Homes

1. The world is happier with trees: Seriously, areas with trees have a lower crime rate and illness rates. This isn’t just because wealthy areas have brighter gardens and street trees: when trees and greenery are planted in disaffected areas the graffiti and other more serious crimes decrease as the trees grow bigger. It seems […]

Question: What is the best way to store raw meat? Raw meat should be kept separate from cooked food, and stored on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator to avoid juices dripping down and contaminating other food. Always store raw meat in the coldest part of the refrigerator (usually the bottom shelf). Wrapped raw meat […]

Question: Some of my fruit and vegetables seem to wilt rapidly when I put them in the fridge. How do I stop this? Not all vegetables and fruit need to be kept in the fridge; some are cold sensitive, others can lose much of their moisture. If fruit and vegetables are to be refrigerated, cool […]

Pineapple’s background: Prickly on the outside but sweet and juicy on the inside, the pineapple is a member of the Bromeliaceae family and is known as the “king of fruit” — no doubt a name inspired by the pineapple’s crown shaped top. The pineapple is native to South America but most of the pineapple we […]

One of the worst benevolences ever perpetrated on a generation of children was free milk at school — especially in Queensland where I grew up. Every child had to drink their small bottle of milk every morning. All morning we looked out of our classroom and watched the milk getting hotter and hotter under what […]

It’s berry time — time to eat mulberries or strawberries or loganberries or blueberries on sponge cakes for a Christmas treat. A strawberry-rich sponge cake is much lighter than a hunk of Christmas cake (though a rich fruitcake can’t be beaten in winter). Soon it will be planting time — and now is the best […]

"Convenience" can save us precious time and money, but is it really worth it?

Question: When calculating 8 glasses of water a day, can you include tea, coffee and other fluids? Answer: Yes, your daily fluid intake doesn’t all have to come in the form of water. While water is best, milk, juice, tea, coffee, cordial, soft drinks, sports drinks, even ice-blocks, can also provide additional fluids. Alcohol, on […]

It doesn’t take much to make a difference to your family’s recycling habits. Chances are, you already put your old papers in the allocated bin and rinse out your used tins and put them in the recycling, but there are more ways to help the environment. What can you recycle? The usual recycling items include […]

“Grow herbs,” said the girl at the nursery helpfully to the customer standing next to me. “Herbs don’t need watering. They just look after themselves.” Like heck, they do! Okay, most of the herbs we use in cooking survive nicely on Mediterranean hillsides with no water other than what falls from the sky. But they […]