20 April: Lima Bean Respect Day

Today is Lima Bean Respect Day. Here are some facts about Lima beans.

1. What is a lima bean? Depending which part of the world you are from, you may know them as butter beans or chad beans. They are a type of legume.
2. In Spain, they are called garrofón, and are one of the main ingredients of the famous Valencian paella.
3. The Latin name for the plant is phaseolus lunatus.
4. They are among the earliest crops to be cultivated by humans. They were probably growing them in Peru as far back as 6000 BC. They are depicted in the art of the Moche Culture (1–800 CE).
5. By 1301, they'd spread to North America and people were growing them there, too.
6. Lima beans were exported from Peru to the Americas and Europe. In the early days of trade, they would arrive at their destination in boxes marked with their place of origin - "Lima, Peru". This is how they came to be known as lima beans.
7. A word of warning. Raw lima beans contain cyanide as a defence against predators such as the spider mite. Hence they must be boiled for at least 10 minutes before they are safe to eat. Unless they came in a can - canned lima beans have been pre-cooked.
8. A popular dish in the southern United States is succotash, which is made from lima beans and corn.
9. They are a rich source of dietary fibre, protein, B vitamins, Potassium, molybdenum, magnesium, manganese, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, and Iron.
10. Eating lima beans helps helps regulate blood sugar levels, lowers cholesterol and is good for digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome.

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

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Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two

              

25 October: Beetroot

Another celebration from the French Revolutionary Calendar today. 25 October was Beetroot Day. Here are some things you might not know about beetroot.

1. The scientific name for a beetroot plant is Beta vulgaris.
2. Raw beetroot is 88% water, 10% carbohydrates, 2% protein, and less than 1% fat. It is a good source of folate and a moderate source of manganese. Beetroot has one of the highest sugar contents of any vegetable, but the sugar from beetroot is released into the body slowly, so you don't get a sugar rush from eating it. It also contains tryptophan, which is also found in Chocolate – so it's a feel-good food.
3. The ancient Romans believed beetroot was an aphrodisiac. The Lupanare, the official brothel of Pompeii, had beetroots painted onto its walls. Today, we know that beetroot contains high amounts of boron, which is directly related to the production of human sex hormones, so perhaps the Romans were right! The ancient Greeks, meanwhile, offered beetroot to the god Apollo on Silver platters at his temple at Delphi.
4. The stuff that gives beetroot its colour is a chemical called betacyanin. Betacyanin is also an antioxidant, which has the benefit of speeding up detoxification in the liver – which means it can also be a Hangover cure. The 17th century herbalist Nicholas Culpeper prescribed beetroot juice for headaches and “afflictions of the brain”.
5. A couple more uses for beetroot juice – you can dye your hair with it, as the Victorians used to do, or you can use it like litmus paper to determine whether a substance is acid or alkaline. When added to an acidic solution, it turns Pink, but when it is added to an alkali, it turns Yellow.
6. While we most often eat the root, the leaves can be eaten too, either as a salad vegetable or cooked. Cooked spinach leaves taste like Spinach.
7. Beetroot can also be used to make Wine, which tastes rather like port.
8. Eating a lot of beetroot can result in a condition called beeturia, where a person's urine can turn slightly Red. This happens because the red colour compound is not completely broken down by the body.
9. The heaviest beetroot ever was grown by Ian Neale of Somerset in 2001 and weighed 23.4 kg (51 lb 9.4 oz). The longest was grown by Joe Atherton of Malvern and measured 7.956 m (26 ft 1.22 in). Joe also holds records for other long vegetables such as the longest Carrot.
10. Beetroot has been eaten in space. In 1975, during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, cosmonauts from the USSR's Soyuz 19 served borscht (beetroot soup) to the Apollo 18 astronauts when they arrived on board.

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30 September: Parsnips

In the French Revolutionary Calendar, a different plant, tool, substance or creature was celebrated each day of the year. 30 September is the turn of the  Parsnip.

1. The Latin name for the parsnip plant is Pastinaca sativa. It is related to Carrots (well, you can see the family resemblance there!) and parsley.
2. The word parsnip doesn't come from a combination of Parsley and Turnip, as some people believe. It comes from the Middle English pasnepe, which derives from a Latin word for a type of fork. The generic name,  Pastinaca, is probably derived from either the Latin word pastino, meaning "to prepare the ground for planting of the vine" or pastus, meaning "food". The species name, sativa, means "sown".
3. The parsnip is native to Eurasia and people have been cultivating them since antiquity. The Romans liked them - the Emperor Tiberius was willing to accept parsnips as payment of a tribute owed to him by Germany. The Romans believed they were an aphrodisiac. However, written references to parsnips from those times need to be interpreted with care, as they could be confused with carrots.
4. Italians today aren't so keen. They are mostly fed to Pigs in Italy today, in particular, the pigs bred to make Parma ham.
5. The root is fine to eat, but the sap of the plant is toxic, so care must be taken handling the stems and leaves. The sap contains chemicals which evolved to protect the plant from being eaten by animals. Parsnip sap can cause a condition similar to that caused by poison ivy – a chemical burn which can cause redness, burning, and blisters.
6. People used to believe that eating parsnips was a remedy for toothache or tired feet. This isn't true.
7. When exposed to frost, some of the starch in the root turns to sugar, making the vegetable sweeter. In fact, parsnips were a source of sugar before cane and beet sugars were available.
8. A 100g parsnip contains 75 Calories and 375 mg of Potassium. Most parsnip cultivars are about 80% Water, 5% sugar, 1% protein, 0.3% fat, and 5% fibre. They also contain several of the B-group vitamins and Vitamin C, but these can be lost once the vegetable is peeled and cooked.
9. The most common cultivar of parsnip is called “Student”. This cultivar is actually the result of an experiment by James Buckman at the Royal Agricultural College in 1859. His purpose was to show how the plants could be improved by selective breeding.
10. As well as the obvious use for parsnips as one of the veg in a Sunday roast or Christmas dinner, they can be made into crisps and even Wine. Parsnip wine tastes similar to Madeira.

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30 June: Artichokes

The French Revolutionary Calendar celebrated the Artichoke on this date. Here are some things you might not know about artichokes.

1. Artichokes are a member of the thistle family. The part of the plant we eat is the flower, which hasn't bloomed yet.
2. They originated in the Mediterranean. The first written mention of them was around 40-70 AD in The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides, a book on the medicinal uses of plants.
3. The Greeks and Romans considered them to be aphrodisiacs. It was forbidden for women to eat them in some parts of the world until the 16th century because of this.
4. Artichokes were introduced to England by the Dutch in the 1500s. America got them courtesy of French and Spanish immigrants in the 19th century.
5. The scientific name for the artichoke is Cynara cardunculus, which comes from a Greek myth. While Zeus was visiting his brother Poseidon, he fell in love with a girl he saw, whose name was Cynara. Zeus took her home with him and made her a goddess. However, she got lonely on Mount Olympus and kept sneaking off to visit her family. Seems reasonable enough, but Zeus wasn't having it. He was so angry that he not only threw her out of Mount Olympus but also turned her into an artichoke.
6. The world's largest producer of artichokes is Italy.
7. In the USA, the only state which grows artichokes is California. Most of the crop is grown in Monterey County, which has adopted the artichoke as its official vegetable. The small town of Castroville in Monterey County calls itself the Artichoke centre of the world. Each year there is an artichoke festival there and someone is crowned the Artichoke Queen. A lot of sources say that Marilyn Monroe was the first to hold the title in 1947, before she was famous. However, it seems it was an honorary title given to her while visiting the area promoting her career. The festival didn't start until 1961 and the first Artichoke Queen to be crowned at the festival was Sally DeSante Hebert.
8. In Italy they make a liqueur from artichokes which is called Cynar. In some parts of the world they also make herbal tea from them, which has a slightly bitter woody flavour.
9. Artichokes have one of the highest antioxidant levels of any vegetable.
10. Between 40-60% of people find that everything tastes sweet after they eat artichokes. This is because of two compounds in artichokes, cynarin and chlorogenic acid, stimulate their sweetness receptors. This is probably a genetic thing.

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21 June: Onions

The vegetable celebrated by the French Revolutionary Calendar today is the onion. You'll know your onions after reading these ten facts.

1. People have been eating onions for over 7,000 years. Traces of onions have been found in Bronze Age settlements.
2. The ancient Egyptians even worshipped them. To the Egyptians, the concentric rings and spherical shape of onions were symbols of eternity. Not only that, but the scent of onions was thought to bring the dead back to life. Traces of onions were found in the eye sockets of Ramesses IV.
3. During the middle ages, onions were used as currency. This practice continued in Siberia up until the middle of the 18th century.
4. An onion is about 89% Water, 9% carbohydrates (including 4% sugar and 2% dietary fibre), 1% protein, and hardly any fat. There are 40 Calories in a 100g (3.5 oz) serving of onion.
5. Pliny the Elder of the first century CE wrote about the medicinal use of onions. He claimed they could heal oral sores, toothaches, Dog bites, lumbago, and even dysentery. There used to be a belief that placing a cut onion beside your bed would prevent illness, because the onion would absorb Bacteria from the air. It's not true. Onion skins do, however, contain a compound called quercetin, which may help alleviate high blood pressure.
6. Onions are also said to be an aphrodisiac. Hindu texts on the art of lovemaking mention onions. In Egypt, celibate priests were forbidden to eat onions in case it made them randy! It's also the reason behind the French tradition of serving onion soup to newlyweds the morning after their wedding.
7. According to English folklore, you can tell by the thickness of the skin of your onion crop whether it will be a hard winter or not. The thicker the skin, the worse the winter will be.
8. The nation which produces the most onions is China, while the biggest consumer is Libya, where the average person eats 66.8lb of onions a year.
9. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest onion ever grown weighed 10 lbs 14 oz. It was grown by V. Throup of Silsden, England.
10. So why does chopping onions make you cry? The onion has a defence mechanism whereby when its cells are damaged, it releases enzymes which react with amino acids to produce sulphur compounds which are released into the air. When this irritant reaches your eyes, the eye's defence mechanism, that of producing tears to flush out irritants, kicks in. Chefs claim that chopping onions under cold running water or splashing white vinegar over the chopping board before you start can help.

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14 June: National Cucumber Day

Today is National Cucumber Day. Here are ten things you might not know about cucumbers.

1. A cucumber is 95% Water. It also contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc. There are just 16 calories in an average sized cucumber.
2. It is the high percentage of water in them which makes cucumbers cool. The inside of a cucumber is about 10 degrees cooler than the air outside. This property means they can be used to cool the blood and ease swelling, which is why people having spa treatments and facials often have cucumber slices over their eyes and is also the origin of the phrase, "cool as a cucumber".
3. While usually perceived as vegetables, like Tomatoes, they are actually the fruit of a creeping vine plant, Cucumis sativus, which belongs to the gourd family.
4. Cucumbers originated in India over 3000 years ago. They are mentioned in the Bible and the legend of Gilgamesh and were grown by the Greeks and Romans. The Roman emperor Tiberius was especially fond of them. His gardeners made sure they were on his table every day of the year by planting them in moveable frames so they could be always in the sun, and covered with frames in winter.
5. Cucumbers fell out of favour in the 17th century, along with uncooked vegetables and fruits in general. In 1663, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that he'd been told an acquaintance had died from eating cucumbers. They were thought to bring on "summer diseases" and be unfit for human consumption. Some believe that is how cucumbers got their common name, because they were fit only for Cows to eat and were referred to as "cowcumbers".
6. The Romans used cucumbers to treat Scorpion bites, bad eyesight, and to scare away Mice. Although if The Internet is to be believed, they are far more likely to scare away the Cat. There are any number of videos showing cats being scared out of their wits when they spot a cucumber their owners have placed behind them. There are some cats, however, who'll just sniff at it and go "meh", or even try to eat it. Science hasn't figured out why so many cats are frightened of cucumbers. One theory is that it's not so much that it's a cucumber, but it's an unfamiliar object which has apparently crept up behind them, like a predator.
7. The cucumber genome was sequenced in 2009, and they have been grown in space as part of an experiment to see whether plant roots grow downwards because of gravity or because of water. FYI, it's water.
8. Records for the largest and longest cucumbers seem to be broken quite often so don't take these as gospel truth, but at time of writing, the heaviest cucumber was 12.9 kg (23 lb 7 oz) grown by David Thomas of Worcestershire, UK, and the longest (43in) was grown by Butch Taulton of Knoxville, Md. The largest cucumber plant is covers an area of 56.7 m² (610.31 ft²) and is located at the Epcot Centre in Disney World, Florida. There's also a somewhat wacky cucumber record, which is the most cucumbers sliced from a person's mouth with a sword in one minute. The record stands at 46, by Ashrita Furman of New York in 2017. Homagni Baptista and Anurakta O'Neill deserve a mention here as the brave souls who held the cucumbers in their mouths for Ashrita to lop off.
9. A gherkin is actually a kind of small cucumber which is usually pickled. The word gherkin actually derives from the early modern Dutch word, gurken or augurken which means "small pickled cucumber". Standard sized cucumbers can be pickled, too. In northern England, these are sometimes referred to as ‘wallies’.
10. How come cucumber Sandwiches are associated with upper class afternoon teas? One theory is that the lower classes would prefer more substantial meat sandwiches, which might actually be one of the main meals of the day, whereas for the upper classes they were a delicate snack served to visitors in the afternoons, and would be followed by supper later in the day.

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

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January 31: Eat Brussels Sprouts Day

It's Eat Brussels Sprouts Day. Here's everything you need to know about Brussels sprouts.

1. Brussels sprouts are originally thought to have come from Iran and Afghanistan, and were grown in ancient Rome, but they got their name because they were grown in Belgium (the capital of which is Brussels) from the 13th century.
2. The Latin name for them is Brassica oleracea, and they belong to the same family as Cabbage, kale and Broccoli.
3. In Continental Europe, the largest producers are the Netherlands, at 82,000 metric tons, and Germany, at 10,000 tons. The area covered by Brussels sprout fields in the UK is equivalent to 3,240 Football pitches, but we don't export them so much since British people are the biggest consumers of sprouts. A third of the sprouts we eat in the UK are consumed around Christmas time; and one in twenty of the sprouts eaten in Britain come from one farm in East Yorkshire where 175 million are produced every year.
4. They're very good for you. An 80g serving of sprouts contains four times more Vitamin C than an Orange; they are also an excellent source of vitamin K, folate, manganese, vitamin B6, fibre, choline, Copper, vitamin B1, Potassium, phosphorus, and omega-3 fatty acids. A cup of cooked Brussels sprouts contains about 60 calories.
5. The ancient Chinese recommended sprouts as a treatment for bowel problems.
6. That said, people taking anticoagulants such as warfarin need to consume with care as vitamin K plays a role in blood clotting. An Ayrshire man on anticoagulant medication was rushed to hospital in 2014 suffering from a Brussels sprout overdose.
7. There are more than 110 different varieties of sprouts, including Albarus, Brodie and Kryptus. Some sprouts are Red in colour, and are sold in a mixed bag with the Green ones at Christmas.
8. There are some Brussels sprout Guinness World Records. Bernard Lavery, of Llanharry in Rhondda Cynon Taff grew a record breaking sprout in 1992 which weighed 8.3kg (18lb/3oz), the heaviest ever. Linus Urbanec from Sweden holds the current world record for the most Brussels sprouts eaten in one minute. He swallowed 31 on November 26, 2008. TV presenter Esther Rantzen once tried to break the world record for eating the most sprouts – but only managed five.
9. Stuart Kettell rolled a Brussels sprout up Mount Snowdon using only his nose, to raise money for charity. Actually, it was 20 different sprouts, and the feat took him four days and 22 hours.
10. Brussels sprouts aren't everyone's cup of tea. Some people hate them, and the reason for this is most probably genetic. Sprouts contain a chemical, similar to phenylthiocarbamide, which tastes bitter to people with a gene known as TAS2R38. The fact that if sprouts are overcooked they give off a smell like rotten eggs doesn't help.

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18 October: Chilli peppers

The French Revolutionary Calendar even dedicated a day to chilli peppers. That day was October 18th, so here are a few things you might not know about chilli peppers.

1. The chilli pepper is from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family.
2. There are many different types – 140 different kinds grow in Mexico alone. This is because these plants are capable of mutating a lot. Not only that but the appearance and taste of the fruit can vary according to the conditions it is grown in.
3. That said, only five species are domesticated, and most kinds of pepper we eat are cultivars of one of these, Capsicum annuum. This includes both jalapeños and the much milder bell pepper.
4. It is commonly said that the hottest part of a pepper is the seeds. That's not strictly true. The hotness comes from the membrane which attaches the seeds to the fruit. The substance which makes peppers hot is called capsaicin, and the greatest concentration of it is found in these membranes.
5. While capsaicin tastes hot to mammals, birds don't taste it at all. Hence it is birds which spread the seeds in the wild.
6. Got an unexpected mouth full of hot pepper? Your instinct may be to down a glass of Water, but in fact your best bet to soothe your burning mouth is a glass of Milk. Casein, the main protein found in milk, neutralises capsaicin.
7. There is more Vitamin C in a chilli pepper than in an Orange.
8. There is a scale for measuring how hot a pepper is. It's called the Scoville scale, and hotness is expressed in Scoville Heat Units (SHU). It is named after a pharmacist called Wilbur Scoville, and here's how it works. You cannot measure the heat of a pepper with a machine – you need expert human tasters. The extracts of dried peppers are diluted with sugar water until the tasters can no longer detect its heat. The more sugar water required to achieve this, the higher the rating. Although scientists have found a way to cut out the human element by using chromatography, aficionados would say it isn't as accurate. A bell pepper, the mildest kind, will fall in the range of 1-100 SHU. At the opposite end of the scale are the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion at 1.2 million SHU – so powerful that the heat can be felt by harvesters through latex gloves. This however, is only the second hottest. Even hotter is the California Reaper, which can get as hot as 2.2 million SHU.
9. Why do these plants produce such hot fruit? Scientists think they've figured it out. The plants produce capsaicin as a defence mechanism against fungus and microbe infestation. The plants become vulnerable to such infections when insects feed on the fruit and bore tiny holes in it. Hence the really hot peppers come from areas where there are more insects.
10. In Japan, there is a type of pepper called shishito. Most of them are mild, like bell peppers, but about one in ten is hotter. Not California Reaper hot, but hot enough to make eating a batch of them interesting.

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1st June: Peas

Today, the French Revolutionary Calendar, which assigned a plant, substance or tool to every day, celebrates Peas. Here are some things you may not know about this popular vegetable.

1. Peas have been around a long time. 3,000 year old peas have been found in Thailand; peas dating back to 3800BC-3600BC have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Archaeologists think the pea originally came from the near east in countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Syria. The Romans grew over 37 different varieties of peas.
2. They'd certainly reached the UK by the time of the Norman Conquest. The vegetable, when it first arrived in the UK, was called "pease" but evolved into "pea" so people would know whether they were talking about one pea or many.
3. The Latin name for the pea plant is pisum sativum. The UK is the largest producer of peas for freezing - 35,000 hectares of pea plants are grown in the UK in a single year, equivalent to about 70,000 football pitches. The yield is about 160,000 tonnes of frozen peas.
4. The Green peas we eat aren't actually ripe. If they were allowed to ripen, they'd be Yellow. Eating green peas became the fashion in the 17th century. The practice was described as "madness" by the French back then.
5. A pea pod is usually 5-6 inches long and an individual pea weighs between 0.1 and 0.36 grams. 100 grams of peas contains as much as Vitamin C as two large Apples (66% of the daily requirement) and more fibre than a slice of wholemeal Bread (20%). They also contain sugar, protein, Vitamins A and B6, calcium, iron and magnesium. A 100g serving contains 81 calories.
6. Clarence Birdseye made the first frozen peas in the 1920s. In 1969, the first television commercial broadcast in colour was for Birds Eye frozen peas.
7. Petits pois, despite their French name, were bred in Italy.
8. The leaves of the pea plant are a delicacy in China. And while we're on the subject of things Chinese, Janet Harris from Sussex holds a pea eating record - she ate 7175 peas in a minute using chopsticks.
9. On average, a person in Britain eats more than 9,000 peas a year.
10. Eating peas is said to relieve stomach ulcers because digesting them "uses up" stomach acids. If you boil peas up with Onions and add cinnamon, it is said to be a powerful aphrodisiac.

March 1st: Leeks

In olden times each day of the year had a plant dedicated to it, usually in honour of one of the saints whose feast day it was. On March 1st the Plant of the day is the Leek, dedicated to, no prizes for guessing, St David.

1. The leeks we eat are cultivars of Allium ampeloprasum, the broadleaf wild leek. Cultivars of the leek include 'King Richard' and 'Tadorna Blue'.
2. The name of the vegetable comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘leac’ meaning ‘herb’ or ‘plant’.
3. Leek plants usually have a diameter between 2.5 and 6 centimetres (1 and 2.4 inches), and can reach 1.5 metres (5 feet) in height. The edible part is a pseudostem made from bunched up leaves. The White part, known as the shank, has been blanched as the plant pushes its way through the soil.
4. Leeks have been eaten for millennia. They were eaten in Ancient Egypt - dried leeks and depictions of them on wall carvings have been found on archaeological sites. In the Bible, the leek is one of the foods listed in the Book of Numbers as one of the foods the Children of Israel missed after leaving Egypt.
5. Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician and ‘father of medicine’ prescribed the leek as a cure for nosebleeds.
6. The Emperor Nero liked leeks a lot - in fact, his nickname was Porophagus (leek eater). One reason he liked to eat leeks was that he believed they were good for his singing voice (Welsh people tend to be good at singing so perhaps he was right!)
7. So why is the leek a symbol of Wales? It's not even native to Wales, but was introduced to Britain by Phoenician traders in exchange for Tin. One theory is that when Briton King Cadwallader of Gwynedd was fighting the invading Saxons in a leek field, he came up with the idea that his men should wear leeks in their helmets so they wouldn't kill each other by mistake. His army won the battle. Another theory is that leeks were the only thing St. David would eat during a fast, as he believed it to be a healthy and virtuous plant.
8. The leek appeared on the coronation gown of Elizabeth II, designed by Norman Hartnell. It was there as a symbol of Wales. Hartnell would have preferred to use the other symbol of Wales, the Daffodil, because daffodils are prettier, but he was told he must use the leek.
9. Extraordinary qualities were claimed for leeks in St. David's time. People back then said leeks were high in fibre, good for purging the Blood, keeping colds at bay and healing wounds. It was even said that if a young woman sleeps with one under her pillow she will dream of her future husband. Today we know that leeks are a rich source of dietary fibres, vitamins of the B-group, vitamins A, C and K and minerals such as Potassium, Iron, calcium and magnesium.
10. Finally, Shakespeare mentions leeks, too. In his play Henry V, Henry tells the Welsh officer Fluellen that he is wearing a leek “for I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.”

Related Posts

St David
Wales
Daffodil
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