Flibuti Corp.

Your assumption that chocolate candy making is an easy task couldn’t be far off. This process has difficult steps of its own. The main ingredient you’ll need is basic dark chocolate, semi-sweet or milk chocolate. Additional items you need are a good thermometer, a double boiler, a rubber spatula and candy molds.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler as the first step of the process. While this is being done, you need to be stirring the contents constantly so that you don’t burn up the stuff. After melting, you can wrap your choice of fruits with chocolate so that you get fruit-filled candies. If you need to have candies of differing shapes, use candy molds of different shapes. Cooling them in a chiller, you get your chocolate candies after a while.

Even expert chocolate makers show hesitation when they are asked to do tempering by hand because they are expected to maintain specific temperatures without allowing extreme changes in temperatures. They pretty well know that they’ll have to repeat the whole process again should the chocolates distemper. The reason is the fact that cocoa butter has a large quantity of fatty acids that re-form into six types and these different crystal forms are dominant at six unique temperatures.

Though there are such problems, you shouldn’t do away with tempering because only with it can you make your chocolates attractive, glossy and firm. Non- tempering may also induce blooming and the surface of the chocolates will be coated with unattractive white blotches. You need not bother about the looks of the candies if you make them for your own but if you want to sell these, how will you sell unattractive chocolates?

Your main aim should be to increase production of type V crystals because these are the ones that impart shine and snap to chocolates. These type V crystals don’t form at the same temperature in the different types of chocolates like milk, semi-sweet or dark chocolates.

Though type IV crystals thrive along with the type Vs when temperatures seesaw, type IV crystals do not help you in any way because they are prone to melting faster and easier. Type V crystals remain firm till they reach body temperature, at which point they begin to soften.

Either a calibrated or a digital thermometer can be used for accurate maintenance of specific temperatures. This hassle of monitoring and maintaining temperatures can be done away with if you use a tempering machine as it has a computer chip to take care of this aspect. Since such tempering machines are totally automated, you can even ensure the production of only the type V crystals. These machines make available to you more free time to focus on improving your business and the quality of your products.

Well I got an invitation to a kicking party
 It was BYOB
 And getting started at 7:00pm
 It was to last the whole night
 So I brought my Bible
 Which started a fight.
 You say,
 "Did you win, or lose?"
 "Or get beat up?"
 Hold on now!
 Let me tell you how it went
 I walked into the party
 I established the pace
 I confronted the bartender
 Face to face
 I said,
 "Sir it's time"
 "To close this bar down."
 He said, "No!"
 I said, "Yes!"
 "Now get out of town!"
 He turned to me and said,
 "You want to fight?"
 I said,
 "If that's what it takes"
 "That will be alright."
 So like Paul the apostle
 I smote him with blindness
 As he fell to his knees
 He screamed "Unkindness!"
 I said "It serves you right"
 "You tried to cut my throat"
 "When I was preaching last night."
 You see me
 I'm an invader
 And I take it by force
 I preach against sin, disease and divorce
 And last night I was in his territory
 I got his girl saved
 Her name is Corey
 Meanwhile at the party
 It was going well
 I was kicking over kegs
 Preaching repentance
 Saving sinners from hell.
 So if you ever get an invitation
 To a kicking party
 Bring your Bible and your boots
 And party really hearty!

Do you love book stores? Those orderly, little universes of paper and gloss and yesterday’s ideas, facts, memories, observations, and feelings into which, from time to time, the flesh-and-blood world enters?

Poet and Oral Historian Ralph Dranow does.

Having lived, worked, and breathed bookstores for over fifteen years, he celebrated them in Sunday Ritual, which nycBigCityLit reviewer Tim Scannel believes are the “best poems about the aura and patrons of the bookstore.”

In his twenty-five poems in Sunday Ritual, Mr. Dranow drew from his fifteen-plus years as a bookstore clerk to narrate stories of the world shuffling in, and occasionally breaking open, outside and inside him. I found the poems by the always lucid Mr Dranow a compelling read. [Sunday Ritual, by Ralph Dranow, First Prize Winner, 2000 Nerve Cowboy Chapbook Contest; Liquid Paper Press, P. O. Box 4973, Austin, Texas 78765; $4]

Out of the bookstore now, developing his oral history practice in Oakland; volunteering at the Faithful Fools in San Francisco, where he has been a witness to the lives of homeless persons on the streets; and reading to residents of Piedmont Gardens Retirement Community; it is clear the physical confines of bookstores haven’t re-formed this lover of bookstores, physically or mentally.

His lanky frame remains unstooped and his hazel eyes examine the world of San Francisco’s old-new, desultory-vibrant, wicked-innocent, gritty Tenderloin with compassion and a twinkle as he embarks on new voyages of discovery that challenge his heart, spirit, and mind.

I enjoyed reading Ralph Dranow’s poems in his book, Tenderloin Voices, which he has dedicated to the people of San Francisco’s Tenderloin and the Faithful Fools, a Tenderloin neighborhood charitable and educational organization created in 1998 “to address the existence of poverty in the midst of material wealth” in this beautiful, famously liberal city-by-the-bay. The Tenderloinhome to Glide, St. Anthony, and St. Boniface churcheshas one of the densest concentrations of addiction, homeless, and other social services in the country.

I loved the flow of Mr. Dranow’s poems as they chronicle, brimful with details, the faces, voices, thoughts, feelings, and conditions of San Francisco’s Tenderloin homeless. I admired the listening and observation skills, and the courage, both public and private, that these 21 poems represent. [Tenderloin Voices, by Ralph Dranow; Spruce Street Press, Oakland, CA; price $5; available from The Portable Blessings Ledger, P. O. Box 21622, Piedmont, CA 94620]

Mr. Dranow is also the author of The Woman Who Knocked Out Sugar Ray - short stories; Sure Hands Lifting Me Skyward - poetry; Voyeur of the Heart - poetry; Green Leaves For Hair - a poetry book in collaboration with Therese Baumberger.

Recently, I ventured to ask Mr. Dranow what had contributed to making him who he was.

Mr Dranow explained he had learned from his mistakes. As it so often happens, pain stimulated growth and change. He shifted from writing prose to poetry about sixteen years ago after a divorce made him realize he needed to broaden his life, take more risks, and widen his consciousness. He joined a men’s group, studied tai chi, started meditating, and reading books on Buddhism.

“Writing poetry,” he added, “has been an important way for me to reclaim my essential self, to overcome my sense of separation and instead to feel my connection with all other living beings.

“Also, my second marriage, to Naomi Rose, has been a great opportunity for me to learn and grow, to see where I am off the mark and to work on coming closer, with Naomi’s love, support, and wisdom.

“And my work with the Faithful Fools has been inspiring; to be associated with people with generous hearts and spirits who are committed to creating more community and love in the world has been a great blessing.”

Mr. Dranow’s poems reflect his continuing journey into awareness and reclaiming “his essential self.”

Copyright 2005 Michael Chacko Daniels. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTOR: Don’t you love people’s stories, their challenges and struggles to overcome them, their successes, and what strengths and skills they used to succeed? San Franciscan Michael Chacko Daniels, who grew up in Bombay, does. He believes each person’s story can be inspiring to all of us. Books: Writers Workshop, Kolkata: Split in Two (1971, 2004), Anything Out of Place Is Dirt (1971, 2004), and That Damn Romantic Fool (1972, 2005). Since 2005, he has been re-working the three novels, written over the last three decades, which had gathered dust in his closet while he devoted himself to providing services in Berkeley and Oakland at the Center for Independent Living and, later, to running the Jobs for Homeless Consortium through 2004. A flash fiction piece of his, Sing an Indian Name, was published on Denver Syntax free online magazine http://www.denversyntax.com/issue5/fiction/daniels/indian.html. Read all about his Indian and American journey on his website, US-India Writing Station, at: http://IndiaWritingStation.squarespace.com/

JOINED

Heart beat of man
pounding - yet
unheard
joined
becomes the
beat of a nation.

Words of man
written - yet
unread
joined
becomes a
proclamation.

Sounds of man
spoken - yet
unheard
joined
becomes a
production .

Lines of man
drawn - yet
unrecognized
joined
becomes an
illustration.

Beings of man
humming - yet
forgotten
joined
becomes a
celebration.

Patterns of man
created - yet
invisible
joined
becomes a
new universe.

Joined
we become
recognized.

Susan “Sue” Bacon Trumpfheller is an author, teacher, researcher and coach. Sue works with her clients to use subtle energies to create their supportive environments. You can contact her at http://www.ecoentrepreneur.org

Conjunction of the holiday season, a Christmas card and the heavy snow in Ohio — where I published a string of hometown newspapers for many years — brings Ollie Saffle to mind.

Good weather and bad, the old gentleman sat on a stool alongside the Seville Highway to Wooster to wave at passing motorists.

Ollie Saffle probably was not his true name, but his friendly post was near a large, red barn with those words writ large for the world to see. It was such a wonderful identification that I borrowed it for the roadside character that invariably waved at me and other travelers.

In retrospect, I am sorry I never stopped to pass the time of day with Ollie Saffle. I was always 15 minutes late to where ever I was going.

He wore old-fashion bib overalls and straw hat on warm days. He changed to overcoat, mittens, boots and wool cap when cold weather arrived. He marked his special spot with a little cairn of stones. Some of us regulars honked back to acknowledge his greeting to a stranger.

My memory takes be back to a day before Christmas when I had what then seemed like urgent business at the county seat. Several inches of snow had fallen the night before, and the Wayne County road department had cleared the highway.

There was the Ollie Saffle namesake on his stool. Instead of his usual, nondescript wool cap, he wore a red, Santa Claus cap with white trim. A broken pine branch graced the roadside snow bank thrown up by the county road plow. As usual, he waved. As usual, I honked - this time with a double toot of appreciation.

It was a small gesture that never again came to mind until now. As I review the small memory, the thought triggers a favorite poem. I pass it along as a token of the holiday.

The House by the Side of the Road
By Sam Walter Foss

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the peace of their self-content.
There are souls, like stars that swell apart,
In a fellowless firmament.
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran.
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by -
Men who are good and men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road,
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles nor tears -
Both parts of an infinite plan.
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by -
They are good, they are bad, they are weak,
They are strong, wise, foolish - so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat
Or hurl the cynic’s ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at:

LinWms@earthlink.net

LinWms@lindseywilliams.org

Website: http://www.lindseywilliams.org

One of the best things in life is to be able to be organized. One of the ways of achieving that in your own house is to purchase closet organizers. They are basically furniture accessories that may be as small as a shoe box, but that make a very big difference in the appearance and overall organization of your closet. The majority of closet organizers though come equipped to serve and host almost every ingredient of a closet. They have spaces for placing all the way from fancy shoes to small items such as silk handkerchiefs.

Those that have not encountered peace within their closet, should definitely seek closet organizers to make their lives easier. Nowadays, people have less time for chores and home time, therefore, having your closet organized saves time, and time means money nowadays. Others may just want to purchase closet organizers to help them think clearly. The psychology and psychiatry literature has shown that it is common for people to seek mental clarity through home organization. It has been shown to lower anxiety, help with concentration and even improve their quality of life through improved interpersonal skills. Sometimes, small details have a great impact in people’s life such as closet organizers.