquor-cabinet

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$500,000 to Help First-Time Home-Buyers Purchase in the County ...

We all know that Arlington County is an ideal place to live, but also acknowledge that it can be an expensive place to buy a home. Arlington County also understands this and work hard to ensure that there are different programs in place to ensure that everyone regardless of their salary income can afford to live in Arlington County.

Today there was more good news for first time home buyers looking to purchase a home in Arlington County.? The Arlington County Board approved an additional allocation of $500,000 for down payment and closing cost assistance for low- and moderate- first time home-buyers. Arlington County estimate that this allocation of funds can help assist between 10 and 15 families or households purchase a home.?

Through the Moderate Income Purchase Assistance Program (MIPAP), the County can lend up to 25 percent of the purchase price of the property. This second trust mortgage has no payments or interest charged through the 30 year loan period.? When a home-buyer chooses to sell or refinance the property an appraisal of the property will be done to determine if the property has increased in value; if so, then the home-buyer would owe the County the original loan amount plus a proportionate share do the net appreciation, if any.?
The maximum purchase price is $362,790 (for calendar year 2012); with the maximum MIPAP loan amount at $90,700.
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Applications for financial assistance will begin December 3, 2012.? For more information, visit Arlington County?s Housing Division Home Ownership website.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2012 at 10:23 am and is filed under Arlington Real Estate, Home Buying Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Source: http://arbourrealty.com/2012/12/03/500000-to-help-first-time-home-buyers-purchase-in-the-county/

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Clashes in Kuwait after opposition's election boycott

Obaida al Ahmad / Reuters

An anti-riot police officer standing in a vehicle fires tear gas at demonstrators protesting against the election results in Kuwait on December 4, 2012.

Kuwaiti protesters clashed with riot police on Tuesday during a demonstration against the results of an election boycotted by the opposition, Reuters reports.

Kuwait's ruler accepted the government's resignation on Monday, the state news agency KUNA said, a step designed to make way for a new cabinet in the Gulf Arab state.

Kuwait to free politician on bail after arrest for insulting emir sparks protests

The newly elected parliament is expected to be more cooperative with the government than its predecessor because of the opposition boycott of the vote.

Obaida al Ahmad / Reuters

Demonstrators march on the street of Aesha Om al Moemin to protest against the election results in Kuwait on December 4, 2012.

Obaida al Ahmad / Reuters

A demonstrator kicks a tear gas canister away during clashes with anti-riot police in Kuwait on December 4, 2012.

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Source: http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/04/15666950-clashes-in-kuwait-after-oppositions-election-boycott?lite

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Thousands ready to march on Egypt president palace

CAIRO (AP) ? Tens of thousands of Egyptians massed in Cairo Tuesday for a march to the presidential palace to protest the assumption by the nation's Islamist president of nearly unrestricted powers and a draft constitution hurriedly adopted by his allies.

In the coastal city of Alexandria, some 10,000 opponents of President Mohammed Morsi gathered in the center of the country's second largest metropolis. They chanted slogans against the Egyptian leader and his Muslim Brotherhood.

The marches come amid rising anger over the draft charter and decrees issued by Mohammed Morsi giving himself sweeping powers. Morsi called for a nationwide referendum on the draft constitution on Dec. 15.

It is Egypt's worst political crisis since the ouster nearly two years ago of authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak. The country has been divided into two camps: Morsi and his fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, as well as ultraconservative Salafi Islamists, versus youth groups, liberal parties and large sectors of the public.

Hundreds of black-clad riot police deployed around the Itihadiya palace in Cairo's district of Heliopolis. Barbed wire was also placed outside the complex, and side roads leading to it were blocked to traffic.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square, joining several hundred who have been camping out there for nearly two weeks. There were other protests around the city. These were separate from the demonstrations outside the palace.

"Freedom or we die," chanted a crowd of several hundred outside a mosque in the Abbasiyah district. "Mohammed Morsi! Illegitimate! Brotherhood! Illegitimate!" they also yelled, alluding to Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.

"This is the last warning before we lay siege on the presidential palace," said Mahmoud Hashim, a 21-year-old student from the city of Suez on the Red Sea. "We want the presidential decrees cancelled."

Several hundred protesters also gathered outside Morsi's residence in an upscale suburb not far from the Itihadiya. "Down with the sons of dogs. We are the power and we are the people," they chanted.

By nightfall, the crowd outside the palace was estimated at more than 10,000, with many chanting "erhal, erhal," Arabic for "leave, leave" and "the people want to topple the regime" ? two well-known chants from the 2010-2011 Arab Spring revolts.

Morsi, who narrowly won the presidency in a June election, appeared to be in no mood for compromise.

A statement by his office said the Egyptian leader met on Tuesday with his deputy, prime minister and several top Cabinet members to discuss preparations for the referendum. The statement appeared also to suggest that it is business as usual at the presidential palace, despite the rally.

A large turnout would signal sustained momentum for the opposition, which brought out at least 200,000 protesters to Cairo's Tahrir Square a week ago and a comparable number on Friday, demanding that Morsi's decrees be rescinded.

The Islamists responded by sending hundreds of thousands of supporters into Cairo's twin city of Giza on Saturday and across much of the country. Thousands also imposed a siege on Egypt's highest court, the Supreme Constitutional Court.

The court had been widely expected Sunday to declare the constitutional assembly that passed the draft charter on Friday to be illegitimate and to disband parliament's upper house, the Shura Council. Instead, the judges went on strike after they found their building under siege by protesters.

The opposition has yet to say whether it intends to focus its energy on rallying support for a boycott of the Dec. 15 vote or defeating the draft with a "no" vote.

"We haven't made any decisions yet, but I'm leaning against a boycott and toward voting 'no'," said Hossam al-Hamalawy of the Socialist Revolutionaries, a key group behind last year's uprising. "We want a (new) constituent assembly that represents the people and we keep up the pressure on Morsi."

The strikes were part of a planned campaign of civil disobedience that could bring in other industries.

On Tuesday, at least eight influential dailies, a mix of opposition party mouthpieces and independent publications, suspended publication for a day to protest against what many journalists see as the restrictions on freedom of expression in the draft constitution.

The country's privately owned TV networks planned their own protest Wednesday, when they will blacken their screens all day.

Morsi's Nov. 22 decrees placed him above oversight of any kind, including the courts. The constitutional panel then rushed through a draft constitution without the participation of representatives of liberals and Christians. Only four women, all Islamists, attended the marathon, all-night session.

The charter has been criticized for not protecting the rights of women and minority groups, and many journalists see it as restricting freedom of expression. Critics also say it empowers Islamic religious clerics by giving them a say over legislation, while some articles were seen as tailored to get rid of Islamists' enemies.

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Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-ready-march-egypt-president-palace-150451015.html

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Observatory: Acrobatic Blue Whales Can Sneak Up on Krill

Ari Friedlaender

While feeding, whales sometimes roll over to maximize their catch.

To capture enough food for their enormous bodies, blue whales use an extreme technique called lunge feeding: they take enormous gulps of water, then let it pass through comb-like mouth filters called baleen, keeping krill behind for consumption.

And sometimes, a new study reports, they also do an acrobatic roll to help them capture krill more effectively.

Writing in Biology Letters, researchers explain that the whales sometimes roll 180 degrees, so their backs face the seafloor as they accelerate and move forward to open their mouths for a lunge.

?They engulf from right beneath the krill patch so they are less likely to be seen,? said the study?s first author, Jeremy Goldbogen, a comparative physiologist at the Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Wash. ?This minimizes the escape of the krill.?

The whales complete their roll, flipping over another 180 degrees, while filtering water through their mouths.

?The whole process can be finished in about 20 to 30 seconds,? Dr. Goldbogen said. That is pretty fast, considering that blue whales are the world?s largest animals.

Dr. Goldbogen and his colleagues studied 22 whales living off the coast of Southern California. Only about half used the technique while they were being monitored, and those whales did it only about 10 percent of the time.

?They may be using it in very small krill patches as a way to minimize the krill escape response,? Dr. Goldbogen said; when there are dense patches of krill, the acrobatic maneuver may not be necessary.

Dr. Goldbogen believes that other lunge feeders may use the technique as well.

?We haven?t observed it yet,? he said, ?but with more research and more tags we?re likely to find it in other closely related whales, like fin whales.?

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/acrobatic-blue-whales-can-sneak-up-on-krill.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Niger's president vows to help Mali

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) ? Niger's president says his country is ready to help Mali regain its northern region which is occupied by Islamist rebels.

Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou spoke Sunday after meeting with Mali president Dioncounda Traore. The leaders strongly urged all rebel movements in Mali to abandon the armed struggle, to break with the North Africa branch of al-Qaida and to recognize Mali's territorial integrity.

The leaders also appealed to the U.N. Security Council to endorse a military intervention to free northern Mali that would have thousands of African soldiers deployed for one year.

A March coup allowed rebels, including at least three groups with ties to al-Qaida, to grab control of the nation's distant north, an enormous triangle of land that includes borders with Mauritania, Algeria and Niger.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nigers-president-vows-help-mali-174846745.html

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Iron deficiency and cognitive development: New insights from piglets

ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2012) ? University of Illinois researchers have developed a model that uses neonatal piglets for studying infant brain development and its effect on learning and memory. To determine if the model is nutrient-sensitive, they have done some research on the effects of iron-deficient diets.

"Iron deficiency is a major problem worldwide," said Rodney Johnson, professor of animal sciences and director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences. "Infants who experience iron deficiency during the first 6 to 12 months of age can have irreversible developmental delays in cognition."

He said that, even in the United States, iron deficiency is a significant problem. "Babies born to obese mothers are at risk for iron deficiency," said Johnson. "Furthermore, the incidence of child obesity is increasing, and being overweight or obese is a risk factor for iron deficiency. Overweight toddlers are nearly three times more likely to suffer from iron deficiency than are those with a healthy weight."

Johnson and his collaborators took 2-day-old piglets and fed them one of three diets. The diet for the control group contained the recommended levels of iron, the second was mildly deficient, and the third was severely deficient.

The piglet brain grows to approximately half of its maximum volume in the first 4 weeks of life. It continues to grow rapidly for the next 8 weeks, which is very similar to the way that human infant brains grow in the postnatal period.

At 4 weeks, the researcher began testing the piglets in a T-shaped maze. In an acquisition phase, piglets were trained to locate a milk reward in a constant place in space as well as direction, using visual cues from outside the maze. Pigs on the control diet learned the task quite well.

"Piglets provided the diet severely deficient in iron just didn't learn the task," Johnson said. "It's a T-maze so they have a 50 percent chance of getting it right. Even after 6 days of training, they never performed above chance levels. The piglets given the mildly deficient diet showed intermediate performance, but their performance was not significantly different from that of piglets given the control diet."

In the second phase of the test, the reward location was reversed. The piglets were retested to assess reversal learning.

"We changed the rules so the piglets had to change their strategy," Johnson explained. "It's more demanding, cognitively speaking. The piglets fed an adequate diet learned this task very well. However, piglets fed a diet severely deficient in iron continued to perform poorly while those given a mildly deficient diet showed intermediate performance."

Johnson said that one of the strengths of this paper is that it shows that this test is sensitive to a nutrient in a dose-dependent fashion.

The researchers then examined iron levels in different parts of the brain. They found reduced iron levels in the hippocampus, a brain region that is important for spatial learning and memory, of pigs in both experimental groups.

Johnson said that this work highlights a new translational model for studying micronutrient deficiencies. Traditional rodent models are less suited for examining these kinds of questions because they cannot be weaned early and placed on experimental diets. Pigs, however, are a precocial species, which means that their motor and sensory skills are quite well developed at birth. This facilitates early weaning and behavioral testing.

Johnson has recently received a 5-year NIH grant to do further work with this model. "We are investigating the effects of maternal viral infection during pregnancy," he said. "At a critical period during pregnancy, gilts are inoculated with a virus that causes pneumonia. When the piglets are born, we study their brain and cognitive development."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. The original article was written by Susan Jongeneel.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. J. L. Rytych, M. R. P. Elmore, M. D. Burton, M. S. Conrad, S. M. Donovan, R. N. Dilger, R. W. Johnson. Early Life Iron Deficiency Impairs Spatial Cognition in Neonatal Piglets. Journal of Nutrition, 2012; 142 (11): 2050 DOI: 10.3945/jn.112.165522

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/-0GUXBu48tU/121203125330.htm

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