They were mostly UNC fans, but I really enjoyed speaking to and answering questions from the Chapel Hill Kiwanis Club last week. My topic was Duke football and basketball history, which is a subject I teach, write and speak about quite often. I talked about some of the great Duke basketball teams before Coach K came to Duke, such as the teams of coaches like Eddie Cameron and Vic Bubas, and we also talked about how football used to be the big sport on the Duke campus, not basketball.
Wanting pork to be as lean as chicken (“the other white meat”) may have led to drug-enhanced leaner pork; here’s the round-about way I learned about this.
For some reason, Petey doesn’t want me to sing “Happy Birthday” to him on his birthday. He does, however want me to cook for him.
Since the American Revolution and before, when North Carolina was a British colony, the state’s governors had their own old boys’ network and their wives were the first ladies. That changed when Beverly Perdue (2009-2013) was elected to office. She broke the glass ceiling and became the state’s 68th governor and the 28th one to live in the Governor’s Mansion. Experts on protocol had to rename the category of the governor’s spouse and so her husband, Robert Eaves Jr., became the first gentleman, and from now on, the spouse of the sitting governor will be referred to as first spouse.
Q. When I get sweaty from working outside in the winter and then get chilled, I frequently start to feel a sore throat coming on within several hours. It often develops into a full-blown cold.
Ever thought about becoming a personal trainer? For a number of years one of my jobs was to teach personal trainer certification workshops. I have done this for several years with two organizations, the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America and the American College of Sports Medicine. I must have certified hundreds of people as personal trainers over the years, teaching classes from Chicago to New Orleans, and I must have taught more than 10 workshops at the Dowd YMCA in Charlotte. Also I have traveled overseas to Thailand and Malaysia to teach sport conditioning classes, very similar to a personal training class, except that it was tailored more specifically to athletes. So perhaps I can “shine some light” on what it takes to be a personal trainer for those of you who might be interested in this profession.
Food Network has a show called “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.” Each episode has a different category, like fried foods or Asian cuisine. One episode was about French favorites, and our beloved Bull City got a shout-out.
Selecting a gift for a really good cook can be a gamble because most talented cooks already own and use all the basic kitchen equipment, as well as many gadgets and newfangled gizmos. But there are still plenty of items out there that will please seasoned and novice cooks alike.
This spring, art in the Triangle is a fascinating assortment of themes that consider ideas about time, love, the magic of electronics and installations by Wangechi Mutu, to name just a few. In her first major solo exhibition in the United States, the star show will be the Nasher’s presentation of Mutu, a Kenyan-American, internationally renowned, with exhibitions from Canada to London to Paris. Her concerns are the violence visited upon women, especially black women in the contemporary world. She also tackles issues pertaining to globalization through her Afro-futurist lens. Mutu is a major artist; having her art here is a coup for the Nasher and the Triangle.
Exercise can help narrow the gap between what you are and what you can be. Make fitness a regular part of your schedule this new year of 2013. The key is to be consistent and try to get some type of exercise into each of your days. Make it a habit. As the saying goes, “Habit is a cable. We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.”
The new year just began and the holiday season voted most likely to add pounds is over. If you have done well, and are the same weight you were the day before Thanksgiving: Congratulations!
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I love brownie mix. I also generally fear and loath most other types of pre-fab, chemically enhanced food from a box. But I must confess to you a dirty little secret.
Q. I heard that a man with Crohn’s disease got relief from diarrhea by eating coconut. My husband had been having diarrhea almost every day since 2004. We never knew what caused it, and the gastro doctor could not cure it.
Several years ago I began my Blue Award to the person in our area that has done the most for art during the year. This year it goes to Gov. Beverly Perdue. On her way out of office she saw to it that the Polk property, adjoining the N.C. Museum of Art, was transferred from the Department of Cultural Resources to the museum’s foundation. In this way, the foundation will be in charge of developing the property, holding land leases on all the development into perpetuity, with all funds going for the support of the N.C. Museum of Art.
Q. Several years ago, I read about the soy-sauce remedy in The People’s Pharmacy. Luckily, we always have large quantities of soy sauce in the house.